Datasets:

pszemraj

/

qmsum-cleaned

like 7

tr-sq-601

tr-sq-601_0

How did Deputy Minister speak to her amendments and the other amendments in group 3, which relates to the regulation-making powers in the Bill? Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee this morning. We've received no apologies for absence. Can I ask if there are any declarations of interest from Members, please? No. Okay, thank you. Item 2 this morning is the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill: Stage 2 proceedings. I'm pleased to welcome Julie Morgan AM, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services; Karen Cornish, deputy director, children and families division at Welsh Government; and Emma Gammon, lawyer for Welsh Government. Thank you for attending this morning and welcome to the committee. I'm just going to run through the procedures that we're going to follow now. As I said, the purpose of the meeting is to undertake Stage 2 proceedings on the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill. For these proceedings, Members should have copies of the marshalled list of amendments, the groupings of the amendments for debate and the voting order for the amendments. The marshalled list of amendments is the list of all amendments tabled, marshalled into the order in which the sections appear in the Bill. The order in which we consider amendments will be the default order--that is, sections 1 to 3 and the long title. You will see from the groupings list that amendments have been grouped to facilitate debate. However, the order in which they're called and moved for decision is dictated by the marshalled list. Members will, therefore, need to follow the two papers, although I will advise Members when I call them whether they're being called to speak in the debate or to move their amendments for a decision. There will be one debate on each group of amendments. Members who wish to speak in a particular group should indicate to me in the usual way. I will call the Deputy Minister to speak on each group. For the record, in accordance with the convention agreed by the Business Committee, as Chair I will move amendments in the name of the Deputy Minister. For expediency, I will assume that the Deputy Minister wishes me to move all of her amendments, and I will do so at the appropriate place in the marshalled list. Deputy Minister, if you do not want a particular amendment to be moved, please indicate to me at the relevant point in proceedings. In line with our usual practice, legal advisers to the committee and the Deputy Minister are not expected to provide advice on the record. If Members wish to seek legal advice during proceedings, please do so by passing a note to the legal adviser and, if necessary, we can adjourn. My intention is to try to dispose of all amendments during today's meeting. I will call a short break in proceedings at an appropriate time, if necessary. Okay, thank you. So, we will proceed, then, to group 1, which is the duty to promote public awareness. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 1 in the name of the Deputy Minister. I move amendment 1 in the Deputy Minister's name and call on the Deputy Minister to speak to her amendment and the other amendments in this group. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much, Chair. My amendments 1 and 4 will place a duty on Welsh Ministers to provide information and increase awareness about the change in the law to ensure that the public are made aware of how the law will change as a result of the defence of reasonable punishment being abolished and that physical punishment would be prohibited once the Act commences. I tabled these amendments in response to this committee's recommendation--this was a recommendation from this committee in the Stage 1 report, so I have responded to that. I've already made a commitment to a high-intensity awareness-raising campaign over approximately six years from Royal Assent, should the Bill be passed. I've considered amendments 1A to 1E, which have been tabled by Janet Finch-Saunders, and which relate to the duty to raise awareness. Amendment 1A introduces a reference to public understanding. We don't think, actually, that this adds anything to the Government amendment, which already mentions awareness. It makes the awareness-raising duty open-ended with no time limit, which is not necessary. By commencement, messaging around the change in the law will be embedded. The awareness-raising campaign will continue for a number of years. Therefore, an ongoing duty referring specifically to the law change would not be required. I understand, of course, that the awareness-raising campaign needs to be comprehensive, well planned and to reach out to all those people and all those communities who need to be aware of the law change, and understand how to respond to it. But I don't think it's helpful or necessary to highlight specific groups, such as visitors to Wales, on the face of the Bill--that's the approach taken in amendment 1E--as it risks placing too much emphasis on certain groups at the expense of others. In relation to children, the committee will know that I'm fully committed to children's rights, and that Welsh Ministers are already under a duty to have due regard to the rights of children whenever they exercise their functions. An additional due regard requirement, such as the one set out in amendment 1D, relating specifically to the need to promote awareness among children is not needed. This would be part and parcel of the Welsh Government approach to putting children's rights at the heart of our policy making. Similarly, I don't think it's necessary for the Bill to set out specifically the topics that need to be covered in the awareness-raising campaign, as is suggested in amendments 1B and 1C. That level of detail, I don't think, is for the face of the Bill. Information required about parenting support will be considered by the parenting expert group, under the auspices of the Bill's strategic implementation group, working with my officials and the expert stakeholder group on the awareness-raising campaign. And, really, their thinking should not be constrained in any way by specifications on the face of the Bill. I think we always need to bear in mind that what the Bill does is remove a defence to an existing criminal offence; it does not create a new offence. And in this context, it doesn't make sense for this Bill to contain a provision requiring the provision of information about how a person may raise concerns if it appears to them that a child is being physically punished. As I set out in my letter to this committee responding to recommendation 15 on this point, safeguarding is everyone's business, and, as now, the public have a role in highlighting to relevant services if they are concerned about a child. I'm asking for the support of Members for amendments 1 and 4, and I ask Members to reject amendments 1A to 1E because this would place unnecessary provisions on the face of the Bill. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Deputy Minister. Are there other Members who wish to speak? Janet Finch-Saunders. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. I wish to speak to amendments 1A to 1E, which relate to the Deputy Minister's amendment on the duty to promote public awareness. While we believe it is absolutely imperative that the public are made aware of this controversial change in the law, the Deputy Minister's amendment lacks a number of key points that the committee were actually keen to address at Stage 1. An important thread runs throughout each and every amendment that I've tabled within this group--that of a sustained awareness campaign, which not only stretches beyond the implementation of the Bill, but serves as a duty for future administrations. Amendment 1A: primarily, amendment 1A changes amendment 1 to include the promotion of understanding changes to the law. I don't think it's enough for the Welsh Government to say that the public should be made aware of the coming into force of section 1 and that a public awareness campaign needs to be sustained until the Welsh Government's objectives have been achieved. Despite the fact that it is intended to change behaviour, the consequences of this law are far greater than that of organ donation or prohibiting smoking indoors. Instead of an opt-out system or a civil offence, this law will remove a defence for parents, information on which could be there on their records for the rest of their lives, potentially separate parents, and could affect employment chances. As such, whilst we agree with the necessity of the awareness campaign, it is important too that the Welsh Government take stock and ensures that parents are not penalised due to a weak awareness campaign. The witnesses we heard before this committee also noted the necessity of ensuring that the public understands-- Lynne Neagle AM: Janet, Dawn is asking if you'll take an intervention. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. Dawn Bowden AM: I just wanted to know--could you give us examples of any other piece of legislation where there's been indefinite public awareness campaigns once it's been passed? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: There's a lot of legislation. The first Assembly term when I was here-- Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, what I'm asking-- Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I'm trying to respond-- Dawn Bowden AM: What I'm asking for is: can you give us specific examples of where there have been indefinite public awareness campaigns running indefinitely past the enactment of a piece of legislation? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: The very first term that I was an Assembly Member, we passed 25 pieces of separate legislation. Even today, as I sit here, the public are not aware of many of those pieces of legislation. This particular piece of legislation will have a profound effect on the parenting of children in Wales. So, therefore, I think there is a necessity for both children and parents to become involved, and I shall speak now-- Dawn Bowden AM: With respect, Chair, that's not the question I asked. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: --to my amendments. Lynne Neagle AM: I can call you in the debate, if you'd like to make a more substantive contribution on this. Yes. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: The witnesses who we heard from before this committee also noted the necessity of ensuring that the public understands the implications. And that's what we're talking about here, Members--the implications of removing this defence. Strikingly, the Office of Police and Crime Commissioner for Gwent stated the following:'the potential for public resistance to the Bill through misunderstanding or confusion over it implications may pose the largest barrier to its implementation.'If you are intent on removing the defence of reasonable punishment, it is therefore not unreasonable to ensure that law-abiding parents fully understand the ramifications of this Bill. Additionally, the committee found that while the current Welsh Government's intention to deliver a public awareness campaign was beyond doubt, future Governments may have less of a commitment. This places further weight on the fact that the Welsh Government should be under a duty to promote awareness and understanding of the Bill beyond its commencement. Furthermore, the Children (Equal Protection from Assault) (Scotland) Bill quite clearly notes that, under section 2, the Scottish Ministers must take such steps as they consider appropriate to promote public awareness and understanding about the effect of section 1 on the abolition for the defence of reasonable punishment. Therefore, I would be grateful if the Deputy Minister can respond as to the reasons why the Welsh Government has deviated from this course of action in their amendment. [Interruption. ] Should our amendment be agreed-- Lynne Neagle AM: Are you taking an intervention? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: No. I'd rather crack on, to be honest. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I can call you in the debate, Hefin. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Should our amendment to be agreed, we also request that a printing change be made to ensure that the new heading reflects promoting awareness of the changes to the law made by section 1. Amendment 1B: amendment 1B is in line with the committee's recommendation 9, which stated that, as part of a public awareness campaign, there should be details about the support available to parents to use alternatives to physical punishment when disciplining their children. During evidence at Stage 1, the witnesses we saw before the committee raised serious concerns about harder-to-reach groups who needed to be made aware of removing the defence. For example, Children in Wales, Action for Children and Play Wales stated that some families and communities may be harder to reach with information and support. Welsh Government needs to make sure that they receive the information they need. Now, while the Deputy Minister states that she would work hard to ensure that harder-to-reach groups receive this information, a duty to provide information on alternatives to physical punishment would ensure that future Welsh Governments would maintain a successful awareness-raising campaign. I note the Deputy Minister accepted the recommendation, through our amendment, but this does not explicitly include a duty to provide details about support for parents. As will be expanded upon later, the Deputy Minister has relied upon the'Parenting: Give it Time'campaign to be delivered alongside awareness raising. However, this is only an online resource and she must be clear about what other avenues will be available to parents who do not have access to the internet or are part of harder-to-reach groups. Amendment 1C: amendment 1C supports the committee's recommendation 15 that explains that the Welsh Government should ensure clear advice is provided on what people can do if they have seen or learned of a child being physically assaulted. We urged, at Stage 1, that although many professionals were already under a duty to report concerns about physical punishment, regardless of the Bill, other witnesses raised concerns that it could create the potential for claims of abuse that are unfounded. In particular, some were worried that children, who may not realise the implications of reporting, could make allegations that are actually untrue. While we would expect the awareness-raising campaign to include the consequences of false accusations, this could also be reflected among adults, if the public are not sufficiently made aware of how they can report and in what situations they can report a case of assault. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. I've got several speakers. I've got Suzy Davies first, then Dawn Bowden. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much, Chair. Thank you Minister, and thank you, Janet, for that. I think it's worth just pointing out at this stage that the majority of the amendments that are being made and articulated by Janet there are based on committee recommendations, and those recommendations were made after taking evidence from the public at large, but also you as well. So, that suggests that, at that stage, we weren't reassured by the offer that you were making because we felt the need to put these recommendations into our report. Now, I recognise that you've moved some way on some of these amendments, and we'll been talking about that through the course of the debates on other groups. But the one thing to bear in mind here is this is legislation, now--that means that this is the instrument of the Assembly, not of Government, and if this Assembly feels that the face of the Bill is unclear on the minimum requirements of a public awareness campaign, then we have the right to suggest the things that we would like to see in that public awareness-raising campaign. The list that Janet has given is a minimum. The reason these have been tabled individually and independently is that some may be acceptable where others may not be, so it will be disappointing to hear that you're rejecting them all, and the reason they need to go on the face of the Bill is that, if you are going to introduce specifics via regulation, at the moment we have no reassurance about how you're going to do that--about what input the Assembly, on behalf of our constituents, could have in designing that public awareness-raising campaign. Unless you accept some amendments in other groups, that is the position with this Bill: the influence of the Assembly will be zero over the content of an awareness-raising campaign. In terms of it being non-time limited, I think the amendment has been tabled in the way it has not to oblige you to an everlasting, never-ending campaign of awareness raising. But if you bear in mind that, seven years after the introduction of this Bill, there's going to be some reporting on the effectiveness of the Bill, what is the point of doing that if you don't then have an obligation, should the reports require it to be necessary, to continue promoting the changes in the law? I accept that that can't go on for centuries, but to actually limit it to two years on an issue that is so sensitive, and which has a reach beyond our boundaries, I think is genuinely a mistake. Finally, you mention that safeguarding is everyone's business. I think that's true, but I think Janet Finch-Saunders was right to say that members of the public, ordinary individuals, not professionals, will need assurance that they're doing the right thing. The amendment as listed is not even there to encourage people to do that, although that can be read in that way, but it is to help them be certain that they are doing the right thing. If this is going to be up to the individual, as you've said, and the committee itself wasn't reassured that individuals would know what to do, perhaps I can ask you to consider at Stage 3, if you're going to reject this amendment, how you can reassure members of the public that, if they are going to intervene on the back of this law, they're making things better, not worse. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Suzy. Dawn. Dawn Bowden AM: My comments, really, relate to ongoing awareness-raising campaigns, which I think all of us would want to see, and would appreciate in any changes in legislation. My point, really, is that we have a plethora of legislation that this Assembly has passed in the last 20 years, and I'm not aware of any legislation where, on the face of the Bill we have ongoing awareness-raising campaigns on an indefinite basis. It seems to me that, for some reason, you seem to be wanting to take a completely different approach to this piece of legislation. From what the Deputy Minister is saying--and perhaps I will get some clarity on this--there will be an amendment to the legislation that will say that we have an awareness campaign. That awareness campaign can be the subject of consultation with interested parties in terms of what needs to be included in it. It could also, I assume, Deputy Minister, be an awareness campaign that can be written into a set of guidance for future use. But the point I'm trying to make is that I don't believe that any piece of legislation requires ongoing and indefinite awareness-raising campaigns, and particularly in relation to visitors to Wales. Again, we have other pieces of legislation in Wales that are not applicable in the other parts of the UK. I am not aware that there is a necessity for awareness-raising campaigns with visitors coming into Wales on the raft of the other pieces of legislation that we have that they don't. And similarly, when we go to visit countries that have different legislation, we don't necessarily know what legislation we're going into when we visit that country--you just go there and you accept that you go to a different country and you abide by their laws. So, my key point, Chair, is just the necessity of an ongoing, endless awareness campaign being written onto the face of the Bill. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Dawn. Hefin. Hefin David AM: My comments follow logically from Dawn Bowden's comments, particularly in relation to amendments 1D and 1E. What you would be doing is that this Senedd, if this was on the face of the Bill, the duty on Ministers, would be putting the duty on Ministers in law beyond the life of the fifth Senedd, into the next Senedd term, and putting that duty on those newly elected Ministers after that, which, in principle, would be against the principles of binding-- Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin, are you taking an intervention from Suzy? Hefin David AM: Yes, happy to. Suzy Davies AM: When you've finished your point. Hefin David AM: I'm happy to take it now, because I was going to sum up by agreeing with the point you made, actually. Suzy Davies AM: I'd love that. You referred to this potentially binding Ministers in future Assemblies; at the moment, we've got an implementation period and a five-year reporting period that takes any reporting on this Act into the Assembly after next. I'm wondering if you're going to have any comments on that when we come to the amendment to change that later on. Hefin David AM: Well, when we get to that amendment, I'll make comments if I feel it necessary. But at this point in time, we're talking about amendments 1D and 1E, and particularly in relation to 1D and 1E it just isn't necessary, given the fact that--I won't call it a concession, because I think you made a reasonable point about the Minister making a statement at Stage 3, and I think Dawn Bowden actually supported that as well. That, therefore, makes those amendments unnecessary. Given that, in these circumstances, it is unnecessary to bind Ministers in future Parliaments. And that's my key point, really, which is why I wouldn't vote for those two amendments. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Sian. Sian Gwenllian AM: Thank you very much. I just want to speak against amendment 1A and also amendment 1B. I don't believe that there is a need for an indefinite campaign, as is outlined in 1A. I agree entirely that there is a need for a campaign during the period of change, and therefore I'm very glad to see that the Government has brought forward amendment 1, and I do hope that there will be a real push during the period of change. In terms of amendment 1B, I do have sympathy with what is being said here, but I believe that any kind of information or campaign in terms of enabling parents to learn about alternatives to physical punishment should be the subject of continual far-reaching work by the Government, through various programmes, and it should not be an addition on the face of this Bill, which deals with a small change to the common law. And then, on 1D also, if I may--I don't agree with this either. Again, I believe that there is a need to promote awareness amongst children, but that should happen through the children's rights convention, as part of a broader programme to promote children's rights. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Sian. I call on the Deputy Minister to speak, then. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you all very much for your contributions to the debate and your comments on these amendments today. I just want to re-emphasise that it is as a result of the recommendation from this committee that we are putting this duty to have the awareness campaign on the face of the Bill, and I absolutely recognise the crucial role awareness raising has to play in supporting the implementation of the Bill. I'm very grateful for and appreciate the committee's interest and the work that you've done in this area of work. But I do think that these amendments are unnecessary. If we go through them, amendment 1A is really open-ended on promoting public awareness. We're committed to a high-intensity awareness over six years from Royal Assent, and there is an expert stakeholder group supporting us with the development of the awareness campaign. All the points that you've been making will be being considered by that group. I think the level of detail on the face of the Bill is not needed. Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Would you just take an intervention on that just to help me understand? A two-year awareness-raising campaign--how have you concluded that-- Julie Morgan AM: Six-year. Suzy Davies AM: I thought it was two years before section 1 comes into force. Julie Morgan AM: We've got six years from Royal Assent. Suzy Davies AM: Oh, so it is going to continue beyond section 1 coming into force-- Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Oh yes, it's going to continue. Suzy Davies AM: That's very helpful. Julie Morgan AM: Definitely, yes. So, I don't think that's needed, amendment 1A. Amendment 1B, about support available to parents and how to access it--again, this level of detail is not required on the face of the Bill. I just want to emphasise we have got this expert implementation group, who are working on all aspects of this Bill, many of whom represent organisations who gave evidence to this committee. The Bill is a simple one, with a clear purpose. It aims to remove the defence of reasonable punishment. I think lots of these amendments are very helpful and interesting, but would be discussed and would be acted on in the normal pathway of planning and development, and they're not required on the face of the Bill. So, I'm not putting them down, I'm just saying that we don't need them to be there on the face of the Bill. And then amendment 1C--the information about how to raise concerns--I do repeat that safeguarding is everybody's business, and the same issues apply now as will after this defence has been removed. Amendment 1D--Ministers to have regard to the need to promote awareness among children--now, children's rights are absolutely enshrined in our policy making, and the entire Bill is about protecting the rights of children. So, it is unnecessary duplication. So, we hope that the Bill will remain focused. Again, in terms of visitors, the level of detail is simply not required on the face of the Bill. Our awareness-raising campaign will be comprehensive. And then to pick up a few of the other points that were raised, revisions to the impact assessments are being considered as part of my commitment to update the explanatory memorandum ahead of Stage 3. So, there will be more details on the regulatory impact assessment. The issue that was raised about the Scottish Bill, that it refers to'understanding'--now, the Scottish Bill was not a Government Bill, it was a private Member's Bill, and our view is that nothing is added by adding the'understanding';'awareness'is sufficient. So, basically, I think that the points made have been very useful, but I urge committee members to accept my amendments, but to reject those proposed by Janet Finch-Saunders, as they are unnecessary provisions in terms of what the awareness-raising duty needs to achieve. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Deputy Minister. Before disposing of amendment 1, we will deal with the amendments to that amendment. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1A? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 1A be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we have an objection. I therefore take a vote by show of hands. The question is that amendment 1A be agreed. All those in favour, please raise your hands. All those against. There voted two in favour, four against. So, amendment 1A is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1B? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 1B be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, I'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 1B. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 1B is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1C? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 1C be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay. All those in favour of amendment 1C, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 1C is not agreed. Janet, do you want to move amendment 1D? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 1D be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, as there's an objection, I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 1D, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 1D is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1E? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. The question is that amendment 1E be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 1E, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 1E is not agreed. If amendment 1 is not agreed, amendment 2C and amendment 4 will fall. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 1? Julie Morgan AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Okay. I move amendment 1 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 1 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we have an objection, so we'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 1. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 1 is agreed. We'll move on now then to group 2, which relates to the duty to report on the effect of the legislation. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 2, in the name of the Deputy Minister. I move amendment 2 in the Deputy Minister's name, and call on the Deputy Minister to speak to her amendments, and the other amendments in this group. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Chair. The amendments in this group are to do with the post-implementation review of the Bill, and I believe there was also a committee recommendation to this end from your committee, so you strongly influenced this amendment. It's clear from Members'contributions to this group and recommendations by the committee at Stage 1 that they share my commitment to the importance of post-implementation review of the effect of the abolition of the defence of reasonable punishment. I've already provided assurance that I agree with the importance placed on such a review, both in the explanatory memorandum and during Stage 1 scrutiny. I also made a commitment to bring forward a Government amendment to put a duty to undertake a post-implementation review on the face of the Bill. I have done this with amendment 2. Amendment 5 sets out that this provision will come into force the day after Royal Assent. As I said in my responses to the Stage 1 committee report, and as set out in the explanatory memorandum, the post-implementation review of this Bill will not be a single piece of work, but a continuous programme of work during the years following the commencement of section 1. Firstly, we will continue to conduct attitudinal surveys, which will be used to track changes in attitude towards the physical punishment of children and prevalence of parents reporting that they use physical punishment. The surveys will also be used to monitor the effectiveness of our awareness-raising campaign. Secondly, through a dedicated task and finish group, we are working with organisations to put in place arrangements to establish robust methods for capturing meaningful data relating to the Bill and to consider the possible impact on services. Turning to amendment 2C, this amendment would require Welsh Ministers to prepare and lay before the Assembly a report on the effect of their promotion of public awareness before section 1 is commenced. This amendment is unnecessary and is in conflict with what I think is a priority for the implementation of this Bill: that is, given certainty on the commencement date and in enabling us to work towards this with our partners and stakeholders. I also think this amendment is not required because, as I've already stated, we are preparing to assess the effectiveness of our awareness raising. In June, I shared the findings of a representative survey, which establishes a baseline on public awareness and opinion towards physical punishment of children and the proposed legislation. I shared this with the committee. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Deputy Minister. I open it up for discussion now, then. Janet Finch-Saunders. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. I speak to amendments 2C, excluding 2D, to 2K, which relate to the Deputy Minister's amendment 2 on preparing a published report on the effect of abolishing the defence of reasonable punishment. Again, I must stress the importance of getting this right due to the controversial and long-lasting effects of removing the defence of reasonable punishment. Amendments 2E to 2K outline what we would expect to be within this report, and we would wish to see a commitment from the Deputy Minister to ensure the National Assembly for Wales is fully apprised and able to scrutinise the result of this report. Amendment 2C requests that the Welsh Government prepare a report on the awareness-raising campaign and lays it before the Assembly before section 1 commences. As I have outlined under my amendments in group 1, the understanding of the public about the implications of the Bill cannot be sidelined. Although the Deputy Minister has repeated her commitment to a public awareness campaign, we, as the National Assembly for Wales, must be able to scrutinise its effectiveness before section 1 begins. As I noted under amendments 1B to 1E, there are specific groups of people who need to be evaluated on their understanding of the Bill's effect. I'm sure that the Deputy Minister will agree that the harder-to-reach groups are undoubtedly the most vulnerable to any negative impacts that the Bill will have because of the greater potential of a lack of awareness. It is, therefore, important for the Assembly to be able to determine whether the awareness-raising campaign has had a positive effect on these groups of people. As will also be elaborated under amendment 2D, it is extremely important that we, as the Parliament of Wales, are fully apprised of the awareness-raising campaign's impact. Before we implement what will be a criminal offence, it is vital that we ensure that those affected are not adversely impacted because of a poorly targeted awareness campaign. Therefore, I would be grateful if the Deputy Minister would commit to an independent evaluation of the awareness campaign's effects before section 1 commences. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Janet. Suzy Davies. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. Deputy Minister, first of all, can I just say thank you for your opening remarks about the possibility of perhaps doing some work around amendment 2B? I'll come to that a little bit later, if I may. I just want to begin by commenting briefly on what you said about why you'll be rejecting amendment 2C here. I actually don't think that this amendment should affect or jeopardise the commencement date in any way at all. It's an operational requirement to get this work done before the commencement date that's in the draft Bill at the moment. So, failing to meet that would be as a result of operations not going well, rather than anything intrinsic in the Bill, so I'm not sure I can accept your argument on that. And, on 2D--very pleased to hear that you'd be willing to introduce something about'laying'rather than'publishing'at Stage 3, but, in the spirit of recognising that this is the legislature, perhaps I could encourage you just to accept the amendment at this stage, because it doesn't make any difference. Your amendment is going to pass, and this amendment to it would be--I think the gesture there would be very much appreciated. I'll be speaking mainly to amendments 2A and 2B, but I want to begin, again, by thanking you for moving some way on this and considering amendments to the Bill on the issue of reporting, because I know you were keen to avoid amendments in the name of simplicity; you mentioned it earlier. But this is not a newid bychan, I'm afraid, Sian; the terms and the effect of this Bill are quite extensive, and it does need the reassurances, if you like, necessary to mitigate potentially disproportionate effects of this Bill on families where parents'actions had been lawful up until this point in statute. It does need statutory underpinning. So, I am grateful to you for accepting this duty. I know that you're sincere that you want this duty to report to show that the Bill is effective in stopping smacking as a punishment, and also that it is not as harmful to parents as perhaps some of us fear. But, if this were me bringing forward this Bill, I think I'd want to show the world that I was doing the right thing a lot sooner than you appear to wish to do. Amendment 2 means that the efficacy of the Bill will not formally be assessed until seven years after it has passed. There are Acts on the statute book that have lasted a lot less time than that. If you're relying on the two-year period before section 1 comes into operation to do much of the heavy lifting on the culture change, and I think that is what you're expecting--you know, showing a reduction in the incidence of physical punishment, reducing the number of, and indeed the likelihood of, parents putting themselves in the path of criminal liability once those two years are up--I really would have thought you'd want people to know sooner, or as soon as the first possible opportunity on that. Waiting five years, I think, will diminish the ability of you to prove the efficacy of those initial two years, and this is why I'm grateful to you for your offer, because there may be a way where we can overcome that. If the trend of culture change is continuing after year 3--so, basically, in the first year after section 1 comes into effect--that's great, but there's a possibility it's going to reverse. Again, I don't think I'd want to wait five years to find that out. For myself, I think one year would probably be enough, but I think three years is a reasonable compromise, as opposed to five years, for a reporting period. I think seven years is just way too long for a formal evaluation of a Bill's effectiveness. I can't see the reason for quite that length of time--I know you've talked about New Zealand--but neither can the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee. I think that's worth pointing out. When they took the step of recommending this duty to evaluate and report, they also took the step of suggesting a three-year reporting period being more in keeping with other post-legislative scrutiny. That's something I think we perhaps need to bear in mind now, as we enter this period of the consolidation of law. Five/seven years is really something of an outlier, and while that might have been appropriate, perhaps, in New Zealand, I don't think that fits in with our timetables generally here in Wales, and, of course, there are other countries that have introduced this over a period of years, and I note that you haven't drawn on them in order to support your argument. So, can I urge Members and the Minister to consider the arguments behind these amendments? I don't think it's going to reassure anyone--you may want to intervene at this point, Hefin--that we not only won't hear in this Assembly, we won't hear in the next Assembly, about the formal evaluation of this, unless I follow-- Hefin David AM: I won't intervene; I'll speak. Suzy Davies AM: Is that okay? Hefin David AM: Yes, I'll make the point. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, I've got-- Suzy Davies AM: Yes, I'll take the intervention. Lynne Neagle AM: No, he doesn't want to make an intervention-- Hefin David AM: I won't do an intervention; I'll speak. Lynne Neagle AM: --he'll make a contribution. Suzy Davies AM: Oh, apologies-- Hefin David AM: Just to say-- Suzy Davies AM: I'll wait. Hefin David AM: Well, let me put the intervention--. I'll do it as an intervention, then. I just feel that--I take your point, and I was expecting it. The point I was making about 1D and 1E is they close down choices to Ministers in future Assemblies. An evaluative practice would actually open up those choices and give future Parliaments more options with regard to this Bill, so I think it's entirely consistent. I don't think the Minister, in putting in amendment 2, was trying to undermine my argument. Actually, I think she's being constructive by doing that, and I think amendment 2 is a practical amendment that's quite helpful, and its consequence will be to open up choices to future Parliaments, whereas my objection to 1D and 1E is they close those down. Suzy Davies AM: Okay, well, as I say, I think, actually, the Deputy Minister's offer of a three-year interim period might be part of a resolution to this. Because I'm not 100 per cent sure I accept your argument, either, because it closes it down for the interim period if we don't move on with the Deputy Minister's suggestion--which I'll talk about now, actually. Because I am tempted to accept your offer. It absolutely makes sense and it's clearly made with the best good faith here. But I need some clarity on what you would allow this Assembly to do in helping define the terms of that interim report. Because you've been very clear that you don't want to accept the things that Janet Finch-Saunders has been talking about in a final report, and yet I can tell you we want to hear about these things. So, if you're in a position where you can give a commitment at Stage 3 not only to introduce an interim report, but that you will consult with, perhaps, this committee--I'll leave it to you--on the contents of that interim report, what we would want to see tested, then I'll be minded not to move amendment 2B. If you can't give me that reassurance, then I'm going to move it anyway and we'll return to it at Stage 3, if you don't mind. Just a final point on this issue of reporting within three months rather than as soon as practicable, and I do take your point that there may be a misalignment with reporting periods from the organisations you hope to talk to. Again, at Stage 3, I'm happy if you want to make three months six months, or something like that, but'as soon as practicable'is open ended, and what you think is practicable may be very different from what I or my constituents think is practicable. So, I don't want to stick with what is practicable; I would like you to put a date on this. If it's a case that you think six months is long enough for data gathering and reporting from third parties, I think that's fairly reasonable as well, but I'm not minded to allow you to just keep this open ended. Thank you. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Suzy. Sian. Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, I welcome adding to the Bill through amendment 2, and what you've said today also, that you're willing to provide an interim report and bring an amendment forward to allow that through the Bill, and to lay a report before the Assembly. I am interested in what Suzy is saying, and have a lot of sympathy with trying to tie it down to specific time periods, and not say'when it will be practicable'. Therefore, I would encourage you not to move your amendments if you have the confirmation that you want to hear this morning from the Minister regarding these issues. Suzy Davies AM: I would like to. Thanks. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Any other Members? No. Deputy Minister. Julie Morgan AM: Well, just to start off on that point, I think your suggestion about how we consult and discuss, I think I'm very happy to accept that. So, I'm happy to discuss that with you, and with the committee, before the third Stage. So, I hope you will consider removing--. Suzy Davies AM: No, genuinely I am. Julie Morgan AM: Right, thank you. Well, just to go on to cover some of the points that have been raised, on the issue of training now, I think Janet raised a number of points about training, and we do have an operations, procedures, processes and training task and finish group as part of our implementation work, and they are considering guidance and training requirements. There are many professional bodies represented on that group, many of whom I think have given evidence here today, and they've really got a chance to have their say. The officials are also looking at training as part of the revision of the explanatory memorandum at Stage 3, so there will be more information about training there. But we have this group looking at it, and it is very key. Generally, I think that all the contributions are very helpful, and I know they're meant in the spirit of trying to improve the legislation. I can't support amendments 2A, 2C, and amendments 2E to 2K, because these amendments make little difference in terms of practical effect to what we have in the Bill already, or they're covered by the Government amendments that I've moved. But I do hope the committee is reassured that we are committed to undertaking a very thorough, multifaceted review of the impact of the legislation that includes tracking public attitudes and considering impacts on public services. Now, tracking the public attitudes will be going along at regular points, so there's no question there of having to wait; we'll be having regular reporting of public attitudes. Suzy Davies AM: Would you take an intervention there, Deputy Minister? Thank you very much. Of course, I appreciate that you will not be supporting these amendments, but can you give us some indication of how many of the areas of interest to us you will be reporting on? So, even if this is not a statutory commitment, what exactly from our list, our wish list here, would you be prepared to include in your evaluation? Julie Morgan AM: Well, I would actually have thought all of them. All the areas you've raised are very relevant, I think. Obviously, this is not a statutory thing I'm saying, but-- Suzy Davies AM: No, no, and this is not a-- Julie Morgan AM: Yes, but considering those points you've put forward, I think all of them have got a great deal of relevance. We will certainly be reporting to the group to consider any of the ideas that you've suggested and, in particular with the data collection and the monitoring task and finish group, which is about developing methods to collect data, we will be putting forward some of the suggestions that you've made on those issues. So, I don't see any problem with that at all. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. Julie Morgan AM: So, as I say, I can't support the amendments. I'm hopeful you may withdraw the two amendments--I think one of yours and it was one of Janet's, wasn't it--so that we could work together on those before the next stage. Because I am sympathetic to your views on these matters, and I think they do reflect some of the discussions in the committee as well. So, I'd be happy to work with you to bring forward the amendments at Stage 3. In line with the recommendations of the Finance Committee, further details of the costs associated with the post-implementation review will be provided in a revised regulatory impact assessment at Stage 3. So, I think at this point I would ask that Members reject the non-Government amendments and agree to my amendments 2 and 5, which will ultimately achieve the same policy aim without the need for unnecessary detail on the Bill, with the exception, obviously, of those two amendments, which I'm prepared to look at a way of moving forward on. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you, Deputy Minister. Before disposing of amendment 2, we will deal with the amendments to that amendment. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2C? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2C be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 2C, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2C is lost. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 2A? Suzy Davies AM: I move amendment 2A, yes. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2A be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 2A, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2A is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2D? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2E? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2E be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 2E, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2E is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2F? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2F be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so can I see all those in favour of amendment 2F? All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 2F is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2G? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2G be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, can I see all those in favour of amendment 2G? All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 2G is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2H? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2H be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so can I see all those in favour of amendment 2H? All those against? So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2H is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2I? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2I be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay. Can I see all those in favour of amendment 2I? All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2I is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2J? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2J be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. Can I see all those in favour of 2J? All those against? So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2J is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2K? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2K be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] I'll therefore take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 2K? All those against? So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2K is not agreed. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 2B? Suzy Davies AM: In view of the Deputy Minister's reassurances, I won't move this amendment today, but obviously I reserve the right to bring something back if we can't reach consensus. Thank you. Lynne Neagle AM: Does any other Member wish to move amendment 2B? Okay, no. Thank you. We'll move on, then. If amendment 2 is not agreed, amendment 5 will fall. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 2? Julie Morgan AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 2 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 2-- Suzy Davies AM: Objection. Lynne Neagle AM: You're objecting? Suzy Davies AM: Yes. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Right, we'll therefore take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 2, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 2 is agreed. That takes us on to group 3, which relates to the regulation-making powers in the Bill. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 3 in the name of the Deputy Minister. I move amendment 3 in the Deputy Minister's name and call on the Deputy Minister to speak to her amendments and the other amendments in this group. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much, Chair. Members will note that I've brought forward an amendment to provide certainty on the date of commencement of the core provision in the Bill, which is obviously to abolish the defence of reasonable punishment. And that is going to be debated under group 5. So, we're obviously debating that after we deal with these particular technical issues--these are technical issues here, basically. As a consequence of proposing to remove the power for a Welsh Minister to make an Order for commencement, the power to make transitory, transitional or saving provisions in connection with section 1 of the Bill coming into force would also be removed. So, I'm not seeking here to add any new powers to the Bill; amendment 3 will simply add this existing power back onto the face of the Bill where amendments 7 and 8 remove it, and amendment 6 will bring the power into force the day after Royal Assent. In fact, removing the power for the Welsh Ministers to commence the provision in section 1 by Order means the statutory instrument will actually do less than originally intended. These amendments are technical in nature and while I acknowledge that the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee raised the issue of what procedure should be applied, their report did not call for any change to no procedure being applied. The absence of an Assembly procedure does not mean that Ministers'decisions in relation to transitional powers cannot be scrutinised by the Assembly. Any concerns about the Welsh Ministers'proposals could be put to me in the Senedd. This was a point made to CLAC and, as I say, their final conclusion was that no procedure is the appropriate procedure for such a power. For those reasons, I encourage Members to reject amendment 3A from Suzy. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy Davies. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much. Well perhaps, Deputy Minister, I can begin by saying that one person's technical issue is another person's essential part of the legislative procedure and a keen element in scrutiny. But I thank you for noting the Assembly's observations on the ministerial powers granted in this Bill--this time by CLAC, as you say. Moving this--and I'm glad actually that amendment 8, I think it was, has removed an Order provision and we're moving into an area where at least statutory instruments do feature here. I have to say that amendment 3A is something of a probing amendment, and I'll explain why now. Your amendment 3 seeks to give a familiar range of powers in connection with the coming into force of section 1, but it's actually in a substantive part of section 1 itself now--it's not a separate commencement power. And, actually, I've been listening to the rest of this debate, and thinking that, if you're going to be introducing an awareness campaign and a report, the chances are you're going to need some regulatory powers to introduce some of the aspects of both those policy areas, I think. And I'm wondering whether the--what is it--transitory, transitional and saving provisions are actually enough powers for you under the course of this Bill. I'm wondering whether you want to consider actually amending this to give yourself the more usual unrestricted power to make regulations in order for you to get section 1 implemented, bearing in mind that it has now been amended from that original, very short and simple--or at least simple in terms of drafting--initial draft. As I say, in anticipation of you rejecting amendments in group 1 I tabled this, in order to make sure that an opportunity remains for the Assembly to bring anything you may wish to introduce under section 1, when it comes into effect, onto the floor of the Assembly. Because while I completely accept that you've acknowledged that statutory instrument is the process for introducing things from now on, it's still possible to do that without procedure, and so I have no idea whether you think what you introduce would be better suited to be introduced by a negative or affirmative procedure. Amendment 3A is a holding position, which we will return to you in Stage 3, because I think, again, this is an area where it might be valuable for us to discuss quite what kind of powers you're looking for, because I think you probably need something that's beyond transitional, transitory and saving. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Suzy, have you finished? Suzy Davies AM: Yes, thank you very much. Lynne Neagle AM: Are there any other Members who wish to speak on this group? No. Deputy Minister. Julie Morgan AM: I thank Suzy for that input. We don't actually think it's necessary to have wider powers, but we will keep this under review and at Stage 3, I think that--. When I was looking at this, I was concerned to know what the transitory powers--what we would actually need to do at that stage, but I can understand that there may be links to other Bills in ways that we are not anticipating at the moment that would make it necessary to have those powers. So, basically, I don't think it is necessary to have wider powers, but I can assure you that we'll keep that in review coming up to Stage 3. Suzy Davies AM: Can I just ask a question on the back of that? Lynne Neagle AM: Will you take a brief intervention at the end, Minister? Suzy Davies AM: Will you take the briefest intervention before your full stop? Julie Morgan AM: I was going to end there, yes. Suzy Davies AM: Right, okay, well, just before your full stop, would you just confirm that you're happy for us to discuss this before Stage 3? Julie Morgan AM: Yes, very happy. Yes. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Before disposing of amendment 3, we will deal with the amendment to that amendment. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 3A? Suzy Davies AM: I'll move it, yes. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 3A be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, I'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 3A. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 3A is not agreed. If amendment 3 is not agreed, amendment 6 will fall. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 3? Julie Morgan AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 3 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 3 is therefore agreed. The committee will now break for 10 minutes and reconvene at 11. 05 a. m. Can I welcome Members back? We will move on to group 4, which relates to the duty to ensure sufficient funding. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 11 in the name of Janet Finch-Saunders. I call on Janet Finch-Saunders to move amendment 11 and to speak to her amendments. Janet. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. I speak to both amendments in this group. As I outlined under amendments 2I and 2J, there are ongoing concerns about the potential costs for Welsh devolved authorities and the lack of quantifiable costs within the regulatory impact assessment. Now, it was absolutely clear from evidence that we received in this committee that unknown costs would be challenging and potentially problematic. As I have mentioned previously, these concerns would doubtless be most keenly felt in our hard-pressed social services. Furthermore, the Welsh Local Government Association stated that there must be a commitment that whatever the costs are, those costs are met, because it is legislation that is being led by the National Assembly for Wales. Now, during evidence, the Deputy Minister, when asked about the reliance on a limited number of reporting of cases likely to happen and the potential for a degree of unknown costs stated:'we are doing our very best to prepare to cover all eventualities that we can anticipate.'But you couldn't commit to a broad figure, instead telling us that:'we have to rely on what the people who run those organisations are telling us.'And:'We have to measure it as we go along.'Given that devolved authorities need to plan their budgets for these changes, we only think it is fair for the Welsh Government to provide sufficient funding to alleviate the cost implications of this Bill. Now, while amendment 11 makes reference to costs borne by local authorities and health boards, I note that amendment 12 takes this further by including other devolved authorities that are not funded by Welsh Government. Anticipating the Deputy Minister's response that few under this category, if any at all, would be affected by the Bill, we are pursuing a principle here, and it is agreement to the principle of providing sufficient funding that we are seeking from you as the Deputy Minister. Now, these are just two examples of Welsh Government legislation to date that have been underfunded. The Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013: last year, the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee found that the Wales annual spend on walking and cycling is half that of England's and one sixth of Holland's. Furthermore, the committee highlighted that the passing of the Act put a requirement on local authorities to continuously improve active travel routes, but were constrained by the funding made available to them. The Minister at the time announced a three-year funding settlement of PS60 million. Now, my local authority and other authorities that have done some monitoring on the active travel Act--they simply were not awarded sufficient funding to actually allow the active travel Act to become a meaningful piece of legislation, and the same goes with the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. This month, the auditor general has raised concerns that the public services boards created under the Act were limited in their work and impact due to the lack of dedicated funding. Outside of the Welsh Government's regional grant that cannot be spent on projects, councils often contribute through officer time or facilities, but resources and capacity to support those PSBs remain a key risk, as partners don't have the capacity to take on more. The reason that I wanted these amendments placed in here is I genuinely do not believe that you've even envisioned what, or even estimated the likely cost to be borne by the organisations, and certainly our local authorities and health boards, the impact this Bill is going to have. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Janet. Are there other Members who would like to speak in this group, please? No. Okay. I call the Deputy Minister, then. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Chair. I can understand that the Member is concerned about the impact of this Bill on public services, but you will see from the explanatory memorandum and from the raft of impact statements published with the Bill that we've done a thorough and extremely diligent job of considering the potential impacts of this Bill before introduction. And as far as we're aware, no other country has done more than us to consider the impacts of similar legislation, and also comprehensively prepared for implementation. We've explored the published data, which is available from other countries, on the impact of measures they've taken to prohibit the physical punishment of children. We've also spoken to a range of stakeholders in Ireland, New Zealand and Malta, who have legal systems similar to our own. And in these countries, there is no evidence that public services have been overwhelmed following law reform. And stakeholders have been clear when giving evidence to this committee that they do not consider there will be runaway costs, and I think we should trust their judgment on this. In fact, as this committee notes in its Stage 1 report, those delivering services on the front line have said, without exception, that'this Bill will improve their ability to protect children living in Wales because it will make the law clear.'Sally Jenkins of the Association of Directors of Social Services said to this committee:'In terms of thresholds for children's services, we would not be anticipating a huge number of referrals to us. There may be a small number of referrals that come through. What we know from other nations is that it will peak and then settle. We recognise that's likely to happen.'That's from the front line. Jane Randall, chair of the National Independent Safeguarding Board Wales, said:'there's no expectation that there's going to be a huge increase in the number of referrals coming through to local authority social services, I think it would be dealt with within their existing resources.'And Dr Rowena Christmas, Royal College of General Practitioners, said:'I can't see it's going to lengthen consultations. I can't see that it's going to increase the number of consultations, and I don't think it's going to increase the number of referrals I make to the health visitor or to social services, because if I was worried, I'd make those referrals now regardless of the Bill.'I just want to say again that the Bill is removing a defence to an offence of common assault, which has formed part of the common law of England and Wales for a very long time. And social services already receive and investigate reports of children being assaulted, including from health and education, so it's not a whole new area of costly activity for any of them. I do think that the evidence that you had at your committee did highlight those points. As I've already pointed out when discussing group 2 amendments, we're working with organisations to put in place arrangements to collect data about the possible impact on their services, and this will be analysed as part of the post-implementation review of the legislation. Welsh Government can consider with relevant organisations how best to manage any impact on workloads or resources and any cost implications. I can assure you that work to update the regulatory impact assessment has continued, and I've asked officials to prepare a revised RIA, as recommended at Stage 2, and I expect to share an updated RIA with you in advance of Stage 3. Serious consideration is being given on how to provide more detailed estimates of the unknown costs to public services arising from the Bill, but I think you should be reassured by the evidence that was given, particularly to this committee, from the professionals at the front line. What the amendments are proposing is outside the normal funding arrangements that operate within Government, and it's not clear why, in the context of the evidence heard at Stage I, such provisions are necessary. I'm sure that Members will agree that future Governments need to be able to consider, within the context of the budget-setting process, what the priorities are, and these considerations would need to be made within the context at that time, for example taking into account any issues that there are--UK Government actions, what happens in relation to Brexit, or any other unforeseen impacts on the economy or Welsh society. All those issues would have to be taken into account. Furthermore, as is the case now, the National Assembly for Wales scrutinises the Welsh Government budget annually, so it would be able to make an argument for additional funding for public bodies, should it consider that this is required. I do think all the evidence has shown that we do not anticipate that there will be a huge increase of a demand for funding, so I urge Members to reject these amendments, which I believe are unnecessary. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Chair, could I ask a question? Lynne Neagle AM: You can reply to the debate now, Janet, yes. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I'd like to ask a question of the Deputy Minister. When we were taking evidence, at an earlier stage, I noticed that part of the stakeholder group--there was some liaison going on with social services departments across Wales. Now, we have 22 local authorities. At that time, the numbers mentioned were quite small--I think only a handful. What discussions have taken place with our local authorities in terms of their social services departments in terms of the lead, the cabinet members, or, indeed, the head of service? I can speak from my own experiences, when going around my constituency, but when I've spoken to some of the family support groups, and, indeed, the departments themselves, they are very concerned about the financial impact that this is going to have on the provision. They're already overstretched, and they see this as another burden--primarily another financial burden. So, how much have you engaged with them? Julie Morgan AM: There's been extensive engagement. We've had meetings with the Association of Directors of Social Services, and they're represented on all our groups, and we're working very closely with them, because, of course, they represent all the local authorities. But I have to say, when I've been going round and meeting lots of different groups, the first thing they say is,'I'm so glad that you're doing this', and they haven't mentioned any financial implications. But, obviously, we will be very aware of--we are looking at any more evidence that comes up. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. So, I'll still move my amendments. I'm disappointed, really. I was hoping to see some commitment to--this Bill was going to go through, and it's one that could be implemented fully, because sufficient resources were there. I'm not convinced about that, and I know that other organisations are not also. So, I move my amendments. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 11 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] I therefore take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 11 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 12? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 12 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] All those in favour of amendment 12. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 12 is not agreed. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 4? Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I move amendment 4 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 4 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 4, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 4 is agreed. Deputy Minister, do you want to proceed to a vote on amendment 5? Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 5 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 5 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 5, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 5 is agreed. Deputy Minister, do you want to move to a vote on amendment 6? Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 6, then, in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 6 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 6 is therefore agreed. This takes us, then, to the fifth and final group, which relates to commencement. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 9 in the name of Suzy Davies. And I call Suzy Davies to move amendment 9 and to speak to the amendment and the other amendments in the group. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much, Chair. Amendment 9 is actually consequential on amendment 10 passing, but it's the lead amendment in the group, so I'll move it to begin the debate. Minister, I'm speaking here now to amendments 10 and 15 specifically. You've said repeatedly, and I believe you, that you do not wish to criminalise parents but just to stop them physically punishing their children. You could have chosen to try and achieve this through awareness raising and civil enforcement, but by choosing to remove the defence to a criminal act you have entered the arena of criminal law, where the logical consequence is opening parents up to liability--not necessarily getting prosecuted, but liability to prosecution, not just liability to civil sanctions. I'm sure you'd prefer parents not to be prosecuted, but that decision does not and cannot lie with you. You, like us, have no agency in this, because the powers and the duties of the police and the Crown Prosecution Service sit outside our competence. You cannot and we cannot, by law or otherwise, instruct either of them in the delivery of your policy intention of not criminalising parents. You've acknowledged to this committee and the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee that revised CPS charging guidance and any other guidance on, for example, out-of-court disposals, are key to delivering your policy objectives. You'll remember how concerned this committee was when we learned that your advisory group--the strategic implementation group, is it--was only in the early stages of discussing what these guidelines might look like. So, you're actually asking us to pass law when we have no control over how parents might be punished for smacking their children--no control of the regard given to the relevance of force, the frequency of the offence, any prior conviction, any prior reporting, not even the views of the child in how they might be sentenced, or thresholds that would be appropriate for cautions and other out-of-court disposals; no guidance to the police on thresholds for arrest, let alone charging. And you argue that the rights of the child are what matter, and I agree with you here, but everybody, adult or child, has a right to natural justice and proportionate remedy or censure, and you are in no position to offer us any comfort on these matters at this stage. Now, CLAC recommended that any revised guidance be made available to AMs before Stage 3. I anticipate that that's unlikely, and I hope I'm wrong, but that's why Janet and I have tabled amendments 10 and 15, which prevent you bringing section 1 into force until that CPS guidance has been fully updated to take into account the change in the law and until pathways away from prosecution have been devised and agreed. That reflects our recommendation 4, this committee's recommendation, as well as CLAC's recommendation 1. It gives your strategic implementation board time to consider how it can get around the other fundamentally worrying issue of the effect of recording reports of apparent physical punishment, even if those reports ultimately prove unfounded. And you have not addressed these in your own amendments. I have to say, Minister, I think these points are so serious that I would have liked to have tabled amendments preventing you seeking Royal Assent for this Bill until the Assembly has seen drafts of the range of official guidance needed for the police and CPS. I'd have sought a Report Stage, if I could, so that we could consider that evidence. But I'm therefore asking you to support the amendments we have tabled, 10 and 15, so that we can bring some damage limitation to a process that you ultimately cannot control once this Bill has passed. Now, I know you've got the numbers to pass this Bill, whether you accept amendments or not, but I just hope you can see the danger in pushing forward with a Bill that changes a person's relationship with the criminal law when you have no legal control over the consequences of that, and you're inviting this Assembly to fall into the same trap. I therefore urge the Assembly to avoid this recklessness by supporting these two amendments. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Suzy. Are there other Members who wish to speak? No. Janet, do you want to speak? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, I wish to speak to amendments 14 and 16. Amendment 14, however, is consequential to amendment 16 passing. Amendment 16 prevents this from commencing until parenting support services have been established by the Welsh Government. As was clear during the committee's evidence sessions, present Welsh Government support programmes for parents have insufficient coverage. For example, the capacity and reach of the Healthy Child Wales programme came under question on its role in awareness raising, with health representatives acknowledging that universality had not been achieved, with 53. 2 per cent of children in Wales reported as being contacted. Furthermore, existing parenting support is often only available as part of a targeted programme in specific areas, such as Flying Start, and even the children's commissioner noted that much more is needed to support parents to find alternatives to disciplining their children. Now, the Deputy Minister mentioned the'Parenting: Give it Time'campaign as part of proposals on a wider package of support for children and their parents. However, the Deputy Minister was challenged on this fact, that this is an online campaign only, and could only respond that the mapping exercise she will undertake. Consequently, it should be remembered that this Bill will affect all parents. Therefore, the Deputy Minister needs to assure the committee and the public that universal support will be provided before the removal of the defence occurs. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Janet. Deputy Minister. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Chair. I've listened to what stakeholders and committees have said about the importance of ensuring sufficient time is available prior to the change in the law to abolish the defence of reasonable punishment during Stage 1. As a result, I have brought forward amendments in this group to provide certainty around the date for the change in the law. My amendment 7 will remove the power to commence this core provision of the Bill by Order of the Welsh Ministers and ensure that the defence of reasonable punishment is abolished at the end of a two-year period beginning the day after Royal Assent. That was done to give certainty on the length of time. Up to then, we'd always said'up to two years'--well, we're giving two years. This certainty will allow key partners, including the police, social services and the Crown Prosecution Service, to plan for changes to guidance, training and data-collection systems more effectively. It'll also provide a focus for our awareness-raising campaign. My amendment 8 in this group has the consequence of removing the power to make transitional provision, which is replaced by my amendments 3 and 6, and we discussed those in the previous group. I've listened to the arguments put forward by Suzy Davies and Janet Finch-Saunders for the amendments in this group that they have tabled. These amendments are all about making the commencement of the Bill conditional on something else happening, whether it's waiting for the revision of Crown Prosecution Service guidance, or the establishment of a pathway for diversion from the criminal justice system, or for the provision of parenting support services. And, really, I don't think that we should be going down that road. As I set out in my letter of response to the Stage 1 report from the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee, we've got good working relations with the CPS through the strategic implementation group, and we work very closely with them. But the CPS are an independent body, as Suzy Davies has said in her contribution, not answerable to Welsh Ministers or this legislature, and it's not appropriate for a Minister or the National Assembly to seek to influence the CPS guidelines. We're discussing the issues with the CPS in the implementation group. And, in fact, I think that these amendments--Suzy's amendments in particular--wouldn't just seek to influence the CPS, but would actually give power to a non-devolved body on the way that we legislate in Wales. So, I don't think we should make it conditional on those guidelines being decided. I think you have to rely on the fact that we have got this very good relationship, very close working relationship. And I know they did give evidence to your committee, I believe, the CPS. And I think legislating to effectively give a non-devolved body a power to commence, or not, Assembly legislation would be highly unusual and would raise great uncertainty, I think, if we did go down that track, because I think this is very important Welsh legislation, which does have broad support across the Assembly. And I don't think we should allow non-devolved bodies to be the final arbiters of commencement of our legislation. So, I don't support those amendments. I think the CPS is entirely independent of Government, and must be entirely independent of Government, and will make its own decisions about how and when it will revise its guidance. In addition, you suggest we allow the UK Government to have a say in when Welsh legislation is commenced in an area that was specifically devolved to the Assembly. The test applied by the proposed amendments as to when commencement could lawfully occur is uncertain. If these amendments passed, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to judge when section 1 could be commenced. This contravenes what stakeholders and committees have asked for, and raises huge uncertainty, which potentially jeopardises the Bill. And I want to assure you again, not only do we have good working relations with the CPS, but also very good working relationships with the police, who are, of course, the other non-devolved body who have great involvement and interest in these issues. The work we do in these groups should not affect the timing of the Bill's commencement. In fact, it's the other way round. My amendment to provide a two-year period between Royal Assent and commencement means these groups can plan their work to a known timescale and deliver in good time before the law comes into force. And then, when it comes to parenting support, the committee knows that I've committed to reviewing the existing provision of parenting support, and work is already under way through the parenting expert group on this very issue. I have already said I will expand the age range of the'Parenting: Give it Time'campaign, and I think--. I know Janet Finch-Saunders has made the point that it is an online facility. It is very widely used. It is a very successful tool. But, of course, the universal services are also there. For example, the universal service of the health visitors is absolutely crucial, and that is a service that is for every child. And, of course, the health visitors welcome this legislation very strongly. And the expert group is considering what it'll recommend for the future, and it needs the time to be able to do that, to support the Bill as well as to support parenting more widely. So, as I said, I think these are important points that you have raised, but I don't think they are appropriate. So, I therefore urge the committee not to support amendments 9 and 10, nor 13,14 and 15. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy to reply to the debate. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much, and thank you very much, Deputy Minister, as well. I'm disappointed that you haven't seen what's behind Janet Finch-Saunders's final amendment there, actually. Maybe it's something we'll raise again with you at Stage 3, or maybe in the conversations that we have between now and then. But I want to go back to amendments 10 and 15 that I've raised and your assertion that we're giving, or attempting to give, power to the CPS here. We are not. This amendment is drafted very specifically and in full knowledge that we have no legislative competence in this area. And this is why I go back to where my contribution to this started, and it's your choice to try and resolve the problem of--or, sorry, to try and protect children's rights through the medium of a change to the criminal law rather than the many opportunities that were available to you through the civil law and over which you would have had complete competence. This Bill--and, actually, you've said a couple of times in your response today that it's important that it's commenced on a certain date. My argument is: it shouldn't be commenced at all unless you are absolutely certain about how it is likely to affect the parents who will now be captured by the removal of the defence. And, while I claim no mischief on the part of the CPS or the police--obviously I don't--there is nothing you can do that would prevent the CPS, should they wish to do it, or indeed the police with their own guidelines, putting in place something that is wholly disproportionate to the offence that is now being released by the removal of a defence. And, because of that, I ask you to consider, or balance, actually, two important things here: one is the rights of the child, obviously at the forefront of your argument on this, which I would argue could be completely and safely protected through the use of civil law on this occasion; and, actually, the rights of the child again to have a good relationship with parents over whose future they will have no say--or at least you cannot allow them to have any say in how those parents might be treated in terms of sentencing. The relationship between parents and children obviously is different in every family, but that's something you ought to protect in what you're trying to do here, and by leaving it open, as you say, to completely different--sorry, undevolved, two undevolved authorities to make decisions about how that relationship could be affected deeply worries me. I know this isn't going to stop your Bill going forward, but I really want you to consider my arguments and how you might try and address them at Stage 3, because leaving, effectively, the delivery of your policy objectives to somebody over whom you have no control, despite your great relationship with them, should worry us all as a legislature. Thank you. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you, Suzy. Do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 9? Suzy Davies AM: Oh, because of the voting order--. Yes, please. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 9 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 9, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 9 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 13? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 13 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 13, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 13 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 14? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 14 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 14, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 14 is not agreed. Deputy Minister, do you wish to move to a vote on amendment 7? Julie Morgan AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 7 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 7 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 7, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against. Amendment 7 is agreed. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 10? Suzy Davies AM: Yes, please. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 10 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 10, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 10 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 15? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 15 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 15, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 15 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 16? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 16 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 16, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 16 is not agreed. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 8? Julie Morgan AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 8, then, in the name of the Minister. The question is that amendment 8 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 8 is therefore agreed. Well, that has brought us to the end of our amendments, so can I thank the Deputy Minister and her officials for their attendance? As usual, you will be sent a transcript of the meeting to check for factual accuracy. This completes Stage 2 proceedings. Stage 3 begins tomorrow, and the relevant date of Stage 3 proceedings will be published in due course. Standing Orders make provision for the Deputy Minister to prepare a revised explanatory memorandum, taking account of the amendments agreed today. The revised memorandum will be laid at least five working days before Stage 3 proceedings. Thank you very much. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you all very much. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services, following our meeting on 2 October. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Minister for Health and Social Services updating the committee on the'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'strategy. And paper to note 3 is a letter from myself to the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services regarding early childhood education and care, following the session that we held on 2 October. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Item 4, then, is for me to propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17. 42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Thank you.

As a consequence of proposing to remove the power for a Welsh Minister to make an order for commencement, the power to make transitory, transitional or saving provisions in connection with section 1 of the Bill coming into force would also be removed. Amendment 2 would add the existing power back onto the face of the Bill where amendments 7 and 8 removed it, and amendment 6 would bring the power into force the day after Royal Assent. These amendments were technical in nature and while she acknowledged that the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee raised the issue of what procedure should be applied, their report did not call for any change to no procedure being applied. The absence of an Assembly procedure did not mean that Ministers'decisions in relation to transitional powers cannot be scrutinized by the Assembly. In conclusion, she encouraged members to reject amendment 3A.

tr-sq-602

tr-sq-602_0

How did Suzy Davies say about amendment 3A when discussing the amendments in group 3 which relates to the regulation-making powers in the Bill? Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee this morning. We've received no apologies for absence. Can I ask if there are any declarations of interest from Members, please? No. Okay, thank you. Item 2 this morning is the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill: Stage 2 proceedings. I'm pleased to welcome Julie Morgan AM, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services; Karen Cornish, deputy director, children and families division at Welsh Government; and Emma Gammon, lawyer for Welsh Government. Thank you for attending this morning and welcome to the committee. I'm just going to run through the procedures that we're going to follow now. As I said, the purpose of the meeting is to undertake Stage 2 proceedings on the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill. For these proceedings, Members should have copies of the marshalled list of amendments, the groupings of the amendments for debate and the voting order for the amendments. The marshalled list of amendments is the list of all amendments tabled, marshalled into the order in which the sections appear in the Bill. The order in which we consider amendments will be the default order--that is, sections 1 to 3 and the long title. You will see from the groupings list that amendments have been grouped to facilitate debate. However, the order in which they're called and moved for decision is dictated by the marshalled list. Members will, therefore, need to follow the two papers, although I will advise Members when I call them whether they're being called to speak in the debate or to move their amendments for a decision. There will be one debate on each group of amendments. Members who wish to speak in a particular group should indicate to me in the usual way. I will call the Deputy Minister to speak on each group. For the record, in accordance with the convention agreed by the Business Committee, as Chair I will move amendments in the name of the Deputy Minister. For expediency, I will assume that the Deputy Minister wishes me to move all of her amendments, and I will do so at the appropriate place in the marshalled list. Deputy Minister, if you do not want a particular amendment to be moved, please indicate to me at the relevant point in proceedings. In line with our usual practice, legal advisers to the committee and the Deputy Minister are not expected to provide advice on the record. If Members wish to seek legal advice during proceedings, please do so by passing a note to the legal adviser and, if necessary, we can adjourn. My intention is to try to dispose of all amendments during today's meeting. I will call a short break in proceedings at an appropriate time, if necessary. Okay, thank you. So, we will proceed, then, to group 1, which is the duty to promote public awareness. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 1 in the name of the Deputy Minister. I move amendment 1 in the Deputy Minister's name and call on the Deputy Minister to speak to her amendment and the other amendments in this group. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much, Chair. My amendments 1 and 4 will place a duty on Welsh Ministers to provide information and increase awareness about the change in the law to ensure that the public are made aware of how the law will change as a result of the defence of reasonable punishment being abolished and that physical punishment would be prohibited once the Act commences. I tabled these amendments in response to this committee's recommendation--this was a recommendation from this committee in the Stage 1 report, so I have responded to that. I've already made a commitment to a high-intensity awareness-raising campaign over approximately six years from Royal Assent, should the Bill be passed. I've considered amendments 1A to 1E, which have been tabled by Janet Finch-Saunders, and which relate to the duty to raise awareness. Amendment 1A introduces a reference to public understanding. We don't think, actually, that this adds anything to the Government amendment, which already mentions awareness. It makes the awareness-raising duty open-ended with no time limit, which is not necessary. By commencement, messaging around the change in the law will be embedded. The awareness-raising campaign will continue for a number of years. Therefore, an ongoing duty referring specifically to the law change would not be required. I understand, of course, that the awareness-raising campaign needs to be comprehensive, well planned and to reach out to all those people and all those communities who need to be aware of the law change, and understand how to respond to it. But I don't think it's helpful or necessary to highlight specific groups, such as visitors to Wales, on the face of the Bill--that's the approach taken in amendment 1E--as it risks placing too much emphasis on certain groups at the expense of others. In relation to children, the committee will know that I'm fully committed to children's rights, and that Welsh Ministers are already under a duty to have due regard to the rights of children whenever they exercise their functions. An additional due regard requirement, such as the one set out in amendment 1D, relating specifically to the need to promote awareness among children is not needed. This would be part and parcel of the Welsh Government approach to putting children's rights at the heart of our policy making. Similarly, I don't think it's necessary for the Bill to set out specifically the topics that need to be covered in the awareness-raising campaign, as is suggested in amendments 1B and 1C. That level of detail, I don't think, is for the face of the Bill. Information required about parenting support will be considered by the parenting expert group, under the auspices of the Bill's strategic implementation group, working with my officials and the expert stakeholder group on the awareness-raising campaign. And, really, their thinking should not be constrained in any way by specifications on the face of the Bill. I think we always need to bear in mind that what the Bill does is remove a defence to an existing criminal offence; it does not create a new offence. And in this context, it doesn't make sense for this Bill to contain a provision requiring the provision of information about how a person may raise concerns if it appears to them that a child is being physically punished. As I set out in my letter to this committee responding to recommendation 15 on this point, safeguarding is everyone's business, and, as now, the public have a role in highlighting to relevant services if they are concerned about a child. I'm asking for the support of Members for amendments 1 and 4, and I ask Members to reject amendments 1A to 1E because this would place unnecessary provisions on the face of the Bill. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Deputy Minister. Are there other Members who wish to speak? Janet Finch-Saunders. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. I wish to speak to amendments 1A to 1E, which relate to the Deputy Minister's amendment on the duty to promote public awareness. While we believe it is absolutely imperative that the public are made aware of this controversial change in the law, the Deputy Minister's amendment lacks a number of key points that the committee were actually keen to address at Stage 1. An important thread runs throughout each and every amendment that I've tabled within this group--that of a sustained awareness campaign, which not only stretches beyond the implementation of the Bill, but serves as a duty for future administrations. Amendment 1A: primarily, amendment 1A changes amendment 1 to include the promotion of understanding changes to the law. I don't think it's enough for the Welsh Government to say that the public should be made aware of the coming into force of section 1 and that a public awareness campaign needs to be sustained until the Welsh Government's objectives have been achieved. Despite the fact that it is intended to change behaviour, the consequences of this law are far greater than that of organ donation or prohibiting smoking indoors. Instead of an opt-out system or a civil offence, this law will remove a defence for parents, information on which could be there on their records for the rest of their lives, potentially separate parents, and could affect employment chances. As such, whilst we agree with the necessity of the awareness campaign, it is important too that the Welsh Government take stock and ensures that parents are not penalised due to a weak awareness campaign. The witnesses we heard before this committee also noted the necessity of ensuring that the public understands-- Lynne Neagle AM: Janet, Dawn is asking if you'll take an intervention. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. Dawn Bowden AM: I just wanted to know--could you give us examples of any other piece of legislation where there's been indefinite public awareness campaigns once it's been passed? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: There's a lot of legislation. The first Assembly term when I was here-- Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, what I'm asking-- Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I'm trying to respond-- Dawn Bowden AM: What I'm asking for is: can you give us specific examples of where there have been indefinite public awareness campaigns running indefinitely past the enactment of a piece of legislation? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: The very first term that I was an Assembly Member, we passed 25 pieces of separate legislation. Even today, as I sit here, the public are not aware of many of those pieces of legislation. This particular piece of legislation will have a profound effect on the parenting of children in Wales. So, therefore, I think there is a necessity for both children and parents to become involved, and I shall speak now-- Dawn Bowden AM: With respect, Chair, that's not the question I asked. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: --to my amendments. Lynne Neagle AM: I can call you in the debate, if you'd like to make a more substantive contribution on this. Yes. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: The witnesses who we heard from before this committee also noted the necessity of ensuring that the public understands the implications. And that's what we're talking about here, Members--the implications of removing this defence. Strikingly, the Office of Police and Crime Commissioner for Gwent stated the following:'the potential for public resistance to the Bill through misunderstanding or confusion over it implications may pose the largest barrier to its implementation.'If you are intent on removing the defence of reasonable punishment, it is therefore not unreasonable to ensure that law-abiding parents fully understand the ramifications of this Bill. Additionally, the committee found that while the current Welsh Government's intention to deliver a public awareness campaign was beyond doubt, future Governments may have less of a commitment. This places further weight on the fact that the Welsh Government should be under a duty to promote awareness and understanding of the Bill beyond its commencement. Furthermore, the Children (Equal Protection from Assault) (Scotland) Bill quite clearly notes that, under section 2, the Scottish Ministers must take such steps as they consider appropriate to promote public awareness and understanding about the effect of section 1 on the abolition for the defence of reasonable punishment. Therefore, I would be grateful if the Deputy Minister can respond as to the reasons why the Welsh Government has deviated from this course of action in their amendment. [Interruption. ] Should our amendment be agreed-- Lynne Neagle AM: Are you taking an intervention? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: No. I'd rather crack on, to be honest. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I can call you in the debate, Hefin. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Should our amendment to be agreed, we also request that a printing change be made to ensure that the new heading reflects promoting awareness of the changes to the law made by section 1. Amendment 1B: amendment 1B is in line with the committee's recommendation 9, which stated that, as part of a public awareness campaign, there should be details about the support available to parents to use alternatives to physical punishment when disciplining their children. During evidence at Stage 1, the witnesses we saw before the committee raised serious concerns about harder-to-reach groups who needed to be made aware of removing the defence. For example, Children in Wales, Action for Children and Play Wales stated that some families and communities may be harder to reach with information and support. Welsh Government needs to make sure that they receive the information they need. Now, while the Deputy Minister states that she would work hard to ensure that harder-to-reach groups receive this information, a duty to provide information on alternatives to physical punishment would ensure that future Welsh Governments would maintain a successful awareness-raising campaign. I note the Deputy Minister accepted the recommendation, through our amendment, but this does not explicitly include a duty to provide details about support for parents. As will be expanded upon later, the Deputy Minister has relied upon the'Parenting: Give it Time'campaign to be delivered alongside awareness raising. However, this is only an online resource and she must be clear about what other avenues will be available to parents who do not have access to the internet or are part of harder-to-reach groups. Amendment 1C: amendment 1C supports the committee's recommendation 15 that explains that the Welsh Government should ensure clear advice is provided on what people can do if they have seen or learned of a child being physically assaulted. We urged, at Stage 1, that although many professionals were already under a duty to report concerns about physical punishment, regardless of the Bill, other witnesses raised concerns that it could create the potential for claims of abuse that are unfounded. In particular, some were worried that children, who may not realise the implications of reporting, could make allegations that are actually untrue. While we would expect the awareness-raising campaign to include the consequences of false accusations, this could also be reflected among adults, if the public are not sufficiently made aware of how they can report and in what situations they can report a case of assault. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. I've got several speakers. I've got Suzy Davies first, then Dawn Bowden. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much, Chair. Thank you Minister, and thank you, Janet, for that. I think it's worth just pointing out at this stage that the majority of the amendments that are being made and articulated by Janet there are based on committee recommendations, and those recommendations were made after taking evidence from the public at large, but also you as well. So, that suggests that, at that stage, we weren't reassured by the offer that you were making because we felt the need to put these recommendations into our report. Now, I recognise that you've moved some way on some of these amendments, and we'll been talking about that through the course of the debates on other groups. But the one thing to bear in mind here is this is legislation, now--that means that this is the instrument of the Assembly, not of Government, and if this Assembly feels that the face of the Bill is unclear on the minimum requirements of a public awareness campaign, then we have the right to suggest the things that we would like to see in that public awareness-raising campaign. The list that Janet has given is a minimum. The reason these have been tabled individually and independently is that some may be acceptable where others may not be, so it will be disappointing to hear that you're rejecting them all, and the reason they need to go on the face of the Bill is that, if you are going to introduce specifics via regulation, at the moment we have no reassurance about how you're going to do that--about what input the Assembly, on behalf of our constituents, could have in designing that public awareness-raising campaign. Unless you accept some amendments in other groups, that is the position with this Bill: the influence of the Assembly will be zero over the content of an awareness-raising campaign. In terms of it being non-time limited, I think the amendment has been tabled in the way it has not to oblige you to an everlasting, never-ending campaign of awareness raising. But if you bear in mind that, seven years after the introduction of this Bill, there's going to be some reporting on the effectiveness of the Bill, what is the point of doing that if you don't then have an obligation, should the reports require it to be necessary, to continue promoting the changes in the law? I accept that that can't go on for centuries, but to actually limit it to two years on an issue that is so sensitive, and which has a reach beyond our boundaries, I think is genuinely a mistake. Finally, you mention that safeguarding is everyone's business. I think that's true, but I think Janet Finch-Saunders was right to say that members of the public, ordinary individuals, not professionals, will need assurance that they're doing the right thing. The amendment as listed is not even there to encourage people to do that, although that can be read in that way, but it is to help them be certain that they are doing the right thing. If this is going to be up to the individual, as you've said, and the committee itself wasn't reassured that individuals would know what to do, perhaps I can ask you to consider at Stage 3, if you're going to reject this amendment, how you can reassure members of the public that, if they are going to intervene on the back of this law, they're making things better, not worse. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Suzy. Dawn. Dawn Bowden AM: My comments, really, relate to ongoing awareness-raising campaigns, which I think all of us would want to see, and would appreciate in any changes in legislation. My point, really, is that we have a plethora of legislation that this Assembly has passed in the last 20 years, and I'm not aware of any legislation where, on the face of the Bill we have ongoing awareness-raising campaigns on an indefinite basis. It seems to me that, for some reason, you seem to be wanting to take a completely different approach to this piece of legislation. From what the Deputy Minister is saying--and perhaps I will get some clarity on this--there will be an amendment to the legislation that will say that we have an awareness campaign. That awareness campaign can be the subject of consultation with interested parties in terms of what needs to be included in it. It could also, I assume, Deputy Minister, be an awareness campaign that can be written into a set of guidance for future use. But the point I'm trying to make is that I don't believe that any piece of legislation requires ongoing and indefinite awareness-raising campaigns, and particularly in relation to visitors to Wales. Again, we have other pieces of legislation in Wales that are not applicable in the other parts of the UK. I am not aware that there is a necessity for awareness-raising campaigns with visitors coming into Wales on the raft of the other pieces of legislation that we have that they don't. And similarly, when we go to visit countries that have different legislation, we don't necessarily know what legislation we're going into when we visit that country--you just go there and you accept that you go to a different country and you abide by their laws. So, my key point, Chair, is just the necessity of an ongoing, endless awareness campaign being written onto the face of the Bill. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Dawn. Hefin. Hefin David AM: My comments follow logically from Dawn Bowden's comments, particularly in relation to amendments 1D and 1E. What you would be doing is that this Senedd, if this was on the face of the Bill, the duty on Ministers, would be putting the duty on Ministers in law beyond the life of the fifth Senedd, into the next Senedd term, and putting that duty on those newly elected Ministers after that, which, in principle, would be against the principles of binding-- Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin, are you taking an intervention from Suzy? Hefin David AM: Yes, happy to. Suzy Davies AM: When you've finished your point. Hefin David AM: I'm happy to take it now, because I was going to sum up by agreeing with the point you made, actually. Suzy Davies AM: I'd love that. You referred to this potentially binding Ministers in future Assemblies; at the moment, we've got an implementation period and a five-year reporting period that takes any reporting on this Act into the Assembly after next. I'm wondering if you're going to have any comments on that when we come to the amendment to change that later on. Hefin David AM: Well, when we get to that amendment, I'll make comments if I feel it necessary. But at this point in time, we're talking about amendments 1D and 1E, and particularly in relation to 1D and 1E it just isn't necessary, given the fact that--I won't call it a concession, because I think you made a reasonable point about the Minister making a statement at Stage 3, and I think Dawn Bowden actually supported that as well. That, therefore, makes those amendments unnecessary. Given that, in these circumstances, it is unnecessary to bind Ministers in future Parliaments. And that's my key point, really, which is why I wouldn't vote for those two amendments. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Sian. Sian Gwenllian AM: Thank you very much. I just want to speak against amendment 1A and also amendment 1B. I don't believe that there is a need for an indefinite campaign, as is outlined in 1A. I agree entirely that there is a need for a campaign during the period of change, and therefore I'm very glad to see that the Government has brought forward amendment 1, and I do hope that there will be a real push during the period of change. In terms of amendment 1B, I do have sympathy with what is being said here, but I believe that any kind of information or campaign in terms of enabling parents to learn about alternatives to physical punishment should be the subject of continual far-reaching work by the Government, through various programmes, and it should not be an addition on the face of this Bill, which deals with a small change to the common law. And then, on 1D also, if I may--I don't agree with this either. Again, I believe that there is a need to promote awareness amongst children, but that should happen through the children's rights convention, as part of a broader programme to promote children's rights. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Sian. I call on the Deputy Minister to speak, then. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you all very much for your contributions to the debate and your comments on these amendments today. I just want to re-emphasise that it is as a result of the recommendation from this committee that we are putting this duty to have the awareness campaign on the face of the Bill, and I absolutely recognise the crucial role awareness raising has to play in supporting the implementation of the Bill. I'm very grateful for and appreciate the committee's interest and the work that you've done in this area of work. But I do think that these amendments are unnecessary. If we go through them, amendment 1A is really open-ended on promoting public awareness. We're committed to a high-intensity awareness over six years from Royal Assent, and there is an expert stakeholder group supporting us with the development of the awareness campaign. All the points that you've been making will be being considered by that group. I think the level of detail on the face of the Bill is not needed. Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Would you just take an intervention on that just to help me understand? A two-year awareness-raising campaign--how have you concluded that-- Julie Morgan AM: Six-year. Suzy Davies AM: I thought it was two years before section 1 comes into force. Julie Morgan AM: We've got six years from Royal Assent. Suzy Davies AM: Oh, so it is going to continue beyond section 1 coming into force-- Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Oh yes, it's going to continue. Suzy Davies AM: That's very helpful. Julie Morgan AM: Definitely, yes. So, I don't think that's needed, amendment 1A. Amendment 1B, about support available to parents and how to access it--again, this level of detail is not required on the face of the Bill. I just want to emphasise we have got this expert implementation group, who are working on all aspects of this Bill, many of whom represent organisations who gave evidence to this committee. The Bill is a simple one, with a clear purpose. It aims to remove the defence of reasonable punishment. I think lots of these amendments are very helpful and interesting, but would be discussed and would be acted on in the normal pathway of planning and development, and they're not required on the face of the Bill. So, I'm not putting them down, I'm just saying that we don't need them to be there on the face of the Bill. And then amendment 1C--the information about how to raise concerns--I do repeat that safeguarding is everybody's business, and the same issues apply now as will after this defence has been removed. Amendment 1D--Ministers to have regard to the need to promote awareness among children--now, children's rights are absolutely enshrined in our policy making, and the entire Bill is about protecting the rights of children. So, it is unnecessary duplication. So, we hope that the Bill will remain focused. Again, in terms of visitors, the level of detail is simply not required on the face of the Bill. Our awareness-raising campaign will be comprehensive. And then to pick up a few of the other points that were raised, revisions to the impact assessments are being considered as part of my commitment to update the explanatory memorandum ahead of Stage 3. So, there will be more details on the regulatory impact assessment. The issue that was raised about the Scottish Bill, that it refers to'understanding'--now, the Scottish Bill was not a Government Bill, it was a private Member's Bill, and our view is that nothing is added by adding the'understanding';'awareness'is sufficient. So, basically, I think that the points made have been very useful, but I urge committee members to accept my amendments, but to reject those proposed by Janet Finch-Saunders, as they are unnecessary provisions in terms of what the awareness-raising duty needs to achieve. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Deputy Minister. Before disposing of amendment 1, we will deal with the amendments to that amendment. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1A? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 1A be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we have an objection. I therefore take a vote by show of hands. The question is that amendment 1A be agreed. All those in favour, please raise your hands. All those against. There voted two in favour, four against. So, amendment 1A is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1B? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 1B be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, I'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 1B. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 1B is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1C? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 1C be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay. All those in favour of amendment 1C, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 1C is not agreed. Janet, do you want to move amendment 1D? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 1D be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, as there's an objection, I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 1D, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 1D is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1E? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. The question is that amendment 1E be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 1E, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 1E is not agreed. If amendment 1 is not agreed, amendment 2C and amendment 4 will fall. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 1? Julie Morgan AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Okay. I move amendment 1 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 1 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we have an objection, so we'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 1. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 1 is agreed. We'll move on now then to group 2, which relates to the duty to report on the effect of the legislation. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 2, in the name of the Deputy Minister. I move amendment 2 in the Deputy Minister's name, and call on the Deputy Minister to speak to her amendments, and the other amendments in this group. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Chair. The amendments in this group are to do with the post-implementation review of the Bill, and I believe there was also a committee recommendation to this end from your committee, so you strongly influenced this amendment. It's clear from Members'contributions to this group and recommendations by the committee at Stage 1 that they share my commitment to the importance of post-implementation review of the effect of the abolition of the defence of reasonable punishment. I've already provided assurance that I agree with the importance placed on such a review, both in the explanatory memorandum and during Stage 1 scrutiny. I also made a commitment to bring forward a Government amendment to put a duty to undertake a post-implementation review on the face of the Bill. I have done this with amendment 2. Amendment 5 sets out that this provision will come into force the day after Royal Assent. As I said in my responses to the Stage 1 committee report, and as set out in the explanatory memorandum, the post-implementation review of this Bill will not be a single piece of work, but a continuous programme of work during the years following the commencement of section 1. Firstly, we will continue to conduct attitudinal surveys, which will be used to track changes in attitude towards the physical punishment of children and prevalence of parents reporting that they use physical punishment. The surveys will also be used to monitor the effectiveness of our awareness-raising campaign. Secondly, through a dedicated task and finish group, we are working with organisations to put in place arrangements to establish robust methods for capturing meaningful data relating to the Bill and to consider the possible impact on services. Turning to amendment 2C, this amendment would require Welsh Ministers to prepare and lay before the Assembly a report on the effect of their promotion of public awareness before section 1 is commenced. This amendment is unnecessary and is in conflict with what I think is a priority for the implementation of this Bill: that is, given certainty on the commencement date and in enabling us to work towards this with our partners and stakeholders. I also think this amendment is not required because, as I've already stated, we are preparing to assess the effectiveness of our awareness raising. In June, I shared the findings of a representative survey, which establishes a baseline on public awareness and opinion towards physical punishment of children and the proposed legislation. I shared this with the committee. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Deputy Minister. I open it up for discussion now, then. Janet Finch-Saunders. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. I speak to amendments 2C, excluding 2D, to 2K, which relate to the Deputy Minister's amendment 2 on preparing a published report on the effect of abolishing the defence of reasonable punishment. Again, I must stress the importance of getting this right due to the controversial and long-lasting effects of removing the defence of reasonable punishment. Amendments 2E to 2K outline what we would expect to be within this report, and we would wish to see a commitment from the Deputy Minister to ensure the National Assembly for Wales is fully apprised and able to scrutinise the result of this report. Amendment 2C requests that the Welsh Government prepare a report on the awareness-raising campaign and lays it before the Assembly before section 1 commences. As I have outlined under my amendments in group 1, the understanding of the public about the implications of the Bill cannot be sidelined. Although the Deputy Minister has repeated her commitment to a public awareness campaign, we, as the National Assembly for Wales, must be able to scrutinise its effectiveness before section 1 begins. As I noted under amendments 1B to 1E, there are specific groups of people who need to be evaluated on their understanding of the Bill's effect. I'm sure that the Deputy Minister will agree that the harder-to-reach groups are undoubtedly the most vulnerable to any negative impacts that the Bill will have because of the greater potential of a lack of awareness. It is, therefore, important for the Assembly to be able to determine whether the awareness-raising campaign has had a positive effect on these groups of people. As will also be elaborated under amendment 2D, it is extremely important that we, as the Parliament of Wales, are fully apprised of the awareness-raising campaign's impact. Before we implement what will be a criminal offence, it is vital that we ensure that those affected are not adversely impacted because of a poorly targeted awareness campaign. Therefore, I would be grateful if the Deputy Minister would commit to an independent evaluation of the awareness campaign's effects before section 1 commences. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Janet. Suzy Davies. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. Deputy Minister, first of all, can I just say thank you for your opening remarks about the possibility of perhaps doing some work around amendment 2B? I'll come to that a little bit later, if I may. I just want to begin by commenting briefly on what you said about why you'll be rejecting amendment 2C here. I actually don't think that this amendment should affect or jeopardise the commencement date in any way at all. It's an operational requirement to get this work done before the commencement date that's in the draft Bill at the moment. So, failing to meet that would be as a result of operations not going well, rather than anything intrinsic in the Bill, so I'm not sure I can accept your argument on that. And, on 2D--very pleased to hear that you'd be willing to introduce something about'laying'rather than'publishing'at Stage 3, but, in the spirit of recognising that this is the legislature, perhaps I could encourage you just to accept the amendment at this stage, because it doesn't make any difference. Your amendment is going to pass, and this amendment to it would be--I think the gesture there would be very much appreciated. I'll be speaking mainly to amendments 2A and 2B, but I want to begin, again, by thanking you for moving some way on this and considering amendments to the Bill on the issue of reporting, because I know you were keen to avoid amendments in the name of simplicity; you mentioned it earlier. But this is not a newid bychan, I'm afraid, Sian; the terms and the effect of this Bill are quite extensive, and it does need the reassurances, if you like, necessary to mitigate potentially disproportionate effects of this Bill on families where parents'actions had been lawful up until this point in statute. It does need statutory underpinning. So, I am grateful to you for accepting this duty. I know that you're sincere that you want this duty to report to show that the Bill is effective in stopping smacking as a punishment, and also that it is not as harmful to parents as perhaps some of us fear. But, if this were me bringing forward this Bill, I think I'd want to show the world that I was doing the right thing a lot sooner than you appear to wish to do. Amendment 2 means that the efficacy of the Bill will not formally be assessed until seven years after it has passed. There are Acts on the statute book that have lasted a lot less time than that. If you're relying on the two-year period before section 1 comes into operation to do much of the heavy lifting on the culture change, and I think that is what you're expecting--you know, showing a reduction in the incidence of physical punishment, reducing the number of, and indeed the likelihood of, parents putting themselves in the path of criminal liability once those two years are up--I really would have thought you'd want people to know sooner, or as soon as the first possible opportunity on that. Waiting five years, I think, will diminish the ability of you to prove the efficacy of those initial two years, and this is why I'm grateful to you for your offer, because there may be a way where we can overcome that. If the trend of culture change is continuing after year 3--so, basically, in the first year after section 1 comes into effect--that's great, but there's a possibility it's going to reverse. Again, I don't think I'd want to wait five years to find that out. For myself, I think one year would probably be enough, but I think three years is a reasonable compromise, as opposed to five years, for a reporting period. I think seven years is just way too long for a formal evaluation of a Bill's effectiveness. I can't see the reason for quite that length of time--I know you've talked about New Zealand--but neither can the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee. I think that's worth pointing out. When they took the step of recommending this duty to evaluate and report, they also took the step of suggesting a three-year reporting period being more in keeping with other post-legislative scrutiny. That's something I think we perhaps need to bear in mind now, as we enter this period of the consolidation of law. Five/seven years is really something of an outlier, and while that might have been appropriate, perhaps, in New Zealand, I don't think that fits in with our timetables generally here in Wales, and, of course, there are other countries that have introduced this over a period of years, and I note that you haven't drawn on them in order to support your argument. So, can I urge Members and the Minister to consider the arguments behind these amendments? I don't think it's going to reassure anyone--you may want to intervene at this point, Hefin--that we not only won't hear in this Assembly, we won't hear in the next Assembly, about the formal evaluation of this, unless I follow-- Hefin David AM: I won't intervene; I'll speak. Suzy Davies AM: Is that okay? Hefin David AM: Yes, I'll make the point. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, I've got-- Suzy Davies AM: Yes, I'll take the intervention. Lynne Neagle AM: No, he doesn't want to make an intervention-- Hefin David AM: I won't do an intervention; I'll speak. Lynne Neagle AM: --he'll make a contribution. Suzy Davies AM: Oh, apologies-- Hefin David AM: Just to say-- Suzy Davies AM: I'll wait. Hefin David AM: Well, let me put the intervention--. I'll do it as an intervention, then. I just feel that--I take your point, and I was expecting it. The point I was making about 1D and 1E is they close down choices to Ministers in future Assemblies. An evaluative practice would actually open up those choices and give future Parliaments more options with regard to this Bill, so I think it's entirely consistent. I don't think the Minister, in putting in amendment 2, was trying to undermine my argument. Actually, I think she's being constructive by doing that, and I think amendment 2 is a practical amendment that's quite helpful, and its consequence will be to open up choices to future Parliaments, whereas my objection to 1D and 1E is they close those down. Suzy Davies AM: Okay, well, as I say, I think, actually, the Deputy Minister's offer of a three-year interim period might be part of a resolution to this. Because I'm not 100 per cent sure I accept your argument, either, because it closes it down for the interim period if we don't move on with the Deputy Minister's suggestion--which I'll talk about now, actually. Because I am tempted to accept your offer. It absolutely makes sense and it's clearly made with the best good faith here. But I need some clarity on what you would allow this Assembly to do in helping define the terms of that interim report. Because you've been very clear that you don't want to accept the things that Janet Finch-Saunders has been talking about in a final report, and yet I can tell you we want to hear about these things. So, if you're in a position where you can give a commitment at Stage 3 not only to introduce an interim report, but that you will consult with, perhaps, this committee--I'll leave it to you--on the contents of that interim report, what we would want to see tested, then I'll be minded not to move amendment 2B. If you can't give me that reassurance, then I'm going to move it anyway and we'll return to it at Stage 3, if you don't mind. Just a final point on this issue of reporting within three months rather than as soon as practicable, and I do take your point that there may be a misalignment with reporting periods from the organisations you hope to talk to. Again, at Stage 3, I'm happy if you want to make three months six months, or something like that, but'as soon as practicable'is open ended, and what you think is practicable may be very different from what I or my constituents think is practicable. So, I don't want to stick with what is practicable; I would like you to put a date on this. If it's a case that you think six months is long enough for data gathering and reporting from third parties, I think that's fairly reasonable as well, but I'm not minded to allow you to just keep this open ended. Thank you. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Suzy. Sian. Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, I welcome adding to the Bill through amendment 2, and what you've said today also, that you're willing to provide an interim report and bring an amendment forward to allow that through the Bill, and to lay a report before the Assembly. I am interested in what Suzy is saying, and have a lot of sympathy with trying to tie it down to specific time periods, and not say'when it will be practicable'. Therefore, I would encourage you not to move your amendments if you have the confirmation that you want to hear this morning from the Minister regarding these issues. Suzy Davies AM: I would like to. Thanks. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Any other Members? No. Deputy Minister. Julie Morgan AM: Well, just to start off on that point, I think your suggestion about how we consult and discuss, I think I'm very happy to accept that. So, I'm happy to discuss that with you, and with the committee, before the third Stage. So, I hope you will consider removing--. Suzy Davies AM: No, genuinely I am. Julie Morgan AM: Right, thank you. Well, just to go on to cover some of the points that have been raised, on the issue of training now, I think Janet raised a number of points about training, and we do have an operations, procedures, processes and training task and finish group as part of our implementation work, and they are considering guidance and training requirements. There are many professional bodies represented on that group, many of whom I think have given evidence here today, and they've really got a chance to have their say. The officials are also looking at training as part of the revision of the explanatory memorandum at Stage 3, so there will be more information about training there. But we have this group looking at it, and it is very key. Generally, I think that all the contributions are very helpful, and I know they're meant in the spirit of trying to improve the legislation. I can't support amendments 2A, 2C, and amendments 2E to 2K, because these amendments make little difference in terms of practical effect to what we have in the Bill already, or they're covered by the Government amendments that I've moved. But I do hope the committee is reassured that we are committed to undertaking a very thorough, multifaceted review of the impact of the legislation that includes tracking public attitudes and considering impacts on public services. Now, tracking the public attitudes will be going along at regular points, so there's no question there of having to wait; we'll be having regular reporting of public attitudes. Suzy Davies AM: Would you take an intervention there, Deputy Minister? Thank you very much. Of course, I appreciate that you will not be supporting these amendments, but can you give us some indication of how many of the areas of interest to us you will be reporting on? So, even if this is not a statutory commitment, what exactly from our list, our wish list here, would you be prepared to include in your evaluation? Julie Morgan AM: Well, I would actually have thought all of them. All the areas you've raised are very relevant, I think. Obviously, this is not a statutory thing I'm saying, but-- Suzy Davies AM: No, no, and this is not a-- Julie Morgan AM: Yes, but considering those points you've put forward, I think all of them have got a great deal of relevance. We will certainly be reporting to the group to consider any of the ideas that you've suggested and, in particular with the data collection and the monitoring task and finish group, which is about developing methods to collect data, we will be putting forward some of the suggestions that you've made on those issues. So, I don't see any problem with that at all. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. Julie Morgan AM: So, as I say, I can't support the amendments. I'm hopeful you may withdraw the two amendments--I think one of yours and it was one of Janet's, wasn't it--so that we could work together on those before the next stage. Because I am sympathetic to your views on these matters, and I think they do reflect some of the discussions in the committee as well. So, I'd be happy to work with you to bring forward the amendments at Stage 3. In line with the recommendations of the Finance Committee, further details of the costs associated with the post-implementation review will be provided in a revised regulatory impact assessment at Stage 3. So, I think at this point I would ask that Members reject the non-Government amendments and agree to my amendments 2 and 5, which will ultimately achieve the same policy aim without the need for unnecessary detail on the Bill, with the exception, obviously, of those two amendments, which I'm prepared to look at a way of moving forward on. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you, Deputy Minister. Before disposing of amendment 2, we will deal with the amendments to that amendment. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2C? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2C be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 2C, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2C is lost. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 2A? Suzy Davies AM: I move amendment 2A, yes. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2A be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 2A, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2A is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2D? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2E? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2E be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 2E, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2E is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2F? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2F be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so can I see all those in favour of amendment 2F? All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 2F is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2G? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2G be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, can I see all those in favour of amendment 2G? All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 2G is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2H? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2H be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so can I see all those in favour of amendment 2H? All those against? So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2H is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2I? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2I be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay. Can I see all those in favour of amendment 2I? All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2I is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2J? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2J be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. Can I see all those in favour of 2J? All those against? So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2J is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2K? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2K be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] I'll therefore take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 2K? All those against? So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2K is not agreed. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 2B? Suzy Davies AM: In view of the Deputy Minister's reassurances, I won't move this amendment today, but obviously I reserve the right to bring something back if we can't reach consensus. Thank you. Lynne Neagle AM: Does any other Member wish to move amendment 2B? Okay, no. Thank you. We'll move on, then. If amendment 2 is not agreed, amendment 5 will fall. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 2? Julie Morgan AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 2 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 2-- Suzy Davies AM: Objection. Lynne Neagle AM: You're objecting? Suzy Davies AM: Yes. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Right, we'll therefore take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 2, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 2 is agreed. That takes us on to group 3, which relates to the regulation-making powers in the Bill. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 3 in the name of the Deputy Minister. I move amendment 3 in the Deputy Minister's name and call on the Deputy Minister to speak to her amendments and the other amendments in this group. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much, Chair. Members will note that I've brought forward an amendment to provide certainty on the date of commencement of the core provision in the Bill, which is obviously to abolish the defence of reasonable punishment. And that is going to be debated under group 5. So, we're obviously debating that after we deal with these particular technical issues--these are technical issues here, basically. As a consequence of proposing to remove the power for a Welsh Minister to make an Order for commencement, the power to make transitory, transitional or saving provisions in connection with section 1 of the Bill coming into force would also be removed. So, I'm not seeking here to add any new powers to the Bill; amendment 3 will simply add this existing power back onto the face of the Bill where amendments 7 and 8 remove it, and amendment 6 will bring the power into force the day after Royal Assent. In fact, removing the power for the Welsh Ministers to commence the provision in section 1 by Order means the statutory instrument will actually do less than originally intended. These amendments are technical in nature and while I acknowledge that the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee raised the issue of what procedure should be applied, their report did not call for any change to no procedure being applied. The absence of an Assembly procedure does not mean that Ministers'decisions in relation to transitional powers cannot be scrutinised by the Assembly. Any concerns about the Welsh Ministers'proposals could be put to me in the Senedd. This was a point made to CLAC and, as I say, their final conclusion was that no procedure is the appropriate procedure for such a power. For those reasons, I encourage Members to reject amendment 3A from Suzy. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy Davies. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much. Well perhaps, Deputy Minister, I can begin by saying that one person's technical issue is another person's essential part of the legislative procedure and a keen element in scrutiny. But I thank you for noting the Assembly's observations on the ministerial powers granted in this Bill--this time by CLAC, as you say. Moving this--and I'm glad actually that amendment 8, I think it was, has removed an Order provision and we're moving into an area where at least statutory instruments do feature here. I have to say that amendment 3A is something of a probing amendment, and I'll explain why now. Your amendment 3 seeks to give a familiar range of powers in connection with the coming into force of section 1, but it's actually in a substantive part of section 1 itself now--it's not a separate commencement power. And, actually, I've been listening to the rest of this debate, and thinking that, if you're going to be introducing an awareness campaign and a report, the chances are you're going to need some regulatory powers to introduce some of the aspects of both those policy areas, I think. And I'm wondering whether the--what is it--transitory, transitional and saving provisions are actually enough powers for you under the course of this Bill. I'm wondering whether you want to consider actually amending this to give yourself the more usual unrestricted power to make regulations in order for you to get section 1 implemented, bearing in mind that it has now been amended from that original, very short and simple--or at least simple in terms of drafting--initial draft. As I say, in anticipation of you rejecting amendments in group 1 I tabled this, in order to make sure that an opportunity remains for the Assembly to bring anything you may wish to introduce under section 1, when it comes into effect, onto the floor of the Assembly. Because while I completely accept that you've acknowledged that statutory instrument is the process for introducing things from now on, it's still possible to do that without procedure, and so I have no idea whether you think what you introduce would be better suited to be introduced by a negative or affirmative procedure. Amendment 3A is a holding position, which we will return to you in Stage 3, because I think, again, this is an area where it might be valuable for us to discuss quite what kind of powers you're looking for, because I think you probably need something that's beyond transitional, transitory and saving. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Suzy, have you finished? Suzy Davies AM: Yes, thank you very much. Lynne Neagle AM: Are there any other Members who wish to speak on this group? No. Deputy Minister. Julie Morgan AM: I thank Suzy for that input. We don't actually think it's necessary to have wider powers, but we will keep this under review and at Stage 3, I think that--. When I was looking at this, I was concerned to know what the transitory powers--what we would actually need to do at that stage, but I can understand that there may be links to other Bills in ways that we are not anticipating at the moment that would make it necessary to have those powers. So, basically, I don't think it is necessary to have wider powers, but I can assure you that we'll keep that in review coming up to Stage 3. Suzy Davies AM: Can I just ask a question on the back of that? Lynne Neagle AM: Will you take a brief intervention at the end, Minister? Suzy Davies AM: Will you take the briefest intervention before your full stop? Julie Morgan AM: I was going to end there, yes. Suzy Davies AM: Right, okay, well, just before your full stop, would you just confirm that you're happy for us to discuss this before Stage 3? Julie Morgan AM: Yes, very happy. Yes. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Before disposing of amendment 3, we will deal with the amendment to that amendment. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 3A? Suzy Davies AM: I'll move it, yes. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 3A be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, I'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 3A. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 3A is not agreed. If amendment 3 is not agreed, amendment 6 will fall. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 3? Julie Morgan AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 3 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 3 is therefore agreed. The committee will now break for 10 minutes and reconvene at 11. 05 a. m. Can I welcome Members back? We will move on to group 4, which relates to the duty to ensure sufficient funding. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 11 in the name of Janet Finch-Saunders. I call on Janet Finch-Saunders to move amendment 11 and to speak to her amendments. Janet. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. I speak to both amendments in this group. As I outlined under amendments 2I and 2J, there are ongoing concerns about the potential costs for Welsh devolved authorities and the lack of quantifiable costs within the regulatory impact assessment. Now, it was absolutely clear from evidence that we received in this committee that unknown costs would be challenging and potentially problematic. As I have mentioned previously, these concerns would doubtless be most keenly felt in our hard-pressed social services. Furthermore, the Welsh Local Government Association stated that there must be a commitment that whatever the costs are, those costs are met, because it is legislation that is being led by the National Assembly for Wales. Now, during evidence, the Deputy Minister, when asked about the reliance on a limited number of reporting of cases likely to happen and the potential for a degree of unknown costs stated:'we are doing our very best to prepare to cover all eventualities that we can anticipate.'But you couldn't commit to a broad figure, instead telling us that:'we have to rely on what the people who run those organisations are telling us.'And:'We have to measure it as we go along.'Given that devolved authorities need to plan their budgets for these changes, we only think it is fair for the Welsh Government to provide sufficient funding to alleviate the cost implications of this Bill. Now, while amendment 11 makes reference to costs borne by local authorities and health boards, I note that amendment 12 takes this further by including other devolved authorities that are not funded by Welsh Government. Anticipating the Deputy Minister's response that few under this category, if any at all, would be affected by the Bill, we are pursuing a principle here, and it is agreement to the principle of providing sufficient funding that we are seeking from you as the Deputy Minister. Now, these are just two examples of Welsh Government legislation to date that have been underfunded. The Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013: last year, the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee found that the Wales annual spend on walking and cycling is half that of England's and one sixth of Holland's. Furthermore, the committee highlighted that the passing of the Act put a requirement on local authorities to continuously improve active travel routes, but were constrained by the funding made available to them. The Minister at the time announced a three-year funding settlement of PS60 million. Now, my local authority and other authorities that have done some monitoring on the active travel Act--they simply were not awarded sufficient funding to actually allow the active travel Act to become a meaningful piece of legislation, and the same goes with the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. This month, the auditor general has raised concerns that the public services boards created under the Act were limited in their work and impact due to the lack of dedicated funding. Outside of the Welsh Government's regional grant that cannot be spent on projects, councils often contribute through officer time or facilities, but resources and capacity to support those PSBs remain a key risk, as partners don't have the capacity to take on more. The reason that I wanted these amendments placed in here is I genuinely do not believe that you've even envisioned what, or even estimated the likely cost to be borne by the organisations, and certainly our local authorities and health boards, the impact this Bill is going to have. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Janet. Are there other Members who would like to speak in this group, please? No. Okay. I call the Deputy Minister, then. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Chair. I can understand that the Member is concerned about the impact of this Bill on public services, but you will see from the explanatory memorandum and from the raft of impact statements published with the Bill that we've done a thorough and extremely diligent job of considering the potential impacts of this Bill before introduction. And as far as we're aware, no other country has done more than us to consider the impacts of similar legislation, and also comprehensively prepared for implementation. We've explored the published data, which is available from other countries, on the impact of measures they've taken to prohibit the physical punishment of children. We've also spoken to a range of stakeholders in Ireland, New Zealand and Malta, who have legal systems similar to our own. And in these countries, there is no evidence that public services have been overwhelmed following law reform. And stakeholders have been clear when giving evidence to this committee that they do not consider there will be runaway costs, and I think we should trust their judgment on this. In fact, as this committee notes in its Stage 1 report, those delivering services on the front line have said, without exception, that'this Bill will improve their ability to protect children living in Wales because it will make the law clear.'Sally Jenkins of the Association of Directors of Social Services said to this committee:'In terms of thresholds for children's services, we would not be anticipating a huge number of referrals to us. There may be a small number of referrals that come through. What we know from other nations is that it will peak and then settle. We recognise that's likely to happen.'That's from the front line. Jane Randall, chair of the National Independent Safeguarding Board Wales, said:'there's no expectation that there's going to be a huge increase in the number of referrals coming through to local authority social services, I think it would be dealt with within their existing resources.'And Dr Rowena Christmas, Royal College of General Practitioners, said:'I can't see it's going to lengthen consultations. I can't see that it's going to increase the number of consultations, and I don't think it's going to increase the number of referrals I make to the health visitor or to social services, because if I was worried, I'd make those referrals now regardless of the Bill.'I just want to say again that the Bill is removing a defence to an offence of common assault, which has formed part of the common law of England and Wales for a very long time. And social services already receive and investigate reports of children being assaulted, including from health and education, so it's not a whole new area of costly activity for any of them. I do think that the evidence that you had at your committee did highlight those points. As I've already pointed out when discussing group 2 amendments, we're working with organisations to put in place arrangements to collect data about the possible impact on their services, and this will be analysed as part of the post-implementation review of the legislation. Welsh Government can consider with relevant organisations how best to manage any impact on workloads or resources and any cost implications. I can assure you that work to update the regulatory impact assessment has continued, and I've asked officials to prepare a revised RIA, as recommended at Stage 2, and I expect to share an updated RIA with you in advance of Stage 3. Serious consideration is being given on how to provide more detailed estimates of the unknown costs to public services arising from the Bill, but I think you should be reassured by the evidence that was given, particularly to this committee, from the professionals at the front line. What the amendments are proposing is outside the normal funding arrangements that operate within Government, and it's not clear why, in the context of the evidence heard at Stage I, such provisions are necessary. I'm sure that Members will agree that future Governments need to be able to consider, within the context of the budget-setting process, what the priorities are, and these considerations would need to be made within the context at that time, for example taking into account any issues that there are--UK Government actions, what happens in relation to Brexit, or any other unforeseen impacts on the economy or Welsh society. All those issues would have to be taken into account. Furthermore, as is the case now, the National Assembly for Wales scrutinises the Welsh Government budget annually, so it would be able to make an argument for additional funding for public bodies, should it consider that this is required. I do think all the evidence has shown that we do not anticipate that there will be a huge increase of a demand for funding, so I urge Members to reject these amendments, which I believe are unnecessary. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Chair, could I ask a question? Lynne Neagle AM: You can reply to the debate now, Janet, yes. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I'd like to ask a question of the Deputy Minister. When we were taking evidence, at an earlier stage, I noticed that part of the stakeholder group--there was some liaison going on with social services departments across Wales. Now, we have 22 local authorities. At that time, the numbers mentioned were quite small--I think only a handful. What discussions have taken place with our local authorities in terms of their social services departments in terms of the lead, the cabinet members, or, indeed, the head of service? I can speak from my own experiences, when going around my constituency, but when I've spoken to some of the family support groups, and, indeed, the departments themselves, they are very concerned about the financial impact that this is going to have on the provision. They're already overstretched, and they see this as another burden--primarily another financial burden. So, how much have you engaged with them? Julie Morgan AM: There's been extensive engagement. We've had meetings with the Association of Directors of Social Services, and they're represented on all our groups, and we're working very closely with them, because, of course, they represent all the local authorities. But I have to say, when I've been going round and meeting lots of different groups, the first thing they say is,'I'm so glad that you're doing this', and they haven't mentioned any financial implications. But, obviously, we will be very aware of--we are looking at any more evidence that comes up. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. So, I'll still move my amendments. I'm disappointed, really. I was hoping to see some commitment to--this Bill was going to go through, and it's one that could be implemented fully, because sufficient resources were there. I'm not convinced about that, and I know that other organisations are not also. So, I move my amendments. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 11 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] I therefore take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 11 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 12? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 12 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] All those in favour of amendment 12. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 12 is not agreed. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 4? Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I move amendment 4 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 4 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 4, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 4 is agreed. Deputy Minister, do you want to proceed to a vote on amendment 5? Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 5 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 5 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 5, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 5 is agreed. Deputy Minister, do you want to move to a vote on amendment 6? Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 6, then, in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 6 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 6 is therefore agreed. This takes us, then, to the fifth and final group, which relates to commencement. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 9 in the name of Suzy Davies. And I call Suzy Davies to move amendment 9 and to speak to the amendment and the other amendments in the group. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much, Chair. Amendment 9 is actually consequential on amendment 10 passing, but it's the lead amendment in the group, so I'll move it to begin the debate. Minister, I'm speaking here now to amendments 10 and 15 specifically. You've said repeatedly, and I believe you, that you do not wish to criminalise parents but just to stop them physically punishing their children. You could have chosen to try and achieve this through awareness raising and civil enforcement, but by choosing to remove the defence to a criminal act you have entered the arena of criminal law, where the logical consequence is opening parents up to liability--not necessarily getting prosecuted, but liability to prosecution, not just liability to civil sanctions. I'm sure you'd prefer parents not to be prosecuted, but that decision does not and cannot lie with you. You, like us, have no agency in this, because the powers and the duties of the police and the Crown Prosecution Service sit outside our competence. You cannot and we cannot, by law or otherwise, instruct either of them in the delivery of your policy intention of not criminalising parents. You've acknowledged to this committee and the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee that revised CPS charging guidance and any other guidance on, for example, out-of-court disposals, are key to delivering your policy objectives. You'll remember how concerned this committee was when we learned that your advisory group--the strategic implementation group, is it--was only in the early stages of discussing what these guidelines might look like. So, you're actually asking us to pass law when we have no control over how parents might be punished for smacking their children--no control of the regard given to the relevance of force, the frequency of the offence, any prior conviction, any prior reporting, not even the views of the child in how they might be sentenced, or thresholds that would be appropriate for cautions and other out-of-court disposals; no guidance to the police on thresholds for arrest, let alone charging. And you argue that the rights of the child are what matter, and I agree with you here, but everybody, adult or child, has a right to natural justice and proportionate remedy or censure, and you are in no position to offer us any comfort on these matters at this stage. Now, CLAC recommended that any revised guidance be made available to AMs before Stage 3. I anticipate that that's unlikely, and I hope I'm wrong, but that's why Janet and I have tabled amendments 10 and 15, which prevent you bringing section 1 into force until that CPS guidance has been fully updated to take into account the change in the law and until pathways away from prosecution have been devised and agreed. That reflects our recommendation 4, this committee's recommendation, as well as CLAC's recommendation 1. It gives your strategic implementation board time to consider how it can get around the other fundamentally worrying issue of the effect of recording reports of apparent physical punishment, even if those reports ultimately prove unfounded. And you have not addressed these in your own amendments. I have to say, Minister, I think these points are so serious that I would have liked to have tabled amendments preventing you seeking Royal Assent for this Bill until the Assembly has seen drafts of the range of official guidance needed for the police and CPS. I'd have sought a Report Stage, if I could, so that we could consider that evidence. But I'm therefore asking you to support the amendments we have tabled, 10 and 15, so that we can bring some damage limitation to a process that you ultimately cannot control once this Bill has passed. Now, I know you've got the numbers to pass this Bill, whether you accept amendments or not, but I just hope you can see the danger in pushing forward with a Bill that changes a person's relationship with the criminal law when you have no legal control over the consequences of that, and you're inviting this Assembly to fall into the same trap. I therefore urge the Assembly to avoid this recklessness by supporting these two amendments. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Suzy. Are there other Members who wish to speak? No. Janet, do you want to speak? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, I wish to speak to amendments 14 and 16. Amendment 14, however, is consequential to amendment 16 passing. Amendment 16 prevents this from commencing until parenting support services have been established by the Welsh Government. As was clear during the committee's evidence sessions, present Welsh Government support programmes for parents have insufficient coverage. For example, the capacity and reach of the Healthy Child Wales programme came under question on its role in awareness raising, with health representatives acknowledging that universality had not been achieved, with 53. 2 per cent of children in Wales reported as being contacted. Furthermore, existing parenting support is often only available as part of a targeted programme in specific areas, such as Flying Start, and even the children's commissioner noted that much more is needed to support parents to find alternatives to disciplining their children. Now, the Deputy Minister mentioned the'Parenting: Give it Time'campaign as part of proposals on a wider package of support for children and their parents. However, the Deputy Minister was challenged on this fact, that this is an online campaign only, and could only respond that the mapping exercise she will undertake. Consequently, it should be remembered that this Bill will affect all parents. Therefore, the Deputy Minister needs to assure the committee and the public that universal support will be provided before the removal of the defence occurs. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Janet. Deputy Minister. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Chair. I've listened to what stakeholders and committees have said about the importance of ensuring sufficient time is available prior to the change in the law to abolish the defence of reasonable punishment during Stage 1. As a result, I have brought forward amendments in this group to provide certainty around the date for the change in the law. My amendment 7 will remove the power to commence this core provision of the Bill by Order of the Welsh Ministers and ensure that the defence of reasonable punishment is abolished at the end of a two-year period beginning the day after Royal Assent. That was done to give certainty on the length of time. Up to then, we'd always said'up to two years'--well, we're giving two years. This certainty will allow key partners, including the police, social services and the Crown Prosecution Service, to plan for changes to guidance, training and data-collection systems more effectively. It'll also provide a focus for our awareness-raising campaign. My amendment 8 in this group has the consequence of removing the power to make transitional provision, which is replaced by my amendments 3 and 6, and we discussed those in the previous group. I've listened to the arguments put forward by Suzy Davies and Janet Finch-Saunders for the amendments in this group that they have tabled. These amendments are all about making the commencement of the Bill conditional on something else happening, whether it's waiting for the revision of Crown Prosecution Service guidance, or the establishment of a pathway for diversion from the criminal justice system, or for the provision of parenting support services. And, really, I don't think that we should be going down that road. As I set out in my letter of response to the Stage 1 report from the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee, we've got good working relations with the CPS through the strategic implementation group, and we work very closely with them. But the CPS are an independent body, as Suzy Davies has said in her contribution, not answerable to Welsh Ministers or this legislature, and it's not appropriate for a Minister or the National Assembly to seek to influence the CPS guidelines. We're discussing the issues with the CPS in the implementation group. And, in fact, I think that these amendments--Suzy's amendments in particular--wouldn't just seek to influence the CPS, but would actually give power to a non-devolved body on the way that we legislate in Wales. So, I don't think we should make it conditional on those guidelines being decided. I think you have to rely on the fact that we have got this very good relationship, very close working relationship. And I know they did give evidence to your committee, I believe, the CPS. And I think legislating to effectively give a non-devolved body a power to commence, or not, Assembly legislation would be highly unusual and would raise great uncertainty, I think, if we did go down that track, because I think this is very important Welsh legislation, which does have broad support across the Assembly. And I don't think we should allow non-devolved bodies to be the final arbiters of commencement of our legislation. So, I don't support those amendments. I think the CPS is entirely independent of Government, and must be entirely independent of Government, and will make its own decisions about how and when it will revise its guidance. In addition, you suggest we allow the UK Government to have a say in when Welsh legislation is commenced in an area that was specifically devolved to the Assembly. The test applied by the proposed amendments as to when commencement could lawfully occur is uncertain. If these amendments passed, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to judge when section 1 could be commenced. This contravenes what stakeholders and committees have asked for, and raises huge uncertainty, which potentially jeopardises the Bill. And I want to assure you again, not only do we have good working relations with the CPS, but also very good working relationships with the police, who are, of course, the other non-devolved body who have great involvement and interest in these issues. The work we do in these groups should not affect the timing of the Bill's commencement. In fact, it's the other way round. My amendment to provide a two-year period between Royal Assent and commencement means these groups can plan their work to a known timescale and deliver in good time before the law comes into force. And then, when it comes to parenting support, the committee knows that I've committed to reviewing the existing provision of parenting support, and work is already under way through the parenting expert group on this very issue. I have already said I will expand the age range of the'Parenting: Give it Time'campaign, and I think--. I know Janet Finch-Saunders has made the point that it is an online facility. It is very widely used. It is a very successful tool. But, of course, the universal services are also there. For example, the universal service of the health visitors is absolutely crucial, and that is a service that is for every child. And, of course, the health visitors welcome this legislation very strongly. And the expert group is considering what it'll recommend for the future, and it needs the time to be able to do that, to support the Bill as well as to support parenting more widely. So, as I said, I think these are important points that you have raised, but I don't think they are appropriate. So, I therefore urge the committee not to support amendments 9 and 10, nor 13,14 and 15. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy to reply to the debate. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much, and thank you very much, Deputy Minister, as well. I'm disappointed that you haven't seen what's behind Janet Finch-Saunders's final amendment there, actually. Maybe it's something we'll raise again with you at Stage 3, or maybe in the conversations that we have between now and then. But I want to go back to amendments 10 and 15 that I've raised and your assertion that we're giving, or attempting to give, power to the CPS here. We are not. This amendment is drafted very specifically and in full knowledge that we have no legislative competence in this area. And this is why I go back to where my contribution to this started, and it's your choice to try and resolve the problem of--or, sorry, to try and protect children's rights through the medium of a change to the criminal law rather than the many opportunities that were available to you through the civil law and over which you would have had complete competence. This Bill--and, actually, you've said a couple of times in your response today that it's important that it's commenced on a certain date. My argument is: it shouldn't be commenced at all unless you are absolutely certain about how it is likely to affect the parents who will now be captured by the removal of the defence. And, while I claim no mischief on the part of the CPS or the police--obviously I don't--there is nothing you can do that would prevent the CPS, should they wish to do it, or indeed the police with their own guidelines, putting in place something that is wholly disproportionate to the offence that is now being released by the removal of a defence. And, because of that, I ask you to consider, or balance, actually, two important things here: one is the rights of the child, obviously at the forefront of your argument on this, which I would argue could be completely and safely protected through the use of civil law on this occasion; and, actually, the rights of the child again to have a good relationship with parents over whose future they will have no say--or at least you cannot allow them to have any say in how those parents might be treated in terms of sentencing. The relationship between parents and children obviously is different in every family, but that's something you ought to protect in what you're trying to do here, and by leaving it open, as you say, to completely different--sorry, undevolved, two undevolved authorities to make decisions about how that relationship could be affected deeply worries me. I know this isn't going to stop your Bill going forward, but I really want you to consider my arguments and how you might try and address them at Stage 3, because leaving, effectively, the delivery of your policy objectives to somebody over whom you have no control, despite your great relationship with them, should worry us all as a legislature. Thank you. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you, Suzy. Do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 9? Suzy Davies AM: Oh, because of the voting order--. Yes, please. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 9 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 9, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 9 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 13? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 13 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 13, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 13 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 14? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 14 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 14, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 14 is not agreed. Deputy Minister, do you wish to move to a vote on amendment 7? Julie Morgan AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 7 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 7 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 7, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against. Amendment 7 is agreed. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 10? Suzy Davies AM: Yes, please. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 10 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 10, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 10 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 15? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 15 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 15, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 15 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 16? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 16 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 16, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 16 is not agreed. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 8? Julie Morgan AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 8, then, in the name of the Minister. The question is that amendment 8 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 8 is therefore agreed. Well, that has brought us to the end of our amendments, so can I thank the Deputy Minister and her officials for their attendance? As usual, you will be sent a transcript of the meeting to check for factual accuracy. This completes Stage 2 proceedings. Stage 3 begins tomorrow, and the relevant date of Stage 3 proceedings will be published in due course. Standing Orders make provision for the Deputy Minister to prepare a revised explanatory memorandum, taking account of the amendments agreed today. The revised memorandum will be laid at least five working days before Stage 3 proceedings. Thank you very much. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you all very much. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services, following our meeting on 2 October. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Minister for Health and Social Services updating the committee on the'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'strategy. And paper to note 3 is a letter from myself to the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services regarding early childhood education and care, following the session that we held on 2 October. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Item 4, then, is for me to propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17. 42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Thank you.

Suzy Davies thought that one person's technical issue was another person's essential part of the legislative procedure and a keen element in scrutiny. Suzy Davies was glad that amendment 8 had removed an order provision. Suzy Davies thought amendment 3A was something of a probing amendment. The amendment 3 seek to give a familiar range of powers in connection with the coming into force of section 1, but it was not a separate commencement power. Amendment 3A was a holding position, which they would return this in Stage 3, because Suzy Davies thought this was an area where this might be valuable to discuss quite what kind of powers were required. Suzy Davies thought there might be something that was beyond transitional, transitory and saving.

tr-sq-603

tr-sq-603_0

Summarize their discussions on amendment 11 and 12 that relate to the duty to ensure sufficient funding. Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee this morning. We've received no apologies for absence. Can I ask if there are any declarations of interest from Members, please? No. Okay, thank you. Item 2 this morning is the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill: Stage 2 proceedings. I'm pleased to welcome Julie Morgan AM, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services; Karen Cornish, deputy director, children and families division at Welsh Government; and Emma Gammon, lawyer for Welsh Government. Thank you for attending this morning and welcome to the committee. I'm just going to run through the procedures that we're going to follow now. As I said, the purpose of the meeting is to undertake Stage 2 proceedings on the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill. For these proceedings, Members should have copies of the marshalled list of amendments, the groupings of the amendments for debate and the voting order for the amendments. The marshalled list of amendments is the list of all amendments tabled, marshalled into the order in which the sections appear in the Bill. The order in which we consider amendments will be the default order--that is, sections 1 to 3 and the long title. You will see from the groupings list that amendments have been grouped to facilitate debate. However, the order in which they're called and moved for decision is dictated by the marshalled list. Members will, therefore, need to follow the two papers, although I will advise Members when I call them whether they're being called to speak in the debate or to move their amendments for a decision. There will be one debate on each group of amendments. Members who wish to speak in a particular group should indicate to me in the usual way. I will call the Deputy Minister to speak on each group. For the record, in accordance with the convention agreed by the Business Committee, as Chair I will move amendments in the name of the Deputy Minister. For expediency, I will assume that the Deputy Minister wishes me to move all of her amendments, and I will do so at the appropriate place in the marshalled list. Deputy Minister, if you do not want a particular amendment to be moved, please indicate to me at the relevant point in proceedings. In line with our usual practice, legal advisers to the committee and the Deputy Minister are not expected to provide advice on the record. If Members wish to seek legal advice during proceedings, please do so by passing a note to the legal adviser and, if necessary, we can adjourn. My intention is to try to dispose of all amendments during today's meeting. I will call a short break in proceedings at an appropriate time, if necessary. Okay, thank you. So, we will proceed, then, to group 1, which is the duty to promote public awareness. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 1 in the name of the Deputy Minister. I move amendment 1 in the Deputy Minister's name and call on the Deputy Minister to speak to her amendment and the other amendments in this group. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much, Chair. My amendments 1 and 4 will place a duty on Welsh Ministers to provide information and increase awareness about the change in the law to ensure that the public are made aware of how the law will change as a result of the defence of reasonable punishment being abolished and that physical punishment would be prohibited once the Act commences. I tabled these amendments in response to this committee's recommendation--this was a recommendation from this committee in the Stage 1 report, so I have responded to that. I've already made a commitment to a high-intensity awareness-raising campaign over approximately six years from Royal Assent, should the Bill be passed. I've considered amendments 1A to 1E, which have been tabled by Janet Finch-Saunders, and which relate to the duty to raise awareness. Amendment 1A introduces a reference to public understanding. We don't think, actually, that this adds anything to the Government amendment, which already mentions awareness. It makes the awareness-raising duty open-ended with no time limit, which is not necessary. By commencement, messaging around the change in the law will be embedded. The awareness-raising campaign will continue for a number of years. Therefore, an ongoing duty referring specifically to the law change would not be required. I understand, of course, that the awareness-raising campaign needs to be comprehensive, well planned and to reach out to all those people and all those communities who need to be aware of the law change, and understand how to respond to it. But I don't think it's helpful or necessary to highlight specific groups, such as visitors to Wales, on the face of the Bill--that's the approach taken in amendment 1E--as it risks placing too much emphasis on certain groups at the expense of others. In relation to children, the committee will know that I'm fully committed to children's rights, and that Welsh Ministers are already under a duty to have due regard to the rights of children whenever they exercise their functions. An additional due regard requirement, such as the one set out in amendment 1D, relating specifically to the need to promote awareness among children is not needed. This would be part and parcel of the Welsh Government approach to putting children's rights at the heart of our policy making. Similarly, I don't think it's necessary for the Bill to set out specifically the topics that need to be covered in the awareness-raising campaign, as is suggested in amendments 1B and 1C. That level of detail, I don't think, is for the face of the Bill. Information required about parenting support will be considered by the parenting expert group, under the auspices of the Bill's strategic implementation group, working with my officials and the expert stakeholder group on the awareness-raising campaign. And, really, their thinking should not be constrained in any way by specifications on the face of the Bill. I think we always need to bear in mind that what the Bill does is remove a defence to an existing criminal offence; it does not create a new offence. And in this context, it doesn't make sense for this Bill to contain a provision requiring the provision of information about how a person may raise concerns if it appears to them that a child is being physically punished. As I set out in my letter to this committee responding to recommendation 15 on this point, safeguarding is everyone's business, and, as now, the public have a role in highlighting to relevant services if they are concerned about a child. I'm asking for the support of Members for amendments 1 and 4, and I ask Members to reject amendments 1A to 1E because this would place unnecessary provisions on the face of the Bill. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Deputy Minister. Are there other Members who wish to speak? Janet Finch-Saunders. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. I wish to speak to amendments 1A to 1E, which relate to the Deputy Minister's amendment on the duty to promote public awareness. While we believe it is absolutely imperative that the public are made aware of this controversial change in the law, the Deputy Minister's amendment lacks a number of key points that the committee were actually keen to address at Stage 1. An important thread runs throughout each and every amendment that I've tabled within this group--that of a sustained awareness campaign, which not only stretches beyond the implementation of the Bill, but serves as a duty for future administrations. Amendment 1A: primarily, amendment 1A changes amendment 1 to include the promotion of understanding changes to the law. I don't think it's enough for the Welsh Government to say that the public should be made aware of the coming into force of section 1 and that a public awareness campaign needs to be sustained until the Welsh Government's objectives have been achieved. Despite the fact that it is intended to change behaviour, the consequences of this law are far greater than that of organ donation or prohibiting smoking indoors. Instead of an opt-out system or a civil offence, this law will remove a defence for parents, information on which could be there on their records for the rest of their lives, potentially separate parents, and could affect employment chances. As such, whilst we agree with the necessity of the awareness campaign, it is important too that the Welsh Government take stock and ensures that parents are not penalised due to a weak awareness campaign. The witnesses we heard before this committee also noted the necessity of ensuring that the public understands-- Lynne Neagle AM: Janet, Dawn is asking if you'll take an intervention. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. Dawn Bowden AM: I just wanted to know--could you give us examples of any other piece of legislation where there's been indefinite public awareness campaigns once it's been passed? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: There's a lot of legislation. The first Assembly term when I was here-- Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, what I'm asking-- Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I'm trying to respond-- Dawn Bowden AM: What I'm asking for is: can you give us specific examples of where there have been indefinite public awareness campaigns running indefinitely past the enactment of a piece of legislation? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: The very first term that I was an Assembly Member, we passed 25 pieces of separate legislation. Even today, as I sit here, the public are not aware of many of those pieces of legislation. This particular piece of legislation will have a profound effect on the parenting of children in Wales. So, therefore, I think there is a necessity for both children and parents to become involved, and I shall speak now-- Dawn Bowden AM: With respect, Chair, that's not the question I asked. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: --to my amendments. Lynne Neagle AM: I can call you in the debate, if you'd like to make a more substantive contribution on this. Yes. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: The witnesses who we heard from before this committee also noted the necessity of ensuring that the public understands the implications. And that's what we're talking about here, Members--the implications of removing this defence. Strikingly, the Office of Police and Crime Commissioner for Gwent stated the following:'the potential for public resistance to the Bill through misunderstanding or confusion over it implications may pose the largest barrier to its implementation.'If you are intent on removing the defence of reasonable punishment, it is therefore not unreasonable to ensure that law-abiding parents fully understand the ramifications of this Bill. Additionally, the committee found that while the current Welsh Government's intention to deliver a public awareness campaign was beyond doubt, future Governments may have less of a commitment. This places further weight on the fact that the Welsh Government should be under a duty to promote awareness and understanding of the Bill beyond its commencement. Furthermore, the Children (Equal Protection from Assault) (Scotland) Bill quite clearly notes that, under section 2, the Scottish Ministers must take such steps as they consider appropriate to promote public awareness and understanding about the effect of section 1 on the abolition for the defence of reasonable punishment. Therefore, I would be grateful if the Deputy Minister can respond as to the reasons why the Welsh Government has deviated from this course of action in their amendment. [Interruption. ] Should our amendment be agreed-- Lynne Neagle AM: Are you taking an intervention? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: No. I'd rather crack on, to be honest. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I can call you in the debate, Hefin. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Should our amendment to be agreed, we also request that a printing change be made to ensure that the new heading reflects promoting awareness of the changes to the law made by section 1. Amendment 1B: amendment 1B is in line with the committee's recommendation 9, which stated that, as part of a public awareness campaign, there should be details about the support available to parents to use alternatives to physical punishment when disciplining their children. During evidence at Stage 1, the witnesses we saw before the committee raised serious concerns about harder-to-reach groups who needed to be made aware of removing the defence. For example, Children in Wales, Action for Children and Play Wales stated that some families and communities may be harder to reach with information and support. Welsh Government needs to make sure that they receive the information they need. Now, while the Deputy Minister states that she would work hard to ensure that harder-to-reach groups receive this information, a duty to provide information on alternatives to physical punishment would ensure that future Welsh Governments would maintain a successful awareness-raising campaign. I note the Deputy Minister accepted the recommendation, through our amendment, but this does not explicitly include a duty to provide details about support for parents. As will be expanded upon later, the Deputy Minister has relied upon the'Parenting: Give it Time'campaign to be delivered alongside awareness raising. However, this is only an online resource and she must be clear about what other avenues will be available to parents who do not have access to the internet or are part of harder-to-reach groups. Amendment 1C: amendment 1C supports the committee's recommendation 15 that explains that the Welsh Government should ensure clear advice is provided on what people can do if they have seen or learned of a child being physically assaulted. We urged, at Stage 1, that although many professionals were already under a duty to report concerns about physical punishment, regardless of the Bill, other witnesses raised concerns that it could create the potential for claims of abuse that are unfounded. In particular, some were worried that children, who may not realise the implications of reporting, could make allegations that are actually untrue. While we would expect the awareness-raising campaign to include the consequences of false accusations, this could also be reflected among adults, if the public are not sufficiently made aware of how they can report and in what situations they can report a case of assault. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. I've got several speakers. I've got Suzy Davies first, then Dawn Bowden. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much, Chair. Thank you Minister, and thank you, Janet, for that. I think it's worth just pointing out at this stage that the majority of the amendments that are being made and articulated by Janet there are based on committee recommendations, and those recommendations were made after taking evidence from the public at large, but also you as well. So, that suggests that, at that stage, we weren't reassured by the offer that you were making because we felt the need to put these recommendations into our report. Now, I recognise that you've moved some way on some of these amendments, and we'll been talking about that through the course of the debates on other groups. But the one thing to bear in mind here is this is legislation, now--that means that this is the instrument of the Assembly, not of Government, and if this Assembly feels that the face of the Bill is unclear on the minimum requirements of a public awareness campaign, then we have the right to suggest the things that we would like to see in that public awareness-raising campaign. The list that Janet has given is a minimum. The reason these have been tabled individually and independently is that some may be acceptable where others may not be, so it will be disappointing to hear that you're rejecting them all, and the reason they need to go on the face of the Bill is that, if you are going to introduce specifics via regulation, at the moment we have no reassurance about how you're going to do that--about what input the Assembly, on behalf of our constituents, could have in designing that public awareness-raising campaign. Unless you accept some amendments in other groups, that is the position with this Bill: the influence of the Assembly will be zero over the content of an awareness-raising campaign. In terms of it being non-time limited, I think the amendment has been tabled in the way it has not to oblige you to an everlasting, never-ending campaign of awareness raising. But if you bear in mind that, seven years after the introduction of this Bill, there's going to be some reporting on the effectiveness of the Bill, what is the point of doing that if you don't then have an obligation, should the reports require it to be necessary, to continue promoting the changes in the law? I accept that that can't go on for centuries, but to actually limit it to two years on an issue that is so sensitive, and which has a reach beyond our boundaries, I think is genuinely a mistake. Finally, you mention that safeguarding is everyone's business. I think that's true, but I think Janet Finch-Saunders was right to say that members of the public, ordinary individuals, not professionals, will need assurance that they're doing the right thing. The amendment as listed is not even there to encourage people to do that, although that can be read in that way, but it is to help them be certain that they are doing the right thing. If this is going to be up to the individual, as you've said, and the committee itself wasn't reassured that individuals would know what to do, perhaps I can ask you to consider at Stage 3, if you're going to reject this amendment, how you can reassure members of the public that, if they are going to intervene on the back of this law, they're making things better, not worse. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Suzy. Dawn. Dawn Bowden AM: My comments, really, relate to ongoing awareness-raising campaigns, which I think all of us would want to see, and would appreciate in any changes in legislation. My point, really, is that we have a plethora of legislation that this Assembly has passed in the last 20 years, and I'm not aware of any legislation where, on the face of the Bill we have ongoing awareness-raising campaigns on an indefinite basis. It seems to me that, for some reason, you seem to be wanting to take a completely different approach to this piece of legislation. From what the Deputy Minister is saying--and perhaps I will get some clarity on this--there will be an amendment to the legislation that will say that we have an awareness campaign. That awareness campaign can be the subject of consultation with interested parties in terms of what needs to be included in it. It could also, I assume, Deputy Minister, be an awareness campaign that can be written into a set of guidance for future use. But the point I'm trying to make is that I don't believe that any piece of legislation requires ongoing and indefinite awareness-raising campaigns, and particularly in relation to visitors to Wales. Again, we have other pieces of legislation in Wales that are not applicable in the other parts of the UK. I am not aware that there is a necessity for awareness-raising campaigns with visitors coming into Wales on the raft of the other pieces of legislation that we have that they don't. And similarly, when we go to visit countries that have different legislation, we don't necessarily know what legislation we're going into when we visit that country--you just go there and you accept that you go to a different country and you abide by their laws. So, my key point, Chair, is just the necessity of an ongoing, endless awareness campaign being written onto the face of the Bill. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Dawn. Hefin. Hefin David AM: My comments follow logically from Dawn Bowden's comments, particularly in relation to amendments 1D and 1E. What you would be doing is that this Senedd, if this was on the face of the Bill, the duty on Ministers, would be putting the duty on Ministers in law beyond the life of the fifth Senedd, into the next Senedd term, and putting that duty on those newly elected Ministers after that, which, in principle, would be against the principles of binding-- Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin, are you taking an intervention from Suzy? Hefin David AM: Yes, happy to. Suzy Davies AM: When you've finished your point. Hefin David AM: I'm happy to take it now, because I was going to sum up by agreeing with the point you made, actually. Suzy Davies AM: I'd love that. You referred to this potentially binding Ministers in future Assemblies; at the moment, we've got an implementation period and a five-year reporting period that takes any reporting on this Act into the Assembly after next. I'm wondering if you're going to have any comments on that when we come to the amendment to change that later on. Hefin David AM: Well, when we get to that amendment, I'll make comments if I feel it necessary. But at this point in time, we're talking about amendments 1D and 1E, and particularly in relation to 1D and 1E it just isn't necessary, given the fact that--I won't call it a concession, because I think you made a reasonable point about the Minister making a statement at Stage 3, and I think Dawn Bowden actually supported that as well. That, therefore, makes those amendments unnecessary. Given that, in these circumstances, it is unnecessary to bind Ministers in future Parliaments. And that's my key point, really, which is why I wouldn't vote for those two amendments. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Sian. Sian Gwenllian AM: Thank you very much. I just want to speak against amendment 1A and also amendment 1B. I don't believe that there is a need for an indefinite campaign, as is outlined in 1A. I agree entirely that there is a need for a campaign during the period of change, and therefore I'm very glad to see that the Government has brought forward amendment 1, and I do hope that there will be a real push during the period of change. In terms of amendment 1B, I do have sympathy with what is being said here, but I believe that any kind of information or campaign in terms of enabling parents to learn about alternatives to physical punishment should be the subject of continual far-reaching work by the Government, through various programmes, and it should not be an addition on the face of this Bill, which deals with a small change to the common law. And then, on 1D also, if I may--I don't agree with this either. Again, I believe that there is a need to promote awareness amongst children, but that should happen through the children's rights convention, as part of a broader programme to promote children's rights. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Sian. I call on the Deputy Minister to speak, then. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you all very much for your contributions to the debate and your comments on these amendments today. I just want to re-emphasise that it is as a result of the recommendation from this committee that we are putting this duty to have the awareness campaign on the face of the Bill, and I absolutely recognise the crucial role awareness raising has to play in supporting the implementation of the Bill. I'm very grateful for and appreciate the committee's interest and the work that you've done in this area of work. But I do think that these amendments are unnecessary. If we go through them, amendment 1A is really open-ended on promoting public awareness. We're committed to a high-intensity awareness over six years from Royal Assent, and there is an expert stakeholder group supporting us with the development of the awareness campaign. All the points that you've been making will be being considered by that group. I think the level of detail on the face of the Bill is not needed. Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Would you just take an intervention on that just to help me understand? A two-year awareness-raising campaign--how have you concluded that-- Julie Morgan AM: Six-year. Suzy Davies AM: I thought it was two years before section 1 comes into force. Julie Morgan AM: We've got six years from Royal Assent. Suzy Davies AM: Oh, so it is going to continue beyond section 1 coming into force-- Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Oh yes, it's going to continue. Suzy Davies AM: That's very helpful. Julie Morgan AM: Definitely, yes. So, I don't think that's needed, amendment 1A. Amendment 1B, about support available to parents and how to access it--again, this level of detail is not required on the face of the Bill. I just want to emphasise we have got this expert implementation group, who are working on all aspects of this Bill, many of whom represent organisations who gave evidence to this committee. The Bill is a simple one, with a clear purpose. It aims to remove the defence of reasonable punishment. I think lots of these amendments are very helpful and interesting, but would be discussed and would be acted on in the normal pathway of planning and development, and they're not required on the face of the Bill. So, I'm not putting them down, I'm just saying that we don't need them to be there on the face of the Bill. And then amendment 1C--the information about how to raise concerns--I do repeat that safeguarding is everybody's business, and the same issues apply now as will after this defence has been removed. Amendment 1D--Ministers to have regard to the need to promote awareness among children--now, children's rights are absolutely enshrined in our policy making, and the entire Bill is about protecting the rights of children. So, it is unnecessary duplication. So, we hope that the Bill will remain focused. Again, in terms of visitors, the level of detail is simply not required on the face of the Bill. Our awareness-raising campaign will be comprehensive. And then to pick up a few of the other points that were raised, revisions to the impact assessments are being considered as part of my commitment to update the explanatory memorandum ahead of Stage 3. So, there will be more details on the regulatory impact assessment. The issue that was raised about the Scottish Bill, that it refers to'understanding'--now, the Scottish Bill was not a Government Bill, it was a private Member's Bill, and our view is that nothing is added by adding the'understanding';'awareness'is sufficient. So, basically, I think that the points made have been very useful, but I urge committee members to accept my amendments, but to reject those proposed by Janet Finch-Saunders, as they are unnecessary provisions in terms of what the awareness-raising duty needs to achieve. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Deputy Minister. Before disposing of amendment 1, we will deal with the amendments to that amendment. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1A? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 1A be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we have an objection. I therefore take a vote by show of hands. The question is that amendment 1A be agreed. All those in favour, please raise your hands. All those against. There voted two in favour, four against. So, amendment 1A is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1B? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 1B be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, I'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 1B. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 1B is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1C? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 1C be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay. All those in favour of amendment 1C, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 1C is not agreed. Janet, do you want to move amendment 1D? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 1D be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, as there's an objection, I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 1D, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 1D is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1E? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. The question is that amendment 1E be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 1E, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 1E is not agreed. If amendment 1 is not agreed, amendment 2C and amendment 4 will fall. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 1? Julie Morgan AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Okay. I move amendment 1 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 1 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we have an objection, so we'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 1. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 1 is agreed. We'll move on now then to group 2, which relates to the duty to report on the effect of the legislation. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 2, in the name of the Deputy Minister. I move amendment 2 in the Deputy Minister's name, and call on the Deputy Minister to speak to her amendments, and the other amendments in this group. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Chair. The amendments in this group are to do with the post-implementation review of the Bill, and I believe there was also a committee recommendation to this end from your committee, so you strongly influenced this amendment. It's clear from Members'contributions to this group and recommendations by the committee at Stage 1 that they share my commitment to the importance of post-implementation review of the effect of the abolition of the defence of reasonable punishment. I've already provided assurance that I agree with the importance placed on such a review, both in the explanatory memorandum and during Stage 1 scrutiny. I also made a commitment to bring forward a Government amendment to put a duty to undertake a post-implementation review on the face of the Bill. I have done this with amendment 2. Amendment 5 sets out that this provision will come into force the day after Royal Assent. As I said in my responses to the Stage 1 committee report, and as set out in the explanatory memorandum, the post-implementation review of this Bill will not be a single piece of work, but a continuous programme of work during the years following the commencement of section 1. Firstly, we will continue to conduct attitudinal surveys, which will be used to track changes in attitude towards the physical punishment of children and prevalence of parents reporting that they use physical punishment. The surveys will also be used to monitor the effectiveness of our awareness-raising campaign. Secondly, through a dedicated task and finish group, we are working with organisations to put in place arrangements to establish robust methods for capturing meaningful data relating to the Bill and to consider the possible impact on services. Turning to amendment 2C, this amendment would require Welsh Ministers to prepare and lay before the Assembly a report on the effect of their promotion of public awareness before section 1 is commenced. This amendment is unnecessary and is in conflict with what I think is a priority for the implementation of this Bill: that is, given certainty on the commencement date and in enabling us to work towards this with our partners and stakeholders. I also think this amendment is not required because, as I've already stated, we are preparing to assess the effectiveness of our awareness raising. In June, I shared the findings of a representative survey, which establishes a baseline on public awareness and opinion towards physical punishment of children and the proposed legislation. I shared this with the committee. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Deputy Minister. I open it up for discussion now, then. Janet Finch-Saunders. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. I speak to amendments 2C, excluding 2D, to 2K, which relate to the Deputy Minister's amendment 2 on preparing a published report on the effect of abolishing the defence of reasonable punishment. Again, I must stress the importance of getting this right due to the controversial and long-lasting effects of removing the defence of reasonable punishment. Amendments 2E to 2K outline what we would expect to be within this report, and we would wish to see a commitment from the Deputy Minister to ensure the National Assembly for Wales is fully apprised and able to scrutinise the result of this report. Amendment 2C requests that the Welsh Government prepare a report on the awareness-raising campaign and lays it before the Assembly before section 1 commences. As I have outlined under my amendments in group 1, the understanding of the public about the implications of the Bill cannot be sidelined. Although the Deputy Minister has repeated her commitment to a public awareness campaign, we, as the National Assembly for Wales, must be able to scrutinise its effectiveness before section 1 begins. As I noted under amendments 1B to 1E, there are specific groups of people who need to be evaluated on their understanding of the Bill's effect. I'm sure that the Deputy Minister will agree that the harder-to-reach groups are undoubtedly the most vulnerable to any negative impacts that the Bill will have because of the greater potential of a lack of awareness. It is, therefore, important for the Assembly to be able to determine whether the awareness-raising campaign has had a positive effect on these groups of people. As will also be elaborated under amendment 2D, it is extremely important that we, as the Parliament of Wales, are fully apprised of the awareness-raising campaign's impact. Before we implement what will be a criminal offence, it is vital that we ensure that those affected are not adversely impacted because of a poorly targeted awareness campaign. Therefore, I would be grateful if the Deputy Minister would commit to an independent evaluation of the awareness campaign's effects before section 1 commences. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Janet. Suzy Davies. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. Deputy Minister, first of all, can I just say thank you for your opening remarks about the possibility of perhaps doing some work around amendment 2B? I'll come to that a little bit later, if I may. I just want to begin by commenting briefly on what you said about why you'll be rejecting amendment 2C here. I actually don't think that this amendment should affect or jeopardise the commencement date in any way at all. It's an operational requirement to get this work done before the commencement date that's in the draft Bill at the moment. So, failing to meet that would be as a result of operations not going well, rather than anything intrinsic in the Bill, so I'm not sure I can accept your argument on that. And, on 2D--very pleased to hear that you'd be willing to introduce something about'laying'rather than'publishing'at Stage 3, but, in the spirit of recognising that this is the legislature, perhaps I could encourage you just to accept the amendment at this stage, because it doesn't make any difference. Your amendment is going to pass, and this amendment to it would be--I think the gesture there would be very much appreciated. I'll be speaking mainly to amendments 2A and 2B, but I want to begin, again, by thanking you for moving some way on this and considering amendments to the Bill on the issue of reporting, because I know you were keen to avoid amendments in the name of simplicity; you mentioned it earlier. But this is not a newid bychan, I'm afraid, Sian; the terms and the effect of this Bill are quite extensive, and it does need the reassurances, if you like, necessary to mitigate potentially disproportionate effects of this Bill on families where parents'actions had been lawful up until this point in statute. It does need statutory underpinning. So, I am grateful to you for accepting this duty. I know that you're sincere that you want this duty to report to show that the Bill is effective in stopping smacking as a punishment, and also that it is not as harmful to parents as perhaps some of us fear. But, if this were me bringing forward this Bill, I think I'd want to show the world that I was doing the right thing a lot sooner than you appear to wish to do. Amendment 2 means that the efficacy of the Bill will not formally be assessed until seven years after it has passed. There are Acts on the statute book that have lasted a lot less time than that. If you're relying on the two-year period before section 1 comes into operation to do much of the heavy lifting on the culture change, and I think that is what you're expecting--you know, showing a reduction in the incidence of physical punishment, reducing the number of, and indeed the likelihood of, parents putting themselves in the path of criminal liability once those two years are up--I really would have thought you'd want people to know sooner, or as soon as the first possible opportunity on that. Waiting five years, I think, will diminish the ability of you to prove the efficacy of those initial two years, and this is why I'm grateful to you for your offer, because there may be a way where we can overcome that. If the trend of culture change is continuing after year 3--so, basically, in the first year after section 1 comes into effect--that's great, but there's a possibility it's going to reverse. Again, I don't think I'd want to wait five years to find that out. For myself, I think one year would probably be enough, but I think three years is a reasonable compromise, as opposed to five years, for a reporting period. I think seven years is just way too long for a formal evaluation of a Bill's effectiveness. I can't see the reason for quite that length of time--I know you've talked about New Zealand--but neither can the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee. I think that's worth pointing out. When they took the step of recommending this duty to evaluate and report, they also took the step of suggesting a three-year reporting period being more in keeping with other post-legislative scrutiny. That's something I think we perhaps need to bear in mind now, as we enter this period of the consolidation of law. Five/seven years is really something of an outlier, and while that might have been appropriate, perhaps, in New Zealand, I don't think that fits in with our timetables generally here in Wales, and, of course, there are other countries that have introduced this over a period of years, and I note that you haven't drawn on them in order to support your argument. So, can I urge Members and the Minister to consider the arguments behind these amendments? I don't think it's going to reassure anyone--you may want to intervene at this point, Hefin--that we not only won't hear in this Assembly, we won't hear in the next Assembly, about the formal evaluation of this, unless I follow-- Hefin David AM: I won't intervene; I'll speak. Suzy Davies AM: Is that okay? Hefin David AM: Yes, I'll make the point. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, I've got-- Suzy Davies AM: Yes, I'll take the intervention. Lynne Neagle AM: No, he doesn't want to make an intervention-- Hefin David AM: I won't do an intervention; I'll speak. Lynne Neagle AM: --he'll make a contribution. Suzy Davies AM: Oh, apologies-- Hefin David AM: Just to say-- Suzy Davies AM: I'll wait. Hefin David AM: Well, let me put the intervention--. I'll do it as an intervention, then. I just feel that--I take your point, and I was expecting it. The point I was making about 1D and 1E is they close down choices to Ministers in future Assemblies. An evaluative practice would actually open up those choices and give future Parliaments more options with regard to this Bill, so I think it's entirely consistent. I don't think the Minister, in putting in amendment 2, was trying to undermine my argument. Actually, I think she's being constructive by doing that, and I think amendment 2 is a practical amendment that's quite helpful, and its consequence will be to open up choices to future Parliaments, whereas my objection to 1D and 1E is they close those down. Suzy Davies AM: Okay, well, as I say, I think, actually, the Deputy Minister's offer of a three-year interim period might be part of a resolution to this. Because I'm not 100 per cent sure I accept your argument, either, because it closes it down for the interim period if we don't move on with the Deputy Minister's suggestion--which I'll talk about now, actually. Because I am tempted to accept your offer. It absolutely makes sense and it's clearly made with the best good faith here. But I need some clarity on what you would allow this Assembly to do in helping define the terms of that interim report. Because you've been very clear that you don't want to accept the things that Janet Finch-Saunders has been talking about in a final report, and yet I can tell you we want to hear about these things. So, if you're in a position where you can give a commitment at Stage 3 not only to introduce an interim report, but that you will consult with, perhaps, this committee--I'll leave it to you--on the contents of that interim report, what we would want to see tested, then I'll be minded not to move amendment 2B. If you can't give me that reassurance, then I'm going to move it anyway and we'll return to it at Stage 3, if you don't mind. Just a final point on this issue of reporting within three months rather than as soon as practicable, and I do take your point that there may be a misalignment with reporting periods from the organisations you hope to talk to. Again, at Stage 3, I'm happy if you want to make three months six months, or something like that, but'as soon as practicable'is open ended, and what you think is practicable may be very different from what I or my constituents think is practicable. So, I don't want to stick with what is practicable; I would like you to put a date on this. If it's a case that you think six months is long enough for data gathering and reporting from third parties, I think that's fairly reasonable as well, but I'm not minded to allow you to just keep this open ended. Thank you. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Suzy. Sian. Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, I welcome adding to the Bill through amendment 2, and what you've said today also, that you're willing to provide an interim report and bring an amendment forward to allow that through the Bill, and to lay a report before the Assembly. I am interested in what Suzy is saying, and have a lot of sympathy with trying to tie it down to specific time periods, and not say'when it will be practicable'. Therefore, I would encourage you not to move your amendments if you have the confirmation that you want to hear this morning from the Minister regarding these issues. Suzy Davies AM: I would like to. Thanks. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Any other Members? No. Deputy Minister. Julie Morgan AM: Well, just to start off on that point, I think your suggestion about how we consult and discuss, I think I'm very happy to accept that. So, I'm happy to discuss that with you, and with the committee, before the third Stage. So, I hope you will consider removing--. Suzy Davies AM: No, genuinely I am. Julie Morgan AM: Right, thank you. Well, just to go on to cover some of the points that have been raised, on the issue of training now, I think Janet raised a number of points about training, and we do have an operations, procedures, processes and training task and finish group as part of our implementation work, and they are considering guidance and training requirements. There are many professional bodies represented on that group, many of whom I think have given evidence here today, and they've really got a chance to have their say. The officials are also looking at training as part of the revision of the explanatory memorandum at Stage 3, so there will be more information about training there. But we have this group looking at it, and it is very key. Generally, I think that all the contributions are very helpful, and I know they're meant in the spirit of trying to improve the legislation. I can't support amendments 2A, 2C, and amendments 2E to 2K, because these amendments make little difference in terms of practical effect to what we have in the Bill already, or they're covered by the Government amendments that I've moved. But I do hope the committee is reassured that we are committed to undertaking a very thorough, multifaceted review of the impact of the legislation that includes tracking public attitudes and considering impacts on public services. Now, tracking the public attitudes will be going along at regular points, so there's no question there of having to wait; we'll be having regular reporting of public attitudes. Suzy Davies AM: Would you take an intervention there, Deputy Minister? Thank you very much. Of course, I appreciate that you will not be supporting these amendments, but can you give us some indication of how many of the areas of interest to us you will be reporting on? So, even if this is not a statutory commitment, what exactly from our list, our wish list here, would you be prepared to include in your evaluation? Julie Morgan AM: Well, I would actually have thought all of them. All the areas you've raised are very relevant, I think. Obviously, this is not a statutory thing I'm saying, but-- Suzy Davies AM: No, no, and this is not a-- Julie Morgan AM: Yes, but considering those points you've put forward, I think all of them have got a great deal of relevance. We will certainly be reporting to the group to consider any of the ideas that you've suggested and, in particular with the data collection and the monitoring task and finish group, which is about developing methods to collect data, we will be putting forward some of the suggestions that you've made on those issues. So, I don't see any problem with that at all. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. Julie Morgan AM: So, as I say, I can't support the amendments. I'm hopeful you may withdraw the two amendments--I think one of yours and it was one of Janet's, wasn't it--so that we could work together on those before the next stage. Because I am sympathetic to your views on these matters, and I think they do reflect some of the discussions in the committee as well. So, I'd be happy to work with you to bring forward the amendments at Stage 3. In line with the recommendations of the Finance Committee, further details of the costs associated with the post-implementation review will be provided in a revised regulatory impact assessment at Stage 3. So, I think at this point I would ask that Members reject the non-Government amendments and agree to my amendments 2 and 5, which will ultimately achieve the same policy aim without the need for unnecessary detail on the Bill, with the exception, obviously, of those two amendments, which I'm prepared to look at a way of moving forward on. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you, Deputy Minister. Before disposing of amendment 2, we will deal with the amendments to that amendment. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2C? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2C be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 2C, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2C is lost. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 2A? Suzy Davies AM: I move amendment 2A, yes. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2A be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 2A, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2A is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2D? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2E? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2E be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 2E, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2E is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2F? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2F be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so can I see all those in favour of amendment 2F? All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 2F is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2G? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2G be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, can I see all those in favour of amendment 2G? All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 2G is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2H? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2H be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so can I see all those in favour of amendment 2H? All those against? So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2H is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2I? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2I be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay. Can I see all those in favour of amendment 2I? All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2I is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2J? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2J be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. Can I see all those in favour of 2J? All those against? So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2J is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2K? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2K be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] I'll therefore take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 2K? All those against? So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2K is not agreed. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 2B? Suzy Davies AM: In view of the Deputy Minister's reassurances, I won't move this amendment today, but obviously I reserve the right to bring something back if we can't reach consensus. Thank you. Lynne Neagle AM: Does any other Member wish to move amendment 2B? Okay, no. Thank you. We'll move on, then. If amendment 2 is not agreed, amendment 5 will fall. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 2? Julie Morgan AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 2 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 2-- Suzy Davies AM: Objection. Lynne Neagle AM: You're objecting? Suzy Davies AM: Yes. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Right, we'll therefore take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 2, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 2 is agreed. That takes us on to group 3, which relates to the regulation-making powers in the Bill. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 3 in the name of the Deputy Minister. I move amendment 3 in the Deputy Minister's name and call on the Deputy Minister to speak to her amendments and the other amendments in this group. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much, Chair. Members will note that I've brought forward an amendment to provide certainty on the date of commencement of the core provision in the Bill, which is obviously to abolish the defence of reasonable punishment. And that is going to be debated under group 5. So, we're obviously debating that after we deal with these particular technical issues--these are technical issues here, basically. As a consequence of proposing to remove the power for a Welsh Minister to make an Order for commencement, the power to make transitory, transitional or saving provisions in connection with section 1 of the Bill coming into force would also be removed. So, I'm not seeking here to add any new powers to the Bill; amendment 3 will simply add this existing power back onto the face of the Bill where amendments 7 and 8 remove it, and amendment 6 will bring the power into force the day after Royal Assent. In fact, removing the power for the Welsh Ministers to commence the provision in section 1 by Order means the statutory instrument will actually do less than originally intended. These amendments are technical in nature and while I acknowledge that the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee raised the issue of what procedure should be applied, their report did not call for any change to no procedure being applied. The absence of an Assembly procedure does not mean that Ministers'decisions in relation to transitional powers cannot be scrutinised by the Assembly. Any concerns about the Welsh Ministers'proposals could be put to me in the Senedd. This was a point made to CLAC and, as I say, their final conclusion was that no procedure is the appropriate procedure for such a power. For those reasons, I encourage Members to reject amendment 3A from Suzy. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy Davies. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much. Well perhaps, Deputy Minister, I can begin by saying that one person's technical issue is another person's essential part of the legislative procedure and a keen element in scrutiny. But I thank you for noting the Assembly's observations on the ministerial powers granted in this Bill--this time by CLAC, as you say. Moving this--and I'm glad actually that amendment 8, I think it was, has removed an Order provision and we're moving into an area where at least statutory instruments do feature here. I have to say that amendment 3A is something of a probing amendment, and I'll explain why now. Your amendment 3 seeks to give a familiar range of powers in connection with the coming into force of section 1, but it's actually in a substantive part of section 1 itself now--it's not a separate commencement power. And, actually, I've been listening to the rest of this debate, and thinking that, if you're going to be introducing an awareness campaign and a report, the chances are you're going to need some regulatory powers to introduce some of the aspects of both those policy areas, I think. And I'm wondering whether the--what is it--transitory, transitional and saving provisions are actually enough powers for you under the course of this Bill. I'm wondering whether you want to consider actually amending this to give yourself the more usual unrestricted power to make regulations in order for you to get section 1 implemented, bearing in mind that it has now been amended from that original, very short and simple--or at least simple in terms of drafting--initial draft. As I say, in anticipation of you rejecting amendments in group 1 I tabled this, in order to make sure that an opportunity remains for the Assembly to bring anything you may wish to introduce under section 1, when it comes into effect, onto the floor of the Assembly. Because while I completely accept that you've acknowledged that statutory instrument is the process for introducing things from now on, it's still possible to do that without procedure, and so I have no idea whether you think what you introduce would be better suited to be introduced by a negative or affirmative procedure. Amendment 3A is a holding position, which we will return to you in Stage 3, because I think, again, this is an area where it might be valuable for us to discuss quite what kind of powers you're looking for, because I think you probably need something that's beyond transitional, transitory and saving. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Suzy, have you finished? Suzy Davies AM: Yes, thank you very much. Lynne Neagle AM: Are there any other Members who wish to speak on this group? No. Deputy Minister. Julie Morgan AM: I thank Suzy for that input. We don't actually think it's necessary to have wider powers, but we will keep this under review and at Stage 3, I think that--. When I was looking at this, I was concerned to know what the transitory powers--what we would actually need to do at that stage, but I can understand that there may be links to other Bills in ways that we are not anticipating at the moment that would make it necessary to have those powers. So, basically, I don't think it is necessary to have wider powers, but I can assure you that we'll keep that in review coming up to Stage 3. Suzy Davies AM: Can I just ask a question on the back of that? Lynne Neagle AM: Will you take a brief intervention at the end, Minister? Suzy Davies AM: Will you take the briefest intervention before your full stop? Julie Morgan AM: I was going to end there, yes. Suzy Davies AM: Right, okay, well, just before your full stop, would you just confirm that you're happy for us to discuss this before Stage 3? Julie Morgan AM: Yes, very happy. Yes. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Before disposing of amendment 3, we will deal with the amendment to that amendment. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 3A? Suzy Davies AM: I'll move it, yes. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 3A be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, I'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 3A. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 3A is not agreed. If amendment 3 is not agreed, amendment 6 will fall. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 3? Julie Morgan AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 3 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 3 is therefore agreed. The committee will now break for 10 minutes and reconvene at 11. 05 a. m. Can I welcome Members back? We will move on to group 4, which relates to the duty to ensure sufficient funding. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 11 in the name of Janet Finch-Saunders. I call on Janet Finch-Saunders to move amendment 11 and to speak to her amendments. Janet. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. I speak to both amendments in this group. As I outlined under amendments 2I and 2J, there are ongoing concerns about the potential costs for Welsh devolved authorities and the lack of quantifiable costs within the regulatory impact assessment. Now, it was absolutely clear from evidence that we received in this committee that unknown costs would be challenging and potentially problematic. As I have mentioned previously, these concerns would doubtless be most keenly felt in our hard-pressed social services. Furthermore, the Welsh Local Government Association stated that there must be a commitment that whatever the costs are, those costs are met, because it is legislation that is being led by the National Assembly for Wales. Now, during evidence, the Deputy Minister, when asked about the reliance on a limited number of reporting of cases likely to happen and the potential for a degree of unknown costs stated:'we are doing our very best to prepare to cover all eventualities that we can anticipate.'But you couldn't commit to a broad figure, instead telling us that:'we have to rely on what the people who run those organisations are telling us.'And:'We have to measure it as we go along.'Given that devolved authorities need to plan their budgets for these changes, we only think it is fair for the Welsh Government to provide sufficient funding to alleviate the cost implications of this Bill. Now, while amendment 11 makes reference to costs borne by local authorities and health boards, I note that amendment 12 takes this further by including other devolved authorities that are not funded by Welsh Government. Anticipating the Deputy Minister's response that few under this category, if any at all, would be affected by the Bill, we are pursuing a principle here, and it is agreement to the principle of providing sufficient funding that we are seeking from you as the Deputy Minister. Now, these are just two examples of Welsh Government legislation to date that have been underfunded. The Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013: last year, the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee found that the Wales annual spend on walking and cycling is half that of England's and one sixth of Holland's. Furthermore, the committee highlighted that the passing of the Act put a requirement on local authorities to continuously improve active travel routes, but were constrained by the funding made available to them. The Minister at the time announced a three-year funding settlement of PS60 million. Now, my local authority and other authorities that have done some monitoring on the active travel Act--they simply were not awarded sufficient funding to actually allow the active travel Act to become a meaningful piece of legislation, and the same goes with the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. This month, the auditor general has raised concerns that the public services boards created under the Act were limited in their work and impact due to the lack of dedicated funding. Outside of the Welsh Government's regional grant that cannot be spent on projects, councils often contribute through officer time or facilities, but resources and capacity to support those PSBs remain a key risk, as partners don't have the capacity to take on more. The reason that I wanted these amendments placed in here is I genuinely do not believe that you've even envisioned what, or even estimated the likely cost to be borne by the organisations, and certainly our local authorities and health boards, the impact this Bill is going to have. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Janet. Are there other Members who would like to speak in this group, please? No. Okay. I call the Deputy Minister, then. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Chair. I can understand that the Member is concerned about the impact of this Bill on public services, but you will see from the explanatory memorandum and from the raft of impact statements published with the Bill that we've done a thorough and extremely diligent job of considering the potential impacts of this Bill before introduction. And as far as we're aware, no other country has done more than us to consider the impacts of similar legislation, and also comprehensively prepared for implementation. We've explored the published data, which is available from other countries, on the impact of measures they've taken to prohibit the physical punishment of children. We've also spoken to a range of stakeholders in Ireland, New Zealand and Malta, who have legal systems similar to our own. And in these countries, there is no evidence that public services have been overwhelmed following law reform. And stakeholders have been clear when giving evidence to this committee that they do not consider there will be runaway costs, and I think we should trust their judgment on this. In fact, as this committee notes in its Stage 1 report, those delivering services on the front line have said, without exception, that'this Bill will improve their ability to protect children living in Wales because it will make the law clear.'Sally Jenkins of the Association of Directors of Social Services said to this committee:'In terms of thresholds for children's services, we would not be anticipating a huge number of referrals to us. There may be a small number of referrals that come through. What we know from other nations is that it will peak and then settle. We recognise that's likely to happen.'That's from the front line. Jane Randall, chair of the National Independent Safeguarding Board Wales, said:'there's no expectation that there's going to be a huge increase in the number of referrals coming through to local authority social services, I think it would be dealt with within their existing resources.'And Dr Rowena Christmas, Royal College of General Practitioners, said:'I can't see it's going to lengthen consultations. I can't see that it's going to increase the number of consultations, and I don't think it's going to increase the number of referrals I make to the health visitor or to social services, because if I was worried, I'd make those referrals now regardless of the Bill.'I just want to say again that the Bill is removing a defence to an offence of common assault, which has formed part of the common law of England and Wales for a very long time. And social services already receive and investigate reports of children being assaulted, including from health and education, so it's not a whole new area of costly activity for any of them. I do think that the evidence that you had at your committee did highlight those points. As I've already pointed out when discussing group 2 amendments, we're working with organisations to put in place arrangements to collect data about the possible impact on their services, and this will be analysed as part of the post-implementation review of the legislation. Welsh Government can consider with relevant organisations how best to manage any impact on workloads or resources and any cost implications. I can assure you that work to update the regulatory impact assessment has continued, and I've asked officials to prepare a revised RIA, as recommended at Stage 2, and I expect to share an updated RIA with you in advance of Stage 3. Serious consideration is being given on how to provide more detailed estimates of the unknown costs to public services arising from the Bill, but I think you should be reassured by the evidence that was given, particularly to this committee, from the professionals at the front line. What the amendments are proposing is outside the normal funding arrangements that operate within Government, and it's not clear why, in the context of the evidence heard at Stage I, such provisions are necessary. I'm sure that Members will agree that future Governments need to be able to consider, within the context of the budget-setting process, what the priorities are, and these considerations would need to be made within the context at that time, for example taking into account any issues that there are--UK Government actions, what happens in relation to Brexit, or any other unforeseen impacts on the economy or Welsh society. All those issues would have to be taken into account. Furthermore, as is the case now, the National Assembly for Wales scrutinises the Welsh Government budget annually, so it would be able to make an argument for additional funding for public bodies, should it consider that this is required. I do think all the evidence has shown that we do not anticipate that there will be a huge increase of a demand for funding, so I urge Members to reject these amendments, which I believe are unnecessary. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Chair, could I ask a question? Lynne Neagle AM: You can reply to the debate now, Janet, yes. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I'd like to ask a question of the Deputy Minister. When we were taking evidence, at an earlier stage, I noticed that part of the stakeholder group--there was some liaison going on with social services departments across Wales. Now, we have 22 local authorities. At that time, the numbers mentioned were quite small--I think only a handful. What discussions have taken place with our local authorities in terms of their social services departments in terms of the lead, the cabinet members, or, indeed, the head of service? I can speak from my own experiences, when going around my constituency, but when I've spoken to some of the family support groups, and, indeed, the departments themselves, they are very concerned about the financial impact that this is going to have on the provision. They're already overstretched, and they see this as another burden--primarily another financial burden. So, how much have you engaged with them? Julie Morgan AM: There's been extensive engagement. We've had meetings with the Association of Directors of Social Services, and they're represented on all our groups, and we're working very closely with them, because, of course, they represent all the local authorities. But I have to say, when I've been going round and meeting lots of different groups, the first thing they say is,'I'm so glad that you're doing this', and they haven't mentioned any financial implications. But, obviously, we will be very aware of--we are looking at any more evidence that comes up. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. So, I'll still move my amendments. I'm disappointed, really. I was hoping to see some commitment to--this Bill was going to go through, and it's one that could be implemented fully, because sufficient resources were there. I'm not convinced about that, and I know that other organisations are not also. So, I move my amendments. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 11 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] I therefore take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 11 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 12? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 12 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] All those in favour of amendment 12. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 12 is not agreed. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 4? Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I move amendment 4 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 4 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 4, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 4 is agreed. Deputy Minister, do you want to proceed to a vote on amendment 5? Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 5 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 5 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 5, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 5 is agreed. Deputy Minister, do you want to move to a vote on amendment 6? Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 6, then, in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 6 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 6 is therefore agreed. This takes us, then, to the fifth and final group, which relates to commencement. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 9 in the name of Suzy Davies. And I call Suzy Davies to move amendment 9 and to speak to the amendment and the other amendments in the group. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much, Chair. Amendment 9 is actually consequential on amendment 10 passing, but it's the lead amendment in the group, so I'll move it to begin the debate. Minister, I'm speaking here now to amendments 10 and 15 specifically. You've said repeatedly, and I believe you, that you do not wish to criminalise parents but just to stop them physically punishing their children. You could have chosen to try and achieve this through awareness raising and civil enforcement, but by choosing to remove the defence to a criminal act you have entered the arena of criminal law, where the logical consequence is opening parents up to liability--not necessarily getting prosecuted, but liability to prosecution, not just liability to civil sanctions. I'm sure you'd prefer parents not to be prosecuted, but that decision does not and cannot lie with you. You, like us, have no agency in this, because the powers and the duties of the police and the Crown Prosecution Service sit outside our competence. You cannot and we cannot, by law or otherwise, instruct either of them in the delivery of your policy intention of not criminalising parents. You've acknowledged to this committee and the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee that revised CPS charging guidance and any other guidance on, for example, out-of-court disposals, are key to delivering your policy objectives. You'll remember how concerned this committee was when we learned that your advisory group--the strategic implementation group, is it--was only in the early stages of discussing what these guidelines might look like. So, you're actually asking us to pass law when we have no control over how parents might be punished for smacking their children--no control of the regard given to the relevance of force, the frequency of the offence, any prior conviction, any prior reporting, not even the views of the child in how they might be sentenced, or thresholds that would be appropriate for cautions and other out-of-court disposals; no guidance to the police on thresholds for arrest, let alone charging. And you argue that the rights of the child are what matter, and I agree with you here, but everybody, adult or child, has a right to natural justice and proportionate remedy or censure, and you are in no position to offer us any comfort on these matters at this stage. Now, CLAC recommended that any revised guidance be made available to AMs before Stage 3. I anticipate that that's unlikely, and I hope I'm wrong, but that's why Janet and I have tabled amendments 10 and 15, which prevent you bringing section 1 into force until that CPS guidance has been fully updated to take into account the change in the law and until pathways away from prosecution have been devised and agreed. That reflects our recommendation 4, this committee's recommendation, as well as CLAC's recommendation 1. It gives your strategic implementation board time to consider how it can get around the other fundamentally worrying issue of the effect of recording reports of apparent physical punishment, even if those reports ultimately prove unfounded. And you have not addressed these in your own amendments. I have to say, Minister, I think these points are so serious that I would have liked to have tabled amendments preventing you seeking Royal Assent for this Bill until the Assembly has seen drafts of the range of official guidance needed for the police and CPS. I'd have sought a Report Stage, if I could, so that we could consider that evidence. But I'm therefore asking you to support the amendments we have tabled, 10 and 15, so that we can bring some damage limitation to a process that you ultimately cannot control once this Bill has passed. Now, I know you've got the numbers to pass this Bill, whether you accept amendments or not, but I just hope you can see the danger in pushing forward with a Bill that changes a person's relationship with the criminal law when you have no legal control over the consequences of that, and you're inviting this Assembly to fall into the same trap. I therefore urge the Assembly to avoid this recklessness by supporting these two amendments. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Suzy. Are there other Members who wish to speak? No. Janet, do you want to speak? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, I wish to speak to amendments 14 and 16. Amendment 14, however, is consequential to amendment 16 passing. Amendment 16 prevents this from commencing until parenting support services have been established by the Welsh Government. As was clear during the committee's evidence sessions, present Welsh Government support programmes for parents have insufficient coverage. For example, the capacity and reach of the Healthy Child Wales programme came under question on its role in awareness raising, with health representatives acknowledging that universality had not been achieved, with 53. 2 per cent of children in Wales reported as being contacted. Furthermore, existing parenting support is often only available as part of a targeted programme in specific areas, such as Flying Start, and even the children's commissioner noted that much more is needed to support parents to find alternatives to disciplining their children. Now, the Deputy Minister mentioned the'Parenting: Give it Time'campaign as part of proposals on a wider package of support for children and their parents. However, the Deputy Minister was challenged on this fact, that this is an online campaign only, and could only respond that the mapping exercise she will undertake. Consequently, it should be remembered that this Bill will affect all parents. Therefore, the Deputy Minister needs to assure the committee and the public that universal support will be provided before the removal of the defence occurs. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Janet. Deputy Minister. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Chair. I've listened to what stakeholders and committees have said about the importance of ensuring sufficient time is available prior to the change in the law to abolish the defence of reasonable punishment during Stage 1. As a result, I have brought forward amendments in this group to provide certainty around the date for the change in the law. My amendment 7 will remove the power to commence this core provision of the Bill by Order of the Welsh Ministers and ensure that the defence of reasonable punishment is abolished at the end of a two-year period beginning the day after Royal Assent. That was done to give certainty on the length of time. Up to then, we'd always said'up to two years'--well, we're giving two years. This certainty will allow key partners, including the police, social services and the Crown Prosecution Service, to plan for changes to guidance, training and data-collection systems more effectively. It'll also provide a focus for our awareness-raising campaign. My amendment 8 in this group has the consequence of removing the power to make transitional provision, which is replaced by my amendments 3 and 6, and we discussed those in the previous group. I've listened to the arguments put forward by Suzy Davies and Janet Finch-Saunders for the amendments in this group that they have tabled. These amendments are all about making the commencement of the Bill conditional on something else happening, whether it's waiting for the revision of Crown Prosecution Service guidance, or the establishment of a pathway for diversion from the criminal justice system, or for the provision of parenting support services. And, really, I don't think that we should be going down that road. As I set out in my letter of response to the Stage 1 report from the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee, we've got good working relations with the CPS through the strategic implementation group, and we work very closely with them. But the CPS are an independent body, as Suzy Davies has said in her contribution, not answerable to Welsh Ministers or this legislature, and it's not appropriate for a Minister or the National Assembly to seek to influence the CPS guidelines. We're discussing the issues with the CPS in the implementation group. And, in fact, I think that these amendments--Suzy's amendments in particular--wouldn't just seek to influence the CPS, but would actually give power to a non-devolved body on the way that we legislate in Wales. So, I don't think we should make it conditional on those guidelines being decided. I think you have to rely on the fact that we have got this very good relationship, very close working relationship. And I know they did give evidence to your committee, I believe, the CPS. And I think legislating to effectively give a non-devolved body a power to commence, or not, Assembly legislation would be highly unusual and would raise great uncertainty, I think, if we did go down that track, because I think this is very important Welsh legislation, which does have broad support across the Assembly. And I don't think we should allow non-devolved bodies to be the final arbiters of commencement of our legislation. So, I don't support those amendments. I think the CPS is entirely independent of Government, and must be entirely independent of Government, and will make its own decisions about how and when it will revise its guidance. In addition, you suggest we allow the UK Government to have a say in when Welsh legislation is commenced in an area that was specifically devolved to the Assembly. The test applied by the proposed amendments as to when commencement could lawfully occur is uncertain. If these amendments passed, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to judge when section 1 could be commenced. This contravenes what stakeholders and committees have asked for, and raises huge uncertainty, which potentially jeopardises the Bill. And I want to assure you again, not only do we have good working relations with the CPS, but also very good working relationships with the police, who are, of course, the other non-devolved body who have great involvement and interest in these issues. The work we do in these groups should not affect the timing of the Bill's commencement. In fact, it's the other way round. My amendment to provide a two-year period between Royal Assent and commencement means these groups can plan their work to a known timescale and deliver in good time before the law comes into force. And then, when it comes to parenting support, the committee knows that I've committed to reviewing the existing provision of parenting support, and work is already under way through the parenting expert group on this very issue. I have already said I will expand the age range of the'Parenting: Give it Time'campaign, and I think--. I know Janet Finch-Saunders has made the point that it is an online facility. It is very widely used. It is a very successful tool. But, of course, the universal services are also there. For example, the universal service of the health visitors is absolutely crucial, and that is a service that is for every child. And, of course, the health visitors welcome this legislation very strongly. And the expert group is considering what it'll recommend for the future, and it needs the time to be able to do that, to support the Bill as well as to support parenting more widely. So, as I said, I think these are important points that you have raised, but I don't think they are appropriate. So, I therefore urge the committee not to support amendments 9 and 10, nor 13,14 and 15. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy to reply to the debate. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much, and thank you very much, Deputy Minister, as well. I'm disappointed that you haven't seen what's behind Janet Finch-Saunders's final amendment there, actually. Maybe it's something we'll raise again with you at Stage 3, or maybe in the conversations that we have between now and then. But I want to go back to amendments 10 and 15 that I've raised and your assertion that we're giving, or attempting to give, power to the CPS here. We are not. This amendment is drafted very specifically and in full knowledge that we have no legislative competence in this area. And this is why I go back to where my contribution to this started, and it's your choice to try and resolve the problem of--or, sorry, to try and protect children's rights through the medium of a change to the criminal law rather than the many opportunities that were available to you through the civil law and over which you would have had complete competence. This Bill--and, actually, you've said a couple of times in your response today that it's important that it's commenced on a certain date. My argument is: it shouldn't be commenced at all unless you are absolutely certain about how it is likely to affect the parents who will now be captured by the removal of the defence. And, while I claim no mischief on the part of the CPS or the police--obviously I don't--there is nothing you can do that would prevent the CPS, should they wish to do it, or indeed the police with their own guidelines, putting in place something that is wholly disproportionate to the offence that is now being released by the removal of a defence. And, because of that, I ask you to consider, or balance, actually, two important things here: one is the rights of the child, obviously at the forefront of your argument on this, which I would argue could be completely and safely protected through the use of civil law on this occasion; and, actually, the rights of the child again to have a good relationship with parents over whose future they will have no say--or at least you cannot allow them to have any say in how those parents might be treated in terms of sentencing. The relationship between parents and children obviously is different in every family, but that's something you ought to protect in what you're trying to do here, and by leaving it open, as you say, to completely different--sorry, undevolved, two undevolved authorities to make decisions about how that relationship could be affected deeply worries me. I know this isn't going to stop your Bill going forward, but I really want you to consider my arguments and how you might try and address them at Stage 3, because leaving, effectively, the delivery of your policy objectives to somebody over whom you have no control, despite your great relationship with them, should worry us all as a legislature. Thank you. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you, Suzy. Do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 9? Suzy Davies AM: Oh, because of the voting order--. Yes, please. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 9 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 9, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 9 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 13? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 13 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 13, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 13 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 14? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 14 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 14, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 14 is not agreed. Deputy Minister, do you wish to move to a vote on amendment 7? Julie Morgan AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 7 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 7 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 7, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against. Amendment 7 is agreed. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 10? Suzy Davies AM: Yes, please. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 10 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 10, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 10 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 15? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 15 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 15, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 15 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 16? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 16 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 16, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 16 is not agreed. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 8? Julie Morgan AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 8, then, in the name of the Minister. The question is that amendment 8 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 8 is therefore agreed. Well, that has brought us to the end of our amendments, so can I thank the Deputy Minister and her officials for their attendance? As usual, you will be sent a transcript of the meeting to check for factual accuracy. This completes Stage 2 proceedings. Stage 3 begins tomorrow, and the relevant date of Stage 3 proceedings will be published in due course. Standing Orders make provision for the Deputy Minister to prepare a revised explanatory memorandum, taking account of the amendments agreed today. The revised memorandum will be laid at least five working days before Stage 3 proceedings. Thank you very much. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you all very much. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services, following our meeting on 2 October. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Minister for Health and Social Services updating the committee on the'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'strategy. And paper to note 3 is a letter from myself to the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services regarding early childhood education and care, following the session that we held on 2 October. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Item 4, then, is for me to propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17. 42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Thank you.

This discussion started with Janet Finch-Saunders and Janet Finch-Saunders spoke to both amendments in this group. She said the reason she wanted these two amendments be there because she genuinely did not believe that the Deputy Minister had envisioned what or even estimated the likely cost to be borne by the organizations, and certainly their local authorities and health boards and impact of the Bill was going to have. Then the Deputy Minister responded to this. She said they had done a thorough and extremely diligent job of considering the potential impacts of the Bill before introduction. She thought all the evidence had shown that they did not anticipate that there would be a huge increase of a demand for funding, so she encouraged members to reject these amendments, which she thought were not necessary. At last, they took a vote on amendments 11 and 12, and ended up with rejecting amendments 11 and 12, and agreeing with amendment 4 and 5.

tr-sq-604

tr-sq-604_0

Summarize Janet Finch-Saunders opinions on amendments 11 and 12 that relate to the duty to ensure sufficient funding. Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee this morning. We've received no apologies for absence. Can I ask if there are any declarations of interest from Members, please? No. Okay, thank you. Item 2 this morning is the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill: Stage 2 proceedings. I'm pleased to welcome Julie Morgan AM, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services; Karen Cornish, deputy director, children and families division at Welsh Government; and Emma Gammon, lawyer for Welsh Government. Thank you for attending this morning and welcome to the committee. I'm just going to run through the procedures that we're going to follow now. As I said, the purpose of the meeting is to undertake Stage 2 proceedings on the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill. For these proceedings, Members should have copies of the marshalled list of amendments, the groupings of the amendments for debate and the voting order for the amendments. The marshalled list of amendments is the list of all amendments tabled, marshalled into the order in which the sections appear in the Bill. The order in which we consider amendments will be the default order--that is, sections 1 to 3 and the long title. You will see from the groupings list that amendments have been grouped to facilitate debate. However, the order in which they're called and moved for decision is dictated by the marshalled list. Members will, therefore, need to follow the two papers, although I will advise Members when I call them whether they're being called to speak in the debate or to move their amendments for a decision. There will be one debate on each group of amendments. Members who wish to speak in a particular group should indicate to me in the usual way. I will call the Deputy Minister to speak on each group. For the record, in accordance with the convention agreed by the Business Committee, as Chair I will move amendments in the name of the Deputy Minister. For expediency, I will assume that the Deputy Minister wishes me to move all of her amendments, and I will do so at the appropriate place in the marshalled list. Deputy Minister, if you do not want a particular amendment to be moved, please indicate to me at the relevant point in proceedings. In line with our usual practice, legal advisers to the committee and the Deputy Minister are not expected to provide advice on the record. If Members wish to seek legal advice during proceedings, please do so by passing a note to the legal adviser and, if necessary, we can adjourn. My intention is to try to dispose of all amendments during today's meeting. I will call a short break in proceedings at an appropriate time, if necessary. Okay, thank you. So, we will proceed, then, to group 1, which is the duty to promote public awareness. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 1 in the name of the Deputy Minister. I move amendment 1 in the Deputy Minister's name and call on the Deputy Minister to speak to her amendment and the other amendments in this group. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much, Chair. My amendments 1 and 4 will place a duty on Welsh Ministers to provide information and increase awareness about the change in the law to ensure that the public are made aware of how the law will change as a result of the defence of reasonable punishment being abolished and that physical punishment would be prohibited once the Act commences. I tabled these amendments in response to this committee's recommendation--this was a recommendation from this committee in the Stage 1 report, so I have responded to that. I've already made a commitment to a high-intensity awareness-raising campaign over approximately six years from Royal Assent, should the Bill be passed. I've considered amendments 1A to 1E, which have been tabled by Janet Finch-Saunders, and which relate to the duty to raise awareness. Amendment 1A introduces a reference to public understanding. We don't think, actually, that this adds anything to the Government amendment, which already mentions awareness. It makes the awareness-raising duty open-ended with no time limit, which is not necessary. By commencement, messaging around the change in the law will be embedded. The awareness-raising campaign will continue for a number of years. Therefore, an ongoing duty referring specifically to the law change would not be required. I understand, of course, that the awareness-raising campaign needs to be comprehensive, well planned and to reach out to all those people and all those communities who need to be aware of the law change, and understand how to respond to it. But I don't think it's helpful or necessary to highlight specific groups, such as visitors to Wales, on the face of the Bill--that's the approach taken in amendment 1E--as it risks placing too much emphasis on certain groups at the expense of others. In relation to children, the committee will know that I'm fully committed to children's rights, and that Welsh Ministers are already under a duty to have due regard to the rights of children whenever they exercise their functions. An additional due regard requirement, such as the one set out in amendment 1D, relating specifically to the need to promote awareness among children is not needed. This would be part and parcel of the Welsh Government approach to putting children's rights at the heart of our policy making. Similarly, I don't think it's necessary for the Bill to set out specifically the topics that need to be covered in the awareness-raising campaign, as is suggested in amendments 1B and 1C. That level of detail, I don't think, is for the face of the Bill. Information required about parenting support will be considered by the parenting expert group, under the auspices of the Bill's strategic implementation group, working with my officials and the expert stakeholder group on the awareness-raising campaign. And, really, their thinking should not be constrained in any way by specifications on the face of the Bill. I think we always need to bear in mind that what the Bill does is remove a defence to an existing criminal offence; it does not create a new offence. And in this context, it doesn't make sense for this Bill to contain a provision requiring the provision of information about how a person may raise concerns if it appears to them that a child is being physically punished. As I set out in my letter to this committee responding to recommendation 15 on this point, safeguarding is everyone's business, and, as now, the public have a role in highlighting to relevant services if they are concerned about a child. I'm asking for the support of Members for amendments 1 and 4, and I ask Members to reject amendments 1A to 1E because this would place unnecessary provisions on the face of the Bill. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Deputy Minister. Are there other Members who wish to speak? Janet Finch-Saunders. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. I wish to speak to amendments 1A to 1E, which relate to the Deputy Minister's amendment on the duty to promote public awareness. While we believe it is absolutely imperative that the public are made aware of this controversial change in the law, the Deputy Minister's amendment lacks a number of key points that the committee were actually keen to address at Stage 1. An important thread runs throughout each and every amendment that I've tabled within this group--that of a sustained awareness campaign, which not only stretches beyond the implementation of the Bill, but serves as a duty for future administrations. Amendment 1A: primarily, amendment 1A changes amendment 1 to include the promotion of understanding changes to the law. I don't think it's enough for the Welsh Government to say that the public should be made aware of the coming into force of section 1 and that a public awareness campaign needs to be sustained until the Welsh Government's objectives have been achieved. Despite the fact that it is intended to change behaviour, the consequences of this law are far greater than that of organ donation or prohibiting smoking indoors. Instead of an opt-out system or a civil offence, this law will remove a defence for parents, information on which could be there on their records for the rest of their lives, potentially separate parents, and could affect employment chances. As such, whilst we agree with the necessity of the awareness campaign, it is important too that the Welsh Government take stock and ensures that parents are not penalised due to a weak awareness campaign. The witnesses we heard before this committee also noted the necessity of ensuring that the public understands-- Lynne Neagle AM: Janet, Dawn is asking if you'll take an intervention. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. Dawn Bowden AM: I just wanted to know--could you give us examples of any other piece of legislation where there's been indefinite public awareness campaigns once it's been passed? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: There's a lot of legislation. The first Assembly term when I was here-- Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, what I'm asking-- Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I'm trying to respond-- Dawn Bowden AM: What I'm asking for is: can you give us specific examples of where there have been indefinite public awareness campaigns running indefinitely past the enactment of a piece of legislation? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: The very first term that I was an Assembly Member, we passed 25 pieces of separate legislation. Even today, as I sit here, the public are not aware of many of those pieces of legislation. This particular piece of legislation will have a profound effect on the parenting of children in Wales. So, therefore, I think there is a necessity for both children and parents to become involved, and I shall speak now-- Dawn Bowden AM: With respect, Chair, that's not the question I asked. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: --to my amendments. Lynne Neagle AM: I can call you in the debate, if you'd like to make a more substantive contribution on this. Yes. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: The witnesses who we heard from before this committee also noted the necessity of ensuring that the public understands the implications. And that's what we're talking about here, Members--the implications of removing this defence. Strikingly, the Office of Police and Crime Commissioner for Gwent stated the following:'the potential for public resistance to the Bill through misunderstanding or confusion over it implications may pose the largest barrier to its implementation.'If you are intent on removing the defence of reasonable punishment, it is therefore not unreasonable to ensure that law-abiding parents fully understand the ramifications of this Bill. Additionally, the committee found that while the current Welsh Government's intention to deliver a public awareness campaign was beyond doubt, future Governments may have less of a commitment. This places further weight on the fact that the Welsh Government should be under a duty to promote awareness and understanding of the Bill beyond its commencement. Furthermore, the Children (Equal Protection from Assault) (Scotland) Bill quite clearly notes that, under section 2, the Scottish Ministers must take such steps as they consider appropriate to promote public awareness and understanding about the effect of section 1 on the abolition for the defence of reasonable punishment. Therefore, I would be grateful if the Deputy Minister can respond as to the reasons why the Welsh Government has deviated from this course of action in their amendment. [Interruption. ] Should our amendment be agreed-- Lynne Neagle AM: Are you taking an intervention? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: No. I'd rather crack on, to be honest. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I can call you in the debate, Hefin. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Should our amendment to be agreed, we also request that a printing change be made to ensure that the new heading reflects promoting awareness of the changes to the law made by section 1. Amendment 1B: amendment 1B is in line with the committee's recommendation 9, which stated that, as part of a public awareness campaign, there should be details about the support available to parents to use alternatives to physical punishment when disciplining their children. During evidence at Stage 1, the witnesses we saw before the committee raised serious concerns about harder-to-reach groups who needed to be made aware of removing the defence. For example, Children in Wales, Action for Children and Play Wales stated that some families and communities may be harder to reach with information and support. Welsh Government needs to make sure that they receive the information they need. Now, while the Deputy Minister states that she would work hard to ensure that harder-to-reach groups receive this information, a duty to provide information on alternatives to physical punishment would ensure that future Welsh Governments would maintain a successful awareness-raising campaign. I note the Deputy Minister accepted the recommendation, through our amendment, but this does not explicitly include a duty to provide details about support for parents. As will be expanded upon later, the Deputy Minister has relied upon the'Parenting: Give it Time'campaign to be delivered alongside awareness raising. However, this is only an online resource and she must be clear about what other avenues will be available to parents who do not have access to the internet or are part of harder-to-reach groups. Amendment 1C: amendment 1C supports the committee's recommendation 15 that explains that the Welsh Government should ensure clear advice is provided on what people can do if they have seen or learned of a child being physically assaulted. We urged, at Stage 1, that although many professionals were already under a duty to report concerns about physical punishment, regardless of the Bill, other witnesses raised concerns that it could create the potential for claims of abuse that are unfounded. In particular, some were worried that children, who may not realise the implications of reporting, could make allegations that are actually untrue. While we would expect the awareness-raising campaign to include the consequences of false accusations, this could also be reflected among adults, if the public are not sufficiently made aware of how they can report and in what situations they can report a case of assault. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. I've got several speakers. I've got Suzy Davies first, then Dawn Bowden. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much, Chair. Thank you Minister, and thank you, Janet, for that. I think it's worth just pointing out at this stage that the majority of the amendments that are being made and articulated by Janet there are based on committee recommendations, and those recommendations were made after taking evidence from the public at large, but also you as well. So, that suggests that, at that stage, we weren't reassured by the offer that you were making because we felt the need to put these recommendations into our report. Now, I recognise that you've moved some way on some of these amendments, and we'll been talking about that through the course of the debates on other groups. But the one thing to bear in mind here is this is legislation, now--that means that this is the instrument of the Assembly, not of Government, and if this Assembly feels that the face of the Bill is unclear on the minimum requirements of a public awareness campaign, then we have the right to suggest the things that we would like to see in that public awareness-raising campaign. The list that Janet has given is a minimum. The reason these have been tabled individually and independently is that some may be acceptable where others may not be, so it will be disappointing to hear that you're rejecting them all, and the reason they need to go on the face of the Bill is that, if you are going to introduce specifics via regulation, at the moment we have no reassurance about how you're going to do that--about what input the Assembly, on behalf of our constituents, could have in designing that public awareness-raising campaign. Unless you accept some amendments in other groups, that is the position with this Bill: the influence of the Assembly will be zero over the content of an awareness-raising campaign. In terms of it being non-time limited, I think the amendment has been tabled in the way it has not to oblige you to an everlasting, never-ending campaign of awareness raising. But if you bear in mind that, seven years after the introduction of this Bill, there's going to be some reporting on the effectiveness of the Bill, what is the point of doing that if you don't then have an obligation, should the reports require it to be necessary, to continue promoting the changes in the law? I accept that that can't go on for centuries, but to actually limit it to two years on an issue that is so sensitive, and which has a reach beyond our boundaries, I think is genuinely a mistake. Finally, you mention that safeguarding is everyone's business. I think that's true, but I think Janet Finch-Saunders was right to say that members of the public, ordinary individuals, not professionals, will need assurance that they're doing the right thing. The amendment as listed is not even there to encourage people to do that, although that can be read in that way, but it is to help them be certain that they are doing the right thing. If this is going to be up to the individual, as you've said, and the committee itself wasn't reassured that individuals would know what to do, perhaps I can ask you to consider at Stage 3, if you're going to reject this amendment, how you can reassure members of the public that, if they are going to intervene on the back of this law, they're making things better, not worse. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Suzy. Dawn. Dawn Bowden AM: My comments, really, relate to ongoing awareness-raising campaigns, which I think all of us would want to see, and would appreciate in any changes in legislation. My point, really, is that we have a plethora of legislation that this Assembly has passed in the last 20 years, and I'm not aware of any legislation where, on the face of the Bill we have ongoing awareness-raising campaigns on an indefinite basis. It seems to me that, for some reason, you seem to be wanting to take a completely different approach to this piece of legislation. From what the Deputy Minister is saying--and perhaps I will get some clarity on this--there will be an amendment to the legislation that will say that we have an awareness campaign. That awareness campaign can be the subject of consultation with interested parties in terms of what needs to be included in it. It could also, I assume, Deputy Minister, be an awareness campaign that can be written into a set of guidance for future use. But the point I'm trying to make is that I don't believe that any piece of legislation requires ongoing and indefinite awareness-raising campaigns, and particularly in relation to visitors to Wales. Again, we have other pieces of legislation in Wales that are not applicable in the other parts of the UK. I am not aware that there is a necessity for awareness-raising campaigns with visitors coming into Wales on the raft of the other pieces of legislation that we have that they don't. And similarly, when we go to visit countries that have different legislation, we don't necessarily know what legislation we're going into when we visit that country--you just go there and you accept that you go to a different country and you abide by their laws. So, my key point, Chair, is just the necessity of an ongoing, endless awareness campaign being written onto the face of the Bill. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Dawn. Hefin. Hefin David AM: My comments follow logically from Dawn Bowden's comments, particularly in relation to amendments 1D and 1E. What you would be doing is that this Senedd, if this was on the face of the Bill, the duty on Ministers, would be putting the duty on Ministers in law beyond the life of the fifth Senedd, into the next Senedd term, and putting that duty on those newly elected Ministers after that, which, in principle, would be against the principles of binding-- Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin, are you taking an intervention from Suzy? Hefin David AM: Yes, happy to. Suzy Davies AM: When you've finished your point. Hefin David AM: I'm happy to take it now, because I was going to sum up by agreeing with the point you made, actually. Suzy Davies AM: I'd love that. You referred to this potentially binding Ministers in future Assemblies; at the moment, we've got an implementation period and a five-year reporting period that takes any reporting on this Act into the Assembly after next. I'm wondering if you're going to have any comments on that when we come to the amendment to change that later on. Hefin David AM: Well, when we get to that amendment, I'll make comments if I feel it necessary. But at this point in time, we're talking about amendments 1D and 1E, and particularly in relation to 1D and 1E it just isn't necessary, given the fact that--I won't call it a concession, because I think you made a reasonable point about the Minister making a statement at Stage 3, and I think Dawn Bowden actually supported that as well. That, therefore, makes those amendments unnecessary. Given that, in these circumstances, it is unnecessary to bind Ministers in future Parliaments. And that's my key point, really, which is why I wouldn't vote for those two amendments. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Sian. Sian Gwenllian AM: Thank you very much. I just want to speak against amendment 1A and also amendment 1B. I don't believe that there is a need for an indefinite campaign, as is outlined in 1A. I agree entirely that there is a need for a campaign during the period of change, and therefore I'm very glad to see that the Government has brought forward amendment 1, and I do hope that there will be a real push during the period of change. In terms of amendment 1B, I do have sympathy with what is being said here, but I believe that any kind of information or campaign in terms of enabling parents to learn about alternatives to physical punishment should be the subject of continual far-reaching work by the Government, through various programmes, and it should not be an addition on the face of this Bill, which deals with a small change to the common law. And then, on 1D also, if I may--I don't agree with this either. Again, I believe that there is a need to promote awareness amongst children, but that should happen through the children's rights convention, as part of a broader programme to promote children's rights. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Sian. I call on the Deputy Minister to speak, then. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you all very much for your contributions to the debate and your comments on these amendments today. I just want to re-emphasise that it is as a result of the recommendation from this committee that we are putting this duty to have the awareness campaign on the face of the Bill, and I absolutely recognise the crucial role awareness raising has to play in supporting the implementation of the Bill. I'm very grateful for and appreciate the committee's interest and the work that you've done in this area of work. But I do think that these amendments are unnecessary. If we go through them, amendment 1A is really open-ended on promoting public awareness. We're committed to a high-intensity awareness over six years from Royal Assent, and there is an expert stakeholder group supporting us with the development of the awareness campaign. All the points that you've been making will be being considered by that group. I think the level of detail on the face of the Bill is not needed. Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Would you just take an intervention on that just to help me understand? A two-year awareness-raising campaign--how have you concluded that-- Julie Morgan AM: Six-year. Suzy Davies AM: I thought it was two years before section 1 comes into force. Julie Morgan AM: We've got six years from Royal Assent. Suzy Davies AM: Oh, so it is going to continue beyond section 1 coming into force-- Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Oh yes, it's going to continue. Suzy Davies AM: That's very helpful. Julie Morgan AM: Definitely, yes. So, I don't think that's needed, amendment 1A. Amendment 1B, about support available to parents and how to access it--again, this level of detail is not required on the face of the Bill. I just want to emphasise we have got this expert implementation group, who are working on all aspects of this Bill, many of whom represent organisations who gave evidence to this committee. The Bill is a simple one, with a clear purpose. It aims to remove the defence of reasonable punishment. I think lots of these amendments are very helpful and interesting, but would be discussed and would be acted on in the normal pathway of planning and development, and they're not required on the face of the Bill. So, I'm not putting them down, I'm just saying that we don't need them to be there on the face of the Bill. And then amendment 1C--the information about how to raise concerns--I do repeat that safeguarding is everybody's business, and the same issues apply now as will after this defence has been removed. Amendment 1D--Ministers to have regard to the need to promote awareness among children--now, children's rights are absolutely enshrined in our policy making, and the entire Bill is about protecting the rights of children. So, it is unnecessary duplication. So, we hope that the Bill will remain focused. Again, in terms of visitors, the level of detail is simply not required on the face of the Bill. Our awareness-raising campaign will be comprehensive. And then to pick up a few of the other points that were raised, revisions to the impact assessments are being considered as part of my commitment to update the explanatory memorandum ahead of Stage 3. So, there will be more details on the regulatory impact assessment. The issue that was raised about the Scottish Bill, that it refers to'understanding'--now, the Scottish Bill was not a Government Bill, it was a private Member's Bill, and our view is that nothing is added by adding the'understanding';'awareness'is sufficient. So, basically, I think that the points made have been very useful, but I urge committee members to accept my amendments, but to reject those proposed by Janet Finch-Saunders, as they are unnecessary provisions in terms of what the awareness-raising duty needs to achieve. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Deputy Minister. Before disposing of amendment 1, we will deal with the amendments to that amendment. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1A? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 1A be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we have an objection. I therefore take a vote by show of hands. The question is that amendment 1A be agreed. All those in favour, please raise your hands. All those against. There voted two in favour, four against. So, amendment 1A is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1B? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 1B be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, I'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 1B. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 1B is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1C? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 1C be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay. All those in favour of amendment 1C, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 1C is not agreed. Janet, do you want to move amendment 1D? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 1D be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, as there's an objection, I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 1D, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 1D is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1E? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. The question is that amendment 1E be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 1E, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 1E is not agreed. If amendment 1 is not agreed, amendment 2C and amendment 4 will fall. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 1? Julie Morgan AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Okay. I move amendment 1 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 1 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we have an objection, so we'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 1. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 1 is agreed. We'll move on now then to group 2, which relates to the duty to report on the effect of the legislation. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 2, in the name of the Deputy Minister. I move amendment 2 in the Deputy Minister's name, and call on the Deputy Minister to speak to her amendments, and the other amendments in this group. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Chair. The amendments in this group are to do with the post-implementation review of the Bill, and I believe there was also a committee recommendation to this end from your committee, so you strongly influenced this amendment. It's clear from Members'contributions to this group and recommendations by the committee at Stage 1 that they share my commitment to the importance of post-implementation review of the effect of the abolition of the defence of reasonable punishment. I've already provided assurance that I agree with the importance placed on such a review, both in the explanatory memorandum and during Stage 1 scrutiny. I also made a commitment to bring forward a Government amendment to put a duty to undertake a post-implementation review on the face of the Bill. I have done this with amendment 2. Amendment 5 sets out that this provision will come into force the day after Royal Assent. As I said in my responses to the Stage 1 committee report, and as set out in the explanatory memorandum, the post-implementation review of this Bill will not be a single piece of work, but a continuous programme of work during the years following the commencement of section 1. Firstly, we will continue to conduct attitudinal surveys, which will be used to track changes in attitude towards the physical punishment of children and prevalence of parents reporting that they use physical punishment. The surveys will also be used to monitor the effectiveness of our awareness-raising campaign. Secondly, through a dedicated task and finish group, we are working with organisations to put in place arrangements to establish robust methods for capturing meaningful data relating to the Bill and to consider the possible impact on services. Turning to amendment 2C, this amendment would require Welsh Ministers to prepare and lay before the Assembly a report on the effect of their promotion of public awareness before section 1 is commenced. This amendment is unnecessary and is in conflict with what I think is a priority for the implementation of this Bill: that is, given certainty on the commencement date and in enabling us to work towards this with our partners and stakeholders. I also think this amendment is not required because, as I've already stated, we are preparing to assess the effectiveness of our awareness raising. In June, I shared the findings of a representative survey, which establishes a baseline on public awareness and opinion towards physical punishment of children and the proposed legislation. I shared this with the committee. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Deputy Minister. I open it up for discussion now, then. Janet Finch-Saunders. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. I speak to amendments 2C, excluding 2D, to 2K, which relate to the Deputy Minister's amendment 2 on preparing a published report on the effect of abolishing the defence of reasonable punishment. Again, I must stress the importance of getting this right due to the controversial and long-lasting effects of removing the defence of reasonable punishment. Amendments 2E to 2K outline what we would expect to be within this report, and we would wish to see a commitment from the Deputy Minister to ensure the National Assembly for Wales is fully apprised and able to scrutinise the result of this report. Amendment 2C requests that the Welsh Government prepare a report on the awareness-raising campaign and lays it before the Assembly before section 1 commences. As I have outlined under my amendments in group 1, the understanding of the public about the implications of the Bill cannot be sidelined. Although the Deputy Minister has repeated her commitment to a public awareness campaign, we, as the National Assembly for Wales, must be able to scrutinise its effectiveness before section 1 begins. As I noted under amendments 1B to 1E, there are specific groups of people who need to be evaluated on their understanding of the Bill's effect. I'm sure that the Deputy Minister will agree that the harder-to-reach groups are undoubtedly the most vulnerable to any negative impacts that the Bill will have because of the greater potential of a lack of awareness. It is, therefore, important for the Assembly to be able to determine whether the awareness-raising campaign has had a positive effect on these groups of people. As will also be elaborated under amendment 2D, it is extremely important that we, as the Parliament of Wales, are fully apprised of the awareness-raising campaign's impact. Before we implement what will be a criminal offence, it is vital that we ensure that those affected are not adversely impacted because of a poorly targeted awareness campaign. Therefore, I would be grateful if the Deputy Minister would commit to an independent evaluation of the awareness campaign's effects before section 1 commences. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Janet. Suzy Davies. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. Deputy Minister, first of all, can I just say thank you for your opening remarks about the possibility of perhaps doing some work around amendment 2B? I'll come to that a little bit later, if I may. I just want to begin by commenting briefly on what you said about why you'll be rejecting amendment 2C here. I actually don't think that this amendment should affect or jeopardise the commencement date in any way at all. It's an operational requirement to get this work done before the commencement date that's in the draft Bill at the moment. So, failing to meet that would be as a result of operations not going well, rather than anything intrinsic in the Bill, so I'm not sure I can accept your argument on that. And, on 2D--very pleased to hear that you'd be willing to introduce something about'laying'rather than'publishing'at Stage 3, but, in the spirit of recognising that this is the legislature, perhaps I could encourage you just to accept the amendment at this stage, because it doesn't make any difference. Your amendment is going to pass, and this amendment to it would be--I think the gesture there would be very much appreciated. I'll be speaking mainly to amendments 2A and 2B, but I want to begin, again, by thanking you for moving some way on this and considering amendments to the Bill on the issue of reporting, because I know you were keen to avoid amendments in the name of simplicity; you mentioned it earlier. But this is not a newid bychan, I'm afraid, Sian; the terms and the effect of this Bill are quite extensive, and it does need the reassurances, if you like, necessary to mitigate potentially disproportionate effects of this Bill on families where parents'actions had been lawful up until this point in statute. It does need statutory underpinning. So, I am grateful to you for accepting this duty. I know that you're sincere that you want this duty to report to show that the Bill is effective in stopping smacking as a punishment, and also that it is not as harmful to parents as perhaps some of us fear. But, if this were me bringing forward this Bill, I think I'd want to show the world that I was doing the right thing a lot sooner than you appear to wish to do. Amendment 2 means that the efficacy of the Bill will not formally be assessed until seven years after it has passed. There are Acts on the statute book that have lasted a lot less time than that. If you're relying on the two-year period before section 1 comes into operation to do much of the heavy lifting on the culture change, and I think that is what you're expecting--you know, showing a reduction in the incidence of physical punishment, reducing the number of, and indeed the likelihood of, parents putting themselves in the path of criminal liability once those two years are up--I really would have thought you'd want people to know sooner, or as soon as the first possible opportunity on that. Waiting five years, I think, will diminish the ability of you to prove the efficacy of those initial two years, and this is why I'm grateful to you for your offer, because there may be a way where we can overcome that. If the trend of culture change is continuing after year 3--so, basically, in the first year after section 1 comes into effect--that's great, but there's a possibility it's going to reverse. Again, I don't think I'd want to wait five years to find that out. For myself, I think one year would probably be enough, but I think three years is a reasonable compromise, as opposed to five years, for a reporting period. I think seven years is just way too long for a formal evaluation of a Bill's effectiveness. I can't see the reason for quite that length of time--I know you've talked about New Zealand--but neither can the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee. I think that's worth pointing out. When they took the step of recommending this duty to evaluate and report, they also took the step of suggesting a three-year reporting period being more in keeping with other post-legislative scrutiny. That's something I think we perhaps need to bear in mind now, as we enter this period of the consolidation of law. Five/seven years is really something of an outlier, and while that might have been appropriate, perhaps, in New Zealand, I don't think that fits in with our timetables generally here in Wales, and, of course, there are other countries that have introduced this over a period of years, and I note that you haven't drawn on them in order to support your argument. So, can I urge Members and the Minister to consider the arguments behind these amendments? I don't think it's going to reassure anyone--you may want to intervene at this point, Hefin--that we not only won't hear in this Assembly, we won't hear in the next Assembly, about the formal evaluation of this, unless I follow-- Hefin David AM: I won't intervene; I'll speak. Suzy Davies AM: Is that okay? Hefin David AM: Yes, I'll make the point. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, I've got-- Suzy Davies AM: Yes, I'll take the intervention. Lynne Neagle AM: No, he doesn't want to make an intervention-- Hefin David AM: I won't do an intervention; I'll speak. Lynne Neagle AM: --he'll make a contribution. Suzy Davies AM: Oh, apologies-- Hefin David AM: Just to say-- Suzy Davies AM: I'll wait. Hefin David AM: Well, let me put the intervention--. I'll do it as an intervention, then. I just feel that--I take your point, and I was expecting it. The point I was making about 1D and 1E is they close down choices to Ministers in future Assemblies. An evaluative practice would actually open up those choices and give future Parliaments more options with regard to this Bill, so I think it's entirely consistent. I don't think the Minister, in putting in amendment 2, was trying to undermine my argument. Actually, I think she's being constructive by doing that, and I think amendment 2 is a practical amendment that's quite helpful, and its consequence will be to open up choices to future Parliaments, whereas my objection to 1D and 1E is they close those down. Suzy Davies AM: Okay, well, as I say, I think, actually, the Deputy Minister's offer of a three-year interim period might be part of a resolution to this. Because I'm not 100 per cent sure I accept your argument, either, because it closes it down for the interim period if we don't move on with the Deputy Minister's suggestion--which I'll talk about now, actually. Because I am tempted to accept your offer. It absolutely makes sense and it's clearly made with the best good faith here. But I need some clarity on what you would allow this Assembly to do in helping define the terms of that interim report. Because you've been very clear that you don't want to accept the things that Janet Finch-Saunders has been talking about in a final report, and yet I can tell you we want to hear about these things. So, if you're in a position where you can give a commitment at Stage 3 not only to introduce an interim report, but that you will consult with, perhaps, this committee--I'll leave it to you--on the contents of that interim report, what we would want to see tested, then I'll be minded not to move amendment 2B. If you can't give me that reassurance, then I'm going to move it anyway and we'll return to it at Stage 3, if you don't mind. Just a final point on this issue of reporting within three months rather than as soon as practicable, and I do take your point that there may be a misalignment with reporting periods from the organisations you hope to talk to. Again, at Stage 3, I'm happy if you want to make three months six months, or something like that, but'as soon as practicable'is open ended, and what you think is practicable may be very different from what I or my constituents think is practicable. So, I don't want to stick with what is practicable; I would like you to put a date on this. If it's a case that you think six months is long enough for data gathering and reporting from third parties, I think that's fairly reasonable as well, but I'm not minded to allow you to just keep this open ended. Thank you. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Suzy. Sian. Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, I welcome adding to the Bill through amendment 2, and what you've said today also, that you're willing to provide an interim report and bring an amendment forward to allow that through the Bill, and to lay a report before the Assembly. I am interested in what Suzy is saying, and have a lot of sympathy with trying to tie it down to specific time periods, and not say'when it will be practicable'. Therefore, I would encourage you not to move your amendments if you have the confirmation that you want to hear this morning from the Minister regarding these issues. Suzy Davies AM: I would like to. Thanks. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Any other Members? No. Deputy Minister. Julie Morgan AM: Well, just to start off on that point, I think your suggestion about how we consult and discuss, I think I'm very happy to accept that. So, I'm happy to discuss that with you, and with the committee, before the third Stage. So, I hope you will consider removing--. Suzy Davies AM: No, genuinely I am. Julie Morgan AM: Right, thank you. Well, just to go on to cover some of the points that have been raised, on the issue of training now, I think Janet raised a number of points about training, and we do have an operations, procedures, processes and training task and finish group as part of our implementation work, and they are considering guidance and training requirements. There are many professional bodies represented on that group, many of whom I think have given evidence here today, and they've really got a chance to have their say. The officials are also looking at training as part of the revision of the explanatory memorandum at Stage 3, so there will be more information about training there. But we have this group looking at it, and it is very key. Generally, I think that all the contributions are very helpful, and I know they're meant in the spirit of trying to improve the legislation. I can't support amendments 2A, 2C, and amendments 2E to 2K, because these amendments make little difference in terms of practical effect to what we have in the Bill already, or they're covered by the Government amendments that I've moved. But I do hope the committee is reassured that we are committed to undertaking a very thorough, multifaceted review of the impact of the legislation that includes tracking public attitudes and considering impacts on public services. Now, tracking the public attitudes will be going along at regular points, so there's no question there of having to wait; we'll be having regular reporting of public attitudes. Suzy Davies AM: Would you take an intervention there, Deputy Minister? Thank you very much. Of course, I appreciate that you will not be supporting these amendments, but can you give us some indication of how many of the areas of interest to us you will be reporting on? So, even if this is not a statutory commitment, what exactly from our list, our wish list here, would you be prepared to include in your evaluation? Julie Morgan AM: Well, I would actually have thought all of them. All the areas you've raised are very relevant, I think. Obviously, this is not a statutory thing I'm saying, but-- Suzy Davies AM: No, no, and this is not a-- Julie Morgan AM: Yes, but considering those points you've put forward, I think all of them have got a great deal of relevance. We will certainly be reporting to the group to consider any of the ideas that you've suggested and, in particular with the data collection and the monitoring task and finish group, which is about developing methods to collect data, we will be putting forward some of the suggestions that you've made on those issues. So, I don't see any problem with that at all. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. Julie Morgan AM: So, as I say, I can't support the amendments. I'm hopeful you may withdraw the two amendments--I think one of yours and it was one of Janet's, wasn't it--so that we could work together on those before the next stage. Because I am sympathetic to your views on these matters, and I think they do reflect some of the discussions in the committee as well. So, I'd be happy to work with you to bring forward the amendments at Stage 3. In line with the recommendations of the Finance Committee, further details of the costs associated with the post-implementation review will be provided in a revised regulatory impact assessment at Stage 3. So, I think at this point I would ask that Members reject the non-Government amendments and agree to my amendments 2 and 5, which will ultimately achieve the same policy aim without the need for unnecessary detail on the Bill, with the exception, obviously, of those two amendments, which I'm prepared to look at a way of moving forward on. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you, Deputy Minister. Before disposing of amendment 2, we will deal with the amendments to that amendment. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2C? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2C be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 2C, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2C is lost. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 2A? Suzy Davies AM: I move amendment 2A, yes. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2A be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 2A, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2A is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2D? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2E? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2E be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 2E, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2E is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2F? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2F be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so can I see all those in favour of amendment 2F? All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 2F is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2G? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2G be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, can I see all those in favour of amendment 2G? All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 2G is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2H? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2H be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so can I see all those in favour of amendment 2H? All those against? So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2H is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2I? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2I be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay. Can I see all those in favour of amendment 2I? All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2I is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2J? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2J be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. Can I see all those in favour of 2J? All those against? So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2J is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2K? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2K be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] I'll therefore take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 2K? All those against? So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2K is not agreed. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 2B? Suzy Davies AM: In view of the Deputy Minister's reassurances, I won't move this amendment today, but obviously I reserve the right to bring something back if we can't reach consensus. Thank you. Lynne Neagle AM: Does any other Member wish to move amendment 2B? Okay, no. Thank you. We'll move on, then. If amendment 2 is not agreed, amendment 5 will fall. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 2? Julie Morgan AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 2 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 2-- Suzy Davies AM: Objection. Lynne Neagle AM: You're objecting? Suzy Davies AM: Yes. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Right, we'll therefore take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 2, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 2 is agreed. That takes us on to group 3, which relates to the regulation-making powers in the Bill. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 3 in the name of the Deputy Minister. I move amendment 3 in the Deputy Minister's name and call on the Deputy Minister to speak to her amendments and the other amendments in this group. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much, Chair. Members will note that I've brought forward an amendment to provide certainty on the date of commencement of the core provision in the Bill, which is obviously to abolish the defence of reasonable punishment. And that is going to be debated under group 5. So, we're obviously debating that after we deal with these particular technical issues--these are technical issues here, basically. As a consequence of proposing to remove the power for a Welsh Minister to make an Order for commencement, the power to make transitory, transitional or saving provisions in connection with section 1 of the Bill coming into force would also be removed. So, I'm not seeking here to add any new powers to the Bill; amendment 3 will simply add this existing power back onto the face of the Bill where amendments 7 and 8 remove it, and amendment 6 will bring the power into force the day after Royal Assent. In fact, removing the power for the Welsh Ministers to commence the provision in section 1 by Order means the statutory instrument will actually do less than originally intended. These amendments are technical in nature and while I acknowledge that the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee raised the issue of what procedure should be applied, their report did not call for any change to no procedure being applied. The absence of an Assembly procedure does not mean that Ministers'decisions in relation to transitional powers cannot be scrutinised by the Assembly. Any concerns about the Welsh Ministers'proposals could be put to me in the Senedd. This was a point made to CLAC and, as I say, their final conclusion was that no procedure is the appropriate procedure for such a power. For those reasons, I encourage Members to reject amendment 3A from Suzy. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy Davies. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much. Well perhaps, Deputy Minister, I can begin by saying that one person's technical issue is another person's essential part of the legislative procedure and a keen element in scrutiny. But I thank you for noting the Assembly's observations on the ministerial powers granted in this Bill--this time by CLAC, as you say. Moving this--and I'm glad actually that amendment 8, I think it was, has removed an Order provision and we're moving into an area where at least statutory instruments do feature here. I have to say that amendment 3A is something of a probing amendment, and I'll explain why now. Your amendment 3 seeks to give a familiar range of powers in connection with the coming into force of section 1, but it's actually in a substantive part of section 1 itself now--it's not a separate commencement power. And, actually, I've been listening to the rest of this debate, and thinking that, if you're going to be introducing an awareness campaign and a report, the chances are you're going to need some regulatory powers to introduce some of the aspects of both those policy areas, I think. And I'm wondering whether the--what is it--transitory, transitional and saving provisions are actually enough powers for you under the course of this Bill. I'm wondering whether you want to consider actually amending this to give yourself the more usual unrestricted power to make regulations in order for you to get section 1 implemented, bearing in mind that it has now been amended from that original, very short and simple--or at least simple in terms of drafting--initial draft. As I say, in anticipation of you rejecting amendments in group 1 I tabled this, in order to make sure that an opportunity remains for the Assembly to bring anything you may wish to introduce under section 1, when it comes into effect, onto the floor of the Assembly. Because while I completely accept that you've acknowledged that statutory instrument is the process for introducing things from now on, it's still possible to do that without procedure, and so I have no idea whether you think what you introduce would be better suited to be introduced by a negative or affirmative procedure. Amendment 3A is a holding position, which we will return to you in Stage 3, because I think, again, this is an area where it might be valuable for us to discuss quite what kind of powers you're looking for, because I think you probably need something that's beyond transitional, transitory and saving. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Suzy, have you finished? Suzy Davies AM: Yes, thank you very much. Lynne Neagle AM: Are there any other Members who wish to speak on this group? No. Deputy Minister. Julie Morgan AM: I thank Suzy for that input. We don't actually think it's necessary to have wider powers, but we will keep this under review and at Stage 3, I think that--. When I was looking at this, I was concerned to know what the transitory powers--what we would actually need to do at that stage, but I can understand that there may be links to other Bills in ways that we are not anticipating at the moment that would make it necessary to have those powers. So, basically, I don't think it is necessary to have wider powers, but I can assure you that we'll keep that in review coming up to Stage 3. Suzy Davies AM: Can I just ask a question on the back of that? Lynne Neagle AM: Will you take a brief intervention at the end, Minister? Suzy Davies AM: Will you take the briefest intervention before your full stop? Julie Morgan AM: I was going to end there, yes. Suzy Davies AM: Right, okay, well, just before your full stop, would you just confirm that you're happy for us to discuss this before Stage 3? Julie Morgan AM: Yes, very happy. Yes. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Before disposing of amendment 3, we will deal with the amendment to that amendment. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 3A? Suzy Davies AM: I'll move it, yes. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 3A be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, I'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 3A. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 3A is not agreed. If amendment 3 is not agreed, amendment 6 will fall. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 3? Julie Morgan AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 3 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 3 is therefore agreed. The committee will now break for 10 minutes and reconvene at 11. 05 a. m. Can I welcome Members back? We will move on to group 4, which relates to the duty to ensure sufficient funding. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 11 in the name of Janet Finch-Saunders. I call on Janet Finch-Saunders to move amendment 11 and to speak to her amendments. Janet. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. I speak to both amendments in this group. As I outlined under amendments 2I and 2J, there are ongoing concerns about the potential costs for Welsh devolved authorities and the lack of quantifiable costs within the regulatory impact assessment. Now, it was absolutely clear from evidence that we received in this committee that unknown costs would be challenging and potentially problematic. As I have mentioned previously, these concerns would doubtless be most keenly felt in our hard-pressed social services. Furthermore, the Welsh Local Government Association stated that there must be a commitment that whatever the costs are, those costs are met, because it is legislation that is being led by the National Assembly for Wales. Now, during evidence, the Deputy Minister, when asked about the reliance on a limited number of reporting of cases likely to happen and the potential for a degree of unknown costs stated:'we are doing our very best to prepare to cover all eventualities that we can anticipate.'But you couldn't commit to a broad figure, instead telling us that:'we have to rely on what the people who run those organisations are telling us.'And:'We have to measure it as we go along.'Given that devolved authorities need to plan their budgets for these changes, we only think it is fair for the Welsh Government to provide sufficient funding to alleviate the cost implications of this Bill. Now, while amendment 11 makes reference to costs borne by local authorities and health boards, I note that amendment 12 takes this further by including other devolved authorities that are not funded by Welsh Government. Anticipating the Deputy Minister's response that few under this category, if any at all, would be affected by the Bill, we are pursuing a principle here, and it is agreement to the principle of providing sufficient funding that we are seeking from you as the Deputy Minister. Now, these are just two examples of Welsh Government legislation to date that have been underfunded. The Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013: last year, the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee found that the Wales annual spend on walking and cycling is half that of England's and one sixth of Holland's. Furthermore, the committee highlighted that the passing of the Act put a requirement on local authorities to continuously improve active travel routes, but were constrained by the funding made available to them. The Minister at the time announced a three-year funding settlement of PS60 million. Now, my local authority and other authorities that have done some monitoring on the active travel Act--they simply were not awarded sufficient funding to actually allow the active travel Act to become a meaningful piece of legislation, and the same goes with the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. This month, the auditor general has raised concerns that the public services boards created under the Act were limited in their work and impact due to the lack of dedicated funding. Outside of the Welsh Government's regional grant that cannot be spent on projects, councils often contribute through officer time or facilities, but resources and capacity to support those PSBs remain a key risk, as partners don't have the capacity to take on more. The reason that I wanted these amendments placed in here is I genuinely do not believe that you've even envisioned what, or even estimated the likely cost to be borne by the organisations, and certainly our local authorities and health boards, the impact this Bill is going to have. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Janet. Are there other Members who would like to speak in this group, please? No. Okay. I call the Deputy Minister, then. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Chair. I can understand that the Member is concerned about the impact of this Bill on public services, but you will see from the explanatory memorandum and from the raft of impact statements published with the Bill that we've done a thorough and extremely diligent job of considering the potential impacts of this Bill before introduction. And as far as we're aware, no other country has done more than us to consider the impacts of similar legislation, and also comprehensively prepared for implementation. We've explored the published data, which is available from other countries, on the impact of measures they've taken to prohibit the physical punishment of children. We've also spoken to a range of stakeholders in Ireland, New Zealand and Malta, who have legal systems similar to our own. And in these countries, there is no evidence that public services have been overwhelmed following law reform. And stakeholders have been clear when giving evidence to this committee that they do not consider there will be runaway costs, and I think we should trust their judgment on this. In fact, as this committee notes in its Stage 1 report, those delivering services on the front line have said, without exception, that'this Bill will improve their ability to protect children living in Wales because it will make the law clear.'Sally Jenkins of the Association of Directors of Social Services said to this committee:'In terms of thresholds for children's services, we would not be anticipating a huge number of referrals to us. There may be a small number of referrals that come through. What we know from other nations is that it will peak and then settle. We recognise that's likely to happen.'That's from the front line. Jane Randall, chair of the National Independent Safeguarding Board Wales, said:'there's no expectation that there's going to be a huge increase in the number of referrals coming through to local authority social services, I think it would be dealt with within their existing resources.'And Dr Rowena Christmas, Royal College of General Practitioners, said:'I can't see it's going to lengthen consultations. I can't see that it's going to increase the number of consultations, and I don't think it's going to increase the number of referrals I make to the health visitor or to social services, because if I was worried, I'd make those referrals now regardless of the Bill.'I just want to say again that the Bill is removing a defence to an offence of common assault, which has formed part of the common law of England and Wales for a very long time. And social services already receive and investigate reports of children being assaulted, including from health and education, so it's not a whole new area of costly activity for any of them. I do think that the evidence that you had at your committee did highlight those points. As I've already pointed out when discussing group 2 amendments, we're working with organisations to put in place arrangements to collect data about the possible impact on their services, and this will be analysed as part of the post-implementation review of the legislation. Welsh Government can consider with relevant organisations how best to manage any impact on workloads or resources and any cost implications. I can assure you that work to update the regulatory impact assessment has continued, and I've asked officials to prepare a revised RIA, as recommended at Stage 2, and I expect to share an updated RIA with you in advance of Stage 3. Serious consideration is being given on how to provide more detailed estimates of the unknown costs to public services arising from the Bill, but I think you should be reassured by the evidence that was given, particularly to this committee, from the professionals at the front line. What the amendments are proposing is outside the normal funding arrangements that operate within Government, and it's not clear why, in the context of the evidence heard at Stage I, such provisions are necessary. I'm sure that Members will agree that future Governments need to be able to consider, within the context of the budget-setting process, what the priorities are, and these considerations would need to be made within the context at that time, for example taking into account any issues that there are--UK Government actions, what happens in relation to Brexit, or any other unforeseen impacts on the economy or Welsh society. All those issues would have to be taken into account. Furthermore, as is the case now, the National Assembly for Wales scrutinises the Welsh Government budget annually, so it would be able to make an argument for additional funding for public bodies, should it consider that this is required. I do think all the evidence has shown that we do not anticipate that there will be a huge increase of a demand for funding, so I urge Members to reject these amendments, which I believe are unnecessary. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Chair, could I ask a question? Lynne Neagle AM: You can reply to the debate now, Janet, yes. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I'd like to ask a question of the Deputy Minister. When we were taking evidence, at an earlier stage, I noticed that part of the stakeholder group--there was some liaison going on with social services departments across Wales. Now, we have 22 local authorities. At that time, the numbers mentioned were quite small--I think only a handful. What discussions have taken place with our local authorities in terms of their social services departments in terms of the lead, the cabinet members, or, indeed, the head of service? I can speak from my own experiences, when going around my constituency, but when I've spoken to some of the family support groups, and, indeed, the departments themselves, they are very concerned about the financial impact that this is going to have on the provision. They're already overstretched, and they see this as another burden--primarily another financial burden. So, how much have you engaged with them? Julie Morgan AM: There's been extensive engagement. We've had meetings with the Association of Directors of Social Services, and they're represented on all our groups, and we're working very closely with them, because, of course, they represent all the local authorities. But I have to say, when I've been going round and meeting lots of different groups, the first thing they say is,'I'm so glad that you're doing this', and they haven't mentioned any financial implications. But, obviously, we will be very aware of--we are looking at any more evidence that comes up. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. So, I'll still move my amendments. I'm disappointed, really. I was hoping to see some commitment to--this Bill was going to go through, and it's one that could be implemented fully, because sufficient resources were there. I'm not convinced about that, and I know that other organisations are not also. So, I move my amendments. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 11 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] I therefore take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 11 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 12? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 12 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] All those in favour of amendment 12. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 12 is not agreed. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 4? Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I move amendment 4 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 4 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 4, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 4 is agreed. Deputy Minister, do you want to proceed to a vote on amendment 5? Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 5 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 5 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 5, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 5 is agreed. Deputy Minister, do you want to move to a vote on amendment 6? Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 6, then, in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 6 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 6 is therefore agreed. This takes us, then, to the fifth and final group, which relates to commencement. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 9 in the name of Suzy Davies. And I call Suzy Davies to move amendment 9 and to speak to the amendment and the other amendments in the group. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much, Chair. Amendment 9 is actually consequential on amendment 10 passing, but it's the lead amendment in the group, so I'll move it to begin the debate. Minister, I'm speaking here now to amendments 10 and 15 specifically. You've said repeatedly, and I believe you, that you do not wish to criminalise parents but just to stop them physically punishing their children. You could have chosen to try and achieve this through awareness raising and civil enforcement, but by choosing to remove the defence to a criminal act you have entered the arena of criminal law, where the logical consequence is opening parents up to liability--not necessarily getting prosecuted, but liability to prosecution, not just liability to civil sanctions. I'm sure you'd prefer parents not to be prosecuted, but that decision does not and cannot lie with you. You, like us, have no agency in this, because the powers and the duties of the police and the Crown Prosecution Service sit outside our competence. You cannot and we cannot, by law or otherwise, instruct either of them in the delivery of your policy intention of not criminalising parents. You've acknowledged to this committee and the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee that revised CPS charging guidance and any other guidance on, for example, out-of-court disposals, are key to delivering your policy objectives. You'll remember how concerned this committee was when we learned that your advisory group--the strategic implementation group, is it--was only in the early stages of discussing what these guidelines might look like. So, you're actually asking us to pass law when we have no control over how parents might be punished for smacking their children--no control of the regard given to the relevance of force, the frequency of the offence, any prior conviction, any prior reporting, not even the views of the child in how they might be sentenced, or thresholds that would be appropriate for cautions and other out-of-court disposals; no guidance to the police on thresholds for arrest, let alone charging. And you argue that the rights of the child are what matter, and I agree with you here, but everybody, adult or child, has a right to natural justice and proportionate remedy or censure, and you are in no position to offer us any comfort on these matters at this stage. Now, CLAC recommended that any revised guidance be made available to AMs before Stage 3. I anticipate that that's unlikely, and I hope I'm wrong, but that's why Janet and I have tabled amendments 10 and 15, which prevent you bringing section 1 into force until that CPS guidance has been fully updated to take into account the change in the law and until pathways away from prosecution have been devised and agreed. That reflects our recommendation 4, this committee's recommendation, as well as CLAC's recommendation 1. It gives your strategic implementation board time to consider how it can get around the other fundamentally worrying issue of the effect of recording reports of apparent physical punishment, even if those reports ultimately prove unfounded. And you have not addressed these in your own amendments. I have to say, Minister, I think these points are so serious that I would have liked to have tabled amendments preventing you seeking Royal Assent for this Bill until the Assembly has seen drafts of the range of official guidance needed for the police and CPS. I'd have sought a Report Stage, if I could, so that we could consider that evidence. But I'm therefore asking you to support the amendments we have tabled, 10 and 15, so that we can bring some damage limitation to a process that you ultimately cannot control once this Bill has passed. Now, I know you've got the numbers to pass this Bill, whether you accept amendments or not, but I just hope you can see the danger in pushing forward with a Bill that changes a person's relationship with the criminal law when you have no legal control over the consequences of that, and you're inviting this Assembly to fall into the same trap. I therefore urge the Assembly to avoid this recklessness by supporting these two amendments. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Suzy. Are there other Members who wish to speak? No. Janet, do you want to speak? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, I wish to speak to amendments 14 and 16. Amendment 14, however, is consequential to amendment 16 passing. Amendment 16 prevents this from commencing until parenting support services have been established by the Welsh Government. As was clear during the committee's evidence sessions, present Welsh Government support programmes for parents have insufficient coverage. For example, the capacity and reach of the Healthy Child Wales programme came under question on its role in awareness raising, with health representatives acknowledging that universality had not been achieved, with 53. 2 per cent of children in Wales reported as being contacted. Furthermore, existing parenting support is often only available as part of a targeted programme in specific areas, such as Flying Start, and even the children's commissioner noted that much more is needed to support parents to find alternatives to disciplining their children. Now, the Deputy Minister mentioned the'Parenting: Give it Time'campaign as part of proposals on a wider package of support for children and their parents. However, the Deputy Minister was challenged on this fact, that this is an online campaign only, and could only respond that the mapping exercise she will undertake. Consequently, it should be remembered that this Bill will affect all parents. Therefore, the Deputy Minister needs to assure the committee and the public that universal support will be provided before the removal of the defence occurs. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Janet. Deputy Minister. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Chair. I've listened to what stakeholders and committees have said about the importance of ensuring sufficient time is available prior to the change in the law to abolish the defence of reasonable punishment during Stage 1. As a result, I have brought forward amendments in this group to provide certainty around the date for the change in the law. My amendment 7 will remove the power to commence this core provision of the Bill by Order of the Welsh Ministers and ensure that the defence of reasonable punishment is abolished at the end of a two-year period beginning the day after Royal Assent. That was done to give certainty on the length of time. Up to then, we'd always said'up to two years'--well, we're giving two years. This certainty will allow key partners, including the police, social services and the Crown Prosecution Service, to plan for changes to guidance, training and data-collection systems more effectively. It'll also provide a focus for our awareness-raising campaign. My amendment 8 in this group has the consequence of removing the power to make transitional provision, which is replaced by my amendments 3 and 6, and we discussed those in the previous group. I've listened to the arguments put forward by Suzy Davies and Janet Finch-Saunders for the amendments in this group that they have tabled. These amendments are all about making the commencement of the Bill conditional on something else happening, whether it's waiting for the revision of Crown Prosecution Service guidance, or the establishment of a pathway for diversion from the criminal justice system, or for the provision of parenting support services. And, really, I don't think that we should be going down that road. As I set out in my letter of response to the Stage 1 report from the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee, we've got good working relations with the CPS through the strategic implementation group, and we work very closely with them. But the CPS are an independent body, as Suzy Davies has said in her contribution, not answerable to Welsh Ministers or this legislature, and it's not appropriate for a Minister or the National Assembly to seek to influence the CPS guidelines. We're discussing the issues with the CPS in the implementation group. And, in fact, I think that these amendments--Suzy's amendments in particular--wouldn't just seek to influence the CPS, but would actually give power to a non-devolved body on the way that we legislate in Wales. So, I don't think we should make it conditional on those guidelines being decided. I think you have to rely on the fact that we have got this very good relationship, very close working relationship. And I know they did give evidence to your committee, I believe, the CPS. And I think legislating to effectively give a non-devolved body a power to commence, or not, Assembly legislation would be highly unusual and would raise great uncertainty, I think, if we did go down that track, because I think this is very important Welsh legislation, which does have broad support across the Assembly. And I don't think we should allow non-devolved bodies to be the final arbiters of commencement of our legislation. So, I don't support those amendments. I think the CPS is entirely independent of Government, and must be entirely independent of Government, and will make its own decisions about how and when it will revise its guidance. In addition, you suggest we allow the UK Government to have a say in when Welsh legislation is commenced in an area that was specifically devolved to the Assembly. The test applied by the proposed amendments as to when commencement could lawfully occur is uncertain. If these amendments passed, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to judge when section 1 could be commenced. This contravenes what stakeholders and committees have asked for, and raises huge uncertainty, which potentially jeopardises the Bill. And I want to assure you again, not only do we have good working relations with the CPS, but also very good working relationships with the police, who are, of course, the other non-devolved body who have great involvement and interest in these issues. The work we do in these groups should not affect the timing of the Bill's commencement. In fact, it's the other way round. My amendment to provide a two-year period between Royal Assent and commencement means these groups can plan their work to a known timescale and deliver in good time before the law comes into force. And then, when it comes to parenting support, the committee knows that I've committed to reviewing the existing provision of parenting support, and work is already under way through the parenting expert group on this very issue. I have already said I will expand the age range of the'Parenting: Give it Time'campaign, and I think--. I know Janet Finch-Saunders has made the point that it is an online facility. It is very widely used. It is a very successful tool. But, of course, the universal services are also there. For example, the universal service of the health visitors is absolutely crucial, and that is a service that is for every child. And, of course, the health visitors welcome this legislation very strongly. And the expert group is considering what it'll recommend for the future, and it needs the time to be able to do that, to support the Bill as well as to support parenting more widely. So, as I said, I think these are important points that you have raised, but I don't think they are appropriate. So, I therefore urge the committee not to support amendments 9 and 10, nor 13,14 and 15. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy to reply to the debate. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much, and thank you very much, Deputy Minister, as well. I'm disappointed that you haven't seen what's behind Janet Finch-Saunders's final amendment there, actually. Maybe it's something we'll raise again with you at Stage 3, or maybe in the conversations that we have between now and then. But I want to go back to amendments 10 and 15 that I've raised and your assertion that we're giving, or attempting to give, power to the CPS here. We are not. This amendment is drafted very specifically and in full knowledge that we have no legislative competence in this area. And this is why I go back to where my contribution to this started, and it's your choice to try and resolve the problem of--or, sorry, to try and protect children's rights through the medium of a change to the criminal law rather than the many opportunities that were available to you through the civil law and over which you would have had complete competence. This Bill--and, actually, you've said a couple of times in your response today that it's important that it's commenced on a certain date. My argument is: it shouldn't be commenced at all unless you are absolutely certain about how it is likely to affect the parents who will now be captured by the removal of the defence. And, while I claim no mischief on the part of the CPS or the police--obviously I don't--there is nothing you can do that would prevent the CPS, should they wish to do it, or indeed the police with their own guidelines, putting in place something that is wholly disproportionate to the offence that is now being released by the removal of a defence. And, because of that, I ask you to consider, or balance, actually, two important things here: one is the rights of the child, obviously at the forefront of your argument on this, which I would argue could be completely and safely protected through the use of civil law on this occasion; and, actually, the rights of the child again to have a good relationship with parents over whose future they will have no say--or at least you cannot allow them to have any say in how those parents might be treated in terms of sentencing. The relationship between parents and children obviously is different in every family, but that's something you ought to protect in what you're trying to do here, and by leaving it open, as you say, to completely different--sorry, undevolved, two undevolved authorities to make decisions about how that relationship could be affected deeply worries me. I know this isn't going to stop your Bill going forward, but I really want you to consider my arguments and how you might try and address them at Stage 3, because leaving, effectively, the delivery of your policy objectives to somebody over whom you have no control, despite your great relationship with them, should worry us all as a legislature. Thank you. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you, Suzy. Do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 9? Suzy Davies AM: Oh, because of the voting order--. Yes, please. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 9 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 9, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 9 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 13? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 13 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 13, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 13 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 14? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 14 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 14, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 14 is not agreed. Deputy Minister, do you wish to move to a vote on amendment 7? Julie Morgan AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 7 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 7 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 7, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against. Amendment 7 is agreed. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 10? Suzy Davies AM: Yes, please. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 10 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 10, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 10 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 15? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 15 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 15, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 15 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 16? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 16 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 16, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 16 is not agreed. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 8? Julie Morgan AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 8, then, in the name of the Minister. The question is that amendment 8 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 8 is therefore agreed. Well, that has brought us to the end of our amendments, so can I thank the Deputy Minister and her officials for their attendance? As usual, you will be sent a transcript of the meeting to check for factual accuracy. This completes Stage 2 proceedings. Stage 3 begins tomorrow, and the relevant date of Stage 3 proceedings will be published in due course. Standing Orders make provision for the Deputy Minister to prepare a revised explanatory memorandum, taking account of the amendments agreed today. The revised memorandum will be laid at least five working days before Stage 3 proceedings. Thank you very much. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you all very much. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services, following our meeting on 2 October. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Minister for Health and Social Services updating the committee on the'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'strategy. And paper to note 3 is a letter from myself to the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services regarding early childhood education and care, following the session that we held on 2 October. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Item 4, then, is for me to propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17. 42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Thank you.

Janet Finch-Saunders said that there were ongoing concerns about the potential costs for Welsh devolved authorities and the lack of quantifiable costs within the regulatory impact assessment. While amendment 11 referred to costs borne by local authorities and health boards, Janet Finch-Saunders had noted that amendment 12 took this further by including other devolved authorities that were not funded by Welsh Government. Janet Finch-Saunders wanted these amendments because she genuinely did not believe that they had even envisioned what or even estimated the likely cost to be borne by the organizations, and certainly their local authorities and health boards, and the impact the Bill was going to have.

tr-sq-605

tr-sq-605_0

How did the Deputy Minister respond to amendments 11 and 12 that relate to the duty to ensure sufficient funding? Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee this morning. We've received no apologies for absence. Can I ask if there are any declarations of interest from Members, please? No. Okay, thank you. Item 2 this morning is the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill: Stage 2 proceedings. I'm pleased to welcome Julie Morgan AM, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services; Karen Cornish, deputy director, children and families division at Welsh Government; and Emma Gammon, lawyer for Welsh Government. Thank you for attending this morning and welcome to the committee. I'm just going to run through the procedures that we're going to follow now. As I said, the purpose of the meeting is to undertake Stage 2 proceedings on the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill. For these proceedings, Members should have copies of the marshalled list of amendments, the groupings of the amendments for debate and the voting order for the amendments. The marshalled list of amendments is the list of all amendments tabled, marshalled into the order in which the sections appear in the Bill. The order in which we consider amendments will be the default order--that is, sections 1 to 3 and the long title. You will see from the groupings list that amendments have been grouped to facilitate debate. However, the order in which they're called and moved for decision is dictated by the marshalled list. Members will, therefore, need to follow the two papers, although I will advise Members when I call them whether they're being called to speak in the debate or to move their amendments for a decision. There will be one debate on each group of amendments. Members who wish to speak in a particular group should indicate to me in the usual way. I will call the Deputy Minister to speak on each group. For the record, in accordance with the convention agreed by the Business Committee, as Chair I will move amendments in the name of the Deputy Minister. For expediency, I will assume that the Deputy Minister wishes me to move all of her amendments, and I will do so at the appropriate place in the marshalled list. Deputy Minister, if you do not want a particular amendment to be moved, please indicate to me at the relevant point in proceedings. In line with our usual practice, legal advisers to the committee and the Deputy Minister are not expected to provide advice on the record. If Members wish to seek legal advice during proceedings, please do so by passing a note to the legal adviser and, if necessary, we can adjourn. My intention is to try to dispose of all amendments during today's meeting. I will call a short break in proceedings at an appropriate time, if necessary. Okay, thank you. So, we will proceed, then, to group 1, which is the duty to promote public awareness. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 1 in the name of the Deputy Minister. I move amendment 1 in the Deputy Minister's name and call on the Deputy Minister to speak to her amendment and the other amendments in this group. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much, Chair. My amendments 1 and 4 will place a duty on Welsh Ministers to provide information and increase awareness about the change in the law to ensure that the public are made aware of how the law will change as a result of the defence of reasonable punishment being abolished and that physical punishment would be prohibited once the Act commences. I tabled these amendments in response to this committee's recommendation--this was a recommendation from this committee in the Stage 1 report, so I have responded to that. I've already made a commitment to a high-intensity awareness-raising campaign over approximately six years from Royal Assent, should the Bill be passed. I've considered amendments 1A to 1E, which have been tabled by Janet Finch-Saunders, and which relate to the duty to raise awareness. Amendment 1A introduces a reference to public understanding. We don't think, actually, that this adds anything to the Government amendment, which already mentions awareness. It makes the awareness-raising duty open-ended with no time limit, which is not necessary. By commencement, messaging around the change in the law will be embedded. The awareness-raising campaign will continue for a number of years. Therefore, an ongoing duty referring specifically to the law change would not be required. I understand, of course, that the awareness-raising campaign needs to be comprehensive, well planned and to reach out to all those people and all those communities who need to be aware of the law change, and understand how to respond to it. But I don't think it's helpful or necessary to highlight specific groups, such as visitors to Wales, on the face of the Bill--that's the approach taken in amendment 1E--as it risks placing too much emphasis on certain groups at the expense of others. In relation to children, the committee will know that I'm fully committed to children's rights, and that Welsh Ministers are already under a duty to have due regard to the rights of children whenever they exercise their functions. An additional due regard requirement, such as the one set out in amendment 1D, relating specifically to the need to promote awareness among children is not needed. This would be part and parcel of the Welsh Government approach to putting children's rights at the heart of our policy making. Similarly, I don't think it's necessary for the Bill to set out specifically the topics that need to be covered in the awareness-raising campaign, as is suggested in amendments 1B and 1C. That level of detail, I don't think, is for the face of the Bill. Information required about parenting support will be considered by the parenting expert group, under the auspices of the Bill's strategic implementation group, working with my officials and the expert stakeholder group on the awareness-raising campaign. And, really, their thinking should not be constrained in any way by specifications on the face of the Bill. I think we always need to bear in mind that what the Bill does is remove a defence to an existing criminal offence; it does not create a new offence. And in this context, it doesn't make sense for this Bill to contain a provision requiring the provision of information about how a person may raise concerns if it appears to them that a child is being physically punished. As I set out in my letter to this committee responding to recommendation 15 on this point, safeguarding is everyone's business, and, as now, the public have a role in highlighting to relevant services if they are concerned about a child. I'm asking for the support of Members for amendments 1 and 4, and I ask Members to reject amendments 1A to 1E because this would place unnecessary provisions on the face of the Bill. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Deputy Minister. Are there other Members who wish to speak? Janet Finch-Saunders. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. I wish to speak to amendments 1A to 1E, which relate to the Deputy Minister's amendment on the duty to promote public awareness. While we believe it is absolutely imperative that the public are made aware of this controversial change in the law, the Deputy Minister's amendment lacks a number of key points that the committee were actually keen to address at Stage 1. An important thread runs throughout each and every amendment that I've tabled within this group--that of a sustained awareness campaign, which not only stretches beyond the implementation of the Bill, but serves as a duty for future administrations. Amendment 1A: primarily, amendment 1A changes amendment 1 to include the promotion of understanding changes to the law. I don't think it's enough for the Welsh Government to say that the public should be made aware of the coming into force of section 1 and that a public awareness campaign needs to be sustained until the Welsh Government's objectives have been achieved. Despite the fact that it is intended to change behaviour, the consequences of this law are far greater than that of organ donation or prohibiting smoking indoors. Instead of an opt-out system or a civil offence, this law will remove a defence for parents, information on which could be there on their records for the rest of their lives, potentially separate parents, and could affect employment chances. As such, whilst we agree with the necessity of the awareness campaign, it is important too that the Welsh Government take stock and ensures that parents are not penalised due to a weak awareness campaign. The witnesses we heard before this committee also noted the necessity of ensuring that the public understands-- Lynne Neagle AM: Janet, Dawn is asking if you'll take an intervention. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. Dawn Bowden AM: I just wanted to know--could you give us examples of any other piece of legislation where there's been indefinite public awareness campaigns once it's been passed? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: There's a lot of legislation. The first Assembly term when I was here-- Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, what I'm asking-- Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I'm trying to respond-- Dawn Bowden AM: What I'm asking for is: can you give us specific examples of where there have been indefinite public awareness campaigns running indefinitely past the enactment of a piece of legislation? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: The very first term that I was an Assembly Member, we passed 25 pieces of separate legislation. Even today, as I sit here, the public are not aware of many of those pieces of legislation. This particular piece of legislation will have a profound effect on the parenting of children in Wales. So, therefore, I think there is a necessity for both children and parents to become involved, and I shall speak now-- Dawn Bowden AM: With respect, Chair, that's not the question I asked. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: --to my amendments. Lynne Neagle AM: I can call you in the debate, if you'd like to make a more substantive contribution on this. Yes. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: The witnesses who we heard from before this committee also noted the necessity of ensuring that the public understands the implications. And that's what we're talking about here, Members--the implications of removing this defence. Strikingly, the Office of Police and Crime Commissioner for Gwent stated the following:'the potential for public resistance to the Bill through misunderstanding or confusion over it implications may pose the largest barrier to its implementation.'If you are intent on removing the defence of reasonable punishment, it is therefore not unreasonable to ensure that law-abiding parents fully understand the ramifications of this Bill. Additionally, the committee found that while the current Welsh Government's intention to deliver a public awareness campaign was beyond doubt, future Governments may have less of a commitment. This places further weight on the fact that the Welsh Government should be under a duty to promote awareness and understanding of the Bill beyond its commencement. Furthermore, the Children (Equal Protection from Assault) (Scotland) Bill quite clearly notes that, under section 2, the Scottish Ministers must take such steps as they consider appropriate to promote public awareness and understanding about the effect of section 1 on the abolition for the defence of reasonable punishment. Therefore, I would be grateful if the Deputy Minister can respond as to the reasons why the Welsh Government has deviated from this course of action in their amendment. [Interruption. ] Should our amendment be agreed-- Lynne Neagle AM: Are you taking an intervention? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: No. I'd rather crack on, to be honest. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I can call you in the debate, Hefin. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Should our amendment to be agreed, we also request that a printing change be made to ensure that the new heading reflects promoting awareness of the changes to the law made by section 1. Amendment 1B: amendment 1B is in line with the committee's recommendation 9, which stated that, as part of a public awareness campaign, there should be details about the support available to parents to use alternatives to physical punishment when disciplining their children. During evidence at Stage 1, the witnesses we saw before the committee raised serious concerns about harder-to-reach groups who needed to be made aware of removing the defence. For example, Children in Wales, Action for Children and Play Wales stated that some families and communities may be harder to reach with information and support. Welsh Government needs to make sure that they receive the information they need. Now, while the Deputy Minister states that she would work hard to ensure that harder-to-reach groups receive this information, a duty to provide information on alternatives to physical punishment would ensure that future Welsh Governments would maintain a successful awareness-raising campaign. I note the Deputy Minister accepted the recommendation, through our amendment, but this does not explicitly include a duty to provide details about support for parents. As will be expanded upon later, the Deputy Minister has relied upon the'Parenting: Give it Time'campaign to be delivered alongside awareness raising. However, this is only an online resource and she must be clear about what other avenues will be available to parents who do not have access to the internet or are part of harder-to-reach groups. Amendment 1C: amendment 1C supports the committee's recommendation 15 that explains that the Welsh Government should ensure clear advice is provided on what people can do if they have seen or learned of a child being physically assaulted. We urged, at Stage 1, that although many professionals were already under a duty to report concerns about physical punishment, regardless of the Bill, other witnesses raised concerns that it could create the potential for claims of abuse that are unfounded. In particular, some were worried that children, who may not realise the implications of reporting, could make allegations that are actually untrue. While we would expect the awareness-raising campaign to include the consequences of false accusations, this could also be reflected among adults, if the public are not sufficiently made aware of how they can report and in what situations they can report a case of assault. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. I've got several speakers. I've got Suzy Davies first, then Dawn Bowden. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much, Chair. Thank you Minister, and thank you, Janet, for that. I think it's worth just pointing out at this stage that the majority of the amendments that are being made and articulated by Janet there are based on committee recommendations, and those recommendations were made after taking evidence from the public at large, but also you as well. So, that suggests that, at that stage, we weren't reassured by the offer that you were making because we felt the need to put these recommendations into our report. Now, I recognise that you've moved some way on some of these amendments, and we'll been talking about that through the course of the debates on other groups. But the one thing to bear in mind here is this is legislation, now--that means that this is the instrument of the Assembly, not of Government, and if this Assembly feels that the face of the Bill is unclear on the minimum requirements of a public awareness campaign, then we have the right to suggest the things that we would like to see in that public awareness-raising campaign. The list that Janet has given is a minimum. The reason these have been tabled individually and independently is that some may be acceptable where others may not be, so it will be disappointing to hear that you're rejecting them all, and the reason they need to go on the face of the Bill is that, if you are going to introduce specifics via regulation, at the moment we have no reassurance about how you're going to do that--about what input the Assembly, on behalf of our constituents, could have in designing that public awareness-raising campaign. Unless you accept some amendments in other groups, that is the position with this Bill: the influence of the Assembly will be zero over the content of an awareness-raising campaign. In terms of it being non-time limited, I think the amendment has been tabled in the way it has not to oblige you to an everlasting, never-ending campaign of awareness raising. But if you bear in mind that, seven years after the introduction of this Bill, there's going to be some reporting on the effectiveness of the Bill, what is the point of doing that if you don't then have an obligation, should the reports require it to be necessary, to continue promoting the changes in the law? I accept that that can't go on for centuries, but to actually limit it to two years on an issue that is so sensitive, and which has a reach beyond our boundaries, I think is genuinely a mistake. Finally, you mention that safeguarding is everyone's business. I think that's true, but I think Janet Finch-Saunders was right to say that members of the public, ordinary individuals, not professionals, will need assurance that they're doing the right thing. The amendment as listed is not even there to encourage people to do that, although that can be read in that way, but it is to help them be certain that they are doing the right thing. If this is going to be up to the individual, as you've said, and the committee itself wasn't reassured that individuals would know what to do, perhaps I can ask you to consider at Stage 3, if you're going to reject this amendment, how you can reassure members of the public that, if they are going to intervene on the back of this law, they're making things better, not worse. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Suzy. Dawn. Dawn Bowden AM: My comments, really, relate to ongoing awareness-raising campaigns, which I think all of us would want to see, and would appreciate in any changes in legislation. My point, really, is that we have a plethora of legislation that this Assembly has passed in the last 20 years, and I'm not aware of any legislation where, on the face of the Bill we have ongoing awareness-raising campaigns on an indefinite basis. It seems to me that, for some reason, you seem to be wanting to take a completely different approach to this piece of legislation. From what the Deputy Minister is saying--and perhaps I will get some clarity on this--there will be an amendment to the legislation that will say that we have an awareness campaign. That awareness campaign can be the subject of consultation with interested parties in terms of what needs to be included in it. It could also, I assume, Deputy Minister, be an awareness campaign that can be written into a set of guidance for future use. But the point I'm trying to make is that I don't believe that any piece of legislation requires ongoing and indefinite awareness-raising campaigns, and particularly in relation to visitors to Wales. Again, we have other pieces of legislation in Wales that are not applicable in the other parts of the UK. I am not aware that there is a necessity for awareness-raising campaigns with visitors coming into Wales on the raft of the other pieces of legislation that we have that they don't. And similarly, when we go to visit countries that have different legislation, we don't necessarily know what legislation we're going into when we visit that country--you just go there and you accept that you go to a different country and you abide by their laws. So, my key point, Chair, is just the necessity of an ongoing, endless awareness campaign being written onto the face of the Bill. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Dawn. Hefin. Hefin David AM: My comments follow logically from Dawn Bowden's comments, particularly in relation to amendments 1D and 1E. What you would be doing is that this Senedd, if this was on the face of the Bill, the duty on Ministers, would be putting the duty on Ministers in law beyond the life of the fifth Senedd, into the next Senedd term, and putting that duty on those newly elected Ministers after that, which, in principle, would be against the principles of binding-- Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin, are you taking an intervention from Suzy? Hefin David AM: Yes, happy to. Suzy Davies AM: When you've finished your point. Hefin David AM: I'm happy to take it now, because I was going to sum up by agreeing with the point you made, actually. Suzy Davies AM: I'd love that. You referred to this potentially binding Ministers in future Assemblies; at the moment, we've got an implementation period and a five-year reporting period that takes any reporting on this Act into the Assembly after next. I'm wondering if you're going to have any comments on that when we come to the amendment to change that later on. Hefin David AM: Well, when we get to that amendment, I'll make comments if I feel it necessary. But at this point in time, we're talking about amendments 1D and 1E, and particularly in relation to 1D and 1E it just isn't necessary, given the fact that--I won't call it a concession, because I think you made a reasonable point about the Minister making a statement at Stage 3, and I think Dawn Bowden actually supported that as well. That, therefore, makes those amendments unnecessary. Given that, in these circumstances, it is unnecessary to bind Ministers in future Parliaments. And that's my key point, really, which is why I wouldn't vote for those two amendments. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Sian. Sian Gwenllian AM: Thank you very much. I just want to speak against amendment 1A and also amendment 1B. I don't believe that there is a need for an indefinite campaign, as is outlined in 1A. I agree entirely that there is a need for a campaign during the period of change, and therefore I'm very glad to see that the Government has brought forward amendment 1, and I do hope that there will be a real push during the period of change. In terms of amendment 1B, I do have sympathy with what is being said here, but I believe that any kind of information or campaign in terms of enabling parents to learn about alternatives to physical punishment should be the subject of continual far-reaching work by the Government, through various programmes, and it should not be an addition on the face of this Bill, which deals with a small change to the common law. And then, on 1D also, if I may--I don't agree with this either. Again, I believe that there is a need to promote awareness amongst children, but that should happen through the children's rights convention, as part of a broader programme to promote children's rights. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Sian. I call on the Deputy Minister to speak, then. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you all very much for your contributions to the debate and your comments on these amendments today. I just want to re-emphasise that it is as a result of the recommendation from this committee that we are putting this duty to have the awareness campaign on the face of the Bill, and I absolutely recognise the crucial role awareness raising has to play in supporting the implementation of the Bill. I'm very grateful for and appreciate the committee's interest and the work that you've done in this area of work. But I do think that these amendments are unnecessary. If we go through them, amendment 1A is really open-ended on promoting public awareness. We're committed to a high-intensity awareness over six years from Royal Assent, and there is an expert stakeholder group supporting us with the development of the awareness campaign. All the points that you've been making will be being considered by that group. I think the level of detail on the face of the Bill is not needed. Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Would you just take an intervention on that just to help me understand? A two-year awareness-raising campaign--how have you concluded that-- Julie Morgan AM: Six-year. Suzy Davies AM: I thought it was two years before section 1 comes into force. Julie Morgan AM: We've got six years from Royal Assent. Suzy Davies AM: Oh, so it is going to continue beyond section 1 coming into force-- Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Oh yes, it's going to continue. Suzy Davies AM: That's very helpful. Julie Morgan AM: Definitely, yes. So, I don't think that's needed, amendment 1A. Amendment 1B, about support available to parents and how to access it--again, this level of detail is not required on the face of the Bill. I just want to emphasise we have got this expert implementation group, who are working on all aspects of this Bill, many of whom represent organisations who gave evidence to this committee. The Bill is a simple one, with a clear purpose. It aims to remove the defence of reasonable punishment. I think lots of these amendments are very helpful and interesting, but would be discussed and would be acted on in the normal pathway of planning and development, and they're not required on the face of the Bill. So, I'm not putting them down, I'm just saying that we don't need them to be there on the face of the Bill. And then amendment 1C--the information about how to raise concerns--I do repeat that safeguarding is everybody's business, and the same issues apply now as will after this defence has been removed. Amendment 1D--Ministers to have regard to the need to promote awareness among children--now, children's rights are absolutely enshrined in our policy making, and the entire Bill is about protecting the rights of children. So, it is unnecessary duplication. So, we hope that the Bill will remain focused. Again, in terms of visitors, the level of detail is simply not required on the face of the Bill. Our awareness-raising campaign will be comprehensive. And then to pick up a few of the other points that were raised, revisions to the impact assessments are being considered as part of my commitment to update the explanatory memorandum ahead of Stage 3. So, there will be more details on the regulatory impact assessment. The issue that was raised about the Scottish Bill, that it refers to'understanding'--now, the Scottish Bill was not a Government Bill, it was a private Member's Bill, and our view is that nothing is added by adding the'understanding';'awareness'is sufficient. So, basically, I think that the points made have been very useful, but I urge committee members to accept my amendments, but to reject those proposed by Janet Finch-Saunders, as they are unnecessary provisions in terms of what the awareness-raising duty needs to achieve. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Deputy Minister. Before disposing of amendment 1, we will deal with the amendments to that amendment. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1A? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 1A be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we have an objection. I therefore take a vote by show of hands. The question is that amendment 1A be agreed. All those in favour, please raise your hands. All those against. There voted two in favour, four against. So, amendment 1A is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1B? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 1B be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, I'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 1B. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 1B is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1C? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 1C be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay. All those in favour of amendment 1C, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 1C is not agreed. Janet, do you want to move amendment 1D? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 1D be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, as there's an objection, I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 1D, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 1D is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1E? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. The question is that amendment 1E be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 1E, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 1E is not agreed. If amendment 1 is not agreed, amendment 2C and amendment 4 will fall. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 1? Julie Morgan AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Okay. I move amendment 1 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 1 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we have an objection, so we'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 1. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 1 is agreed. We'll move on now then to group 2, which relates to the duty to report on the effect of the legislation. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 2, in the name of the Deputy Minister. I move amendment 2 in the Deputy Minister's name, and call on the Deputy Minister to speak to her amendments, and the other amendments in this group. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Chair. The amendments in this group are to do with the post-implementation review of the Bill, and I believe there was also a committee recommendation to this end from your committee, so you strongly influenced this amendment. It's clear from Members'contributions to this group and recommendations by the committee at Stage 1 that they share my commitment to the importance of post-implementation review of the effect of the abolition of the defence of reasonable punishment. I've already provided assurance that I agree with the importance placed on such a review, both in the explanatory memorandum and during Stage 1 scrutiny. I also made a commitment to bring forward a Government amendment to put a duty to undertake a post-implementation review on the face of the Bill. I have done this with amendment 2. Amendment 5 sets out that this provision will come into force the day after Royal Assent. As I said in my responses to the Stage 1 committee report, and as set out in the explanatory memorandum, the post-implementation review of this Bill will not be a single piece of work, but a continuous programme of work during the years following the commencement of section 1. Firstly, we will continue to conduct attitudinal surveys, which will be used to track changes in attitude towards the physical punishment of children and prevalence of parents reporting that they use physical punishment. The surveys will also be used to monitor the effectiveness of our awareness-raising campaign. Secondly, through a dedicated task and finish group, we are working with organisations to put in place arrangements to establish robust methods for capturing meaningful data relating to the Bill and to consider the possible impact on services. Turning to amendment 2C, this amendment would require Welsh Ministers to prepare and lay before the Assembly a report on the effect of their promotion of public awareness before section 1 is commenced. This amendment is unnecessary and is in conflict with what I think is a priority for the implementation of this Bill: that is, given certainty on the commencement date and in enabling us to work towards this with our partners and stakeholders. I also think this amendment is not required because, as I've already stated, we are preparing to assess the effectiveness of our awareness raising. In June, I shared the findings of a representative survey, which establishes a baseline on public awareness and opinion towards physical punishment of children and the proposed legislation. I shared this with the committee. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Deputy Minister. I open it up for discussion now, then. Janet Finch-Saunders. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. I speak to amendments 2C, excluding 2D, to 2K, which relate to the Deputy Minister's amendment 2 on preparing a published report on the effect of abolishing the defence of reasonable punishment. Again, I must stress the importance of getting this right due to the controversial and long-lasting effects of removing the defence of reasonable punishment. Amendments 2E to 2K outline what we would expect to be within this report, and we would wish to see a commitment from the Deputy Minister to ensure the National Assembly for Wales is fully apprised and able to scrutinise the result of this report. Amendment 2C requests that the Welsh Government prepare a report on the awareness-raising campaign and lays it before the Assembly before section 1 commences. As I have outlined under my amendments in group 1, the understanding of the public about the implications of the Bill cannot be sidelined. Although the Deputy Minister has repeated her commitment to a public awareness campaign, we, as the National Assembly for Wales, must be able to scrutinise its effectiveness before section 1 begins. As I noted under amendments 1B to 1E, there are specific groups of people who need to be evaluated on their understanding of the Bill's effect. I'm sure that the Deputy Minister will agree that the harder-to-reach groups are undoubtedly the most vulnerable to any negative impacts that the Bill will have because of the greater potential of a lack of awareness. It is, therefore, important for the Assembly to be able to determine whether the awareness-raising campaign has had a positive effect on these groups of people. As will also be elaborated under amendment 2D, it is extremely important that we, as the Parliament of Wales, are fully apprised of the awareness-raising campaign's impact. Before we implement what will be a criminal offence, it is vital that we ensure that those affected are not adversely impacted because of a poorly targeted awareness campaign. Therefore, I would be grateful if the Deputy Minister would commit to an independent evaluation of the awareness campaign's effects before section 1 commences. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Janet. Suzy Davies. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. Deputy Minister, first of all, can I just say thank you for your opening remarks about the possibility of perhaps doing some work around amendment 2B? I'll come to that a little bit later, if I may. I just want to begin by commenting briefly on what you said about why you'll be rejecting amendment 2C here. I actually don't think that this amendment should affect or jeopardise the commencement date in any way at all. It's an operational requirement to get this work done before the commencement date that's in the draft Bill at the moment. So, failing to meet that would be as a result of operations not going well, rather than anything intrinsic in the Bill, so I'm not sure I can accept your argument on that. And, on 2D--very pleased to hear that you'd be willing to introduce something about'laying'rather than'publishing'at Stage 3, but, in the spirit of recognising that this is the legislature, perhaps I could encourage you just to accept the amendment at this stage, because it doesn't make any difference. Your amendment is going to pass, and this amendment to it would be--I think the gesture there would be very much appreciated. I'll be speaking mainly to amendments 2A and 2B, but I want to begin, again, by thanking you for moving some way on this and considering amendments to the Bill on the issue of reporting, because I know you were keen to avoid amendments in the name of simplicity; you mentioned it earlier. But this is not a newid bychan, I'm afraid, Sian; the terms and the effect of this Bill are quite extensive, and it does need the reassurances, if you like, necessary to mitigate potentially disproportionate effects of this Bill on families where parents'actions had been lawful up until this point in statute. It does need statutory underpinning. So, I am grateful to you for accepting this duty. I know that you're sincere that you want this duty to report to show that the Bill is effective in stopping smacking as a punishment, and also that it is not as harmful to parents as perhaps some of us fear. But, if this were me bringing forward this Bill, I think I'd want to show the world that I was doing the right thing a lot sooner than you appear to wish to do. Amendment 2 means that the efficacy of the Bill will not formally be assessed until seven years after it has passed. There are Acts on the statute book that have lasted a lot less time than that. If you're relying on the two-year period before section 1 comes into operation to do much of the heavy lifting on the culture change, and I think that is what you're expecting--you know, showing a reduction in the incidence of physical punishment, reducing the number of, and indeed the likelihood of, parents putting themselves in the path of criminal liability once those two years are up--I really would have thought you'd want people to know sooner, or as soon as the first possible opportunity on that. Waiting five years, I think, will diminish the ability of you to prove the efficacy of those initial two years, and this is why I'm grateful to you for your offer, because there may be a way where we can overcome that. If the trend of culture change is continuing after year 3--so, basically, in the first year after section 1 comes into effect--that's great, but there's a possibility it's going to reverse. Again, I don't think I'd want to wait five years to find that out. For myself, I think one year would probably be enough, but I think three years is a reasonable compromise, as opposed to five years, for a reporting period. I think seven years is just way too long for a formal evaluation of a Bill's effectiveness. I can't see the reason for quite that length of time--I know you've talked about New Zealand--but neither can the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee. I think that's worth pointing out. When they took the step of recommending this duty to evaluate and report, they also took the step of suggesting a three-year reporting period being more in keeping with other post-legislative scrutiny. That's something I think we perhaps need to bear in mind now, as we enter this period of the consolidation of law. Five/seven years is really something of an outlier, and while that might have been appropriate, perhaps, in New Zealand, I don't think that fits in with our timetables generally here in Wales, and, of course, there are other countries that have introduced this over a period of years, and I note that you haven't drawn on them in order to support your argument. So, can I urge Members and the Minister to consider the arguments behind these amendments? I don't think it's going to reassure anyone--you may want to intervene at this point, Hefin--that we not only won't hear in this Assembly, we won't hear in the next Assembly, about the formal evaluation of this, unless I follow-- Hefin David AM: I won't intervene; I'll speak. Suzy Davies AM: Is that okay? Hefin David AM: Yes, I'll make the point. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, I've got-- Suzy Davies AM: Yes, I'll take the intervention. Lynne Neagle AM: No, he doesn't want to make an intervention-- Hefin David AM: I won't do an intervention; I'll speak. Lynne Neagle AM: --he'll make a contribution. Suzy Davies AM: Oh, apologies-- Hefin David AM: Just to say-- Suzy Davies AM: I'll wait. Hefin David AM: Well, let me put the intervention--. I'll do it as an intervention, then. I just feel that--I take your point, and I was expecting it. The point I was making about 1D and 1E is they close down choices to Ministers in future Assemblies. An evaluative practice would actually open up those choices and give future Parliaments more options with regard to this Bill, so I think it's entirely consistent. I don't think the Minister, in putting in amendment 2, was trying to undermine my argument. Actually, I think she's being constructive by doing that, and I think amendment 2 is a practical amendment that's quite helpful, and its consequence will be to open up choices to future Parliaments, whereas my objection to 1D and 1E is they close those down. Suzy Davies AM: Okay, well, as I say, I think, actually, the Deputy Minister's offer of a three-year interim period might be part of a resolution to this. Because I'm not 100 per cent sure I accept your argument, either, because it closes it down for the interim period if we don't move on with the Deputy Minister's suggestion--which I'll talk about now, actually. Because I am tempted to accept your offer. It absolutely makes sense and it's clearly made with the best good faith here. But I need some clarity on what you would allow this Assembly to do in helping define the terms of that interim report. Because you've been very clear that you don't want to accept the things that Janet Finch-Saunders has been talking about in a final report, and yet I can tell you we want to hear about these things. So, if you're in a position where you can give a commitment at Stage 3 not only to introduce an interim report, but that you will consult with, perhaps, this committee--I'll leave it to you--on the contents of that interim report, what we would want to see tested, then I'll be minded not to move amendment 2B. If you can't give me that reassurance, then I'm going to move it anyway and we'll return to it at Stage 3, if you don't mind. Just a final point on this issue of reporting within three months rather than as soon as practicable, and I do take your point that there may be a misalignment with reporting periods from the organisations you hope to talk to. Again, at Stage 3, I'm happy if you want to make three months six months, or something like that, but'as soon as practicable'is open ended, and what you think is practicable may be very different from what I or my constituents think is practicable. So, I don't want to stick with what is practicable; I would like you to put a date on this. If it's a case that you think six months is long enough for data gathering and reporting from third parties, I think that's fairly reasonable as well, but I'm not minded to allow you to just keep this open ended. Thank you. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Suzy. Sian. Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, I welcome adding to the Bill through amendment 2, and what you've said today also, that you're willing to provide an interim report and bring an amendment forward to allow that through the Bill, and to lay a report before the Assembly. I am interested in what Suzy is saying, and have a lot of sympathy with trying to tie it down to specific time periods, and not say'when it will be practicable'. Therefore, I would encourage you not to move your amendments if you have the confirmation that you want to hear this morning from the Minister regarding these issues. Suzy Davies AM: I would like to. Thanks. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Any other Members? No. Deputy Minister. Julie Morgan AM: Well, just to start off on that point, I think your suggestion about how we consult and discuss, I think I'm very happy to accept that. So, I'm happy to discuss that with you, and with the committee, before the third Stage. So, I hope you will consider removing--. Suzy Davies AM: No, genuinely I am. Julie Morgan AM: Right, thank you. Well, just to go on to cover some of the points that have been raised, on the issue of training now, I think Janet raised a number of points about training, and we do have an operations, procedures, processes and training task and finish group as part of our implementation work, and they are considering guidance and training requirements. There are many professional bodies represented on that group, many of whom I think have given evidence here today, and they've really got a chance to have their say. The officials are also looking at training as part of the revision of the explanatory memorandum at Stage 3, so there will be more information about training there. But we have this group looking at it, and it is very key. Generally, I think that all the contributions are very helpful, and I know they're meant in the spirit of trying to improve the legislation. I can't support amendments 2A, 2C, and amendments 2E to 2K, because these amendments make little difference in terms of practical effect to what we have in the Bill already, or they're covered by the Government amendments that I've moved. But I do hope the committee is reassured that we are committed to undertaking a very thorough, multifaceted review of the impact of the legislation that includes tracking public attitudes and considering impacts on public services. Now, tracking the public attitudes will be going along at regular points, so there's no question there of having to wait; we'll be having regular reporting of public attitudes. Suzy Davies AM: Would you take an intervention there, Deputy Minister? Thank you very much. Of course, I appreciate that you will not be supporting these amendments, but can you give us some indication of how many of the areas of interest to us you will be reporting on? So, even if this is not a statutory commitment, what exactly from our list, our wish list here, would you be prepared to include in your evaluation? Julie Morgan AM: Well, I would actually have thought all of them. All the areas you've raised are very relevant, I think. Obviously, this is not a statutory thing I'm saying, but-- Suzy Davies AM: No, no, and this is not a-- Julie Morgan AM: Yes, but considering those points you've put forward, I think all of them have got a great deal of relevance. We will certainly be reporting to the group to consider any of the ideas that you've suggested and, in particular with the data collection and the monitoring task and finish group, which is about developing methods to collect data, we will be putting forward some of the suggestions that you've made on those issues. So, I don't see any problem with that at all. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. Julie Morgan AM: So, as I say, I can't support the amendments. I'm hopeful you may withdraw the two amendments--I think one of yours and it was one of Janet's, wasn't it--so that we could work together on those before the next stage. Because I am sympathetic to your views on these matters, and I think they do reflect some of the discussions in the committee as well. So, I'd be happy to work with you to bring forward the amendments at Stage 3. In line with the recommendations of the Finance Committee, further details of the costs associated with the post-implementation review will be provided in a revised regulatory impact assessment at Stage 3. So, I think at this point I would ask that Members reject the non-Government amendments and agree to my amendments 2 and 5, which will ultimately achieve the same policy aim without the need for unnecessary detail on the Bill, with the exception, obviously, of those two amendments, which I'm prepared to look at a way of moving forward on. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you, Deputy Minister. Before disposing of amendment 2, we will deal with the amendments to that amendment. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2C? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2C be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 2C, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2C is lost. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 2A? Suzy Davies AM: I move amendment 2A, yes. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2A be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 2A, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2A is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2D? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2E? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2E be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 2E, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2E is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2F? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2F be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so can I see all those in favour of amendment 2F? All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 2F is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2G? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2G be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, can I see all those in favour of amendment 2G? All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 2G is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2H? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2H be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so can I see all those in favour of amendment 2H? All those against? So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2H is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2I? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2I be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay. Can I see all those in favour of amendment 2I? All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2I is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2J? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2J be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. Can I see all those in favour of 2J? All those against? So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2J is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2K? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2K be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] I'll therefore take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 2K? All those against? So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2K is not agreed. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 2B? Suzy Davies AM: In view of the Deputy Minister's reassurances, I won't move this amendment today, but obviously I reserve the right to bring something back if we can't reach consensus. Thank you. Lynne Neagle AM: Does any other Member wish to move amendment 2B? Okay, no. Thank you. We'll move on, then. If amendment 2 is not agreed, amendment 5 will fall. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 2? Julie Morgan AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 2 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 2-- Suzy Davies AM: Objection. Lynne Neagle AM: You're objecting? Suzy Davies AM: Yes. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Right, we'll therefore take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 2, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 2 is agreed. That takes us on to group 3, which relates to the regulation-making powers in the Bill. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 3 in the name of the Deputy Minister. I move amendment 3 in the Deputy Minister's name and call on the Deputy Minister to speak to her amendments and the other amendments in this group. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much, Chair. Members will note that I've brought forward an amendment to provide certainty on the date of commencement of the core provision in the Bill, which is obviously to abolish the defence of reasonable punishment. And that is going to be debated under group 5. So, we're obviously debating that after we deal with these particular technical issues--these are technical issues here, basically. As a consequence of proposing to remove the power for a Welsh Minister to make an Order for commencement, the power to make transitory, transitional or saving provisions in connection with section 1 of the Bill coming into force would also be removed. So, I'm not seeking here to add any new powers to the Bill; amendment 3 will simply add this existing power back onto the face of the Bill where amendments 7 and 8 remove it, and amendment 6 will bring the power into force the day after Royal Assent. In fact, removing the power for the Welsh Ministers to commence the provision in section 1 by Order means the statutory instrument will actually do less than originally intended. These amendments are technical in nature and while I acknowledge that the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee raised the issue of what procedure should be applied, their report did not call for any change to no procedure being applied. The absence of an Assembly procedure does not mean that Ministers'decisions in relation to transitional powers cannot be scrutinised by the Assembly. Any concerns about the Welsh Ministers'proposals could be put to me in the Senedd. This was a point made to CLAC and, as I say, their final conclusion was that no procedure is the appropriate procedure for such a power. For those reasons, I encourage Members to reject amendment 3A from Suzy. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy Davies. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much. Well perhaps, Deputy Minister, I can begin by saying that one person's technical issue is another person's essential part of the legislative procedure and a keen element in scrutiny. But I thank you for noting the Assembly's observations on the ministerial powers granted in this Bill--this time by CLAC, as you say. Moving this--and I'm glad actually that amendment 8, I think it was, has removed an Order provision and we're moving into an area where at least statutory instruments do feature here. I have to say that amendment 3A is something of a probing amendment, and I'll explain why now. Your amendment 3 seeks to give a familiar range of powers in connection with the coming into force of section 1, but it's actually in a substantive part of section 1 itself now--it's not a separate commencement power. And, actually, I've been listening to the rest of this debate, and thinking that, if you're going to be introducing an awareness campaign and a report, the chances are you're going to need some regulatory powers to introduce some of the aspects of both those policy areas, I think. And I'm wondering whether the--what is it--transitory, transitional and saving provisions are actually enough powers for you under the course of this Bill. I'm wondering whether you want to consider actually amending this to give yourself the more usual unrestricted power to make regulations in order for you to get section 1 implemented, bearing in mind that it has now been amended from that original, very short and simple--or at least simple in terms of drafting--initial draft. As I say, in anticipation of you rejecting amendments in group 1 I tabled this, in order to make sure that an opportunity remains for the Assembly to bring anything you may wish to introduce under section 1, when it comes into effect, onto the floor of the Assembly. Because while I completely accept that you've acknowledged that statutory instrument is the process for introducing things from now on, it's still possible to do that without procedure, and so I have no idea whether you think what you introduce would be better suited to be introduced by a negative or affirmative procedure. Amendment 3A is a holding position, which we will return to you in Stage 3, because I think, again, this is an area where it might be valuable for us to discuss quite what kind of powers you're looking for, because I think you probably need something that's beyond transitional, transitory and saving. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Suzy, have you finished? Suzy Davies AM: Yes, thank you very much. Lynne Neagle AM: Are there any other Members who wish to speak on this group? No. Deputy Minister. Julie Morgan AM: I thank Suzy for that input. We don't actually think it's necessary to have wider powers, but we will keep this under review and at Stage 3, I think that--. When I was looking at this, I was concerned to know what the transitory powers--what we would actually need to do at that stage, but I can understand that there may be links to other Bills in ways that we are not anticipating at the moment that would make it necessary to have those powers. So, basically, I don't think it is necessary to have wider powers, but I can assure you that we'll keep that in review coming up to Stage 3. Suzy Davies AM: Can I just ask a question on the back of that? Lynne Neagle AM: Will you take a brief intervention at the end, Minister? Suzy Davies AM: Will you take the briefest intervention before your full stop? Julie Morgan AM: I was going to end there, yes. Suzy Davies AM: Right, okay, well, just before your full stop, would you just confirm that you're happy for us to discuss this before Stage 3? Julie Morgan AM: Yes, very happy. Yes. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Before disposing of amendment 3, we will deal with the amendment to that amendment. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 3A? Suzy Davies AM: I'll move it, yes. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 3A be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, I'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 3A. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 3A is not agreed. If amendment 3 is not agreed, amendment 6 will fall. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 3? Julie Morgan AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 3 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 3 is therefore agreed. The committee will now break for 10 minutes and reconvene at 11. 05 a. m. Can I welcome Members back? We will move on to group 4, which relates to the duty to ensure sufficient funding. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 11 in the name of Janet Finch-Saunders. I call on Janet Finch-Saunders to move amendment 11 and to speak to her amendments. Janet. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. I speak to both amendments in this group. As I outlined under amendments 2I and 2J, there are ongoing concerns about the potential costs for Welsh devolved authorities and the lack of quantifiable costs within the regulatory impact assessment. Now, it was absolutely clear from evidence that we received in this committee that unknown costs would be challenging and potentially problematic. As I have mentioned previously, these concerns would doubtless be most keenly felt in our hard-pressed social services. Furthermore, the Welsh Local Government Association stated that there must be a commitment that whatever the costs are, those costs are met, because it is legislation that is being led by the National Assembly for Wales. Now, during evidence, the Deputy Minister, when asked about the reliance on a limited number of reporting of cases likely to happen and the potential for a degree of unknown costs stated:'we are doing our very best to prepare to cover all eventualities that we can anticipate.'But you couldn't commit to a broad figure, instead telling us that:'we have to rely on what the people who run those organisations are telling us.'And:'We have to measure it as we go along.'Given that devolved authorities need to plan their budgets for these changes, we only think it is fair for the Welsh Government to provide sufficient funding to alleviate the cost implications of this Bill. Now, while amendment 11 makes reference to costs borne by local authorities and health boards, I note that amendment 12 takes this further by including other devolved authorities that are not funded by Welsh Government. Anticipating the Deputy Minister's response that few under this category, if any at all, would be affected by the Bill, we are pursuing a principle here, and it is agreement to the principle of providing sufficient funding that we are seeking from you as the Deputy Minister. Now, these are just two examples of Welsh Government legislation to date that have been underfunded. The Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013: last year, the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee found that the Wales annual spend on walking and cycling is half that of England's and one sixth of Holland's. Furthermore, the committee highlighted that the passing of the Act put a requirement on local authorities to continuously improve active travel routes, but were constrained by the funding made available to them. The Minister at the time announced a three-year funding settlement of PS60 million. Now, my local authority and other authorities that have done some monitoring on the active travel Act--they simply were not awarded sufficient funding to actually allow the active travel Act to become a meaningful piece of legislation, and the same goes with the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. This month, the auditor general has raised concerns that the public services boards created under the Act were limited in their work and impact due to the lack of dedicated funding. Outside of the Welsh Government's regional grant that cannot be spent on projects, councils often contribute through officer time or facilities, but resources and capacity to support those PSBs remain a key risk, as partners don't have the capacity to take on more. The reason that I wanted these amendments placed in here is I genuinely do not believe that you've even envisioned what, or even estimated the likely cost to be borne by the organisations, and certainly our local authorities and health boards, the impact this Bill is going to have. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Janet. Are there other Members who would like to speak in this group, please? No. Okay. I call the Deputy Minister, then. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Chair. I can understand that the Member is concerned about the impact of this Bill on public services, but you will see from the explanatory memorandum and from the raft of impact statements published with the Bill that we've done a thorough and extremely diligent job of considering the potential impacts of this Bill before introduction. And as far as we're aware, no other country has done more than us to consider the impacts of similar legislation, and also comprehensively prepared for implementation. We've explored the published data, which is available from other countries, on the impact of measures they've taken to prohibit the physical punishment of children. We've also spoken to a range of stakeholders in Ireland, New Zealand and Malta, who have legal systems similar to our own. And in these countries, there is no evidence that public services have been overwhelmed following law reform. And stakeholders have been clear when giving evidence to this committee that they do not consider there will be runaway costs, and I think we should trust their judgment on this. In fact, as this committee notes in its Stage 1 report, those delivering services on the front line have said, without exception, that'this Bill will improve their ability to protect children living in Wales because it will make the law clear.'Sally Jenkins of the Association of Directors of Social Services said to this committee:'In terms of thresholds for children's services, we would not be anticipating a huge number of referrals to us. There may be a small number of referrals that come through. What we know from other nations is that it will peak and then settle. We recognise that's likely to happen.'That's from the front line. Jane Randall, chair of the National Independent Safeguarding Board Wales, said:'there's no expectation that there's going to be a huge increase in the number of referrals coming through to local authority social services, I think it would be dealt with within their existing resources.'And Dr Rowena Christmas, Royal College of General Practitioners, said:'I can't see it's going to lengthen consultations. I can't see that it's going to increase the number of consultations, and I don't think it's going to increase the number of referrals I make to the health visitor or to social services, because if I was worried, I'd make those referrals now regardless of the Bill.'I just want to say again that the Bill is removing a defence to an offence of common assault, which has formed part of the common law of England and Wales for a very long time. And social services already receive and investigate reports of children being assaulted, including from health and education, so it's not a whole new area of costly activity for any of them. I do think that the evidence that you had at your committee did highlight those points. As I've already pointed out when discussing group 2 amendments, we're working with organisations to put in place arrangements to collect data about the possible impact on their services, and this will be analysed as part of the post-implementation review of the legislation. Welsh Government can consider with relevant organisations how best to manage any impact on workloads or resources and any cost implications. I can assure you that work to update the regulatory impact assessment has continued, and I've asked officials to prepare a revised RIA, as recommended at Stage 2, and I expect to share an updated RIA with you in advance of Stage 3. Serious consideration is being given on how to provide more detailed estimates of the unknown costs to public services arising from the Bill, but I think you should be reassured by the evidence that was given, particularly to this committee, from the professionals at the front line. What the amendments are proposing is outside the normal funding arrangements that operate within Government, and it's not clear why, in the context of the evidence heard at Stage I, such provisions are necessary. I'm sure that Members will agree that future Governments need to be able to consider, within the context of the budget-setting process, what the priorities are, and these considerations would need to be made within the context at that time, for example taking into account any issues that there are--UK Government actions, what happens in relation to Brexit, or any other unforeseen impacts on the economy or Welsh society. All those issues would have to be taken into account. Furthermore, as is the case now, the National Assembly for Wales scrutinises the Welsh Government budget annually, so it would be able to make an argument for additional funding for public bodies, should it consider that this is required. I do think all the evidence has shown that we do not anticipate that there will be a huge increase of a demand for funding, so I urge Members to reject these amendments, which I believe are unnecessary. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Chair, could I ask a question? Lynne Neagle AM: You can reply to the debate now, Janet, yes. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I'd like to ask a question of the Deputy Minister. When we were taking evidence, at an earlier stage, I noticed that part of the stakeholder group--there was some liaison going on with social services departments across Wales. Now, we have 22 local authorities. At that time, the numbers mentioned were quite small--I think only a handful. What discussions have taken place with our local authorities in terms of their social services departments in terms of the lead, the cabinet members, or, indeed, the head of service? I can speak from my own experiences, when going around my constituency, but when I've spoken to some of the family support groups, and, indeed, the departments themselves, they are very concerned about the financial impact that this is going to have on the provision. They're already overstretched, and they see this as another burden--primarily another financial burden. So, how much have you engaged with them? Julie Morgan AM: There's been extensive engagement. We've had meetings with the Association of Directors of Social Services, and they're represented on all our groups, and we're working very closely with them, because, of course, they represent all the local authorities. But I have to say, when I've been going round and meeting lots of different groups, the first thing they say is,'I'm so glad that you're doing this', and they haven't mentioned any financial implications. But, obviously, we will be very aware of--we are looking at any more evidence that comes up. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. So, I'll still move my amendments. I'm disappointed, really. I was hoping to see some commitment to--this Bill was going to go through, and it's one that could be implemented fully, because sufficient resources were there. I'm not convinced about that, and I know that other organisations are not also. So, I move my amendments. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 11 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] I therefore take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 11 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 12? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 12 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] All those in favour of amendment 12. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 12 is not agreed. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 4? Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I move amendment 4 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 4 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 4, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 4 is agreed. Deputy Minister, do you want to proceed to a vote on amendment 5? Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 5 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 5 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 5, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 5 is agreed. Deputy Minister, do you want to move to a vote on amendment 6? Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 6, then, in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 6 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 6 is therefore agreed. This takes us, then, to the fifth and final group, which relates to commencement. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 9 in the name of Suzy Davies. And I call Suzy Davies to move amendment 9 and to speak to the amendment and the other amendments in the group. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much, Chair. Amendment 9 is actually consequential on amendment 10 passing, but it's the lead amendment in the group, so I'll move it to begin the debate. Minister, I'm speaking here now to amendments 10 and 15 specifically. You've said repeatedly, and I believe you, that you do not wish to criminalise parents but just to stop them physically punishing their children. You could have chosen to try and achieve this through awareness raising and civil enforcement, but by choosing to remove the defence to a criminal act you have entered the arena of criminal law, where the logical consequence is opening parents up to liability--not necessarily getting prosecuted, but liability to prosecution, not just liability to civil sanctions. I'm sure you'd prefer parents not to be prosecuted, but that decision does not and cannot lie with you. You, like us, have no agency in this, because the powers and the duties of the police and the Crown Prosecution Service sit outside our competence. You cannot and we cannot, by law or otherwise, instruct either of them in the delivery of your policy intention of not criminalising parents. You've acknowledged to this committee and the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee that revised CPS charging guidance and any other guidance on, for example, out-of-court disposals, are key to delivering your policy objectives. You'll remember how concerned this committee was when we learned that your advisory group--the strategic implementation group, is it--was only in the early stages of discussing what these guidelines might look like. So, you're actually asking us to pass law when we have no control over how parents might be punished for smacking their children--no control of the regard given to the relevance of force, the frequency of the offence, any prior conviction, any prior reporting, not even the views of the child in how they might be sentenced, or thresholds that would be appropriate for cautions and other out-of-court disposals; no guidance to the police on thresholds for arrest, let alone charging. And you argue that the rights of the child are what matter, and I agree with you here, but everybody, adult or child, has a right to natural justice and proportionate remedy or censure, and you are in no position to offer us any comfort on these matters at this stage. Now, CLAC recommended that any revised guidance be made available to AMs before Stage 3. I anticipate that that's unlikely, and I hope I'm wrong, but that's why Janet and I have tabled amendments 10 and 15, which prevent you bringing section 1 into force until that CPS guidance has been fully updated to take into account the change in the law and until pathways away from prosecution have been devised and agreed. That reflects our recommendation 4, this committee's recommendation, as well as CLAC's recommendation 1. It gives your strategic implementation board time to consider how it can get around the other fundamentally worrying issue of the effect of recording reports of apparent physical punishment, even if those reports ultimately prove unfounded. And you have not addressed these in your own amendments. I have to say, Minister, I think these points are so serious that I would have liked to have tabled amendments preventing you seeking Royal Assent for this Bill until the Assembly has seen drafts of the range of official guidance needed for the police and CPS. I'd have sought a Report Stage, if I could, so that we could consider that evidence. But I'm therefore asking you to support the amendments we have tabled, 10 and 15, so that we can bring some damage limitation to a process that you ultimately cannot control once this Bill has passed. Now, I know you've got the numbers to pass this Bill, whether you accept amendments or not, but I just hope you can see the danger in pushing forward with a Bill that changes a person's relationship with the criminal law when you have no legal control over the consequences of that, and you're inviting this Assembly to fall into the same trap. I therefore urge the Assembly to avoid this recklessness by supporting these two amendments. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Suzy. Are there other Members who wish to speak? No. Janet, do you want to speak? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, I wish to speak to amendments 14 and 16. Amendment 14, however, is consequential to amendment 16 passing. Amendment 16 prevents this from commencing until parenting support services have been established by the Welsh Government. As was clear during the committee's evidence sessions, present Welsh Government support programmes for parents have insufficient coverage. For example, the capacity and reach of the Healthy Child Wales programme came under question on its role in awareness raising, with health representatives acknowledging that universality had not been achieved, with 53. 2 per cent of children in Wales reported as being contacted. Furthermore, existing parenting support is often only available as part of a targeted programme in specific areas, such as Flying Start, and even the children's commissioner noted that much more is needed to support parents to find alternatives to disciplining their children. Now, the Deputy Minister mentioned the'Parenting: Give it Time'campaign as part of proposals on a wider package of support for children and their parents. However, the Deputy Minister was challenged on this fact, that this is an online campaign only, and could only respond that the mapping exercise she will undertake. Consequently, it should be remembered that this Bill will affect all parents. Therefore, the Deputy Minister needs to assure the committee and the public that universal support will be provided before the removal of the defence occurs. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Janet. Deputy Minister. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Chair. I've listened to what stakeholders and committees have said about the importance of ensuring sufficient time is available prior to the change in the law to abolish the defence of reasonable punishment during Stage 1. As a result, I have brought forward amendments in this group to provide certainty around the date for the change in the law. My amendment 7 will remove the power to commence this core provision of the Bill by Order of the Welsh Ministers and ensure that the defence of reasonable punishment is abolished at the end of a two-year period beginning the day after Royal Assent. That was done to give certainty on the length of time. Up to then, we'd always said'up to two years'--well, we're giving two years. This certainty will allow key partners, including the police, social services and the Crown Prosecution Service, to plan for changes to guidance, training and data-collection systems more effectively. It'll also provide a focus for our awareness-raising campaign. My amendment 8 in this group has the consequence of removing the power to make transitional provision, which is replaced by my amendments 3 and 6, and we discussed those in the previous group. I've listened to the arguments put forward by Suzy Davies and Janet Finch-Saunders for the amendments in this group that they have tabled. These amendments are all about making the commencement of the Bill conditional on something else happening, whether it's waiting for the revision of Crown Prosecution Service guidance, or the establishment of a pathway for diversion from the criminal justice system, or for the provision of parenting support services. And, really, I don't think that we should be going down that road. As I set out in my letter of response to the Stage 1 report from the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee, we've got good working relations with the CPS through the strategic implementation group, and we work very closely with them. But the CPS are an independent body, as Suzy Davies has said in her contribution, not answerable to Welsh Ministers or this legislature, and it's not appropriate for a Minister or the National Assembly to seek to influence the CPS guidelines. We're discussing the issues with the CPS in the implementation group. And, in fact, I think that these amendments--Suzy's amendments in particular--wouldn't just seek to influence the CPS, but would actually give power to a non-devolved body on the way that we legislate in Wales. So, I don't think we should make it conditional on those guidelines being decided. I think you have to rely on the fact that we have got this very good relationship, very close working relationship. And I know they did give evidence to your committee, I believe, the CPS. And I think legislating to effectively give a non-devolved body a power to commence, or not, Assembly legislation would be highly unusual and would raise great uncertainty, I think, if we did go down that track, because I think this is very important Welsh legislation, which does have broad support across the Assembly. And I don't think we should allow non-devolved bodies to be the final arbiters of commencement of our legislation. So, I don't support those amendments. I think the CPS is entirely independent of Government, and must be entirely independent of Government, and will make its own decisions about how and when it will revise its guidance. In addition, you suggest we allow the UK Government to have a say in when Welsh legislation is commenced in an area that was specifically devolved to the Assembly. The test applied by the proposed amendments as to when commencement could lawfully occur is uncertain. If these amendments passed, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to judge when section 1 could be commenced. This contravenes what stakeholders and committees have asked for, and raises huge uncertainty, which potentially jeopardises the Bill. And I want to assure you again, not only do we have good working relations with the CPS, but also very good working relationships with the police, who are, of course, the other non-devolved body who have great involvement and interest in these issues. The work we do in these groups should not affect the timing of the Bill's commencement. In fact, it's the other way round. My amendment to provide a two-year period between Royal Assent and commencement means these groups can plan their work to a known timescale and deliver in good time before the law comes into force. And then, when it comes to parenting support, the committee knows that I've committed to reviewing the existing provision of parenting support, and work is already under way through the parenting expert group on this very issue. I have already said I will expand the age range of the'Parenting: Give it Time'campaign, and I think--. I know Janet Finch-Saunders has made the point that it is an online facility. It is very widely used. It is a very successful tool. But, of course, the universal services are also there. For example, the universal service of the health visitors is absolutely crucial, and that is a service that is for every child. And, of course, the health visitors welcome this legislation very strongly. And the expert group is considering what it'll recommend for the future, and it needs the time to be able to do that, to support the Bill as well as to support parenting more widely. So, as I said, I think these are important points that you have raised, but I don't think they are appropriate. So, I therefore urge the committee not to support amendments 9 and 10, nor 13,14 and 15. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy to reply to the debate. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much, and thank you very much, Deputy Minister, as well. I'm disappointed that you haven't seen what's behind Janet Finch-Saunders's final amendment there, actually. Maybe it's something we'll raise again with you at Stage 3, or maybe in the conversations that we have between now and then. But I want to go back to amendments 10 and 15 that I've raised and your assertion that we're giving, or attempting to give, power to the CPS here. We are not. This amendment is drafted very specifically and in full knowledge that we have no legislative competence in this area. And this is why I go back to where my contribution to this started, and it's your choice to try and resolve the problem of--or, sorry, to try and protect children's rights through the medium of a change to the criminal law rather than the many opportunities that were available to you through the civil law and over which you would have had complete competence. This Bill--and, actually, you've said a couple of times in your response today that it's important that it's commenced on a certain date. My argument is: it shouldn't be commenced at all unless you are absolutely certain about how it is likely to affect the parents who will now be captured by the removal of the defence. And, while I claim no mischief on the part of the CPS or the police--obviously I don't--there is nothing you can do that would prevent the CPS, should they wish to do it, or indeed the police with their own guidelines, putting in place something that is wholly disproportionate to the offence that is now being released by the removal of a defence. And, because of that, I ask you to consider, or balance, actually, two important things here: one is the rights of the child, obviously at the forefront of your argument on this, which I would argue could be completely and safely protected through the use of civil law on this occasion; and, actually, the rights of the child again to have a good relationship with parents over whose future they will have no say--or at least you cannot allow them to have any say in how those parents might be treated in terms of sentencing. The relationship between parents and children obviously is different in every family, but that's something you ought to protect in what you're trying to do here, and by leaving it open, as you say, to completely different--sorry, undevolved, two undevolved authorities to make decisions about how that relationship could be affected deeply worries me. I know this isn't going to stop your Bill going forward, but I really want you to consider my arguments and how you might try and address them at Stage 3, because leaving, effectively, the delivery of your policy objectives to somebody over whom you have no control, despite your great relationship with them, should worry us all as a legislature. Thank you. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you, Suzy. Do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 9? Suzy Davies AM: Oh, because of the voting order--. Yes, please. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 9 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 9, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 9 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 13? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 13 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 13, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 13 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 14? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 14 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 14, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 14 is not agreed. Deputy Minister, do you wish to move to a vote on amendment 7? Julie Morgan AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 7 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 7 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 7, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against. Amendment 7 is agreed. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 10? Suzy Davies AM: Yes, please. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 10 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 10, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 10 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 15? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 15 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 15, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 15 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 16? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 16 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 16, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 16 is not agreed. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 8? Julie Morgan AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 8, then, in the name of the Minister. The question is that amendment 8 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 8 is therefore agreed. Well, that has brought us to the end of our amendments, so can I thank the Deputy Minister and her officials for their attendance? As usual, you will be sent a transcript of the meeting to check for factual accuracy. This completes Stage 2 proceedings. Stage 3 begins tomorrow, and the relevant date of Stage 3 proceedings will be published in due course. Standing Orders make provision for the Deputy Minister to prepare a revised explanatory memorandum, taking account of the amendments agreed today. The revised memorandum will be laid at least five working days before Stage 3 proceedings. Thank you very much. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you all very much. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services, following our meeting on 2 October. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Minister for Health and Social Services updating the committee on the'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'strategy. And paper to note 3 is a letter from myself to the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services regarding early childhood education and care, following the session that we held on 2 October. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Item 4, then, is for me to propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17. 42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Thank you.

The Deputy Minister understood that the impact of this Bill on public services was concerned; however, she said that they had done a thorough and extremely diligent job of considering the potential impacts of the Bill before introduction. She cited several people's sentences, to demonstrate that the Bill was removing a defense to an offence of common assault, which had formed part of the common law of England and Wales for a very long time. This was not a completely new area of costly activity for any of them. The Deputy Minister thought all the evidence had shown that they did not anticipate that there would be a huge increase of a demand for funding, so she encouraged members to reject these amendments, which she thought were not necessary.

tr-gq-606

tr-gq-606_0

Summarize the whole meeting. Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee this morning. We've received no apologies for absence. Can I ask if there are any declarations of interest from Members, please? No. Okay, thank you. Item 2 this morning is the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill: Stage 2 proceedings. I'm pleased to welcome Julie Morgan AM, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services; Karen Cornish, deputy director, children and families division at Welsh Government; and Emma Gammon, lawyer for Welsh Government. Thank you for attending this morning and welcome to the committee. I'm just going to run through the procedures that we're going to follow now. As I said, the purpose of the meeting is to undertake Stage 2 proceedings on the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill. For these proceedings, Members should have copies of the marshalled list of amendments, the groupings of the amendments for debate and the voting order for the amendments. The marshalled list of amendments is the list of all amendments tabled, marshalled into the order in which the sections appear in the Bill. The order in which we consider amendments will be the default order--that is, sections 1 to 3 and the long title. You will see from the groupings list that amendments have been grouped to facilitate debate. However, the order in which they're called and moved for decision is dictated by the marshalled list. Members will, therefore, need to follow the two papers, although I will advise Members when I call them whether they're being called to speak in the debate or to move their amendments for a decision. There will be one debate on each group of amendments. Members who wish to speak in a particular group should indicate to me in the usual way. I will call the Deputy Minister to speak on each group. For the record, in accordance with the convention agreed by the Business Committee, as Chair I will move amendments in the name of the Deputy Minister. For expediency, I will assume that the Deputy Minister wishes me to move all of her amendments, and I will do so at the appropriate place in the marshalled list. Deputy Minister, if you do not want a particular amendment to be moved, please indicate to me at the relevant point in proceedings. In line with our usual practice, legal advisers to the committee and the Deputy Minister are not expected to provide advice on the record. If Members wish to seek legal advice during proceedings, please do so by passing a note to the legal adviser and, if necessary, we can adjourn. My intention is to try to dispose of all amendments during today's meeting. I will call a short break in proceedings at an appropriate time, if necessary. Okay, thank you. So, we will proceed, then, to group 1, which is the duty to promote public awareness. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 1 in the name of the Deputy Minister. I move amendment 1 in the Deputy Minister's name and call on the Deputy Minister to speak to her amendment and the other amendments in this group. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much, Chair. My amendments 1 and 4 will place a duty on Welsh Ministers to provide information and increase awareness about the change in the law to ensure that the public are made aware of how the law will change as a result of the defence of reasonable punishment being abolished and that physical punishment would be prohibited once the Act commences. I tabled these amendments in response to this committee's recommendation--this was a recommendation from this committee in the Stage 1 report, so I have responded to that. I've already made a commitment to a high-intensity awareness-raising campaign over approximately six years from Royal Assent, should the Bill be passed. I've considered amendments 1A to 1E, which have been tabled by Janet Finch-Saunders, and which relate to the duty to raise awareness. Amendment 1A introduces a reference to public understanding. We don't think, actually, that this adds anything to the Government amendment, which already mentions awareness. It makes the awareness-raising duty open-ended with no time limit, which is not necessary. By commencement, messaging around the change in the law will be embedded. The awareness-raising campaign will continue for a number of years. Therefore, an ongoing duty referring specifically to the law change would not be required. I understand, of course, that the awareness-raising campaign needs to be comprehensive, well planned and to reach out to all those people and all those communities who need to be aware of the law change, and understand how to respond to it. But I don't think it's helpful or necessary to highlight specific groups, such as visitors to Wales, on the face of the Bill--that's the approach taken in amendment 1E--as it risks placing too much emphasis on certain groups at the expense of others. In relation to children, the committee will know that I'm fully committed to children's rights, and that Welsh Ministers are already under a duty to have due regard to the rights of children whenever they exercise their functions. An additional due regard requirement, such as the one set out in amendment 1D, relating specifically to the need to promote awareness among children is not needed. This would be part and parcel of the Welsh Government approach to putting children's rights at the heart of our policy making. Similarly, I don't think it's necessary for the Bill to set out specifically the topics that need to be covered in the awareness-raising campaign, as is suggested in amendments 1B and 1C. That level of detail, I don't think, is for the face of the Bill. Information required about parenting support will be considered by the parenting expert group, under the auspices of the Bill's strategic implementation group, working with my officials and the expert stakeholder group on the awareness-raising campaign. And, really, their thinking should not be constrained in any way by specifications on the face of the Bill. I think we always need to bear in mind that what the Bill does is remove a defence to an existing criminal offence; it does not create a new offence. And in this context, it doesn't make sense for this Bill to contain a provision requiring the provision of information about how a person may raise concerns if it appears to them that a child is being physically punished. As I set out in my letter to this committee responding to recommendation 15 on this point, safeguarding is everyone's business, and, as now, the public have a role in highlighting to relevant services if they are concerned about a child. I'm asking for the support of Members for amendments 1 and 4, and I ask Members to reject amendments 1A to 1E because this would place unnecessary provisions on the face of the Bill. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Deputy Minister. Are there other Members who wish to speak? Janet Finch-Saunders. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. I wish to speak to amendments 1A to 1E, which relate to the Deputy Minister's amendment on the duty to promote public awareness. While we believe it is absolutely imperative that the public are made aware of this controversial change in the law, the Deputy Minister's amendment lacks a number of key points that the committee were actually keen to address at Stage 1. An important thread runs throughout each and every amendment that I've tabled within this group--that of a sustained awareness campaign, which not only stretches beyond the implementation of the Bill, but serves as a duty for future administrations. Amendment 1A: primarily, amendment 1A changes amendment 1 to include the promotion of understanding changes to the law. I don't think it's enough for the Welsh Government to say that the public should be made aware of the coming into force of section 1 and that a public awareness campaign needs to be sustained until the Welsh Government's objectives have been achieved. Despite the fact that it is intended to change behaviour, the consequences of this law are far greater than that of organ donation or prohibiting smoking indoors. Instead of an opt-out system or a civil offence, this law will remove a defence for parents, information on which could be there on their records for the rest of their lives, potentially separate parents, and could affect employment chances. As such, whilst we agree with the necessity of the awareness campaign, it is important too that the Welsh Government take stock and ensures that parents are not penalised due to a weak awareness campaign. The witnesses we heard before this committee also noted the necessity of ensuring that the public understands-- Lynne Neagle AM: Janet, Dawn is asking if you'll take an intervention. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. Dawn Bowden AM: I just wanted to know--could you give us examples of any other piece of legislation where there's been indefinite public awareness campaigns once it's been passed? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: There's a lot of legislation. The first Assembly term when I was here-- Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, what I'm asking-- Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I'm trying to respond-- Dawn Bowden AM: What I'm asking for is: can you give us specific examples of where there have been indefinite public awareness campaigns running indefinitely past the enactment of a piece of legislation? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: The very first term that I was an Assembly Member, we passed 25 pieces of separate legislation. Even today, as I sit here, the public are not aware of many of those pieces of legislation. This particular piece of legislation will have a profound effect on the parenting of children in Wales. So, therefore, I think there is a necessity for both children and parents to become involved, and I shall speak now-- Dawn Bowden AM: With respect, Chair, that's not the question I asked. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: --to my amendments. Lynne Neagle AM: I can call you in the debate, if you'd like to make a more substantive contribution on this. Yes. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: The witnesses who we heard from before this committee also noted the necessity of ensuring that the public understands the implications. And that's what we're talking about here, Members--the implications of removing this defence. Strikingly, the Office of Police and Crime Commissioner for Gwent stated the following:'the potential for public resistance to the Bill through misunderstanding or confusion over it implications may pose the largest barrier to its implementation.'If you are intent on removing the defence of reasonable punishment, it is therefore not unreasonable to ensure that law-abiding parents fully understand the ramifications of this Bill. Additionally, the committee found that while the current Welsh Government's intention to deliver a public awareness campaign was beyond doubt, future Governments may have less of a commitment. This places further weight on the fact that the Welsh Government should be under a duty to promote awareness and understanding of the Bill beyond its commencement. Furthermore, the Children (Equal Protection from Assault) (Scotland) Bill quite clearly notes that, under section 2, the Scottish Ministers must take such steps as they consider appropriate to promote public awareness and understanding about the effect of section 1 on the abolition for the defence of reasonable punishment. Therefore, I would be grateful if the Deputy Minister can respond as to the reasons why the Welsh Government has deviated from this course of action in their amendment. [Interruption. ] Should our amendment be agreed-- Lynne Neagle AM: Are you taking an intervention? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: No. I'd rather crack on, to be honest. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I can call you in the debate, Hefin. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Should our amendment to be agreed, we also request that a printing change be made to ensure that the new heading reflects promoting awareness of the changes to the law made by section 1. Amendment 1B: amendment 1B is in line with the committee's recommendation 9, which stated that, as part of a public awareness campaign, there should be details about the support available to parents to use alternatives to physical punishment when disciplining their children. During evidence at Stage 1, the witnesses we saw before the committee raised serious concerns about harder-to-reach groups who needed to be made aware of removing the defence. For example, Children in Wales, Action for Children and Play Wales stated that some families and communities may be harder to reach with information and support. Welsh Government needs to make sure that they receive the information they need. Now, while the Deputy Minister states that she would work hard to ensure that harder-to-reach groups receive this information, a duty to provide information on alternatives to physical punishment would ensure that future Welsh Governments would maintain a successful awareness-raising campaign. I note the Deputy Minister accepted the recommendation, through our amendment, but this does not explicitly include a duty to provide details about support for parents. As will be expanded upon later, the Deputy Minister has relied upon the'Parenting: Give it Time'campaign to be delivered alongside awareness raising. However, this is only an online resource and she must be clear about what other avenues will be available to parents who do not have access to the internet or are part of harder-to-reach groups. Amendment 1C: amendment 1C supports the committee's recommendation 15 that explains that the Welsh Government should ensure clear advice is provided on what people can do if they have seen or learned of a child being physically assaulted. We urged, at Stage 1, that although many professionals were already under a duty to report concerns about physical punishment, regardless of the Bill, other witnesses raised concerns that it could create the potential for claims of abuse that are unfounded. In particular, some were worried that children, who may not realise the implications of reporting, could make allegations that are actually untrue. While we would expect the awareness-raising campaign to include the consequences of false accusations, this could also be reflected among adults, if the public are not sufficiently made aware of how they can report and in what situations they can report a case of assault. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. I've got several speakers. I've got Suzy Davies first, then Dawn Bowden. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much, Chair. Thank you Minister, and thank you, Janet, for that. I think it's worth just pointing out at this stage that the majority of the amendments that are being made and articulated by Janet there are based on committee recommendations, and those recommendations were made after taking evidence from the public at large, but also you as well. So, that suggests that, at that stage, we weren't reassured by the offer that you were making because we felt the need to put these recommendations into our report. Now, I recognise that you've moved some way on some of these amendments, and we'll been talking about that through the course of the debates on other groups. But the one thing to bear in mind here is this is legislation, now--that means that this is the instrument of the Assembly, not of Government, and if this Assembly feels that the face of the Bill is unclear on the minimum requirements of a public awareness campaign, then we have the right to suggest the things that we would like to see in that public awareness-raising campaign. The list that Janet has given is a minimum. The reason these have been tabled individually and independently is that some may be acceptable where others may not be, so it will be disappointing to hear that you're rejecting them all, and the reason they need to go on the face of the Bill is that, if you are going to introduce specifics via regulation, at the moment we have no reassurance about how you're going to do that--about what input the Assembly, on behalf of our constituents, could have in designing that public awareness-raising campaign. Unless you accept some amendments in other groups, that is the position with this Bill: the influence of the Assembly will be zero over the content of an awareness-raising campaign. In terms of it being non-time limited, I think the amendment has been tabled in the way it has not to oblige you to an everlasting, never-ending campaign of awareness raising. But if you bear in mind that, seven years after the introduction of this Bill, there's going to be some reporting on the effectiveness of the Bill, what is the point of doing that if you don't then have an obligation, should the reports require it to be necessary, to continue promoting the changes in the law? I accept that that can't go on for centuries, but to actually limit it to two years on an issue that is so sensitive, and which has a reach beyond our boundaries, I think is genuinely a mistake. Finally, you mention that safeguarding is everyone's business. I think that's true, but I think Janet Finch-Saunders was right to say that members of the public, ordinary individuals, not professionals, will need assurance that they're doing the right thing. The amendment as listed is not even there to encourage people to do that, although that can be read in that way, but it is to help them be certain that they are doing the right thing. If this is going to be up to the individual, as you've said, and the committee itself wasn't reassured that individuals would know what to do, perhaps I can ask you to consider at Stage 3, if you're going to reject this amendment, how you can reassure members of the public that, if they are going to intervene on the back of this law, they're making things better, not worse. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Suzy. Dawn. Dawn Bowden AM: My comments, really, relate to ongoing awareness-raising campaigns, which I think all of us would want to see, and would appreciate in any changes in legislation. My point, really, is that we have a plethora of legislation that this Assembly has passed in the last 20 years, and I'm not aware of any legislation where, on the face of the Bill we have ongoing awareness-raising campaigns on an indefinite basis. It seems to me that, for some reason, you seem to be wanting to take a completely different approach to this piece of legislation. From what the Deputy Minister is saying--and perhaps I will get some clarity on this--there will be an amendment to the legislation that will say that we have an awareness campaign. That awareness campaign can be the subject of consultation with interested parties in terms of what needs to be included in it. It could also, I assume, Deputy Minister, be an awareness campaign that can be written into a set of guidance for future use. But the point I'm trying to make is that I don't believe that any piece of legislation requires ongoing and indefinite awareness-raising campaigns, and particularly in relation to visitors to Wales. Again, we have other pieces of legislation in Wales that are not applicable in the other parts of the UK. I am not aware that there is a necessity for awareness-raising campaigns with visitors coming into Wales on the raft of the other pieces of legislation that we have that they don't. And similarly, when we go to visit countries that have different legislation, we don't necessarily know what legislation we're going into when we visit that country--you just go there and you accept that you go to a different country and you abide by their laws. So, my key point, Chair, is just the necessity of an ongoing, endless awareness campaign being written onto the face of the Bill. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Dawn. Hefin. Hefin David AM: My comments follow logically from Dawn Bowden's comments, particularly in relation to amendments 1D and 1E. What you would be doing is that this Senedd, if this was on the face of the Bill, the duty on Ministers, would be putting the duty on Ministers in law beyond the life of the fifth Senedd, into the next Senedd term, and putting that duty on those newly elected Ministers after that, which, in principle, would be against the principles of binding-- Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin, are you taking an intervention from Suzy? Hefin David AM: Yes, happy to. Suzy Davies AM: When you've finished your point. Hefin David AM: I'm happy to take it now, because I was going to sum up by agreeing with the point you made, actually. Suzy Davies AM: I'd love that. You referred to this potentially binding Ministers in future Assemblies; at the moment, we've got an implementation period and a five-year reporting period that takes any reporting on this Act into the Assembly after next. I'm wondering if you're going to have any comments on that when we come to the amendment to change that later on. Hefin David AM: Well, when we get to that amendment, I'll make comments if I feel it necessary. But at this point in time, we're talking about amendments 1D and 1E, and particularly in relation to 1D and 1E it just isn't necessary, given the fact that--I won't call it a concession, because I think you made a reasonable point about the Minister making a statement at Stage 3, and I think Dawn Bowden actually supported that as well. That, therefore, makes those amendments unnecessary. Given that, in these circumstances, it is unnecessary to bind Ministers in future Parliaments. And that's my key point, really, which is why I wouldn't vote for those two amendments. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Sian. Sian Gwenllian AM: Thank you very much. I just want to speak against amendment 1A and also amendment 1B. I don't believe that there is a need for an indefinite campaign, as is outlined in 1A. I agree entirely that there is a need for a campaign during the period of change, and therefore I'm very glad to see that the Government has brought forward amendment 1, and I do hope that there will be a real push during the period of change. In terms of amendment 1B, I do have sympathy with what is being said here, but I believe that any kind of information or campaign in terms of enabling parents to learn about alternatives to physical punishment should be the subject of continual far-reaching work by the Government, through various programmes, and it should not be an addition on the face of this Bill, which deals with a small change to the common law. And then, on 1D also, if I may--I don't agree with this either. Again, I believe that there is a need to promote awareness amongst children, but that should happen through the children's rights convention, as part of a broader programme to promote children's rights. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Sian. I call on the Deputy Minister to speak, then. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you all very much for your contributions to the debate and your comments on these amendments today. I just want to re-emphasise that it is as a result of the recommendation from this committee that we are putting this duty to have the awareness campaign on the face of the Bill, and I absolutely recognise the crucial role awareness raising has to play in supporting the implementation of the Bill. I'm very grateful for and appreciate the committee's interest and the work that you've done in this area of work. But I do think that these amendments are unnecessary. If we go through them, amendment 1A is really open-ended on promoting public awareness. We're committed to a high-intensity awareness over six years from Royal Assent, and there is an expert stakeholder group supporting us with the development of the awareness campaign. All the points that you've been making will be being considered by that group. I think the level of detail on the face of the Bill is not needed. Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Would you just take an intervention on that just to help me understand? A two-year awareness-raising campaign--how have you concluded that-- Julie Morgan AM: Six-year. Suzy Davies AM: I thought it was two years before section 1 comes into force. Julie Morgan AM: We've got six years from Royal Assent. Suzy Davies AM: Oh, so it is going to continue beyond section 1 coming into force-- Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Oh yes, it's going to continue. Suzy Davies AM: That's very helpful. Julie Morgan AM: Definitely, yes. So, I don't think that's needed, amendment 1A. Amendment 1B, about support available to parents and how to access it--again, this level of detail is not required on the face of the Bill. I just want to emphasise we have got this expert implementation group, who are working on all aspects of this Bill, many of whom represent organisations who gave evidence to this committee. The Bill is a simple one, with a clear purpose. It aims to remove the defence of reasonable punishment. I think lots of these amendments are very helpful and interesting, but would be discussed and would be acted on in the normal pathway of planning and development, and they're not required on the face of the Bill. So, I'm not putting them down, I'm just saying that we don't need them to be there on the face of the Bill. And then amendment 1C--the information about how to raise concerns--I do repeat that safeguarding is everybody's business, and the same issues apply now as will after this defence has been removed. Amendment 1D--Ministers to have regard to the need to promote awareness among children--now, children's rights are absolutely enshrined in our policy making, and the entire Bill is about protecting the rights of children. So, it is unnecessary duplication. So, we hope that the Bill will remain focused. Again, in terms of visitors, the level of detail is simply not required on the face of the Bill. Our awareness-raising campaign will be comprehensive. And then to pick up a few of the other points that were raised, revisions to the impact assessments are being considered as part of my commitment to update the explanatory memorandum ahead of Stage 3. So, there will be more details on the regulatory impact assessment. The issue that was raised about the Scottish Bill, that it refers to'understanding'--now, the Scottish Bill was not a Government Bill, it was a private Member's Bill, and our view is that nothing is added by adding the'understanding';'awareness'is sufficient. So, basically, I think that the points made have been very useful, but I urge committee members to accept my amendments, but to reject those proposed by Janet Finch-Saunders, as they are unnecessary provisions in terms of what the awareness-raising duty needs to achieve. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Deputy Minister. Before disposing of amendment 1, we will deal with the amendments to that amendment. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1A? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 1A be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we have an objection. I therefore take a vote by show of hands. The question is that amendment 1A be agreed. All those in favour, please raise your hands. All those against. There voted two in favour, four against. So, amendment 1A is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1B? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 1B be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, I'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 1B. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 1B is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1C? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 1C be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay. All those in favour of amendment 1C, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 1C is not agreed. Janet, do you want to move amendment 1D? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 1D be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, as there's an objection, I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 1D, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 1D is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1E? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. The question is that amendment 1E be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 1E, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 1E is not agreed. If amendment 1 is not agreed, amendment 2C and amendment 4 will fall. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 1? Julie Morgan AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Okay. I move amendment 1 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 1 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we have an objection, so we'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 1. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 1 is agreed. We'll move on now then to group 2, which relates to the duty to report on the effect of the legislation. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 2, in the name of the Deputy Minister. I move amendment 2 in the Deputy Minister's name, and call on the Deputy Minister to speak to her amendments, and the other amendments in this group. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Chair. The amendments in this group are to do with the post-implementation review of the Bill, and I believe there was also a committee recommendation to this end from your committee, so you strongly influenced this amendment. It's clear from Members'contributions to this group and recommendations by the committee at Stage 1 that they share my commitment to the importance of post-implementation review of the effect of the abolition of the defence of reasonable punishment. I've already provided assurance that I agree with the importance placed on such a review, both in the explanatory memorandum and during Stage 1 scrutiny. I also made a commitment to bring forward a Government amendment to put a duty to undertake a post-implementation review on the face of the Bill. I have done this with amendment 2. Amendment 5 sets out that this provision will come into force the day after Royal Assent. As I said in my responses to the Stage 1 committee report, and as set out in the explanatory memorandum, the post-implementation review of this Bill will not be a single piece of work, but a continuous programme of work during the years following the commencement of section 1. Firstly, we will continue to conduct attitudinal surveys, which will be used to track changes in attitude towards the physical punishment of children and prevalence of parents reporting that they use physical punishment. The surveys will also be used to monitor the effectiveness of our awareness-raising campaign. Secondly, through a dedicated task and finish group, we are working with organisations to put in place arrangements to establish robust methods for capturing meaningful data relating to the Bill and to consider the possible impact on services. Turning to amendment 2C, this amendment would require Welsh Ministers to prepare and lay before the Assembly a report on the effect of their promotion of public awareness before section 1 is commenced. This amendment is unnecessary and is in conflict with what I think is a priority for the implementation of this Bill: that is, given certainty on the commencement date and in enabling us to work towards this with our partners and stakeholders. I also think this amendment is not required because, as I've already stated, we are preparing to assess the effectiveness of our awareness raising. In June, I shared the findings of a representative survey, which establishes a baseline on public awareness and opinion towards physical punishment of children and the proposed legislation. I shared this with the committee. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Deputy Minister. I open it up for discussion now, then. Janet Finch-Saunders. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. I speak to amendments 2C, excluding 2D, to 2K, which relate to the Deputy Minister's amendment 2 on preparing a published report on the effect of abolishing the defence of reasonable punishment. Again, I must stress the importance of getting this right due to the controversial and long-lasting effects of removing the defence of reasonable punishment. Amendments 2E to 2K outline what we would expect to be within this report, and we would wish to see a commitment from the Deputy Minister to ensure the National Assembly for Wales is fully apprised and able to scrutinise the result of this report. Amendment 2C requests that the Welsh Government prepare a report on the awareness-raising campaign and lays it before the Assembly before section 1 commences. As I have outlined under my amendments in group 1, the understanding of the public about the implications of the Bill cannot be sidelined. Although the Deputy Minister has repeated her commitment to a public awareness campaign, we, as the National Assembly for Wales, must be able to scrutinise its effectiveness before section 1 begins. As I noted under amendments 1B to 1E, there are specific groups of people who need to be evaluated on their understanding of the Bill's effect. I'm sure that the Deputy Minister will agree that the harder-to-reach groups are undoubtedly the most vulnerable to any negative impacts that the Bill will have because of the greater potential of a lack of awareness. It is, therefore, important for the Assembly to be able to determine whether the awareness-raising campaign has had a positive effect on these groups of people. As will also be elaborated under amendment 2D, it is extremely important that we, as the Parliament of Wales, are fully apprised of the awareness-raising campaign's impact. Before we implement what will be a criminal offence, it is vital that we ensure that those affected are not adversely impacted because of a poorly targeted awareness campaign. Therefore, I would be grateful if the Deputy Minister would commit to an independent evaluation of the awareness campaign's effects before section 1 commences. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Janet. Suzy Davies. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. Deputy Minister, first of all, can I just say thank you for your opening remarks about the possibility of perhaps doing some work around amendment 2B? I'll come to that a little bit later, if I may. I just want to begin by commenting briefly on what you said about why you'll be rejecting amendment 2C here. I actually don't think that this amendment should affect or jeopardise the commencement date in any way at all. It's an operational requirement to get this work done before the commencement date that's in the draft Bill at the moment. So, failing to meet that would be as a result of operations not going well, rather than anything intrinsic in the Bill, so I'm not sure I can accept your argument on that. And, on 2D--very pleased to hear that you'd be willing to introduce something about'laying'rather than'publishing'at Stage 3, but, in the spirit of recognising that this is the legislature, perhaps I could encourage you just to accept the amendment at this stage, because it doesn't make any difference. Your amendment is going to pass, and this amendment to it would be--I think the gesture there would be very much appreciated. I'll be speaking mainly to amendments 2A and 2B, but I want to begin, again, by thanking you for moving some way on this and considering amendments to the Bill on the issue of reporting, because I know you were keen to avoid amendments in the name of simplicity; you mentioned it earlier. But this is not a newid bychan, I'm afraid, Sian; the terms and the effect of this Bill are quite extensive, and it does need the reassurances, if you like, necessary to mitigate potentially disproportionate effects of this Bill on families where parents'actions had been lawful up until this point in statute. It does need statutory underpinning. So, I am grateful to you for accepting this duty. I know that you're sincere that you want this duty to report to show that the Bill is effective in stopping smacking as a punishment, and also that it is not as harmful to parents as perhaps some of us fear. But, if this were me bringing forward this Bill, I think I'd want to show the world that I was doing the right thing a lot sooner than you appear to wish to do. Amendment 2 means that the efficacy of the Bill will not formally be assessed until seven years after it has passed. There are Acts on the statute book that have lasted a lot less time than that. If you're relying on the two-year period before section 1 comes into operation to do much of the heavy lifting on the culture change, and I think that is what you're expecting--you know, showing a reduction in the incidence of physical punishment, reducing the number of, and indeed the likelihood of, parents putting themselves in the path of criminal liability once those two years are up--I really would have thought you'd want people to know sooner, or as soon as the first possible opportunity on that. Waiting five years, I think, will diminish the ability of you to prove the efficacy of those initial two years, and this is why I'm grateful to you for your offer, because there may be a way where we can overcome that. If the trend of culture change is continuing after year 3--so, basically, in the first year after section 1 comes into effect--that's great, but there's a possibility it's going to reverse. Again, I don't think I'd want to wait five years to find that out. For myself, I think one year would probably be enough, but I think three years is a reasonable compromise, as opposed to five years, for a reporting period. I think seven years is just way too long for a formal evaluation of a Bill's effectiveness. I can't see the reason for quite that length of time--I know you've talked about New Zealand--but neither can the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee. I think that's worth pointing out. When they took the step of recommending this duty to evaluate and report, they also took the step of suggesting a three-year reporting period being more in keeping with other post-legislative scrutiny. That's something I think we perhaps need to bear in mind now, as we enter this period of the consolidation of law. Five/seven years is really something of an outlier, and while that might have been appropriate, perhaps, in New Zealand, I don't think that fits in with our timetables generally here in Wales, and, of course, there are other countries that have introduced this over a period of years, and I note that you haven't drawn on them in order to support your argument. So, can I urge Members and the Minister to consider the arguments behind these amendments? I don't think it's going to reassure anyone--you may want to intervene at this point, Hefin--that we not only won't hear in this Assembly, we won't hear in the next Assembly, about the formal evaluation of this, unless I follow-- Hefin David AM: I won't intervene; I'll speak. Suzy Davies AM: Is that okay? Hefin David AM: Yes, I'll make the point. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, I've got-- Suzy Davies AM: Yes, I'll take the intervention. Lynne Neagle AM: No, he doesn't want to make an intervention-- Hefin David AM: I won't do an intervention; I'll speak. Lynne Neagle AM: --he'll make a contribution. Suzy Davies AM: Oh, apologies-- Hefin David AM: Just to say-- Suzy Davies AM: I'll wait. Hefin David AM: Well, let me put the intervention--. I'll do it as an intervention, then. I just feel that--I take your point, and I was expecting it. The point I was making about 1D and 1E is they close down choices to Ministers in future Assemblies. An evaluative practice would actually open up those choices and give future Parliaments more options with regard to this Bill, so I think it's entirely consistent. I don't think the Minister, in putting in amendment 2, was trying to undermine my argument. Actually, I think she's being constructive by doing that, and I think amendment 2 is a practical amendment that's quite helpful, and its consequence will be to open up choices to future Parliaments, whereas my objection to 1D and 1E is they close those down. Suzy Davies AM: Okay, well, as I say, I think, actually, the Deputy Minister's offer of a three-year interim period might be part of a resolution to this. Because I'm not 100 per cent sure I accept your argument, either, because it closes it down for the interim period if we don't move on with the Deputy Minister's suggestion--which I'll talk about now, actually. Because I am tempted to accept your offer. It absolutely makes sense and it's clearly made with the best good faith here. But I need some clarity on what you would allow this Assembly to do in helping define the terms of that interim report. Because you've been very clear that you don't want to accept the things that Janet Finch-Saunders has been talking about in a final report, and yet I can tell you we want to hear about these things. So, if you're in a position where you can give a commitment at Stage 3 not only to introduce an interim report, but that you will consult with, perhaps, this committee--I'll leave it to you--on the contents of that interim report, what we would want to see tested, then I'll be minded not to move amendment 2B. If you can't give me that reassurance, then I'm going to move it anyway and we'll return to it at Stage 3, if you don't mind. Just a final point on this issue of reporting within three months rather than as soon as practicable, and I do take your point that there may be a misalignment with reporting periods from the organisations you hope to talk to. Again, at Stage 3, I'm happy if you want to make three months six months, or something like that, but'as soon as practicable'is open ended, and what you think is practicable may be very different from what I or my constituents think is practicable. So, I don't want to stick with what is practicable; I would like you to put a date on this. If it's a case that you think six months is long enough for data gathering and reporting from third parties, I think that's fairly reasonable as well, but I'm not minded to allow you to just keep this open ended. Thank you. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Suzy. Sian. Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, I welcome adding to the Bill through amendment 2, and what you've said today also, that you're willing to provide an interim report and bring an amendment forward to allow that through the Bill, and to lay a report before the Assembly. I am interested in what Suzy is saying, and have a lot of sympathy with trying to tie it down to specific time periods, and not say'when it will be practicable'. Therefore, I would encourage you not to move your amendments if you have the confirmation that you want to hear this morning from the Minister regarding these issues. Suzy Davies AM: I would like to. Thanks. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Any other Members? No. Deputy Minister. Julie Morgan AM: Well, just to start off on that point, I think your suggestion about how we consult and discuss, I think I'm very happy to accept that. So, I'm happy to discuss that with you, and with the committee, before the third Stage. So, I hope you will consider removing--. Suzy Davies AM: No, genuinely I am. Julie Morgan AM: Right, thank you. Well, just to go on to cover some of the points that have been raised, on the issue of training now, I think Janet raised a number of points about training, and we do have an operations, procedures, processes and training task and finish group as part of our implementation work, and they are considering guidance and training requirements. There are many professional bodies represented on that group, many of whom I think have given evidence here today, and they've really got a chance to have their say. The officials are also looking at training as part of the revision of the explanatory memorandum at Stage 3, so there will be more information about training there. But we have this group looking at it, and it is very key. Generally, I think that all the contributions are very helpful, and I know they're meant in the spirit of trying to improve the legislation. I can't support amendments 2A, 2C, and amendments 2E to 2K, because these amendments make little difference in terms of practical effect to what we have in the Bill already, or they're covered by the Government amendments that I've moved. But I do hope the committee is reassured that we are committed to undertaking a very thorough, multifaceted review of the impact of the legislation that includes tracking public attitudes and considering impacts on public services. Now, tracking the public attitudes will be going along at regular points, so there's no question there of having to wait; we'll be having regular reporting of public attitudes. Suzy Davies AM: Would you take an intervention there, Deputy Minister? Thank you very much. Of course, I appreciate that you will not be supporting these amendments, but can you give us some indication of how many of the areas of interest to us you will be reporting on? So, even if this is not a statutory commitment, what exactly from our list, our wish list here, would you be prepared to include in your evaluation? Julie Morgan AM: Well, I would actually have thought all of them. All the areas you've raised are very relevant, I think. Obviously, this is not a statutory thing I'm saying, but-- Suzy Davies AM: No, no, and this is not a-- Julie Morgan AM: Yes, but considering those points you've put forward, I think all of them have got a great deal of relevance. We will certainly be reporting to the group to consider any of the ideas that you've suggested and, in particular with the data collection and the monitoring task and finish group, which is about developing methods to collect data, we will be putting forward some of the suggestions that you've made on those issues. So, I don't see any problem with that at all. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. Julie Morgan AM: So, as I say, I can't support the amendments. I'm hopeful you may withdraw the two amendments--I think one of yours and it was one of Janet's, wasn't it--so that we could work together on those before the next stage. Because I am sympathetic to your views on these matters, and I think they do reflect some of the discussions in the committee as well. So, I'd be happy to work with you to bring forward the amendments at Stage 3. In line with the recommendations of the Finance Committee, further details of the costs associated with the post-implementation review will be provided in a revised regulatory impact assessment at Stage 3. So, I think at this point I would ask that Members reject the non-Government amendments and agree to my amendments 2 and 5, which will ultimately achieve the same policy aim without the need for unnecessary detail on the Bill, with the exception, obviously, of those two amendments, which I'm prepared to look at a way of moving forward on. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you, Deputy Minister. Before disposing of amendment 2, we will deal with the amendments to that amendment. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2C? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2C be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 2C, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2C is lost. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 2A? Suzy Davies AM: I move amendment 2A, yes. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2A be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 2A, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2A is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2D? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2E? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2E be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 2E, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2E is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2F? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2F be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so can I see all those in favour of amendment 2F? All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 2F is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2G? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2G be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, can I see all those in favour of amendment 2G? All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 2G is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2H? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2H be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so can I see all those in favour of amendment 2H? All those against? So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2H is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2I? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2I be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay. Can I see all those in favour of amendment 2I? All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2I is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2J? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2J be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. Can I see all those in favour of 2J? All those against? So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2J is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2K? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2K be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] I'll therefore take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 2K? All those against? So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2K is not agreed. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 2B? Suzy Davies AM: In view of the Deputy Minister's reassurances, I won't move this amendment today, but obviously I reserve the right to bring something back if we can't reach consensus. Thank you. Lynne Neagle AM: Does any other Member wish to move amendment 2B? Okay, no. Thank you. We'll move on, then. If amendment 2 is not agreed, amendment 5 will fall. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 2? Julie Morgan AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 2 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 2-- Suzy Davies AM: Objection. Lynne Neagle AM: You're objecting? Suzy Davies AM: Yes. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Right, we'll therefore take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 2, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 2 is agreed. That takes us on to group 3, which relates to the regulation-making powers in the Bill. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 3 in the name of the Deputy Minister. I move amendment 3 in the Deputy Minister's name and call on the Deputy Minister to speak to her amendments and the other amendments in this group. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much, Chair. Members will note that I've brought forward an amendment to provide certainty on the date of commencement of the core provision in the Bill, which is obviously to abolish the defence of reasonable punishment. And that is going to be debated under group 5. So, we're obviously debating that after we deal with these particular technical issues--these are technical issues here, basically. As a consequence of proposing to remove the power for a Welsh Minister to make an Order for commencement, the power to make transitory, transitional or saving provisions in connection with section 1 of the Bill coming into force would also be removed. So, I'm not seeking here to add any new powers to the Bill; amendment 3 will simply add this existing power back onto the face of the Bill where amendments 7 and 8 remove it, and amendment 6 will bring the power into force the day after Royal Assent. In fact, removing the power for the Welsh Ministers to commence the provision in section 1 by Order means the statutory instrument will actually do less than originally intended. These amendments are technical in nature and while I acknowledge that the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee raised the issue of what procedure should be applied, their report did not call for any change to no procedure being applied. The absence of an Assembly procedure does not mean that Ministers'decisions in relation to transitional powers cannot be scrutinised by the Assembly. Any concerns about the Welsh Ministers'proposals could be put to me in the Senedd. This was a point made to CLAC and, as I say, their final conclusion was that no procedure is the appropriate procedure for such a power. For those reasons, I encourage Members to reject amendment 3A from Suzy. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy Davies. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much. Well perhaps, Deputy Minister, I can begin by saying that one person's technical issue is another person's essential part of the legislative procedure and a keen element in scrutiny. But I thank you for noting the Assembly's observations on the ministerial powers granted in this Bill--this time by CLAC, as you say. Moving this--and I'm glad actually that amendment 8, I think it was, has removed an Order provision and we're moving into an area where at least statutory instruments do feature here. I have to say that amendment 3A is something of a probing amendment, and I'll explain why now. Your amendment 3 seeks to give a familiar range of powers in connection with the coming into force of section 1, but it's actually in a substantive part of section 1 itself now--it's not a separate commencement power. And, actually, I've been listening to the rest of this debate, and thinking that, if you're going to be introducing an awareness campaign and a report, the chances are you're going to need some regulatory powers to introduce some of the aspects of both those policy areas, I think. And I'm wondering whether the--what is it--transitory, transitional and saving provisions are actually enough powers for you under the course of this Bill. I'm wondering whether you want to consider actually amending this to give yourself the more usual unrestricted power to make regulations in order for you to get section 1 implemented, bearing in mind that it has now been amended from that original, very short and simple--or at least simple in terms of drafting--initial draft. As I say, in anticipation of you rejecting amendments in group 1 I tabled this, in order to make sure that an opportunity remains for the Assembly to bring anything you may wish to introduce under section 1, when it comes into effect, onto the floor of the Assembly. Because while I completely accept that you've acknowledged that statutory instrument is the process for introducing things from now on, it's still possible to do that without procedure, and so I have no idea whether you think what you introduce would be better suited to be introduced by a negative or affirmative procedure. Amendment 3A is a holding position, which we will return to you in Stage 3, because I think, again, this is an area where it might be valuable for us to discuss quite what kind of powers you're looking for, because I think you probably need something that's beyond transitional, transitory and saving. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Suzy, have you finished? Suzy Davies AM: Yes, thank you very much. Lynne Neagle AM: Are there any other Members who wish to speak on this group? No. Deputy Minister. Julie Morgan AM: I thank Suzy for that input. We don't actually think it's necessary to have wider powers, but we will keep this under review and at Stage 3, I think that--. When I was looking at this, I was concerned to know what the transitory powers--what we would actually need to do at that stage, but I can understand that there may be links to other Bills in ways that we are not anticipating at the moment that would make it necessary to have those powers. So, basically, I don't think it is necessary to have wider powers, but I can assure you that we'll keep that in review coming up to Stage 3. Suzy Davies AM: Can I just ask a question on the back of that? Lynne Neagle AM: Will you take a brief intervention at the end, Minister? Suzy Davies AM: Will you take the briefest intervention before your full stop? Julie Morgan AM: I was going to end there, yes. Suzy Davies AM: Right, okay, well, just before your full stop, would you just confirm that you're happy for us to discuss this before Stage 3? Julie Morgan AM: Yes, very happy. Yes. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Before disposing of amendment 3, we will deal with the amendment to that amendment. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 3A? Suzy Davies AM: I'll move it, yes. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 3A be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, I'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 3A. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 3A is not agreed. If amendment 3 is not agreed, amendment 6 will fall. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 3? Julie Morgan AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 3 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 3 is therefore agreed. The committee will now break for 10 minutes and reconvene at 11. 05 a. m. Can I welcome Members back? We will move on to group 4, which relates to the duty to ensure sufficient funding. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 11 in the name of Janet Finch-Saunders. I call on Janet Finch-Saunders to move amendment 11 and to speak to her amendments. Janet. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. I speak to both amendments in this group. As I outlined under amendments 2I and 2J, there are ongoing concerns about the potential costs for Welsh devolved authorities and the lack of quantifiable costs within the regulatory impact assessment. Now, it was absolutely clear from evidence that we received in this committee that unknown costs would be challenging and potentially problematic. As I have mentioned previously, these concerns would doubtless be most keenly felt in our hard-pressed social services. Furthermore, the Welsh Local Government Association stated that there must be a commitment that whatever the costs are, those costs are met, because it is legislation that is being led by the National Assembly for Wales. Now, during evidence, the Deputy Minister, when asked about the reliance on a limited number of reporting of cases likely to happen and the potential for a degree of unknown costs stated:'we are doing our very best to prepare to cover all eventualities that we can anticipate.'But you couldn't commit to a broad figure, instead telling us that:'we have to rely on what the people who run those organisations are telling us.'And:'We have to measure it as we go along.'Given that devolved authorities need to plan their budgets for these changes, we only think it is fair for the Welsh Government to provide sufficient funding to alleviate the cost implications of this Bill. Now, while amendment 11 makes reference to costs borne by local authorities and health boards, I note that amendment 12 takes this further by including other devolved authorities that are not funded by Welsh Government. Anticipating the Deputy Minister's response that few under this category, if any at all, would be affected by the Bill, we are pursuing a principle here, and it is agreement to the principle of providing sufficient funding that we are seeking from you as the Deputy Minister. Now, these are just two examples of Welsh Government legislation to date that have been underfunded. The Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013: last year, the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee found that the Wales annual spend on walking and cycling is half that of England's and one sixth of Holland's. Furthermore, the committee highlighted that the passing of the Act put a requirement on local authorities to continuously improve active travel routes, but were constrained by the funding made available to them. The Minister at the time announced a three-year funding settlement of PS60 million. Now, my local authority and other authorities that have done some monitoring on the active travel Act--they simply were not awarded sufficient funding to actually allow the active travel Act to become a meaningful piece of legislation, and the same goes with the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. This month, the auditor general has raised concerns that the public services boards created under the Act were limited in their work and impact due to the lack of dedicated funding. Outside of the Welsh Government's regional grant that cannot be spent on projects, councils often contribute through officer time or facilities, but resources and capacity to support those PSBs remain a key risk, as partners don't have the capacity to take on more. The reason that I wanted these amendments placed in here is I genuinely do not believe that you've even envisioned what, or even estimated the likely cost to be borne by the organisations, and certainly our local authorities and health boards, the impact this Bill is going to have. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Janet. Are there other Members who would like to speak in this group, please? No. Okay. I call the Deputy Minister, then. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Chair. I can understand that the Member is concerned about the impact of this Bill on public services, but you will see from the explanatory memorandum and from the raft of impact statements published with the Bill that we've done a thorough and extremely diligent job of considering the potential impacts of this Bill before introduction. And as far as we're aware, no other country has done more than us to consider the impacts of similar legislation, and also comprehensively prepared for implementation. We've explored the published data, which is available from other countries, on the impact of measures they've taken to prohibit the physical punishment of children. We've also spoken to a range of stakeholders in Ireland, New Zealand and Malta, who have legal systems similar to our own. And in these countries, there is no evidence that public services have been overwhelmed following law reform. And stakeholders have been clear when giving evidence to this committee that they do not consider there will be runaway costs, and I think we should trust their judgment on this. In fact, as this committee notes in its Stage 1 report, those delivering services on the front line have said, without exception, that'this Bill will improve their ability to protect children living in Wales because it will make the law clear.'Sally Jenkins of the Association of Directors of Social Services said to this committee:'In terms of thresholds for children's services, we would not be anticipating a huge number of referrals to us. There may be a small number of referrals that come through. What we know from other nations is that it will peak and then settle. We recognise that's likely to happen.'That's from the front line. Jane Randall, chair of the National Independent Safeguarding Board Wales, said:'there's no expectation that there's going to be a huge increase in the number of referrals coming through to local authority social services, I think it would be dealt with within their existing resources.'And Dr Rowena Christmas, Royal College of General Practitioners, said:'I can't see it's going to lengthen consultations. I can't see that it's going to increase the number of consultations, and I don't think it's going to increase the number of referrals I make to the health visitor or to social services, because if I was worried, I'd make those referrals now regardless of the Bill.'I just want to say again that the Bill is removing a defence to an offence of common assault, which has formed part of the common law of England and Wales for a very long time. And social services already receive and investigate reports of children being assaulted, including from health and education, so it's not a whole new area of costly activity for any of them. I do think that the evidence that you had at your committee did highlight those points. As I've already pointed out when discussing group 2 amendments, we're working with organisations to put in place arrangements to collect data about the possible impact on their services, and this will be analysed as part of the post-implementation review of the legislation. Welsh Government can consider with relevant organisations how best to manage any impact on workloads or resources and any cost implications. I can assure you that work to update the regulatory impact assessment has continued, and I've asked officials to prepare a revised RIA, as recommended at Stage 2, and I expect to share an updated RIA with you in advance of Stage 3. Serious consideration is being given on how to provide more detailed estimates of the unknown costs to public services arising from the Bill, but I think you should be reassured by the evidence that was given, particularly to this committee, from the professionals at the front line. What the amendments are proposing is outside the normal funding arrangements that operate within Government, and it's not clear why, in the context of the evidence heard at Stage I, such provisions are necessary. I'm sure that Members will agree that future Governments need to be able to consider, within the context of the budget-setting process, what the priorities are, and these considerations would need to be made within the context at that time, for example taking into account any issues that there are--UK Government actions, what happens in relation to Brexit, or any other unforeseen impacts on the economy or Welsh society. All those issues would have to be taken into account. Furthermore, as is the case now, the National Assembly for Wales scrutinises the Welsh Government budget annually, so it would be able to make an argument for additional funding for public bodies, should it consider that this is required. I do think all the evidence has shown that we do not anticipate that there will be a huge increase of a demand for funding, so I urge Members to reject these amendments, which I believe are unnecessary. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Chair, could I ask a question? Lynne Neagle AM: You can reply to the debate now, Janet, yes. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I'd like to ask a question of the Deputy Minister. When we were taking evidence, at an earlier stage, I noticed that part of the stakeholder group--there was some liaison going on with social services departments across Wales. Now, we have 22 local authorities. At that time, the numbers mentioned were quite small--I think only a handful. What discussions have taken place with our local authorities in terms of their social services departments in terms of the lead, the cabinet members, or, indeed, the head of service? I can speak from my own experiences, when going around my constituency, but when I've spoken to some of the family support groups, and, indeed, the departments themselves, they are very concerned about the financial impact that this is going to have on the provision. They're already overstretched, and they see this as another burden--primarily another financial burden. So, how much have you engaged with them? Julie Morgan AM: There's been extensive engagement. We've had meetings with the Association of Directors of Social Services, and they're represented on all our groups, and we're working very closely with them, because, of course, they represent all the local authorities. But I have to say, when I've been going round and meeting lots of different groups, the first thing they say is,'I'm so glad that you're doing this', and they haven't mentioned any financial implications. But, obviously, we will be very aware of--we are looking at any more evidence that comes up. Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. So, I'll still move my amendments. I'm disappointed, really. I was hoping to see some commitment to--this Bill was going to go through, and it's one that could be implemented fully, because sufficient resources were there. I'm not convinced about that, and I know that other organisations are not also. So, I move my amendments. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 11 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] I therefore take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 11 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 12? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 12 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] All those in favour of amendment 12. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 12 is not agreed. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 4? Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I move amendment 4 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 4 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 4, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 4 is agreed. Deputy Minister, do you want to proceed to a vote on amendment 5? Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 5 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 5 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 5, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 5 is agreed. Deputy Minister, do you want to move to a vote on amendment 6? Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 6, then, in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 6 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 6 is therefore agreed. This takes us, then, to the fifth and final group, which relates to commencement. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 9 in the name of Suzy Davies. And I call Suzy Davies to move amendment 9 and to speak to the amendment and the other amendments in the group. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much, Chair. Amendment 9 is actually consequential on amendment 10 passing, but it's the lead amendment in the group, so I'll move it to begin the debate. Minister, I'm speaking here now to amendments 10 and 15 specifically. You've said repeatedly, and I believe you, that you do not wish to criminalise parents but just to stop them physically punishing their children. You could have chosen to try and achieve this through awareness raising and civil enforcement, but by choosing to remove the defence to a criminal act you have entered the arena of criminal law, where the logical consequence is opening parents up to liability--not necessarily getting prosecuted, but liability to prosecution, not just liability to civil sanctions. I'm sure you'd prefer parents not to be prosecuted, but that decision does not and cannot lie with you. You, like us, have no agency in this, because the powers and the duties of the police and the Crown Prosecution Service sit outside our competence. You cannot and we cannot, by law or otherwise, instruct either of them in the delivery of your policy intention of not criminalising parents. You've acknowledged to this committee and the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee that revised CPS charging guidance and any other guidance on, for example, out-of-court disposals, are key to delivering your policy objectives. You'll remember how concerned this committee was when we learned that your advisory group--the strategic implementation group, is it--was only in the early stages of discussing what these guidelines might look like. So, you're actually asking us to pass law when we have no control over how parents might be punished for smacking their children--no control of the regard given to the relevance of force, the frequency of the offence, any prior conviction, any prior reporting, not even the views of the child in how they might be sentenced, or thresholds that would be appropriate for cautions and other out-of-court disposals; no guidance to the police on thresholds for arrest, let alone charging. And you argue that the rights of the child are what matter, and I agree with you here, but everybody, adult or child, has a right to natural justice and proportionate remedy or censure, and you are in no position to offer us any comfort on these matters at this stage. Now, CLAC recommended that any revised guidance be made available to AMs before Stage 3. I anticipate that that's unlikely, and I hope I'm wrong, but that's why Janet and I have tabled amendments 10 and 15, which prevent you bringing section 1 into force until that CPS guidance has been fully updated to take into account the change in the law and until pathways away from prosecution have been devised and agreed. That reflects our recommendation 4, this committee's recommendation, as well as CLAC's recommendation 1. It gives your strategic implementation board time to consider how it can get around the other fundamentally worrying issue of the effect of recording reports of apparent physical punishment, even if those reports ultimately prove unfounded. And you have not addressed these in your own amendments. I have to say, Minister, I think these points are so serious that I would have liked to have tabled amendments preventing you seeking Royal Assent for this Bill until the Assembly has seen drafts of the range of official guidance needed for the police and CPS. I'd have sought a Report Stage, if I could, so that we could consider that evidence. But I'm therefore asking you to support the amendments we have tabled, 10 and 15, so that we can bring some damage limitation to a process that you ultimately cannot control once this Bill has passed. Now, I know you've got the numbers to pass this Bill, whether you accept amendments or not, but I just hope you can see the danger in pushing forward with a Bill that changes a person's relationship with the criminal law when you have no legal control over the consequences of that, and you're inviting this Assembly to fall into the same trap. I therefore urge the Assembly to avoid this recklessness by supporting these two amendments. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Suzy. Are there other Members who wish to speak? No. Janet, do you want to speak? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, I wish to speak to amendments 14 and 16. Amendment 14, however, is consequential to amendment 16 passing. Amendment 16 prevents this from commencing until parenting support services have been established by the Welsh Government. As was clear during the committee's evidence sessions, present Welsh Government support programmes for parents have insufficient coverage. For example, the capacity and reach of the Healthy Child Wales programme came under question on its role in awareness raising, with health representatives acknowledging that universality had not been achieved, with 53. 2 per cent of children in Wales reported as being contacted. Furthermore, existing parenting support is often only available as part of a targeted programme in specific areas, such as Flying Start, and even the children's commissioner noted that much more is needed to support parents to find alternatives to disciplining their children. Now, the Deputy Minister mentioned the'Parenting: Give it Time'campaign as part of proposals on a wider package of support for children and their parents. However, the Deputy Minister was challenged on this fact, that this is an online campaign only, and could only respond that the mapping exercise she will undertake. Consequently, it should be remembered that this Bill will affect all parents. Therefore, the Deputy Minister needs to assure the committee and the public that universal support will be provided before the removal of the defence occurs. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Janet. Deputy Minister. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Chair. I've listened to what stakeholders and committees have said about the importance of ensuring sufficient time is available prior to the change in the law to abolish the defence of reasonable punishment during Stage 1. As a result, I have brought forward amendments in this group to provide certainty around the date for the change in the law. My amendment 7 will remove the power to commence this core provision of the Bill by Order of the Welsh Ministers and ensure that the defence of reasonable punishment is abolished at the end of a two-year period beginning the day after Royal Assent. That was done to give certainty on the length of time. Up to then, we'd always said'up to two years'--well, we're giving two years. This certainty will allow key partners, including the police, social services and the Crown Prosecution Service, to plan for changes to guidance, training and data-collection systems more effectively. It'll also provide a focus for our awareness-raising campaign. My amendment 8 in this group has the consequence of removing the power to make transitional provision, which is replaced by my amendments 3 and 6, and we discussed those in the previous group. I've listened to the arguments put forward by Suzy Davies and Janet Finch-Saunders for the amendments in this group that they have tabled. These amendments are all about making the commencement of the Bill conditional on something else happening, whether it's waiting for the revision of Crown Prosecution Service guidance, or the establishment of a pathway for diversion from the criminal justice system, or for the provision of parenting support services. And, really, I don't think that we should be going down that road. As I set out in my letter of response to the Stage 1 report from the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee, we've got good working relations with the CPS through the strategic implementation group, and we work very closely with them. But the CPS are an independent body, as Suzy Davies has said in her contribution, not answerable to Welsh Ministers or this legislature, and it's not appropriate for a Minister or the National Assembly to seek to influence the CPS guidelines. We're discussing the issues with the CPS in the implementation group. And, in fact, I think that these amendments--Suzy's amendments in particular--wouldn't just seek to influence the CPS, but would actually give power to a non-devolved body on the way that we legislate in Wales. So, I don't think we should make it conditional on those guidelines being decided. I think you have to rely on the fact that we have got this very good relationship, very close working relationship. And I know they did give evidence to your committee, I believe, the CPS. And I think legislating to effectively give a non-devolved body a power to commence, or not, Assembly legislation would be highly unusual and would raise great uncertainty, I think, if we did go down that track, because I think this is very important Welsh legislation, which does have broad support across the Assembly. And I don't think we should allow non-devolved bodies to be the final arbiters of commencement of our legislation. So, I don't support those amendments. I think the CPS is entirely independent of Government, and must be entirely independent of Government, and will make its own decisions about how and when it will revise its guidance. In addition, you suggest we allow the UK Government to have a say in when Welsh legislation is commenced in an area that was specifically devolved to the Assembly. The test applied by the proposed amendments as to when commencement could lawfully occur is uncertain. If these amendments passed, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to judge when section 1 could be commenced. This contravenes what stakeholders and committees have asked for, and raises huge uncertainty, which potentially jeopardises the Bill. And I want to assure you again, not only do we have good working relations with the CPS, but also very good working relationships with the police, who are, of course, the other non-devolved body who have great involvement and interest in these issues. The work we do in these groups should not affect the timing of the Bill's commencement. In fact, it's the other way round. My amendment to provide a two-year period between Royal Assent and commencement means these groups can plan their work to a known timescale and deliver in good time before the law comes into force. And then, when it comes to parenting support, the committee knows that I've committed to reviewing the existing provision of parenting support, and work is already under way through the parenting expert group on this very issue. I have already said I will expand the age range of the'Parenting: Give it Time'campaign, and I think--. I know Janet Finch-Saunders has made the point that it is an online facility. It is very widely used. It is a very successful tool. But, of course, the universal services are also there. For example, the universal service of the health visitors is absolutely crucial, and that is a service that is for every child. And, of course, the health visitors welcome this legislation very strongly. And the expert group is considering what it'll recommend for the future, and it needs the time to be able to do that, to support the Bill as well as to support parenting more widely. So, as I said, I think these are important points that you have raised, but I don't think they are appropriate. So, I therefore urge the committee not to support amendments 9 and 10, nor 13,14 and 15. Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy to reply to the debate. Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much, and thank you very much, Deputy Minister, as well. I'm disappointed that you haven't seen what's behind Janet Finch-Saunders's final amendment there, actually. Maybe it's something we'll raise again with you at Stage 3, or maybe in the conversations that we have between now and then. But I want to go back to amendments 10 and 15 that I've raised and your assertion that we're giving, or attempting to give, power to the CPS here. We are not. This amendment is drafted very specifically and in full knowledge that we have no legislative competence in this area. And this is why I go back to where my contribution to this started, and it's your choice to try and resolve the problem of--or, sorry, to try and protect children's rights through the medium of a change to the criminal law rather than the many opportunities that were available to you through the civil law and over which you would have had complete competence. This Bill--and, actually, you've said a couple of times in your response today that it's important that it's commenced on a certain date. My argument is: it shouldn't be commenced at all unless you are absolutely certain about how it is likely to affect the parents who will now be captured by the removal of the defence. And, while I claim no mischief on the part of the CPS or the police--obviously I don't--there is nothing you can do that would prevent the CPS, should they wish to do it, or indeed the police with their own guidelines, putting in place something that is wholly disproportionate to the offence that is now being released by the removal of a defence. And, because of that, I ask you to consider, or balance, actually, two important things here: one is the rights of the child, obviously at the forefront of your argument on this, which I would argue could be completely and safely protected through the use of civil law on this occasion; and, actually, the rights of the child again to have a good relationship with parents over whose future they will have no say--or at least you cannot allow them to have any say in how those parents might be treated in terms of sentencing. The relationship between parents and children obviously is different in every family, but that's something you ought to protect in what you're trying to do here, and by leaving it open, as you say, to completely different--sorry, undevolved, two undevolved authorities to make decisions about how that relationship could be affected deeply worries me. I know this isn't going to stop your Bill going forward, but I really want you to consider my arguments and how you might try and address them at Stage 3, because leaving, effectively, the delivery of your policy objectives to somebody over whom you have no control, despite your great relationship with them, should worry us all as a legislature. Thank you. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you, Suzy. Do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 9? Suzy Davies AM: Oh, because of the voting order--. Yes, please. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 9 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 9, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 9 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 13? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 13 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 13, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 13 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 14? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 14 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 14, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 14 is not agreed. Deputy Minister, do you wish to move to a vote on amendment 7? Julie Morgan AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 7 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 7 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 7, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against. Amendment 7 is agreed. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 10? Suzy Davies AM: Yes, please. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 10 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 10, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 10 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 15? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 15 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 15, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 15 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 16? Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 16 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection. ] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 16, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 16 is not agreed. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 8? Julie Morgan AM: I do. Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 8, then, in the name of the Minister. The question is that amendment 8 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 8 is therefore agreed. Well, that has brought us to the end of our amendments, so can I thank the Deputy Minister and her officials for their attendance? As usual, you will be sent a transcript of the meeting to check for factual accuracy. This completes Stage 2 proceedings. Stage 3 begins tomorrow, and the relevant date of Stage 3 proceedings will be published in due course. Standing Orders make provision for the Deputy Minister to prepare a revised explanatory memorandum, taking account of the amendments agreed today. The revised memorandum will be laid at least five working days before Stage 3 proceedings. Thank you very much. Julie Morgan AM: Thank you all very much. Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services, following our meeting on 2 October. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Minister for Health and Social Services updating the committee on the'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'strategy. And paper to note 3 is a letter from myself to the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services regarding early childhood education and care, following the session that we held on 2 October. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Item 4, then, is for me to propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17. 42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Thank you.

This was a Children, Young People and Education Committee, and the purpose of the meeting is to undertake stage 2 proceedings on the Children (Abolition of Defense of Reasonable Punishment) Bill. This meeting followed a certain order to dispose of all amendments. It went through amendments in group 1 that related to the duty to promote public awareness, amendments in group 2 that related to the duty to report on the effect of the legislation, amendments in group 3 that related to the regulation-making powers in the Bill, amendments in group 4 that related to the duty to ensure sufficient funding, and finally amendments in group 5 that related to commencement. At the end of each section, they took a vote to decide whether certain amendments should be rejected or accepted.

tr-sq-607

tr-sq-607_0

What did the group discuss about pricing and individual task assignment? User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: Mm uh. Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} We're the first. User Interface: Mm. We're the first ones. {vocalsound} Marketing: Marketing Expert, yes. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: So you found your spots. Marketing: Yes. User Interface: {vocalsound} Move to the meeting room. {vocalsound} Marketing: Bling bling. {vocalsound} Yeah. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: Right. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} where has my screen gone? Industrial Designer: Hi. User Interface: Hello, good day. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Oh yeah, we have to talk in English, Marketing: Hmm. Industrial Designer: huh. User Interface: Yep. Marketing: Yeah. My screen is gone. Project Manager: It's called black. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh. User Interface: Kick-off meeting, wow. It's uh looks uh nice. Industrial Designer: I'm afraid I'm a bit slow for this stuff uh. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. User Interface: Hmm? Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I'm afraid I'm a bit too slow. {vocalsound} I don't know how much preparation you guys did, User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: but not a lot. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: No, it's {disfmarker} it was uh not enough. Project Manager: You see this beautiful presentation. Marketing: Yeah. Very nice. Project Manager: Okay let's get started. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh I sort of prepared this. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh opening acquaintance, tool training, uh how to use the things here. Uh project plan discussion, and yeah then the rest of the meeting. Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um we're supposed to develop a new remote control, that's both original, trendy and user-friendly. So, Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: hope you have good ideas. I don't. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} I did my best. Project Manager: Um we're work we're working uh from top to bottom. Uh functional design, Industrial Designer: Not yet. Project Manager: then we do some in individual work, then we have a meeting to discuss the results, etcetera etcetera. And at the end of the day we should have a prototype drawn up. Uh we have available the smart board and the whiteboard. Um uh we should take some practice. I have some instructions now to do that. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh well you know how to {disfmarker} the documents work. So {disfmarker} Uh this for toolbar. You see it next. Um we have a pen. And we can use this pen to perform. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yes. Industrial Designer: Operations. Project Manager: So {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: It doesn't always work. Yes. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay so you can draw. Marketing: Draw. Alright. Project Manager: Okay and in the format menu you can select colour and line width, etcetera etcetera. Okay? Marketing:'Kay. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Okay. Each of you can uh take some practice and you should draw an animal. Uh you should explain {disfmarker} Uh with different colours and with different pen widths. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: And you should explain why you draw that particular animal. User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} Don't take up too much space. {vocalsound} Project Manager: So, Julian. User Interface: Um yeah. Industrial Designer: Different pen widths, how do you do that? User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh with the format menu. Industrial Designer: Oh okay. Project Manager: And use different colours etcetera. User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a giraffe. Yeah. Project Manager: And {vocalsound} what's that supposed to be? {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Are you serious? Marketing: {vocalsound} Should it be one {disfmarker} Project Manager: Oh yeah. {vocalsound} Oh yeah User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Project Manager: four legs. Uh-huh. {vocalsound} Marketing: Giraffe's yellow. {vocalsound} User Interface: Uh it needs some uh some yellow uh {disfmarker} Oh format. Marketing: Can you use one blank sheet per drawing? Or Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: so y you must save it at the end Project Manager: Yeah Marketing: and then {disfmarker} Project Manager: you can press the next button, which is uh {disfmarker} yeah. I'll show you. User Interface: That's some spots. Industrial Designer: I in the file option menu. Project Manager: Yeah. In file menu. Marketing: Okay, User Interface: No. Marketing: then m make a new one. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: How much time do we have to draw anyway? {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer:'Cause I can take forever on this. Project Manager: {gap} User Interface: Okay. Do I have to explain uh why I chose this uh this animal? Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} User Interface: I think it's a it's a great animal. Project Manager: What is it? {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a it's a giraffe. Project Manager: A giraffe okay. Yeah I see a long neck User Interface: Yeah, that's a {disfmarker} Project Manager: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Marketing: It's more like a dinosaur. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Okay I'll will give it an uh an eye. Project Manager: Okay. That's nice of you. Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh. User Interface: Hey. Come on. Marketing: Some leaf to eat. {vocalsound} User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. Yeah pretty good. Uh could you press the next uh {disfmarker} User Interface: The next? Yes. Project Manager: Okay. Then uh {disfmarker} {gap}. User Interface: Here you go. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Thanks. User Interface: Hmm. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Is this part of our a acquai or introduction to each other? Project Manager: Yeah sorry, introduction and get acquainted Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: and {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Alright. Project Manager: That's the idea, so {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Uh. Your line broke. Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Alright. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah it's a bit slow, Marketing: It's not that fast. Project Manager: so {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} I see. It misses the spot. Project Manager: {gap} pressure. Industrial Designer: I'm guessing a turtle. No. {vocalsound} I'm kidding. Marketing: {vocalsound} I say good guess. Uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Why a turtle? Industrial Designer: Because of its shell. Marketing: Because it's slow. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's slow. User Interface:'Cause it's so Project Manager: You were slow too User Interface:'cause it's green. {vocalsound} Project Manager: so {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah I was a bit slow too. Industrial Designer: Dude you're a good drawer. Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh some other line uh width uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Do you have a turtle pet? Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} No. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Uh okay. Marketing: I dunno. {vocalsound} Does it have legs? {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah. Project Manager: Yeah sure. Marketing: Yeah? Project Manager: Yeah not exactly legs but {disfmarker} More like fins Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Stumpy stuff. Project Manager: or {disfmarker} Marketing: It's more like a tank. Yeah that's fins Industrial Designer: They kind of l look like mole legs. With sharp nails on. Marketing: but I don't know where. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Some spots. Ah some eye. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: it's l looks very friendly. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah that's a fr {vocalsound} friendly turtle I guess. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah well I think it's uh fair enough. Project Manager: Yeah okay. Industrial Designer: A little tail maybe. Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Right. {vocalsound} I don't know what the position is. {vocalsound} Does it have ears? Industrial Designer: Uh no. Project Manager: No. User Interface: No. Marketing: No. Oh okay. Industrial Designer: The little holes maybe. Marketing: Can you erase ears Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: or {disfmarker} Project Manager: There's a a gum, Marketing: Yeah? Alright. Project Manager: gum to {gap}. Marketing: Eraser. Industrial Designer: And why did you choose this animal? Marketing: So {disfmarker} Project Manager: He said it was slow. Marketing: I dunno. I it just came into my mind. So there's no particular reason Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: I {gap} pen. Project Manager: {vocalsound} I like it. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Well I'm {disfmarker} guess I'm done. Project Manager: Okay. {gap} Marketing: That's my turtle. Project Manager: Your turn Niels. Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: How to select the next or {disfmarker} Project Manager: The next Marketing: here. Project Manager: yeah. Industrial Designer: {gap} Colours were under format Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Project Manager: Makes new paper. Marketing: Here you go. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: right? Let's see. Project Manager: Orange. Industrial Designer: How am I gonna do this? Um {disfmarker} Mm uh. User Interface: A rabbit I think. Project Manager: Kangaroo. User Interface: Kangaroo. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Not quite actually. User Interface: Fox. Marketing: A fox yeah. Project Manager: Dog. Marketing: Firefox. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: No. Project Manager: Cat. Industrial Designer: Aye. {vocalsound} It's a cat. Project Manager: It's a cat. User Interface: Mm. Industrial Designer: Not quite yet through. Marketing: A cat who had an accident or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Project Manager: Why a cat? Industrial Designer: Uh yeah I dunno. They're my favourite pets. Project Manager: You have some uh? Industrial Designer: Uh I have colour already. Yeah I'm not so good at drawing with this kind of Project Manager: {vocalsound} The pen, Industrial Designer: st Oh shit. Um {disfmarker} Project Manager: yeah. Industrial Designer: Excuse my language. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Sure. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I don't know how to draw its face. But you get the idea. Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Alright. Industrial Designer: It's a cat. It's my favourite uh pet animal,'cause they're cute, they're independent and cuddly, I dunno. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: That's it. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Or do I need to use more colours and {disfmarker} Project Manager: {gap} I think it's okay. You get idea Industrial Designer: Alright. Project Manager: right? Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay um Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: we have a financial aspect to this project. {vocalsound} Um we can sell them at twenty five Euros. Uh the aim is to reach {disfmarker} uh uh to sell as much as fifty million Euros. Uh that's quite a big amount of money. And the production cost should be the half of the selling price. Okay Industrial Designer: So we have to s Project Manager: now it's time for some discussion. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} User Interface: Okay. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} User Interface: What uh what uh do you want to discuss? {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: We should get started. User Interface: Yep. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh I'm taking notes. Um Marketing: Okay. Great. Project Manager: we each have a specific task, as I saw in my mail. I didn't know if you received the same mail. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah? Industrial Designer: I guess so. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay so the um {vocalsound} uh {gap} this industrati Industrial Designer should produce a working design. Am I correct? Industrial Designer: True. Project Manager: Okay. Uh the User Interface Designer should specify the technical functions. Right? Yeah? User Interface: Yep. Project Manager: {vocalsound} And the Marketing uh Expert should come up with user requirements. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh did any of you already do some work on this part or {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well I started making an overview for myself, um what I had to do,'cause we have three design steps and in every step I have a s specific task to perform or whatever. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: So I had to uh, {vocalsound} I dunno, make an overview for myself about what I have to do, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and kind of let it work in to get ideas about well how I have to fill it. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. And do you have any ideas about the product uh so far? Industrial Designer: Well I started I started with the first phase, I think was the functional. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: And uh let's see I had to focus on the working design, which you said. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: How does the apparatus work? And well I basically had two points. Uh {vocalsound} according to the coffee uh machine example, I have batteries to supply energy, Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and we ye use button presses to activate or deactivate certain functions on the T_V_. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound} Okay. Industrial Designer: And that's basically all I have so far. Project Manager: Yeah I got another point. It uses infrared light to communicate the signal to the T_V_ apparatus or stereo. User Interface: Yeah. Wireless uh {disfmarker} huh. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: So that's very common. User Interface: Uh it's uh some buttons for for the on off function. You d you already told that. And for the changing up to the {disfmarker} to all the channels and changing the volume. That are the the basic options for a remote control. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah I kept it global'cause {vocalsound} {disfmarker} that it activates or deactivates specific functions, User Interface: Okay, yeah. Industrial Designer:'cause I wasn't thinking yet about that. I mean, you wanna ch ch flip the channel User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: but you might wanna use teletext also. User Interface: Yep. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: I dunno what the word is in English. Uh {gap} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Same I believe {gap}. Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh and what did the Marketing Expert do? Marketing: Uh well from a marketing uh {vocalsound} perspective, um well the function des design phase uh consists out of the user requirements. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: Um what needs and desires are to be fulfilled? So there are a few means to reach that um by by doing research {vocalsound} uh to see what existing products are there out in the market. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: I mean, what functions do they have. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: Um especially what are their shortcomings? Are there any new functions uh which can be added to our product? Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Marketing: Um therefore we have to to do some internet search. For example for um well what kind of applications do current remote controls support, and what are f featur features of uh current and future televisions? Project Manager: Yep. Yes. Marketing: So we can see uh what needs to be supported. Um {vocalsound} and we can interview current users and future users. What w what would they like to see uh on a new remote control? Um especially for future users, Project Manager: Okay. Okay. Marketing: uh I'm thinking of early adopters, because they they use new technology first, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: and they play with a lot of tools and stuff so maybe they have some good ideas to uh to add. Project Manager: Okay. And you can get that information? Marketing: I think I can get that information, yeah. Project Manager: Okay. That would be very handy. Marketing: So {disfmarker} yeah. Project Manager: Um but have you any idea so far as what uh the user requirements are? Marketing: No n not specifically. Project Manager: No? Marketing: More to how to get them Project Manager: No okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} I got some uh requirements Marketing: and {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah? User Interface: it has uh {gap} it has to be user-friendly. Marketing: Yeah? Project Manager: {vocalsound} Of course. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Obviously. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh really easy to use buttons, not not uh very small buttons, but not the the also the big big buttons, but just normal buttons. It has to be a small unit. It has to be uh {disfmarker} yeah, you can take it with you uh everywhere in in your house. So it has n has not to be l yeah, gigantic uh machine. Project Manager: Big, mm-hmm. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: Uh and a and a good uh zapping range. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh what do you mean by that? User Interface: Uh the distance uh from your television to your uh remote control has to be, uh yeah um yeah, quite a big distance. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: It has to be capable for zapping uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah. From the other end of the room or something? User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay um {disfmarker} Well I don't think I have anything more to add at the moment. Um I think the best is to go to work. Industrial Designer: Whoa. Is that you Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} alright. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Any more points to discuss? Project Manager: Yeah. I think we can go ahead with what we have. I will summarise the things we discussed and put it in the project folder. Uh the use of the Industrial Designer can work on the working design, etcetera etcetera. And it seems you get more information by email. So {vocalsound} Marketing: Alright. Industrial Designer: Alright. Project Manager: that was it for me. User Interface: Okay. Marketing:'Kay. Thanks. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} User Interface: Are you going to put the the notes on the {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah, in the project folder. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. The pro okay. User Interface: Okay. {vocalsound} Project Manager: I'm writing very fast. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Alright. User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Okay. Project Manager: Hope it's readable. User Interface: Yep. Marketing: Uh. Project Manager: Okay {vocalsound} um anything more you want to add to the discussion? Marketing: I guess so. Industrial Designer: Well no I'm just a bit wondering what we're gonna do the next uh session? User Interface: Yeah. Do we only have to to do uh phase one, the functional design uh? Project Manager: Yeah. Because then we have a {disfmarker} User Interface: After that we are going to the conceptual uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Y you do some individual work, Marketing: We're just working the three phases. Project Manager: we have meeting, individual work, meeting. And at the end of the day we have a final meeting. And then I have to prepare {disfmarker} uh I have to defend our design, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: so make it good. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah okay. We'll do our best. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: I depend on you. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} Better make it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I am gonna work on the conceptual design already'cause yeah it's fairly important to know what kind of components we want to put in. Project Manager: Yeah? If you can mix it it's okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Industrial Designer: Do we {disfmarker} I mean, is it gonna be a multimedia control centre? Do we want to be able to use the video recorder with it? {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} That is my question also Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: because like new new functions {disfmarker} Project Manager: Well I think that is the user requirements part. Marketing: Requirements. Yeah. Project Manager: As to what they want. Uh do they want all those functions on that small {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah. True. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: But but we need good communication about this stuff, Marketing: Unit. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer:'cause I have to f put the components into the design. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. User Interface: I would first m Industrial Designer: So if I don't know what components to put in, it's kind of hard. Marketing: Yeah well Project Manager: Yeah I understand. Marketing: I I was {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah. I I think we have first to start with the basic functions and we can uh expand them. Marketing: Yeah Project Manager: You can always add a few {disfmarker} Marketing: well like l li like some like some some remotes who are out there, which I know, there's one button which is very easy to switch between devices. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: So you can switch to your video Project Manager: Hmm, Marketing: and then the same buttons control your video. Project Manager: the C_D_ player. Yeah. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: And another function I'll think of switch to your media centre, because that's getting very popular. Industrial Designer: Yeah so {disfmarker} Marketing: And then use your Windows media centre {vocalsound} under your T_V_ with the same remote control. So with the switch, one single switch {gap} Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: Yeah I I know what you mean, but you'll ne need several other buttons for a video player. Marketing: S Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: You need a play and a forw fast forward and a stop function. Marketing: Yeah Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: And you you don't need that for a T_V_. Marketing: records and stuff like that. Industrial Designer: And and for a t uh teletext you need additional buttons as well, Marketing: No. Project Manager: You need additional {disfmarker} yeah. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: so I kind of need to know what we uh need. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Whatever, I'll just put my ideas in uh in here Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and then we can discuss it with the next uh meeting. Marketing: In the project uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: We could just start with the assumption that's only for T_V_ and video. And um reserve the possibility to add other features. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: So we have a basic starting point Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: and you can always extend that so make sure it's extendible. Yeah. User Interface: Yeah it it has yeah it has to be user-friendly. Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: So it's hasn't {gap} {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} yeah. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Th the least amount of functions possible User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: so it's easier to get to know how it works etcetera. User Interface: Okay. Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. I understand. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah? Okay and uh I'll see you again uh when the computer tells us to. Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: Yes. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, you're di dismissed. User Interface: Can we leave now Marketing: Half an hour. User Interface: or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Thanks. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} You're fired. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Not yet. Marketing: No. User Interface: Mm. Industrial Designer: Alright. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. Marketing: Alright let's move on. Project Manager: Let's see what we got to do. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} See you later. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: Yeah see you later. User Interface: Good luck. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. Thank you. Marketing: Well good luck. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: What the {disfmarker}

Project Manager informed the team of the price issue and the financial goal. The unit price was determined to be 25 Euros. The production of each remote control would cost 12. 5 Euros. The team would have to make sales amounting to 50 million Euros. Project Manager assigned individual tasks to the team members. Industrial Designer had worked out a rough plan for the first phase and would produce a working design. User Interface was supposed to specify the technical functions. Marketing would be responsible for market research.

tr-sq-608

tr-sq-608_0

Summarize Industrial Designer's opinions towards individual task assignment. User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: Mm uh. Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} We're the first. User Interface: Mm. We're the first ones. {vocalsound} Marketing: Marketing Expert, yes. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: So you found your spots. Marketing: Yes. User Interface: {vocalsound} Move to the meeting room. {vocalsound} Marketing: Bling bling. {vocalsound} Yeah. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: Right. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} where has my screen gone? Industrial Designer: Hi. User Interface: Hello, good day. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Oh yeah, we have to talk in English, Marketing: Hmm. Industrial Designer: huh. User Interface: Yep. Marketing: Yeah. My screen is gone. Project Manager: It's called black. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh. User Interface: Kick-off meeting, wow. It's uh looks uh nice. Industrial Designer: I'm afraid I'm a bit slow for this stuff uh. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. User Interface: Hmm? Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I'm afraid I'm a bit too slow. {vocalsound} I don't know how much preparation you guys did, User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: but not a lot. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: No, it's {disfmarker} it was uh not enough. Project Manager: You see this beautiful presentation. Marketing: Yeah. Very nice. Project Manager: Okay let's get started. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh I sort of prepared this. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh opening acquaintance, tool training, uh how to use the things here. Uh project plan discussion, and yeah then the rest of the meeting. Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um we're supposed to develop a new remote control, that's both original, trendy and user-friendly. So, Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: hope you have good ideas. I don't. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} I did my best. Project Manager: Um we're work we're working uh from top to bottom. Uh functional design, Industrial Designer: Not yet. Project Manager: then we do some in individual work, then we have a meeting to discuss the results, etcetera etcetera. And at the end of the day we should have a prototype drawn up. Uh we have available the smart board and the whiteboard. Um uh we should take some practice. I have some instructions now to do that. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh well you know how to {disfmarker} the documents work. So {disfmarker} Uh this for toolbar. You see it next. Um we have a pen. And we can use this pen to perform. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yes. Industrial Designer: Operations. Project Manager: So {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: It doesn't always work. Yes. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay so you can draw. Marketing: Draw. Alright. Project Manager: Okay and in the format menu you can select colour and line width, etcetera etcetera. Okay? Marketing:'Kay. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Okay. Each of you can uh take some practice and you should draw an animal. Uh you should explain {disfmarker} Uh with different colours and with different pen widths. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: And you should explain why you draw that particular animal. User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} Don't take up too much space. {vocalsound} Project Manager: So, Julian. User Interface: Um yeah. Industrial Designer: Different pen widths, how do you do that? User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh with the format menu. Industrial Designer: Oh okay. Project Manager: And use different colours etcetera. User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a giraffe. Yeah. Project Manager: And {vocalsound} what's that supposed to be? {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Are you serious? Marketing: {vocalsound} Should it be one {disfmarker} Project Manager: Oh yeah. {vocalsound} Oh yeah User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Project Manager: four legs. Uh-huh. {vocalsound} Marketing: Giraffe's yellow. {vocalsound} User Interface: Uh it needs some uh some yellow uh {disfmarker} Oh format. Marketing: Can you use one blank sheet per drawing? Or Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: so y you must save it at the end Project Manager: Yeah Marketing: and then {disfmarker} Project Manager: you can press the next button, which is uh {disfmarker} yeah. I'll show you. User Interface: That's some spots. Industrial Designer: I in the file option menu. Project Manager: Yeah. In file menu. Marketing: Okay, User Interface: No. Marketing: then m make a new one. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: How much time do we have to draw anyway? {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer:'Cause I can take forever on this. Project Manager: {gap} User Interface: Okay. Do I have to explain uh why I chose this uh this animal? Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} User Interface: I think it's a it's a great animal. Project Manager: What is it? {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a it's a giraffe. Project Manager: A giraffe okay. Yeah I see a long neck User Interface: Yeah, that's a {disfmarker} Project Manager: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Marketing: It's more like a dinosaur. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Okay I'll will give it an uh an eye. Project Manager: Okay. That's nice of you. Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh. User Interface: Hey. Come on. Marketing: Some leaf to eat. {vocalsound} User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. Yeah pretty good. Uh could you press the next uh {disfmarker} User Interface: The next? Yes. Project Manager: Okay. Then uh {disfmarker} {gap}. User Interface: Here you go. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Thanks. User Interface: Hmm. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Is this part of our a acquai or introduction to each other? Project Manager: Yeah sorry, introduction and get acquainted Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: and {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Alright. Project Manager: That's the idea, so {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Uh. Your line broke. Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Alright. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah it's a bit slow, Marketing: It's not that fast. Project Manager: so {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} I see. It misses the spot. Project Manager: {gap} pressure. Industrial Designer: I'm guessing a turtle. No. {vocalsound} I'm kidding. Marketing: {vocalsound} I say good guess. Uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Why a turtle? Industrial Designer: Because of its shell. Marketing: Because it's slow. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's slow. User Interface:'Cause it's so Project Manager: You were slow too User Interface:'cause it's green. {vocalsound} Project Manager: so {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah I was a bit slow too. Industrial Designer: Dude you're a good drawer. Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh some other line uh width uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Do you have a turtle pet? Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} No. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Uh okay. Marketing: I dunno. {vocalsound} Does it have legs? {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah. Project Manager: Yeah sure. Marketing: Yeah? Project Manager: Yeah not exactly legs but {disfmarker} More like fins Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Stumpy stuff. Project Manager: or {disfmarker} Marketing: It's more like a tank. Yeah that's fins Industrial Designer: They kind of l look like mole legs. With sharp nails on. Marketing: but I don't know where. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Some spots. Ah some eye. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: it's l looks very friendly. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah that's a fr {vocalsound} friendly turtle I guess. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah well I think it's uh fair enough. Project Manager: Yeah okay. Industrial Designer: A little tail maybe. Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Right. {vocalsound} I don't know what the position is. {vocalsound} Does it have ears? Industrial Designer: Uh no. Project Manager: No. User Interface: No. Marketing: No. Oh okay. Industrial Designer: The little holes maybe. Marketing: Can you erase ears Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: or {disfmarker} Project Manager: There's a a gum, Marketing: Yeah? Alright. Project Manager: gum to {gap}. Marketing: Eraser. Industrial Designer: And why did you choose this animal? Marketing: So {disfmarker} Project Manager: He said it was slow. Marketing: I dunno. I it just came into my mind. So there's no particular reason Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: I {gap} pen. Project Manager: {vocalsound} I like it. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Well I'm {disfmarker} guess I'm done. Project Manager: Okay. {gap} Marketing: That's my turtle. Project Manager: Your turn Niels. Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: How to select the next or {disfmarker} Project Manager: The next Marketing: here. Project Manager: yeah. Industrial Designer: {gap} Colours were under format Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Project Manager: Makes new paper. Marketing: Here you go. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: right? Let's see. Project Manager: Orange. Industrial Designer: How am I gonna do this? Um {disfmarker} Mm uh. User Interface: A rabbit I think. Project Manager: Kangaroo. User Interface: Kangaroo. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Not quite actually. User Interface: Fox. Marketing: A fox yeah. Project Manager: Dog. Marketing: Firefox. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: No. Project Manager: Cat. Industrial Designer: Aye. {vocalsound} It's a cat. Project Manager: It's a cat. User Interface: Mm. Industrial Designer: Not quite yet through. Marketing: A cat who had an accident or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Project Manager: Why a cat? Industrial Designer: Uh yeah I dunno. They're my favourite pets. Project Manager: You have some uh? Industrial Designer: Uh I have colour already. Yeah I'm not so good at drawing with this kind of Project Manager: {vocalsound} The pen, Industrial Designer: st Oh shit. Um {disfmarker} Project Manager: yeah. Industrial Designer: Excuse my language. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Sure. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I don't know how to draw its face. But you get the idea. Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Alright. Industrial Designer: It's a cat. It's my favourite uh pet animal,'cause they're cute, they're independent and cuddly, I dunno. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: That's it. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Or do I need to use more colours and {disfmarker} Project Manager: {gap} I think it's okay. You get idea Industrial Designer: Alright. Project Manager: right? Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay um Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: we have a financial aspect to this project. {vocalsound} Um we can sell them at twenty five Euros. Uh the aim is to reach {disfmarker} uh uh to sell as much as fifty million Euros. Uh that's quite a big amount of money. And the production cost should be the half of the selling price. Okay Industrial Designer: So we have to s Project Manager: now it's time for some discussion. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} User Interface: Okay. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} User Interface: What uh what uh do you want to discuss? {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: We should get started. User Interface: Yep. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh I'm taking notes. Um Marketing: Okay. Great. Project Manager: we each have a specific task, as I saw in my mail. I didn't know if you received the same mail. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah? Industrial Designer: I guess so. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay so the um {vocalsound} uh {gap} this industrati Industrial Designer should produce a working design. Am I correct? Industrial Designer: True. Project Manager: Okay. Uh the User Interface Designer should specify the technical functions. Right? Yeah? User Interface: Yep. Project Manager: {vocalsound} And the Marketing uh Expert should come up with user requirements. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh did any of you already do some work on this part or {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well I started making an overview for myself, um what I had to do,'cause we have three design steps and in every step I have a s specific task to perform or whatever. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: So I had to uh, {vocalsound} I dunno, make an overview for myself about what I have to do, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and kind of let it work in to get ideas about well how I have to fill it. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. And do you have any ideas about the product uh so far? Industrial Designer: Well I started I started with the first phase, I think was the functional. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: And uh let's see I had to focus on the working design, which you said. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: How does the apparatus work? And well I basically had two points. Uh {vocalsound} according to the coffee uh machine example, I have batteries to supply energy, Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and we ye use button presses to activate or deactivate certain functions on the T_V_. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound} Okay. Industrial Designer: And that's basically all I have so far. Project Manager: Yeah I got another point. It uses infrared light to communicate the signal to the T_V_ apparatus or stereo. User Interface: Yeah. Wireless uh {disfmarker} huh. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: So that's very common. User Interface: Uh it's uh some buttons for for the on off function. You d you already told that. And for the changing up to the {disfmarker} to all the channels and changing the volume. That are the the basic options for a remote control. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah I kept it global'cause {vocalsound} {disfmarker} that it activates or deactivates specific functions, User Interface: Okay, yeah. Industrial Designer:'cause I wasn't thinking yet about that. I mean, you wanna ch ch flip the channel User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: but you might wanna use teletext also. User Interface: Yep. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: I dunno what the word is in English. Uh {gap} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Same I believe {gap}. Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh and what did the Marketing Expert do? Marketing: Uh well from a marketing uh {vocalsound} perspective, um well the function des design phase uh consists out of the user requirements. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: Um what needs and desires are to be fulfilled? So there are a few means to reach that um by by doing research {vocalsound} uh to see what existing products are there out in the market. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: I mean, what functions do they have. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: Um especially what are their shortcomings? Are there any new functions uh which can be added to our product? Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Marketing: Um therefore we have to to do some internet search. For example for um well what kind of applications do current remote controls support, and what are f featur features of uh current and future televisions? Project Manager: Yep. Yes. Marketing: So we can see uh what needs to be supported. Um {vocalsound} and we can interview current users and future users. What w what would they like to see uh on a new remote control? Um especially for future users, Project Manager: Okay. Okay. Marketing: uh I'm thinking of early adopters, because they they use new technology first, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: and they play with a lot of tools and stuff so maybe they have some good ideas to uh to add. Project Manager: Okay. And you can get that information? Marketing: I think I can get that information, yeah. Project Manager: Okay. That would be very handy. Marketing: So {disfmarker} yeah. Project Manager: Um but have you any idea so far as what uh the user requirements are? Marketing: No n not specifically. Project Manager: No? Marketing: More to how to get them Project Manager: No okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} I got some uh requirements Marketing: and {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah? User Interface: it has uh {gap} it has to be user-friendly. Marketing: Yeah? Project Manager: {vocalsound} Of course. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Obviously. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh really easy to use buttons, not not uh very small buttons, but not the the also the big big buttons, but just normal buttons. It has to be a small unit. It has to be uh {disfmarker} yeah, you can take it with you uh everywhere in in your house. So it has n has not to be l yeah, gigantic uh machine. Project Manager: Big, mm-hmm. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: Uh and a and a good uh zapping range. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh what do you mean by that? User Interface: Uh the distance uh from your television to your uh remote control has to be, uh yeah um yeah, quite a big distance. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: It has to be capable for zapping uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah. From the other end of the room or something? User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay um {disfmarker} Well I don't think I have anything more to add at the moment. Um I think the best is to go to work. Industrial Designer: Whoa. Is that you Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} alright. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Any more points to discuss? Project Manager: Yeah. I think we can go ahead with what we have. I will summarise the things we discussed and put it in the project folder. Uh the use of the Industrial Designer can work on the working design, etcetera etcetera. And it seems you get more information by email. So {vocalsound} Marketing: Alright. Industrial Designer: Alright. Project Manager: that was it for me. User Interface: Okay. Marketing:'Kay. Thanks. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} User Interface: Are you going to put the the notes on the {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah, in the project folder. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. The pro okay. User Interface: Okay. {vocalsound} Project Manager: I'm writing very fast. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Alright. User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Okay. Project Manager: Hope it's readable. User Interface: Yep. Marketing: Uh. Project Manager: Okay {vocalsound} um anything more you want to add to the discussion? Marketing: I guess so. Industrial Designer: Well no I'm just a bit wondering what we're gonna do the next uh session? User Interface: Yeah. Do we only have to to do uh phase one, the functional design uh? Project Manager: Yeah. Because then we have a {disfmarker} User Interface: After that we are going to the conceptual uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Y you do some individual work, Marketing: We're just working the three phases. Project Manager: we have meeting, individual work, meeting. And at the end of the day we have a final meeting. And then I have to prepare {disfmarker} uh I have to defend our design, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: so make it good. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah okay. We'll do our best. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: I depend on you. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} Better make it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I am gonna work on the conceptual design already'cause yeah it's fairly important to know what kind of components we want to put in. Project Manager: Yeah? If you can mix it it's okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Industrial Designer: Do we {disfmarker} I mean, is it gonna be a multimedia control centre? Do we want to be able to use the video recorder with it? {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} That is my question also Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: because like new new functions {disfmarker} Project Manager: Well I think that is the user requirements part. Marketing: Requirements. Yeah. Project Manager: As to what they want. Uh do they want all those functions on that small {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah. True. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: But but we need good communication about this stuff, Marketing: Unit. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer:'cause I have to f put the components into the design. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. User Interface: I would first m Industrial Designer: So if I don't know what components to put in, it's kind of hard. Marketing: Yeah well Project Manager: Yeah I understand. Marketing: I I was {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah. I I think we have first to start with the basic functions and we can uh expand them. Marketing: Yeah Project Manager: You can always add a few {disfmarker} Marketing: well like l li like some like some some remotes who are out there, which I know, there's one button which is very easy to switch between devices. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: So you can switch to your video Project Manager: Hmm, Marketing: and then the same buttons control your video. Project Manager: the C_D_ player. Yeah. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: And another function I'll think of switch to your media centre, because that's getting very popular. Industrial Designer: Yeah so {disfmarker} Marketing: And then use your Windows media centre {vocalsound} under your T_V_ with the same remote control. So with the switch, one single switch {gap} Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: Yeah I I know what you mean, but you'll ne need several other buttons for a video player. Marketing: S Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: You need a play and a forw fast forward and a stop function. Marketing: Yeah Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: And you you don't need that for a T_V_. Marketing: records and stuff like that. Industrial Designer: And and for a t uh teletext you need additional buttons as well, Marketing: No. Project Manager: You need additional {disfmarker} yeah. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: so I kind of need to know what we uh need. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Whatever, I'll just put my ideas in uh in here Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and then we can discuss it with the next uh meeting. Marketing: In the project uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: We could just start with the assumption that's only for T_V_ and video. And um reserve the possibility to add other features. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: So we have a basic starting point Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: and you can always extend that so make sure it's extendible. Yeah. User Interface: Yeah it it has yeah it has to be user-friendly. Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: So it's hasn't {gap} {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} yeah. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Th the least amount of functions possible User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: so it's easier to get to know how it works etcetera. User Interface: Okay. Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. I understand. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah? Okay and uh I'll see you again uh when the computer tells us to. Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: Yes. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, you're di dismissed. User Interface: Can we leave now Marketing: Half an hour. User Interface: or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Thanks. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} You're fired. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Not yet. Marketing: No. User Interface: Mm. Industrial Designer: Alright. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. Marketing: Alright let's move on. Project Manager: Let's see what we got to do. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} See you later. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: Yeah see you later. User Interface: Good luck. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. Thank you. Marketing: Well good luck. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: What the {disfmarker}

Industrial Designer had started making an overview of the project's three phases respectively. In the present phase, Industrial Designer focused on the basic function of the remote control. Batteries would be incorporated in the remote control to supply energy. Users would press buttons to activate or deactivate certain functions on the TV. In addition, Project Manager suggested that the remote control would use infrared light to communicate the signal to the TV apparatus or stereo. Industrial Designer agreed.

tr-sq-609

tr-sq-609_0

Summarize Marketing's opinions towards individual task assignment. User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: Mm uh. Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} We're the first. User Interface: Mm. We're the first ones. {vocalsound} Marketing: Marketing Expert, yes. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: So you found your spots. Marketing: Yes. User Interface: {vocalsound} Move to the meeting room. {vocalsound} Marketing: Bling bling. {vocalsound} Yeah. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: Right. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} where has my screen gone? Industrial Designer: Hi. User Interface: Hello, good day. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Oh yeah, we have to talk in English, Marketing: Hmm. Industrial Designer: huh. User Interface: Yep. Marketing: Yeah. My screen is gone. Project Manager: It's called black. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh. User Interface: Kick-off meeting, wow. It's uh looks uh nice. Industrial Designer: I'm afraid I'm a bit slow for this stuff uh. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. User Interface: Hmm? Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I'm afraid I'm a bit too slow. {vocalsound} I don't know how much preparation you guys did, User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: but not a lot. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: No, it's {disfmarker} it was uh not enough. Project Manager: You see this beautiful presentation. Marketing: Yeah. Very nice. Project Manager: Okay let's get started. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh I sort of prepared this. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh opening acquaintance, tool training, uh how to use the things here. Uh project plan discussion, and yeah then the rest of the meeting. Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um we're supposed to develop a new remote control, that's both original, trendy and user-friendly. So, Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: hope you have good ideas. I don't. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} I did my best. Project Manager: Um we're work we're working uh from top to bottom. Uh functional design, Industrial Designer: Not yet. Project Manager: then we do some in individual work, then we have a meeting to discuss the results, etcetera etcetera. And at the end of the day we should have a prototype drawn up. Uh we have available the smart board and the whiteboard. Um uh we should take some practice. I have some instructions now to do that. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh well you know how to {disfmarker} the documents work. So {disfmarker} Uh this for toolbar. You see it next. Um we have a pen. And we can use this pen to perform. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yes. Industrial Designer: Operations. Project Manager: So {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: It doesn't always work. Yes. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay so you can draw. Marketing: Draw. Alright. Project Manager: Okay and in the format menu you can select colour and line width, etcetera etcetera. Okay? Marketing:'Kay. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Okay. Each of you can uh take some practice and you should draw an animal. Uh you should explain {disfmarker} Uh with different colours and with different pen widths. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: And you should explain why you draw that particular animal. User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} Don't take up too much space. {vocalsound} Project Manager: So, Julian. User Interface: Um yeah. Industrial Designer: Different pen widths, how do you do that? User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh with the format menu. Industrial Designer: Oh okay. Project Manager: And use different colours etcetera. User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a giraffe. Yeah. Project Manager: And {vocalsound} what's that supposed to be? {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Are you serious? Marketing: {vocalsound} Should it be one {disfmarker} Project Manager: Oh yeah. {vocalsound} Oh yeah User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Project Manager: four legs. Uh-huh. {vocalsound} Marketing: Giraffe's yellow. {vocalsound} User Interface: Uh it needs some uh some yellow uh {disfmarker} Oh format. Marketing: Can you use one blank sheet per drawing? Or Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: so y you must save it at the end Project Manager: Yeah Marketing: and then {disfmarker} Project Manager: you can press the next button, which is uh {disfmarker} yeah. I'll show you. User Interface: That's some spots. Industrial Designer: I in the file option menu. Project Manager: Yeah. In file menu. Marketing: Okay, User Interface: No. Marketing: then m make a new one. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: How much time do we have to draw anyway? {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer:'Cause I can take forever on this. Project Manager: {gap} User Interface: Okay. Do I have to explain uh why I chose this uh this animal? Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} User Interface: I think it's a it's a great animal. Project Manager: What is it? {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a it's a giraffe. Project Manager: A giraffe okay. Yeah I see a long neck User Interface: Yeah, that's a {disfmarker} Project Manager: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Marketing: It's more like a dinosaur. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Okay I'll will give it an uh an eye. Project Manager: Okay. That's nice of you. Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh. User Interface: Hey. Come on. Marketing: Some leaf to eat. {vocalsound} User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. Yeah pretty good. Uh could you press the next uh {disfmarker} User Interface: The next? Yes. Project Manager: Okay. Then uh {disfmarker} {gap}. User Interface: Here you go. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Thanks. User Interface: Hmm. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Is this part of our a acquai or introduction to each other? Project Manager: Yeah sorry, introduction and get acquainted Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: and {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Alright. Project Manager: That's the idea, so {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Uh. Your line broke. Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Alright. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah it's a bit slow, Marketing: It's not that fast. Project Manager: so {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} I see. It misses the spot. Project Manager: {gap} pressure. Industrial Designer: I'm guessing a turtle. No. {vocalsound} I'm kidding. Marketing: {vocalsound} I say good guess. Uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Why a turtle? Industrial Designer: Because of its shell. Marketing: Because it's slow. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's slow. User Interface:'Cause it's so Project Manager: You were slow too User Interface:'cause it's green. {vocalsound} Project Manager: so {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah I was a bit slow too. Industrial Designer: Dude you're a good drawer. Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh some other line uh width uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Do you have a turtle pet? Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} No. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Uh okay. Marketing: I dunno. {vocalsound} Does it have legs? {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah. Project Manager: Yeah sure. Marketing: Yeah? Project Manager: Yeah not exactly legs but {disfmarker} More like fins Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Stumpy stuff. Project Manager: or {disfmarker} Marketing: It's more like a tank. Yeah that's fins Industrial Designer: They kind of l look like mole legs. With sharp nails on. Marketing: but I don't know where. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Some spots. Ah some eye. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: it's l looks very friendly. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah that's a fr {vocalsound} friendly turtle I guess. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah well I think it's uh fair enough. Project Manager: Yeah okay. Industrial Designer: A little tail maybe. Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Right. {vocalsound} I don't know what the position is. {vocalsound} Does it have ears? Industrial Designer: Uh no. Project Manager: No. User Interface: No. Marketing: No. Oh okay. Industrial Designer: The little holes maybe. Marketing: Can you erase ears Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: or {disfmarker} Project Manager: There's a a gum, Marketing: Yeah? Alright. Project Manager: gum to {gap}. Marketing: Eraser. Industrial Designer: And why did you choose this animal? Marketing: So {disfmarker} Project Manager: He said it was slow. Marketing: I dunno. I it just came into my mind. So there's no particular reason Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: I {gap} pen. Project Manager: {vocalsound} I like it. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Well I'm {disfmarker} guess I'm done. Project Manager: Okay. {gap} Marketing: That's my turtle. Project Manager: Your turn Niels. Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: How to select the next or {disfmarker} Project Manager: The next Marketing: here. Project Manager: yeah. Industrial Designer: {gap} Colours were under format Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Project Manager: Makes new paper. Marketing: Here you go. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: right? Let's see. Project Manager: Orange. Industrial Designer: How am I gonna do this? Um {disfmarker} Mm uh. User Interface: A rabbit I think. Project Manager: Kangaroo. User Interface: Kangaroo. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Not quite actually. User Interface: Fox. Marketing: A fox yeah. Project Manager: Dog. Marketing: Firefox. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: No. Project Manager: Cat. Industrial Designer: Aye. {vocalsound} It's a cat. Project Manager: It's a cat. User Interface: Mm. Industrial Designer: Not quite yet through. Marketing: A cat who had an accident or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Project Manager: Why a cat? Industrial Designer: Uh yeah I dunno. They're my favourite pets. Project Manager: You have some uh? Industrial Designer: Uh I have colour already. Yeah I'm not so good at drawing with this kind of Project Manager: {vocalsound} The pen, Industrial Designer: st Oh shit. Um {disfmarker} Project Manager: yeah. Industrial Designer: Excuse my language. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Sure. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I don't know how to draw its face. But you get the idea. Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Alright. Industrial Designer: It's a cat. It's my favourite uh pet animal,'cause they're cute, they're independent and cuddly, I dunno. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: That's it. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Or do I need to use more colours and {disfmarker} Project Manager: {gap} I think it's okay. You get idea Industrial Designer: Alright. Project Manager: right? Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay um Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: we have a financial aspect to this project. {vocalsound} Um we can sell them at twenty five Euros. Uh the aim is to reach {disfmarker} uh uh to sell as much as fifty million Euros. Uh that's quite a big amount of money. And the production cost should be the half of the selling price. Okay Industrial Designer: So we have to s Project Manager: now it's time for some discussion. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} User Interface: Okay. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} User Interface: What uh what uh do you want to discuss? {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: We should get started. User Interface: Yep. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh I'm taking notes. Um Marketing: Okay. Great. Project Manager: we each have a specific task, as I saw in my mail. I didn't know if you received the same mail. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah? Industrial Designer: I guess so. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay so the um {vocalsound} uh {gap} this industrati Industrial Designer should produce a working design. Am I correct? Industrial Designer: True. Project Manager: Okay. Uh the User Interface Designer should specify the technical functions. Right? Yeah? User Interface: Yep. Project Manager: {vocalsound} And the Marketing uh Expert should come up with user requirements. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh did any of you already do some work on this part or {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well I started making an overview for myself, um what I had to do,'cause we have three design steps and in every step I have a s specific task to perform or whatever. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: So I had to uh, {vocalsound} I dunno, make an overview for myself about what I have to do, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and kind of let it work in to get ideas about well how I have to fill it. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. And do you have any ideas about the product uh so far? Industrial Designer: Well I started I started with the first phase, I think was the functional. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: And uh let's see I had to focus on the working design, which you said. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: How does the apparatus work? And well I basically had two points. Uh {vocalsound} according to the coffee uh machine example, I have batteries to supply energy, Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and we ye use button presses to activate or deactivate certain functions on the T_V_. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound} Okay. Industrial Designer: And that's basically all I have so far. Project Manager: Yeah I got another point. It uses infrared light to communicate the signal to the T_V_ apparatus or stereo. User Interface: Yeah. Wireless uh {disfmarker} huh. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: So that's very common. User Interface: Uh it's uh some buttons for for the on off function. You d you already told that. And for the changing up to the {disfmarker} to all the channels and changing the volume. That are the the basic options for a remote control. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah I kept it global'cause {vocalsound} {disfmarker} that it activates or deactivates specific functions, User Interface: Okay, yeah. Industrial Designer:'cause I wasn't thinking yet about that. I mean, you wanna ch ch flip the channel User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: but you might wanna use teletext also. User Interface: Yep. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: I dunno what the word is in English. Uh {gap} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Same I believe {gap}. Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh and what did the Marketing Expert do? Marketing: Uh well from a marketing uh {vocalsound} perspective, um well the function des design phase uh consists out of the user requirements. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: Um what needs and desires are to be fulfilled? So there are a few means to reach that um by by doing research {vocalsound} uh to see what existing products are there out in the market. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: I mean, what functions do they have. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: Um especially what are their shortcomings? Are there any new functions uh which can be added to our product? Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Marketing: Um therefore we have to to do some internet search. For example for um well what kind of applications do current remote controls support, and what are f featur features of uh current and future televisions? Project Manager: Yep. Yes. Marketing: So we can see uh what needs to be supported. Um {vocalsound} and we can interview current users and future users. What w what would they like to see uh on a new remote control? Um especially for future users, Project Manager: Okay. Okay. Marketing: uh I'm thinking of early adopters, because they they use new technology first, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: and they play with a lot of tools and stuff so maybe they have some good ideas to uh to add. Project Manager: Okay. And you can get that information? Marketing: I think I can get that information, yeah. Project Manager: Okay. That would be very handy. Marketing: So {disfmarker} yeah. Project Manager: Um but have you any idea so far as what uh the user requirements are? Marketing: No n not specifically. Project Manager: No? Marketing: More to how to get them Project Manager: No okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} I got some uh requirements Marketing: and {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah? User Interface: it has uh {gap} it has to be user-friendly. Marketing: Yeah? Project Manager: {vocalsound} Of course. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Obviously. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh really easy to use buttons, not not uh very small buttons, but not the the also the big big buttons, but just normal buttons. It has to be a small unit. It has to be uh {disfmarker} yeah, you can take it with you uh everywhere in in your house. So it has n has not to be l yeah, gigantic uh machine. Project Manager: Big, mm-hmm. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: Uh and a and a good uh zapping range. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh what do you mean by that? User Interface: Uh the distance uh from your television to your uh remote control has to be, uh yeah um yeah, quite a big distance. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: It has to be capable for zapping uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah. From the other end of the room or something? User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay um {disfmarker} Well I don't think I have anything more to add at the moment. Um I think the best is to go to work. Industrial Designer: Whoa. Is that you Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} alright. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Any more points to discuss? Project Manager: Yeah. I think we can go ahead with what we have. I will summarise the things we discussed and put it in the project folder. Uh the use of the Industrial Designer can work on the working design, etcetera etcetera. And it seems you get more information by email. So {vocalsound} Marketing: Alright. Industrial Designer: Alright. Project Manager: that was it for me. User Interface: Okay. Marketing:'Kay. Thanks. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} User Interface: Are you going to put the the notes on the {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah, in the project folder. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. The pro okay. User Interface: Okay. {vocalsound} Project Manager: I'm writing very fast. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Alright. User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Okay. Project Manager: Hope it's readable. User Interface: Yep. Marketing: Uh. Project Manager: Okay {vocalsound} um anything more you want to add to the discussion? Marketing: I guess so. Industrial Designer: Well no I'm just a bit wondering what we're gonna do the next uh session? User Interface: Yeah. Do we only have to to do uh phase one, the functional design uh? Project Manager: Yeah. Because then we have a {disfmarker} User Interface: After that we are going to the conceptual uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Y you do some individual work, Marketing: We're just working the three phases. Project Manager: we have meeting, individual work, meeting. And at the end of the day we have a final meeting. And then I have to prepare {disfmarker} uh I have to defend our design, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: so make it good. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah okay. We'll do our best. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: I depend on you. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} Better make it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I am gonna work on the conceptual design already'cause yeah it's fairly important to know what kind of components we want to put in. Project Manager: Yeah? If you can mix it it's okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Industrial Designer: Do we {disfmarker} I mean, is it gonna be a multimedia control centre? Do we want to be able to use the video recorder with it? {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} That is my question also Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: because like new new functions {disfmarker} Project Manager: Well I think that is the user requirements part. Marketing: Requirements. Yeah. Project Manager: As to what they want. Uh do they want all those functions on that small {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah. True. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: But but we need good communication about this stuff, Marketing: Unit. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer:'cause I have to f put the components into the design. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. User Interface: I would first m Industrial Designer: So if I don't know what components to put in, it's kind of hard. Marketing: Yeah well Project Manager: Yeah I understand. Marketing: I I was {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah. I I think we have first to start with the basic functions and we can uh expand them. Marketing: Yeah Project Manager: You can always add a few {disfmarker} Marketing: well like l li like some like some some remotes who are out there, which I know, there's one button which is very easy to switch between devices. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: So you can switch to your video Project Manager: Hmm, Marketing: and then the same buttons control your video. Project Manager: the C_D_ player. Yeah. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: And another function I'll think of switch to your media centre, because that's getting very popular. Industrial Designer: Yeah so {disfmarker} Marketing: And then use your Windows media centre {vocalsound} under your T_V_ with the same remote control. So with the switch, one single switch {gap} Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: Yeah I I know what you mean, but you'll ne need several other buttons for a video player. Marketing: S Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: You need a play and a forw fast forward and a stop function. Marketing: Yeah Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: And you you don't need that for a T_V_. Marketing: records and stuff like that. Industrial Designer: And and for a t uh teletext you need additional buttons as well, Marketing: No. Project Manager: You need additional {disfmarker} yeah. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: so I kind of need to know what we uh need. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Whatever, I'll just put my ideas in uh in here Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and then we can discuss it with the next uh meeting. Marketing: In the project uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: We could just start with the assumption that's only for T_V_ and video. And um reserve the possibility to add other features. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: So we have a basic starting point Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: and you can always extend that so make sure it's extendible. Yeah. User Interface: Yeah it it has yeah it has to be user-friendly. Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: So it's hasn't {gap} {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} yeah. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Th the least amount of functions possible User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: so it's easier to get to know how it works etcetera. User Interface: Okay. Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. I understand. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah? Okay and uh I'll see you again uh when the computer tells us to. Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: Yes. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, you're di dismissed. User Interface: Can we leave now Marketing: Half an hour. User Interface: or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Thanks. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} You're fired. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Not yet. Marketing: No. User Interface: Mm. Industrial Designer: Alright. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. Marketing: Alright let's move on. Project Manager: Let's see what we got to do. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} See you later. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: Yeah see you later. User Interface: Good luck. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. Thank you. Marketing: Well good luck. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: What the {disfmarker}

From a marketing perspective, the present function design phase consisted of user requirements. Marketing would mainly do internet research to get users'feedback on existing products. Meanwhile, Marketing would find out the shortcomings of the current remote controls. According to the research results, the team could optimize their design. Marketing added that the team would probably be inspired by early remote control adopters.

tr-sq-610

tr-sq-610_0

What did the group discuss about user requirements of the new remote control? User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: Mm uh. Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} We're the first. User Interface: Mm. We're the first ones. {vocalsound} Marketing: Marketing Expert, yes. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: So you found your spots. Marketing: Yes. User Interface: {vocalsound} Move to the meeting room. {vocalsound} Marketing: Bling bling. {vocalsound} Yeah. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: Right. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} where has my screen gone? Industrial Designer: Hi. User Interface: Hello, good day. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Oh yeah, we have to talk in English, Marketing: Hmm. Industrial Designer: huh. User Interface: Yep. Marketing: Yeah. My screen is gone. Project Manager: It's called black. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh. User Interface: Kick-off meeting, wow. It's uh looks uh nice. Industrial Designer: I'm afraid I'm a bit slow for this stuff uh. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. User Interface: Hmm? Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I'm afraid I'm a bit too slow. {vocalsound} I don't know how much preparation you guys did, User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: but not a lot. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: No, it's {disfmarker} it was uh not enough. Project Manager: You see this beautiful presentation. Marketing: Yeah. Very nice. Project Manager: Okay let's get started. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh I sort of prepared this. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh opening acquaintance, tool training, uh how to use the things here. Uh project plan discussion, and yeah then the rest of the meeting. Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um we're supposed to develop a new remote control, that's both original, trendy and user-friendly. So, Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: hope you have good ideas. I don't. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} I did my best. Project Manager: Um we're work we're working uh from top to bottom. Uh functional design, Industrial Designer: Not yet. Project Manager: then we do some in individual work, then we have a meeting to discuss the results, etcetera etcetera. And at the end of the day we should have a prototype drawn up. Uh we have available the smart board and the whiteboard. Um uh we should take some practice. I have some instructions now to do that. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh well you know how to {disfmarker} the documents work. So {disfmarker} Uh this for toolbar. You see it next. Um we have a pen. And we can use this pen to perform. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yes. Industrial Designer: Operations. Project Manager: So {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: It doesn't always work. Yes. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay so you can draw. Marketing: Draw. Alright. Project Manager: Okay and in the format menu you can select colour and line width, etcetera etcetera. Okay? Marketing:'Kay. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Okay. Each of you can uh take some practice and you should draw an animal. Uh you should explain {disfmarker} Uh with different colours and with different pen widths. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: And you should explain why you draw that particular animal. User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} Don't take up too much space. {vocalsound} Project Manager: So, Julian. User Interface: Um yeah. Industrial Designer: Different pen widths, how do you do that? User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh with the format menu. Industrial Designer: Oh okay. Project Manager: And use different colours etcetera. User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a giraffe. Yeah. Project Manager: And {vocalsound} what's that supposed to be? {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Are you serious? Marketing: {vocalsound} Should it be one {disfmarker} Project Manager: Oh yeah. {vocalsound} Oh yeah User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Project Manager: four legs. Uh-huh. {vocalsound} Marketing: Giraffe's yellow. {vocalsound} User Interface: Uh it needs some uh some yellow uh {disfmarker} Oh format. Marketing: Can you use one blank sheet per drawing? Or Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: so y you must save it at the end Project Manager: Yeah Marketing: and then {disfmarker} Project Manager: you can press the next button, which is uh {disfmarker} yeah. I'll show you. User Interface: That's some spots. Industrial Designer: I in the file option menu. Project Manager: Yeah. In file menu. Marketing: Okay, User Interface: No. Marketing: then m make a new one. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: How much time do we have to draw anyway? {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer:'Cause I can take forever on this. Project Manager: {gap} User Interface: Okay. Do I have to explain uh why I chose this uh this animal? Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} User Interface: I think it's a it's a great animal. Project Manager: What is it? {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a it's a giraffe. Project Manager: A giraffe okay. Yeah I see a long neck User Interface: Yeah, that's a {disfmarker} Project Manager: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Marketing: It's more like a dinosaur. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Okay I'll will give it an uh an eye. Project Manager: Okay. That's nice of you. Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh. User Interface: Hey. Come on. Marketing: Some leaf to eat. {vocalsound} User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. Yeah pretty good. Uh could you press the next uh {disfmarker} User Interface: The next? Yes. Project Manager: Okay. Then uh {disfmarker} {gap}. User Interface: Here you go. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Thanks. User Interface: Hmm. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Is this part of our a acquai or introduction to each other? Project Manager: Yeah sorry, introduction and get acquainted Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: and {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Alright. Project Manager: That's the idea, so {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Uh. Your line broke. Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Alright. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah it's a bit slow, Marketing: It's not that fast. Project Manager: so {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} I see. It misses the spot. Project Manager: {gap} pressure. Industrial Designer: I'm guessing a turtle. No. {vocalsound} I'm kidding. Marketing: {vocalsound} I say good guess. Uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Why a turtle? Industrial Designer: Because of its shell. Marketing: Because it's slow. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's slow. User Interface:'Cause it's so Project Manager: You were slow too User Interface:'cause it's green. {vocalsound} Project Manager: so {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah I was a bit slow too. Industrial Designer: Dude you're a good drawer. Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh some other line uh width uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Do you have a turtle pet? Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} No. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Uh okay. Marketing: I dunno. {vocalsound} Does it have legs? {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah. Project Manager: Yeah sure. Marketing: Yeah? Project Manager: Yeah not exactly legs but {disfmarker} More like fins Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Stumpy stuff. Project Manager: or {disfmarker} Marketing: It's more like a tank. Yeah that's fins Industrial Designer: They kind of l look like mole legs. With sharp nails on. Marketing: but I don't know where. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Some spots. Ah some eye. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: it's l looks very friendly. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah that's a fr {vocalsound} friendly turtle I guess. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah well I think it's uh fair enough. Project Manager: Yeah okay. Industrial Designer: A little tail maybe. Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Right. {vocalsound} I don't know what the position is. {vocalsound} Does it have ears? Industrial Designer: Uh no. Project Manager: No. User Interface: No. Marketing: No. Oh okay. Industrial Designer: The little holes maybe. Marketing: Can you erase ears Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: or {disfmarker} Project Manager: There's a a gum, Marketing: Yeah? Alright. Project Manager: gum to {gap}. Marketing: Eraser. Industrial Designer: And why did you choose this animal? Marketing: So {disfmarker} Project Manager: He said it was slow. Marketing: I dunno. I it just came into my mind. So there's no particular reason Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: I {gap} pen. Project Manager: {vocalsound} I like it. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Well I'm {disfmarker} guess I'm done. Project Manager: Okay. {gap} Marketing: That's my turtle. Project Manager: Your turn Niels. Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: How to select the next or {disfmarker} Project Manager: The next Marketing: here. Project Manager: yeah. Industrial Designer: {gap} Colours were under format Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Project Manager: Makes new paper. Marketing: Here you go. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: right? Let's see. Project Manager: Orange. Industrial Designer: How am I gonna do this? Um {disfmarker} Mm uh. User Interface: A rabbit I think. Project Manager: Kangaroo. User Interface: Kangaroo. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Not quite actually. User Interface: Fox. Marketing: A fox yeah. Project Manager: Dog. Marketing: Firefox. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: No. Project Manager: Cat. Industrial Designer: Aye. {vocalsound} It's a cat. Project Manager: It's a cat. User Interface: Mm. Industrial Designer: Not quite yet through. Marketing: A cat who had an accident or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Project Manager: Why a cat? Industrial Designer: Uh yeah I dunno. They're my favourite pets. Project Manager: You have some uh? Industrial Designer: Uh I have colour already. Yeah I'm not so good at drawing with this kind of Project Manager: {vocalsound} The pen, Industrial Designer: st Oh shit. Um {disfmarker} Project Manager: yeah. Industrial Designer: Excuse my language. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Sure. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I don't know how to draw its face. But you get the idea. Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Alright. Industrial Designer: It's a cat. It's my favourite uh pet animal,'cause they're cute, they're independent and cuddly, I dunno. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: That's it. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Or do I need to use more colours and {disfmarker} Project Manager: {gap} I think it's okay. You get idea Industrial Designer: Alright. Project Manager: right? Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay um Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: we have a financial aspect to this project. {vocalsound} Um we can sell them at twenty five Euros. Uh the aim is to reach {disfmarker} uh uh to sell as much as fifty million Euros. Uh that's quite a big amount of money. And the production cost should be the half of the selling price. Okay Industrial Designer: So we have to s Project Manager: now it's time for some discussion. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} User Interface: Okay. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} User Interface: What uh what uh do you want to discuss? {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: We should get started. User Interface: Yep. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh I'm taking notes. Um Marketing: Okay. Great. Project Manager: we each have a specific task, as I saw in my mail. I didn't know if you received the same mail. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah? Industrial Designer: I guess so. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay so the um {vocalsound} uh {gap} this industrati Industrial Designer should produce a working design. Am I correct? Industrial Designer: True. Project Manager: Okay. Uh the User Interface Designer should specify the technical functions. Right? Yeah? User Interface: Yep. Project Manager: {vocalsound} And the Marketing uh Expert should come up with user requirements. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh did any of you already do some work on this part or {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well I started making an overview for myself, um what I had to do,'cause we have three design steps and in every step I have a s specific task to perform or whatever. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: So I had to uh, {vocalsound} I dunno, make an overview for myself about what I have to do, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and kind of let it work in to get ideas about well how I have to fill it. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. And do you have any ideas about the product uh so far? Industrial Designer: Well I started I started with the first phase, I think was the functional. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: And uh let's see I had to focus on the working design, which you said. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: How does the apparatus work? And well I basically had two points. Uh {vocalsound} according to the coffee uh machine example, I have batteries to supply energy, Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and we ye use button presses to activate or deactivate certain functions on the T_V_. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound} Okay. Industrial Designer: And that's basically all I have so far. Project Manager: Yeah I got another point. It uses infrared light to communicate the signal to the T_V_ apparatus or stereo. User Interface: Yeah. Wireless uh {disfmarker} huh. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: So that's very common. User Interface: Uh it's uh some buttons for for the on off function. You d you already told that. And for the changing up to the {disfmarker} to all the channels and changing the volume. That are the the basic options for a remote control. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah I kept it global'cause {vocalsound} {disfmarker} that it activates or deactivates specific functions, User Interface: Okay, yeah. Industrial Designer:'cause I wasn't thinking yet about that. I mean, you wanna ch ch flip the channel User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: but you might wanna use teletext also. User Interface: Yep. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: I dunno what the word is in English. Uh {gap} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Same I believe {gap}. Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh and what did the Marketing Expert do? Marketing: Uh well from a marketing uh {vocalsound} perspective, um well the function des design phase uh consists out of the user requirements. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: Um what needs and desires are to be fulfilled? So there are a few means to reach that um by by doing research {vocalsound} uh to see what existing products are there out in the market. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: I mean, what functions do they have. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: Um especially what are their shortcomings? Are there any new functions uh which can be added to our product? Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Marketing: Um therefore we have to to do some internet search. For example for um well what kind of applications do current remote controls support, and what are f featur features of uh current and future televisions? Project Manager: Yep. Yes. Marketing: So we can see uh what needs to be supported. Um {vocalsound} and we can interview current users and future users. What w what would they like to see uh on a new remote control? Um especially for future users, Project Manager: Okay. Okay. Marketing: uh I'm thinking of early adopters, because they they use new technology first, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: and they play with a lot of tools and stuff so maybe they have some good ideas to uh to add. Project Manager: Okay. And you can get that information? Marketing: I think I can get that information, yeah. Project Manager: Okay. That would be very handy. Marketing: So {disfmarker} yeah. Project Manager: Um but have you any idea so far as what uh the user requirements are? Marketing: No n not specifically. Project Manager: No? Marketing: More to how to get them Project Manager: No okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} I got some uh requirements Marketing: and {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah? User Interface: it has uh {gap} it has to be user-friendly. Marketing: Yeah? Project Manager: {vocalsound} Of course. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Obviously. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh really easy to use buttons, not not uh very small buttons, but not the the also the big big buttons, but just normal buttons. It has to be a small unit. It has to be uh {disfmarker} yeah, you can take it with you uh everywhere in in your house. So it has n has not to be l yeah, gigantic uh machine. Project Manager: Big, mm-hmm. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: Uh and a and a good uh zapping range. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh what do you mean by that? User Interface: Uh the distance uh from your television to your uh remote control has to be, uh yeah um yeah, quite a big distance. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: It has to be capable for zapping uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah. From the other end of the room or something? User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay um {disfmarker} Well I don't think I have anything more to add at the moment. Um I think the best is to go to work. Industrial Designer: Whoa. Is that you Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} alright. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Any more points to discuss? Project Manager: Yeah. I think we can go ahead with what we have. I will summarise the things we discussed and put it in the project folder. Uh the use of the Industrial Designer can work on the working design, etcetera etcetera. And it seems you get more information by email. So {vocalsound} Marketing: Alright. Industrial Designer: Alright. Project Manager: that was it for me. User Interface: Okay. Marketing:'Kay. Thanks. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} User Interface: Are you going to put the the notes on the {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah, in the project folder. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. The pro okay. User Interface: Okay. {vocalsound} Project Manager: I'm writing very fast. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Alright. User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Okay. Project Manager: Hope it's readable. User Interface: Yep. Marketing: Uh. Project Manager: Okay {vocalsound} um anything more you want to add to the discussion? Marketing: I guess so. Industrial Designer: Well no I'm just a bit wondering what we're gonna do the next uh session? User Interface: Yeah. Do we only have to to do uh phase one, the functional design uh? Project Manager: Yeah. Because then we have a {disfmarker} User Interface: After that we are going to the conceptual uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Y you do some individual work, Marketing: We're just working the three phases. Project Manager: we have meeting, individual work, meeting. And at the end of the day we have a final meeting. And then I have to prepare {disfmarker} uh I have to defend our design, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: so make it good. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah okay. We'll do our best. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: I depend on you. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} Better make it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I am gonna work on the conceptual design already'cause yeah it's fairly important to know what kind of components we want to put in. Project Manager: Yeah? If you can mix it it's okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Industrial Designer: Do we {disfmarker} I mean, is it gonna be a multimedia control centre? Do we want to be able to use the video recorder with it? {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} That is my question also Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: because like new new functions {disfmarker} Project Manager: Well I think that is the user requirements part. Marketing: Requirements. Yeah. Project Manager: As to what they want. Uh do they want all those functions on that small {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah. True. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: But but we need good communication about this stuff, Marketing: Unit. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer:'cause I have to f put the components into the design. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. User Interface: I would first m Industrial Designer: So if I don't know what components to put in, it's kind of hard. Marketing: Yeah well Project Manager: Yeah I understand. Marketing: I I was {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah. I I think we have first to start with the basic functions and we can uh expand them. Marketing: Yeah Project Manager: You can always add a few {disfmarker} Marketing: well like l li like some like some some remotes who are out there, which I know, there's one button which is very easy to switch between devices. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: So you can switch to your video Project Manager: Hmm, Marketing: and then the same buttons control your video. Project Manager: the C_D_ player. Yeah. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: And another function I'll think of switch to your media centre, because that's getting very popular. Industrial Designer: Yeah so {disfmarker} Marketing: And then use your Windows media centre {vocalsound} under your T_V_ with the same remote control. So with the switch, one single switch {gap} Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: Yeah I I know what you mean, but you'll ne need several other buttons for a video player. Marketing: S Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: You need a play and a forw fast forward and a stop function. Marketing: Yeah Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: And you you don't need that for a T_V_. Marketing: records and stuff like that. Industrial Designer: And and for a t uh teletext you need additional buttons as well, Marketing: No. Project Manager: You need additional {disfmarker} yeah. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: so I kind of need to know what we uh need. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Whatever, I'll just put my ideas in uh in here Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and then we can discuss it with the next uh meeting. Marketing: In the project uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: We could just start with the assumption that's only for T_V_ and video. And um reserve the possibility to add other features. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: So we have a basic starting point Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: and you can always extend that so make sure it's extendible. Yeah. User Interface: Yeah it it has yeah it has to be user-friendly. Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: So it's hasn't {gap} {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} yeah. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Th the least amount of functions possible User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: so it's easier to get to know how it works etcetera. User Interface: Okay. Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. I understand. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah? Okay and uh I'll see you again uh when the computer tells us to. Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: Yes. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, you're di dismissed. User Interface: Can we leave now Marketing: Half an hour. User Interface: or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Thanks. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} You're fired. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Not yet. Marketing: No. User Interface: Mm. Industrial Designer: Alright. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. Marketing: Alright let's move on. Project Manager: Let's see what we got to do. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} See you later. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: Yeah see you later. User Interface: Good luck. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. Thank you. Marketing: Well good luck. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: What the {disfmarker}

Regretfully, Marketing did not get specific user requirements for now. Instead, User Interface made a contribution to the discussion. Users mainly expected the remote control to be user-friendly. To be more specific, the button size ought to be regular, and the remote control was expected to be a handy and small unit. It would be more satisfying if the zapping range was big enough so that the remote control could work from a distance.

tr-sq-611

tr-sq-611_0

What did the group discuss about the emphasis on the basic function and function extendibility? User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: Mm uh. Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} We're the first. User Interface: Mm. We're the first ones. {vocalsound} Marketing: Marketing Expert, yes. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: So you found your spots. Marketing: Yes. User Interface: {vocalsound} Move to the meeting room. {vocalsound} Marketing: Bling bling. {vocalsound} Yeah. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: Right. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} where has my screen gone? Industrial Designer: Hi. User Interface: Hello, good day. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Oh yeah, we have to talk in English, Marketing: Hmm. Industrial Designer: huh. User Interface: Yep. Marketing: Yeah. My screen is gone. Project Manager: It's called black. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh. User Interface: Kick-off meeting, wow. It's uh looks uh nice. Industrial Designer: I'm afraid I'm a bit slow for this stuff uh. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. User Interface: Hmm? Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I'm afraid I'm a bit too slow. {vocalsound} I don't know how much preparation you guys did, User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: but not a lot. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: No, it's {disfmarker} it was uh not enough. Project Manager: You see this beautiful presentation. Marketing: Yeah. Very nice. Project Manager: Okay let's get started. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh I sort of prepared this. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh opening acquaintance, tool training, uh how to use the things here. Uh project plan discussion, and yeah then the rest of the meeting. Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um we're supposed to develop a new remote control, that's both original, trendy and user-friendly. So, Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: hope you have good ideas. I don't. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} I did my best. Project Manager: Um we're work we're working uh from top to bottom. Uh functional design, Industrial Designer: Not yet. Project Manager: then we do some in individual work, then we have a meeting to discuss the results, etcetera etcetera. And at the end of the day we should have a prototype drawn up. Uh we have available the smart board and the whiteboard. Um uh we should take some practice. I have some instructions now to do that. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh well you know how to {disfmarker} the documents work. So {disfmarker} Uh this for toolbar. You see it next. Um we have a pen. And we can use this pen to perform. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yes. Industrial Designer: Operations. Project Manager: So {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: It doesn't always work. Yes. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay so you can draw. Marketing: Draw. Alright. Project Manager: Okay and in the format menu you can select colour and line width, etcetera etcetera. Okay? Marketing:'Kay. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Okay. Each of you can uh take some practice and you should draw an animal. Uh you should explain {disfmarker} Uh with different colours and with different pen widths. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: And you should explain why you draw that particular animal. User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} Don't take up too much space. {vocalsound} Project Manager: So, Julian. User Interface: Um yeah. Industrial Designer: Different pen widths, how do you do that? User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh with the format menu. Industrial Designer: Oh okay. Project Manager: And use different colours etcetera. User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a giraffe. Yeah. Project Manager: And {vocalsound} what's that supposed to be? {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Are you serious? Marketing: {vocalsound} Should it be one {disfmarker} Project Manager: Oh yeah. {vocalsound} Oh yeah User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Project Manager: four legs. Uh-huh. {vocalsound} Marketing: Giraffe's yellow. {vocalsound} User Interface: Uh it needs some uh some yellow uh {disfmarker} Oh format. Marketing: Can you use one blank sheet per drawing? Or Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: so y you must save it at the end Project Manager: Yeah Marketing: and then {disfmarker} Project Manager: you can press the next button, which is uh {disfmarker} yeah. I'll show you. User Interface: That's some spots. Industrial Designer: I in the file option menu. Project Manager: Yeah. In file menu. Marketing: Okay, User Interface: No. Marketing: then m make a new one. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: How much time do we have to draw anyway? {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer:'Cause I can take forever on this. Project Manager: {gap} User Interface: Okay. Do I have to explain uh why I chose this uh this animal? Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} User Interface: I think it's a it's a great animal. Project Manager: What is it? {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a it's a giraffe. Project Manager: A giraffe okay. Yeah I see a long neck User Interface: Yeah, that's a {disfmarker} Project Manager: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Marketing: It's more like a dinosaur. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Okay I'll will give it an uh an eye. Project Manager: Okay. That's nice of you. Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh. User Interface: Hey. Come on. Marketing: Some leaf to eat. {vocalsound} User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. Yeah pretty good. Uh could you press the next uh {disfmarker} User Interface: The next? Yes. Project Manager: Okay. Then uh {disfmarker} {gap}. User Interface: Here you go. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Thanks. User Interface: Hmm. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Is this part of our a acquai or introduction to each other? Project Manager: Yeah sorry, introduction and get acquainted Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: and {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Alright. Project Manager: That's the idea, so {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Uh. Your line broke. Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Alright. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah it's a bit slow, Marketing: It's not that fast. Project Manager: so {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} I see. It misses the spot. Project Manager: {gap} pressure. Industrial Designer: I'm guessing a turtle. No. {vocalsound} I'm kidding. Marketing: {vocalsound} I say good guess. Uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Why a turtle? Industrial Designer: Because of its shell. Marketing: Because it's slow. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's slow. User Interface:'Cause it's so Project Manager: You were slow too User Interface:'cause it's green. {vocalsound} Project Manager: so {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah I was a bit slow too. Industrial Designer: Dude you're a good drawer. Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh some other line uh width uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Do you have a turtle pet? Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} No. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Uh okay. Marketing: I dunno. {vocalsound} Does it have legs? {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah. Project Manager: Yeah sure. Marketing: Yeah? Project Manager: Yeah not exactly legs but {disfmarker} More like fins Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Stumpy stuff. Project Manager: or {disfmarker} Marketing: It's more like a tank. Yeah that's fins Industrial Designer: They kind of l look like mole legs. With sharp nails on. Marketing: but I don't know where. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Some spots. Ah some eye. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: it's l looks very friendly. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah that's a fr {vocalsound} friendly turtle I guess. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah well I think it's uh fair enough. Project Manager: Yeah okay. Industrial Designer: A little tail maybe. Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Right. {vocalsound} I don't know what the position is. {vocalsound} Does it have ears? Industrial Designer: Uh no. Project Manager: No. User Interface: No. Marketing: No. Oh okay. Industrial Designer: The little holes maybe. Marketing: Can you erase ears Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: or {disfmarker} Project Manager: There's a a gum, Marketing: Yeah? Alright. Project Manager: gum to {gap}. Marketing: Eraser. Industrial Designer: And why did you choose this animal? Marketing: So {disfmarker} Project Manager: He said it was slow. Marketing: I dunno. I it just came into my mind. So there's no particular reason Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: I {gap} pen. Project Manager: {vocalsound} I like it. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Well I'm {disfmarker} guess I'm done. Project Manager: Okay. {gap} Marketing: That's my turtle. Project Manager: Your turn Niels. Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: How to select the next or {disfmarker} Project Manager: The next Marketing: here. Project Manager: yeah. Industrial Designer: {gap} Colours were under format Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Project Manager: Makes new paper. Marketing: Here you go. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: right? Let's see. Project Manager: Orange. Industrial Designer: How am I gonna do this? Um {disfmarker} Mm uh. User Interface: A rabbit I think. Project Manager: Kangaroo. User Interface: Kangaroo. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Not quite actually. User Interface: Fox. Marketing: A fox yeah. Project Manager: Dog. Marketing: Firefox. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: No. Project Manager: Cat. Industrial Designer: Aye. {vocalsound} It's a cat. Project Manager: It's a cat. User Interface: Mm. Industrial Designer: Not quite yet through. Marketing: A cat who had an accident or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Project Manager: Why a cat? Industrial Designer: Uh yeah I dunno. They're my favourite pets. Project Manager: You have some uh? Industrial Designer: Uh I have colour already. Yeah I'm not so good at drawing with this kind of Project Manager: {vocalsound} The pen, Industrial Designer: st Oh shit. Um {disfmarker} Project Manager: yeah. Industrial Designer: Excuse my language. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Sure. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I don't know how to draw its face. But you get the idea. Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Alright. Industrial Designer: It's a cat. It's my favourite uh pet animal,'cause they're cute, they're independent and cuddly, I dunno. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: That's it. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Or do I need to use more colours and {disfmarker} Project Manager: {gap} I think it's okay. You get idea Industrial Designer: Alright. Project Manager: right? Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay um Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: we have a financial aspect to this project. {vocalsound} Um we can sell them at twenty five Euros. Uh the aim is to reach {disfmarker} uh uh to sell as much as fifty million Euros. Uh that's quite a big amount of money. And the production cost should be the half of the selling price. Okay Industrial Designer: So we have to s Project Manager: now it's time for some discussion. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} User Interface: Okay. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} User Interface: What uh what uh do you want to discuss? {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: We should get started. User Interface: Yep. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh I'm taking notes. Um Marketing: Okay. Great. Project Manager: we each have a specific task, as I saw in my mail. I didn't know if you received the same mail. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah? Industrial Designer: I guess so. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay so the um {vocalsound} uh {gap} this industrati Industrial Designer should produce a working design. Am I correct? Industrial Designer: True. Project Manager: Okay. Uh the User Interface Designer should specify the technical functions. Right? Yeah? User Interface: Yep. Project Manager: {vocalsound} And the Marketing uh Expert should come up with user requirements. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh did any of you already do some work on this part or {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well I started making an overview for myself, um what I had to do,'cause we have three design steps and in every step I have a s specific task to perform or whatever. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: So I had to uh, {vocalsound} I dunno, make an overview for myself about what I have to do, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and kind of let it work in to get ideas about well how I have to fill it. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. And do you have any ideas about the product uh so far? Industrial Designer: Well I started I started with the first phase, I think was the functional. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: And uh let's see I had to focus on the working design, which you said. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: How does the apparatus work? And well I basically had two points. Uh {vocalsound} according to the coffee uh machine example, I have batteries to supply energy, Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and we ye use button presses to activate or deactivate certain functions on the T_V_. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound} Okay. Industrial Designer: And that's basically all I have so far. Project Manager: Yeah I got another point. It uses infrared light to communicate the signal to the T_V_ apparatus or stereo. User Interface: Yeah. Wireless uh {disfmarker} huh. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: So that's very common. User Interface: Uh it's uh some buttons for for the on off function. You d you already told that. And for the changing up to the {disfmarker} to all the channels and changing the volume. That are the the basic options for a remote control. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah I kept it global'cause {vocalsound} {disfmarker} that it activates or deactivates specific functions, User Interface: Okay, yeah. Industrial Designer:'cause I wasn't thinking yet about that. I mean, you wanna ch ch flip the channel User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: but you might wanna use teletext also. User Interface: Yep. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: I dunno what the word is in English. Uh {gap} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Same I believe {gap}. Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh and what did the Marketing Expert do? Marketing: Uh well from a marketing uh {vocalsound} perspective, um well the function des design phase uh consists out of the user requirements. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: Um what needs and desires are to be fulfilled? So there are a few means to reach that um by by doing research {vocalsound} uh to see what existing products are there out in the market. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: I mean, what functions do they have. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: Um especially what are their shortcomings? Are there any new functions uh which can be added to our product? Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Marketing: Um therefore we have to to do some internet search. For example for um well what kind of applications do current remote controls support, and what are f featur features of uh current and future televisions? Project Manager: Yep. Yes. Marketing: So we can see uh what needs to be supported. Um {vocalsound} and we can interview current users and future users. What w what would they like to see uh on a new remote control? Um especially for future users, Project Manager: Okay. Okay. Marketing: uh I'm thinking of early adopters, because they they use new technology first, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: and they play with a lot of tools and stuff so maybe they have some good ideas to uh to add. Project Manager: Okay. And you can get that information? Marketing: I think I can get that information, yeah. Project Manager: Okay. That would be very handy. Marketing: So {disfmarker} yeah. Project Manager: Um but have you any idea so far as what uh the user requirements are? Marketing: No n not specifically. Project Manager: No? Marketing: More to how to get them Project Manager: No okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} I got some uh requirements Marketing: and {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah? User Interface: it has uh {gap} it has to be user-friendly. Marketing: Yeah? Project Manager: {vocalsound} Of course. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Obviously. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh really easy to use buttons, not not uh very small buttons, but not the the also the big big buttons, but just normal buttons. It has to be a small unit. It has to be uh {disfmarker} yeah, you can take it with you uh everywhere in in your house. So it has n has not to be l yeah, gigantic uh machine. Project Manager: Big, mm-hmm. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: Uh and a and a good uh zapping range. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh what do you mean by that? User Interface: Uh the distance uh from your television to your uh remote control has to be, uh yeah um yeah, quite a big distance. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: It has to be capable for zapping uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah. From the other end of the room or something? User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay um {disfmarker} Well I don't think I have anything more to add at the moment. Um I think the best is to go to work. Industrial Designer: Whoa. Is that you Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} alright. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Any more points to discuss? Project Manager: Yeah. I think we can go ahead with what we have. I will summarise the things we discussed and put it in the project folder. Uh the use of the Industrial Designer can work on the working design, etcetera etcetera. And it seems you get more information by email. So {vocalsound} Marketing: Alright. Industrial Designer: Alright. Project Manager: that was it for me. User Interface: Okay. Marketing:'Kay. Thanks. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} User Interface: Are you going to put the the notes on the {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah, in the project folder. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. The pro okay. User Interface: Okay. {vocalsound} Project Manager: I'm writing very fast. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Alright. User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Okay. Project Manager: Hope it's readable. User Interface: Yep. Marketing: Uh. Project Manager: Okay {vocalsound} um anything more you want to add to the discussion? Marketing: I guess so. Industrial Designer: Well no I'm just a bit wondering what we're gonna do the next uh session? User Interface: Yeah. Do we only have to to do uh phase one, the functional design uh? Project Manager: Yeah. Because then we have a {disfmarker} User Interface: After that we are going to the conceptual uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Y you do some individual work, Marketing: We're just working the three phases. Project Manager: we have meeting, individual work, meeting. And at the end of the day we have a final meeting. And then I have to prepare {disfmarker} uh I have to defend our design, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: so make it good. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah okay. We'll do our best. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: I depend on you. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} Better make it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I am gonna work on the conceptual design already'cause yeah it's fairly important to know what kind of components we want to put in. Project Manager: Yeah? If you can mix it it's okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Industrial Designer: Do we {disfmarker} I mean, is it gonna be a multimedia control centre? Do we want to be able to use the video recorder with it? {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} That is my question also Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: because like new new functions {disfmarker} Project Manager: Well I think that is the user requirements part. Marketing: Requirements. Yeah. Project Manager: As to what they want. Uh do they want all those functions on that small {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah. True. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: But but we need good communication about this stuff, Marketing: Unit. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer:'cause I have to f put the components into the design. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. User Interface: I would first m Industrial Designer: So if I don't know what components to put in, it's kind of hard. Marketing: Yeah well Project Manager: Yeah I understand. Marketing: I I was {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah. I I think we have first to start with the basic functions and we can uh expand them. Marketing: Yeah Project Manager: You can always add a few {disfmarker} Marketing: well like l li like some like some some remotes who are out there, which I know, there's one button which is very easy to switch between devices. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: So you can switch to your video Project Manager: Hmm, Marketing: and then the same buttons control your video. Project Manager: the C_D_ player. Yeah. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: And another function I'll think of switch to your media centre, because that's getting very popular. Industrial Designer: Yeah so {disfmarker} Marketing: And then use your Windows media centre {vocalsound} under your T_V_ with the same remote control. So with the switch, one single switch {gap} Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: Yeah I I know what you mean, but you'll ne need several other buttons for a video player. Marketing: S Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: You need a play and a forw fast forward and a stop function. Marketing: Yeah Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: And you you don't need that for a T_V_. Marketing: records and stuff like that. Industrial Designer: And and for a t uh teletext you need additional buttons as well, Marketing: No. Project Manager: You need additional {disfmarker} yeah. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: so I kind of need to know what we uh need. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Whatever, I'll just put my ideas in uh in here Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and then we can discuss it with the next uh meeting. Marketing: In the project uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: We could just start with the assumption that's only for T_V_ and video. And um reserve the possibility to add other features. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: So we have a basic starting point Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: and you can always extend that so make sure it's extendible. Yeah. User Interface: Yeah it it has yeah it has to be user-friendly. Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: So it's hasn't {gap} {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} yeah. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Th the least amount of functions possible User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: so it's easier to get to know how it works etcetera. User Interface: Okay. Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. I understand. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah? Okay and uh I'll see you again uh when the computer tells us to. Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: Yes. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, you're di dismissed. User Interface: Can we leave now Marketing: Half an hour. User Interface: or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Thanks. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} You're fired. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Not yet. Marketing: No. User Interface: Mm. Industrial Designer: Alright. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. Marketing: Alright let's move on. Project Manager: Let's see what we got to do. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} See you later. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: Yeah see you later. User Interface: Good luck. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. Thank you. Marketing: Well good luck. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: What the {disfmarker}

Industrial Designer asked whether the remote control would be a multimedia product. Marketing also hoped to know the answer, for the team would have to decide what functions to incorporate in the remote control. Project Manager suggested that the team should first have a basic starting point and extend to other functions in the following meetings.

tr-sq-612

tr-sq-612_0

Why did Industrial Designer disagree with Marketing about the design of only one button when discussing the emphasis on the basic function and function extendibility? User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: Mm uh. Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} We're the first. User Interface: Mm. We're the first ones. {vocalsound} Marketing: Marketing Expert, yes. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: So you found your spots. Marketing: Yes. User Interface: {vocalsound} Move to the meeting room. {vocalsound} Marketing: Bling bling. {vocalsound} Yeah. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: Right. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} where has my screen gone? Industrial Designer: Hi. User Interface: Hello, good day. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Oh yeah, we have to talk in English, Marketing: Hmm. Industrial Designer: huh. User Interface: Yep. Marketing: Yeah. My screen is gone. Project Manager: It's called black. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh. User Interface: Kick-off meeting, wow. It's uh looks uh nice. Industrial Designer: I'm afraid I'm a bit slow for this stuff uh. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. User Interface: Hmm? Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I'm afraid I'm a bit too slow. {vocalsound} I don't know how much preparation you guys did, User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: but not a lot. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: No, it's {disfmarker} it was uh not enough. Project Manager: You see this beautiful presentation. Marketing: Yeah. Very nice. Project Manager: Okay let's get started. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh I sort of prepared this. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh opening acquaintance, tool training, uh how to use the things here. Uh project plan discussion, and yeah then the rest of the meeting. Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um we're supposed to develop a new remote control, that's both original, trendy and user-friendly. So, Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: hope you have good ideas. I don't. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} I did my best. Project Manager: Um we're work we're working uh from top to bottom. Uh functional design, Industrial Designer: Not yet. Project Manager: then we do some in individual work, then we have a meeting to discuss the results, etcetera etcetera. And at the end of the day we should have a prototype drawn up. Uh we have available the smart board and the whiteboard. Um uh we should take some practice. I have some instructions now to do that. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh well you know how to {disfmarker} the documents work. So {disfmarker} Uh this for toolbar. You see it next. Um we have a pen. And we can use this pen to perform. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yes. Industrial Designer: Operations. Project Manager: So {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: It doesn't always work. Yes. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay so you can draw. Marketing: Draw. Alright. Project Manager: Okay and in the format menu you can select colour and line width, etcetera etcetera. Okay? Marketing:'Kay. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Okay. Each of you can uh take some practice and you should draw an animal. Uh you should explain {disfmarker} Uh with different colours and with different pen widths. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: And you should explain why you draw that particular animal. User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} Don't take up too much space. {vocalsound} Project Manager: So, Julian. User Interface: Um yeah. Industrial Designer: Different pen widths, how do you do that? User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh with the format menu. Industrial Designer: Oh okay. Project Manager: And use different colours etcetera. User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a giraffe. Yeah. Project Manager: And {vocalsound} what's that supposed to be? {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Are you serious? Marketing: {vocalsound} Should it be one {disfmarker} Project Manager: Oh yeah. {vocalsound} Oh yeah User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Project Manager: four legs. Uh-huh. {vocalsound} Marketing: Giraffe's yellow. {vocalsound} User Interface: Uh it needs some uh some yellow uh {disfmarker} Oh format. Marketing: Can you use one blank sheet per drawing? Or Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: so y you must save it at the end Project Manager: Yeah Marketing: and then {disfmarker} Project Manager: you can press the next button, which is uh {disfmarker} yeah. I'll show you. User Interface: That's some spots. Industrial Designer: I in the file option menu. Project Manager: Yeah. In file menu. Marketing: Okay, User Interface: No. Marketing: then m make a new one. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: How much time do we have to draw anyway? {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer:'Cause I can take forever on this. Project Manager: {gap} User Interface: Okay. Do I have to explain uh why I chose this uh this animal? Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} User Interface: I think it's a it's a great animal. Project Manager: What is it? {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a it's a giraffe. Project Manager: A giraffe okay. Yeah I see a long neck User Interface: Yeah, that's a {disfmarker} Project Manager: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Marketing: It's more like a dinosaur. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Okay I'll will give it an uh an eye. Project Manager: Okay. That's nice of you. Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh. User Interface: Hey. Come on. Marketing: Some leaf to eat. {vocalsound} User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. Yeah pretty good. Uh could you press the next uh {disfmarker} User Interface: The next? Yes. Project Manager: Okay. Then uh {disfmarker} {gap}. User Interface: Here you go. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Thanks. User Interface: Hmm. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Is this part of our a acquai or introduction to each other? Project Manager: Yeah sorry, introduction and get acquainted Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: and {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Alright. Project Manager: That's the idea, so {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Uh. Your line broke. Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Alright. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah it's a bit slow, Marketing: It's not that fast. Project Manager: so {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} I see. It misses the spot. Project Manager: {gap} pressure. Industrial Designer: I'm guessing a turtle. No. {vocalsound} I'm kidding. Marketing: {vocalsound} I say good guess. Uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Why a turtle? Industrial Designer: Because of its shell. Marketing: Because it's slow. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's slow. User Interface:'Cause it's so Project Manager: You were slow too User Interface:'cause it's green. {vocalsound} Project Manager: so {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah I was a bit slow too. Industrial Designer: Dude you're a good drawer. Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh some other line uh width uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Do you have a turtle pet? Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} No. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Uh okay. Marketing: I dunno. {vocalsound} Does it have legs? {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah. Project Manager: Yeah sure. Marketing: Yeah? Project Manager: Yeah not exactly legs but {disfmarker} More like fins Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Stumpy stuff. Project Manager: or {disfmarker} Marketing: It's more like a tank. Yeah that's fins Industrial Designer: They kind of l look like mole legs. With sharp nails on. Marketing: but I don't know where. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Some spots. Ah some eye. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: it's l looks very friendly. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah that's a fr {vocalsound} friendly turtle I guess. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah well I think it's uh fair enough. Project Manager: Yeah okay. Industrial Designer: A little tail maybe. Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Right. {vocalsound} I don't know what the position is. {vocalsound} Does it have ears? Industrial Designer: Uh no. Project Manager: No. User Interface: No. Marketing: No. Oh okay. Industrial Designer: The little holes maybe. Marketing: Can you erase ears Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: or {disfmarker} Project Manager: There's a a gum, Marketing: Yeah? Alright. Project Manager: gum to {gap}. Marketing: Eraser. Industrial Designer: And why did you choose this animal? Marketing: So {disfmarker} Project Manager: He said it was slow. Marketing: I dunno. I it just came into my mind. So there's no particular reason Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: I {gap} pen. Project Manager: {vocalsound} I like it. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Well I'm {disfmarker} guess I'm done. Project Manager: Okay. {gap} Marketing: That's my turtle. Project Manager: Your turn Niels. Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: How to select the next or {disfmarker} Project Manager: The next Marketing: here. Project Manager: yeah. Industrial Designer: {gap} Colours were under format Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Project Manager: Makes new paper. Marketing: Here you go. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: right? Let's see. Project Manager: Orange. Industrial Designer: How am I gonna do this? Um {disfmarker} Mm uh. User Interface: A rabbit I think. Project Manager: Kangaroo. User Interface: Kangaroo. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Not quite actually. User Interface: Fox. Marketing: A fox yeah. Project Manager: Dog. Marketing: Firefox. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: No. Project Manager: Cat. Industrial Designer: Aye. {vocalsound} It's a cat. Project Manager: It's a cat. User Interface: Mm. Industrial Designer: Not quite yet through. Marketing: A cat who had an accident or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Project Manager: Why a cat? Industrial Designer: Uh yeah I dunno. They're my favourite pets. Project Manager: You have some uh? Industrial Designer: Uh I have colour already. Yeah I'm not so good at drawing with this kind of Project Manager: {vocalsound} The pen, Industrial Designer: st Oh shit. Um {disfmarker} Project Manager: yeah. Industrial Designer: Excuse my language. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Sure. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I don't know how to draw its face. But you get the idea. Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Alright. Industrial Designer: It's a cat. It's my favourite uh pet animal,'cause they're cute, they're independent and cuddly, I dunno. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: That's it. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Or do I need to use more colours and {disfmarker} Project Manager: {gap} I think it's okay. You get idea Industrial Designer: Alright. Project Manager: right? Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay um Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: we have a financial aspect to this project. {vocalsound} Um we can sell them at twenty five Euros. Uh the aim is to reach {disfmarker} uh uh to sell as much as fifty million Euros. Uh that's quite a big amount of money. And the production cost should be the half of the selling price. Okay Industrial Designer: So we have to s Project Manager: now it's time for some discussion. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} User Interface: Okay. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} User Interface: What uh what uh do you want to discuss? {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: We should get started. User Interface: Yep. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh I'm taking notes. Um Marketing: Okay. Great. Project Manager: we each have a specific task, as I saw in my mail. I didn't know if you received the same mail. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah? Industrial Designer: I guess so. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay so the um {vocalsound} uh {gap} this industrati Industrial Designer should produce a working design. Am I correct? Industrial Designer: True. Project Manager: Okay. Uh the User Interface Designer should specify the technical functions. Right? Yeah? User Interface: Yep. Project Manager: {vocalsound} And the Marketing uh Expert should come up with user requirements. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh did any of you already do some work on this part or {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well I started making an overview for myself, um what I had to do,'cause we have three design steps and in every step I have a s specific task to perform or whatever. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: So I had to uh, {vocalsound} I dunno, make an overview for myself about what I have to do, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and kind of let it work in to get ideas about well how I have to fill it. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. And do you have any ideas about the product uh so far? Industrial Designer: Well I started I started with the first phase, I think was the functional. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: And uh let's see I had to focus on the working design, which you said. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: How does the apparatus work? And well I basically had two points. Uh {vocalsound} according to the coffee uh machine example, I have batteries to supply energy, Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and we ye use button presses to activate or deactivate certain functions on the T_V_. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound} Okay. Industrial Designer: And that's basically all I have so far. Project Manager: Yeah I got another point. It uses infrared light to communicate the signal to the T_V_ apparatus or stereo. User Interface: Yeah. Wireless uh {disfmarker} huh. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: So that's very common. User Interface: Uh it's uh some buttons for for the on off function. You d you already told that. And for the changing up to the {disfmarker} to all the channels and changing the volume. That are the the basic options for a remote control. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah I kept it global'cause {vocalsound} {disfmarker} that it activates or deactivates specific functions, User Interface: Okay, yeah. Industrial Designer:'cause I wasn't thinking yet about that. I mean, you wanna ch ch flip the channel User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: but you might wanna use teletext also. User Interface: Yep. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: I dunno what the word is in English. Uh {gap} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Same I believe {gap}. Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh and what did the Marketing Expert do? Marketing: Uh well from a marketing uh {vocalsound} perspective, um well the function des design phase uh consists out of the user requirements. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: Um what needs and desires are to be fulfilled? So there are a few means to reach that um by by doing research {vocalsound} uh to see what existing products are there out in the market. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: I mean, what functions do they have. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: Um especially what are their shortcomings? Are there any new functions uh which can be added to our product? Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Marketing: Um therefore we have to to do some internet search. For example for um well what kind of applications do current remote controls support, and what are f featur features of uh current and future televisions? Project Manager: Yep. Yes. Marketing: So we can see uh what needs to be supported. Um {vocalsound} and we can interview current users and future users. What w what would they like to see uh on a new remote control? Um especially for future users, Project Manager: Okay. Okay. Marketing: uh I'm thinking of early adopters, because they they use new technology first, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: and they play with a lot of tools and stuff so maybe they have some good ideas to uh to add. Project Manager: Okay. And you can get that information? Marketing: I think I can get that information, yeah. Project Manager: Okay. That would be very handy. Marketing: So {disfmarker} yeah. Project Manager: Um but have you any idea so far as what uh the user requirements are? Marketing: No n not specifically. Project Manager: No? Marketing: More to how to get them Project Manager: No okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} I got some uh requirements Marketing: and {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah? User Interface: it has uh {gap} it has to be user-friendly. Marketing: Yeah? Project Manager: {vocalsound} Of course. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Obviously. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh really easy to use buttons, not not uh very small buttons, but not the the also the big big buttons, but just normal buttons. It has to be a small unit. It has to be uh {disfmarker} yeah, you can take it with you uh everywhere in in your house. So it has n has not to be l yeah, gigantic uh machine. Project Manager: Big, mm-hmm. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: Uh and a and a good uh zapping range. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh what do you mean by that? User Interface: Uh the distance uh from your television to your uh remote control has to be, uh yeah um yeah, quite a big distance. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: It has to be capable for zapping uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah. From the other end of the room or something? User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay um {disfmarker} Well I don't think I have anything more to add at the moment. Um I think the best is to go to work. Industrial Designer: Whoa. Is that you Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} alright. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Any more points to discuss? Project Manager: Yeah. I think we can go ahead with what we have. I will summarise the things we discussed and put it in the project folder. Uh the use of the Industrial Designer can work on the working design, etcetera etcetera. And it seems you get more information by email. So {vocalsound} Marketing: Alright. Industrial Designer: Alright. Project Manager: that was it for me. User Interface: Okay. Marketing:'Kay. Thanks. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} User Interface: Are you going to put the the notes on the {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah, in the project folder. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. The pro okay. User Interface: Okay. {vocalsound} Project Manager: I'm writing very fast. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Alright. User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Okay. Project Manager: Hope it's readable. User Interface: Yep. Marketing: Uh. Project Manager: Okay {vocalsound} um anything more you want to add to the discussion? Marketing: I guess so. Industrial Designer: Well no I'm just a bit wondering what we're gonna do the next uh session? User Interface: Yeah. Do we only have to to do uh phase one, the functional design uh? Project Manager: Yeah. Because then we have a {disfmarker} User Interface: After that we are going to the conceptual uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Y you do some individual work, Marketing: We're just working the three phases. Project Manager: we have meeting, individual work, meeting. And at the end of the day we have a final meeting. And then I have to prepare {disfmarker} uh I have to defend our design, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: so make it good. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah okay. We'll do our best. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: I depend on you. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} Better make it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I am gonna work on the conceptual design already'cause yeah it's fairly important to know what kind of components we want to put in. Project Manager: Yeah? If you can mix it it's okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Industrial Designer: Do we {disfmarker} I mean, is it gonna be a multimedia control centre? Do we want to be able to use the video recorder with it? {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} That is my question also Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: because like new new functions {disfmarker} Project Manager: Well I think that is the user requirements part. Marketing: Requirements. Yeah. Project Manager: As to what they want. Uh do they want all those functions on that small {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah. True. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: But but we need good communication about this stuff, Marketing: Unit. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer:'cause I have to f put the components into the design. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. User Interface: I would first m Industrial Designer: So if I don't know what components to put in, it's kind of hard. Marketing: Yeah well Project Manager: Yeah I understand. Marketing: I I was {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah. I I think we have first to start with the basic functions and we can uh expand them. Marketing: Yeah Project Manager: You can always add a few {disfmarker} Marketing: well like l li like some like some some remotes who are out there, which I know, there's one button which is very easy to switch between devices. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: So you can switch to your video Project Manager: Hmm, Marketing: and then the same buttons control your video. Project Manager: the C_D_ player. Yeah. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: And another function I'll think of switch to your media centre, because that's getting very popular. Industrial Designer: Yeah so {disfmarker} Marketing: And then use your Windows media centre {vocalsound} under your T_V_ with the same remote control. So with the switch, one single switch {gap} Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: Yeah I I know what you mean, but you'll ne need several other buttons for a video player. Marketing: S Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: You need a play and a forw fast forward and a stop function. Marketing: Yeah Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: And you you don't need that for a T_V_. Marketing: records and stuff like that. Industrial Designer: And and for a t uh teletext you need additional buttons as well, Marketing: No. Project Manager: You need additional {disfmarker} yeah. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: so I kind of need to know what we uh need. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Whatever, I'll just put my ideas in uh in here Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and then we can discuss it with the next uh meeting. Marketing: In the project uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: We could just start with the assumption that's only for T_V_ and video. And um reserve the possibility to add other features. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: So we have a basic starting point Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: and you can always extend that so make sure it's extendible. Yeah. User Interface: Yeah it it has yeah it has to be user-friendly. Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: So it's hasn't {gap} {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} yeah. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Th the least amount of functions possible User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: so it's easier to get to know how it works etcetera. User Interface: Okay. Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. I understand. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah? Okay and uh I'll see you again uh when the computer tells us to. Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: Yes. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, you're di dismissed. User Interface: Can we leave now Marketing: Half an hour. User Interface: or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Thanks. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} You're fired. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Not yet. Marketing: No. User Interface: Mm. Industrial Designer: Alright. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. Marketing: Alright let's move on. Project Manager: Let's see what we got to do. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} See you later. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: Yeah see you later. User Interface: Good luck. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. Thank you. Marketing: Well good luck. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: What the {disfmarker}

Marketing suggested that the remote control could only have one button and connect with Windows media center under the TV. The remote control could thus operate different devices at the same time. However, Industrial Designer pointed out that it would not be feasible to have only one button, for the remote control would need several other buttons for a video player, such as the play, the fast forward, and the stop button.

tr-gq-613

tr-gq-613_0

Summarize the whole meeting. User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: Mm uh. Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} We're the first. User Interface: Mm. We're the first ones. {vocalsound} Marketing: Marketing Expert, yes. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: So you found your spots. Marketing: Yes. User Interface: {vocalsound} Move to the meeting room. {vocalsound} Marketing: Bling bling. {vocalsound} Yeah. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: Right. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} where has my screen gone? Industrial Designer: Hi. User Interface: Hello, good day. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Oh yeah, we have to talk in English, Marketing: Hmm. Industrial Designer: huh. User Interface: Yep. Marketing: Yeah. My screen is gone. Project Manager: It's called black. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh. User Interface: Kick-off meeting, wow. It's uh looks uh nice. Industrial Designer: I'm afraid I'm a bit slow for this stuff uh. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. User Interface: Hmm? Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I'm afraid I'm a bit too slow. {vocalsound} I don't know how much preparation you guys did, User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: but not a lot. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: No, it's {disfmarker} it was uh not enough. Project Manager: You see this beautiful presentation. Marketing: Yeah. Very nice. Project Manager: Okay let's get started. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh I sort of prepared this. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh opening acquaintance, tool training, uh how to use the things here. Uh project plan discussion, and yeah then the rest of the meeting. Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um we're supposed to develop a new remote control, that's both original, trendy and user-friendly. So, Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: hope you have good ideas. I don't. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} I did my best. Project Manager: Um we're work we're working uh from top to bottom. Uh functional design, Industrial Designer: Not yet. Project Manager: then we do some in individual work, then we have a meeting to discuss the results, etcetera etcetera. And at the end of the day we should have a prototype drawn up. Uh we have available the smart board and the whiteboard. Um uh we should take some practice. I have some instructions now to do that. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh well you know how to {disfmarker} the documents work. So {disfmarker} Uh this for toolbar. You see it next. Um we have a pen. And we can use this pen to perform. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yes. Industrial Designer: Operations. Project Manager: So {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: It doesn't always work. Yes. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay so you can draw. Marketing: Draw. Alright. Project Manager: Okay and in the format menu you can select colour and line width, etcetera etcetera. Okay? Marketing:'Kay. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Okay. Each of you can uh take some practice and you should draw an animal. Uh you should explain {disfmarker} Uh with different colours and with different pen widths. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: And you should explain why you draw that particular animal. User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} Don't take up too much space. {vocalsound} Project Manager: So, Julian. User Interface: Um yeah. Industrial Designer: Different pen widths, how do you do that? User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh with the format menu. Industrial Designer: Oh okay. Project Manager: And use different colours etcetera. User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a giraffe. Yeah. Project Manager: And {vocalsound} what's that supposed to be? {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Are you serious? Marketing: {vocalsound} Should it be one {disfmarker} Project Manager: Oh yeah. {vocalsound} Oh yeah User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Project Manager: four legs. Uh-huh. {vocalsound} Marketing: Giraffe's yellow. {vocalsound} User Interface: Uh it needs some uh some yellow uh {disfmarker} Oh format. Marketing: Can you use one blank sheet per drawing? Or Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: so y you must save it at the end Project Manager: Yeah Marketing: and then {disfmarker} Project Manager: you can press the next button, which is uh {disfmarker} yeah. I'll show you. User Interface: That's some spots. Industrial Designer: I in the file option menu. Project Manager: Yeah. In file menu. Marketing: Okay, User Interface: No. Marketing: then m make a new one. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: How much time do we have to draw anyway? {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer:'Cause I can take forever on this. Project Manager: {gap} User Interface: Okay. Do I have to explain uh why I chose this uh this animal? Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} User Interface: I think it's a it's a great animal. Project Manager: What is it? {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a it's a giraffe. Project Manager: A giraffe okay. Yeah I see a long neck User Interface: Yeah, that's a {disfmarker} Project Manager: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Marketing: It's more like a dinosaur. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Okay I'll will give it an uh an eye. Project Manager: Okay. That's nice of you. Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh. User Interface: Hey. Come on. Marketing: Some leaf to eat. {vocalsound} User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. Yeah pretty good. Uh could you press the next uh {disfmarker} User Interface: The next? Yes. Project Manager: Okay. Then uh {disfmarker} {gap}. User Interface: Here you go. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Thanks. User Interface: Hmm. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Is this part of our a acquai or introduction to each other? Project Manager: Yeah sorry, introduction and get acquainted Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: and {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Alright. Project Manager: That's the idea, so {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Uh. Your line broke. Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Alright. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah it's a bit slow, Marketing: It's not that fast. Project Manager: so {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} I see. It misses the spot. Project Manager: {gap} pressure. Industrial Designer: I'm guessing a turtle. No. {vocalsound} I'm kidding. Marketing: {vocalsound} I say good guess. Uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Why a turtle? Industrial Designer: Because of its shell. Marketing: Because it's slow. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's slow. User Interface:'Cause it's so Project Manager: You were slow too User Interface:'cause it's green. {vocalsound} Project Manager: so {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah I was a bit slow too. Industrial Designer: Dude you're a good drawer. Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh some other line uh width uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Do you have a turtle pet? Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} No. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Uh okay. Marketing: I dunno. {vocalsound} Does it have legs? {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah. Project Manager: Yeah sure. Marketing: Yeah? Project Manager: Yeah not exactly legs but {disfmarker} More like fins Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Stumpy stuff. Project Manager: or {disfmarker} Marketing: It's more like a tank. Yeah that's fins Industrial Designer: They kind of l look like mole legs. With sharp nails on. Marketing: but I don't know where. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Some spots. Ah some eye. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: it's l looks very friendly. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah that's a fr {vocalsound} friendly turtle I guess. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah well I think it's uh fair enough. Project Manager: Yeah okay. Industrial Designer: A little tail maybe. Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Right. {vocalsound} I don't know what the position is. {vocalsound} Does it have ears? Industrial Designer: Uh no. Project Manager: No. User Interface: No. Marketing: No. Oh okay. Industrial Designer: The little holes maybe. Marketing: Can you erase ears Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: or {disfmarker} Project Manager: There's a a gum, Marketing: Yeah? Alright. Project Manager: gum to {gap}. Marketing: Eraser. Industrial Designer: And why did you choose this animal? Marketing: So {disfmarker} Project Manager: He said it was slow. Marketing: I dunno. I it just came into my mind. So there's no particular reason Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: I {gap} pen. Project Manager: {vocalsound} I like it. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Well I'm {disfmarker} guess I'm done. Project Manager: Okay. {gap} Marketing: That's my turtle. Project Manager: Your turn Niels. Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: How to select the next or {disfmarker} Project Manager: The next Marketing: here. Project Manager: yeah. Industrial Designer: {gap} Colours were under format Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Project Manager: Makes new paper. Marketing: Here you go. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: right? Let's see. Project Manager: Orange. Industrial Designer: How am I gonna do this? Um {disfmarker} Mm uh. User Interface: A rabbit I think. Project Manager: Kangaroo. User Interface: Kangaroo. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Not quite actually. User Interface: Fox. Marketing: A fox yeah. Project Manager: Dog. Marketing: Firefox. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: No. Project Manager: Cat. Industrial Designer: Aye. {vocalsound} It's a cat. Project Manager: It's a cat. User Interface: Mm. Industrial Designer: Not quite yet through. Marketing: A cat who had an accident or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Project Manager: Why a cat? Industrial Designer: Uh yeah I dunno. They're my favourite pets. Project Manager: You have some uh? Industrial Designer: Uh I have colour already. Yeah I'm not so good at drawing with this kind of Project Manager: {vocalsound} The pen, Industrial Designer: st Oh shit. Um {disfmarker} Project Manager: yeah. Industrial Designer: Excuse my language. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Sure. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I don't know how to draw its face. But you get the idea. Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Alright. Industrial Designer: It's a cat. It's my favourite uh pet animal,'cause they're cute, they're independent and cuddly, I dunno. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: That's it. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Or do I need to use more colours and {disfmarker} Project Manager: {gap} I think it's okay. You get idea Industrial Designer: Alright. Project Manager: right? Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay um Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: we have a financial aspect to this project. {vocalsound} Um we can sell them at twenty five Euros. Uh the aim is to reach {disfmarker} uh uh to sell as much as fifty million Euros. Uh that's quite a big amount of money. And the production cost should be the half of the selling price. Okay Industrial Designer: So we have to s Project Manager: now it's time for some discussion. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} User Interface: Okay. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} User Interface: What uh what uh do you want to discuss? {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: We should get started. User Interface: Yep. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh I'm taking notes. Um Marketing: Okay. Great. Project Manager: we each have a specific task, as I saw in my mail. I didn't know if you received the same mail. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah? Industrial Designer: I guess so. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay so the um {vocalsound} uh {gap} this industrati Industrial Designer should produce a working design. Am I correct? Industrial Designer: True. Project Manager: Okay. Uh the User Interface Designer should specify the technical functions. Right? Yeah? User Interface: Yep. Project Manager: {vocalsound} And the Marketing uh Expert should come up with user requirements. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh did any of you already do some work on this part or {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well I started making an overview for myself, um what I had to do,'cause we have three design steps and in every step I have a s specific task to perform or whatever. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: So I had to uh, {vocalsound} I dunno, make an overview for myself about what I have to do, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and kind of let it work in to get ideas about well how I have to fill it. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. And do you have any ideas about the product uh so far? Industrial Designer: Well I started I started with the first phase, I think was the functional. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: And uh let's see I had to focus on the working design, which you said. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: How does the apparatus work? And well I basically had two points. Uh {vocalsound} according to the coffee uh machine example, I have batteries to supply energy, Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and we ye use button presses to activate or deactivate certain functions on the T_V_. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound} Okay. Industrial Designer: And that's basically all I have so far. Project Manager: Yeah I got another point. It uses infrared light to communicate the signal to the T_V_ apparatus or stereo. User Interface: Yeah. Wireless uh {disfmarker} huh. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: So that's very common. User Interface: Uh it's uh some buttons for for the on off function. You d you already told that. And for the changing up to the {disfmarker} to all the channels and changing the volume. That are the the basic options for a remote control. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah I kept it global'cause {vocalsound} {disfmarker} that it activates or deactivates specific functions, User Interface: Okay, yeah. Industrial Designer:'cause I wasn't thinking yet about that. I mean, you wanna ch ch flip the channel User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: but you might wanna use teletext also. User Interface: Yep. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: I dunno what the word is in English. Uh {gap} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Same I believe {gap}. Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh and what did the Marketing Expert do? Marketing: Uh well from a marketing uh {vocalsound} perspective, um well the function des design phase uh consists out of the user requirements. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: Um what needs and desires are to be fulfilled? So there are a few means to reach that um by by doing research {vocalsound} uh to see what existing products are there out in the market. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: I mean, what functions do they have. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: Um especially what are their shortcomings? Are there any new functions uh which can be added to our product? Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Marketing: Um therefore we have to to do some internet search. For example for um well what kind of applications do current remote controls support, and what are f featur features of uh current and future televisions? Project Manager: Yep. Yes. Marketing: So we can see uh what needs to be supported. Um {vocalsound} and we can interview current users and future users. What w what would they like to see uh on a new remote control? Um especially for future users, Project Manager: Okay. Okay. Marketing: uh I'm thinking of early adopters, because they they use new technology first, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: and they play with a lot of tools and stuff so maybe they have some good ideas to uh to add. Project Manager: Okay. And you can get that information? Marketing: I think I can get that information, yeah. Project Manager: Okay. That would be very handy. Marketing: So {disfmarker} yeah. Project Manager: Um but have you any idea so far as what uh the user requirements are? Marketing: No n not specifically. Project Manager: No? Marketing: More to how to get them Project Manager: No okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} I got some uh requirements Marketing: and {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah? User Interface: it has uh {gap} it has to be user-friendly. Marketing: Yeah? Project Manager: {vocalsound} Of course. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Obviously. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh really easy to use buttons, not not uh very small buttons, but not the the also the big big buttons, but just normal buttons. It has to be a small unit. It has to be uh {disfmarker} yeah, you can take it with you uh everywhere in in your house. So it has n has not to be l yeah, gigantic uh machine. Project Manager: Big, mm-hmm. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: Uh and a and a good uh zapping range. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh what do you mean by that? User Interface: Uh the distance uh from your television to your uh remote control has to be, uh yeah um yeah, quite a big distance. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: It has to be capable for zapping uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah. From the other end of the room or something? User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay um {disfmarker} Well I don't think I have anything more to add at the moment. Um I think the best is to go to work. Industrial Designer: Whoa. Is that you Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} alright. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Any more points to discuss? Project Manager: Yeah. I think we can go ahead with what we have. I will summarise the things we discussed and put it in the project folder. Uh the use of the Industrial Designer can work on the working design, etcetera etcetera. And it seems you get more information by email. So {vocalsound} Marketing: Alright. Industrial Designer: Alright. Project Manager: that was it for me. User Interface: Okay. Marketing:'Kay. Thanks. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} User Interface: Are you going to put the the notes on the {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah, in the project folder. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. The pro okay. User Interface: Okay. {vocalsound} Project Manager: I'm writing very fast. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Alright. User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Okay. Project Manager: Hope it's readable. User Interface: Yep. Marketing: Uh. Project Manager: Okay {vocalsound} um anything more you want to add to the discussion? Marketing: I guess so. Industrial Designer: Well no I'm just a bit wondering what we're gonna do the next uh session? User Interface: Yeah. Do we only have to to do uh phase one, the functional design uh? Project Manager: Yeah. Because then we have a {disfmarker} User Interface: After that we are going to the conceptual uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Y you do some individual work, Marketing: We're just working the three phases. Project Manager: we have meeting, individual work, meeting. And at the end of the day we have a final meeting. And then I have to prepare {disfmarker} uh I have to defend our design, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: so make it good. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah okay. We'll do our best. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: I depend on you. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} Better make it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I am gonna work on the conceptual design already'cause yeah it's fairly important to know what kind of components we want to put in. Project Manager: Yeah? If you can mix it it's okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Industrial Designer: Do we {disfmarker} I mean, is it gonna be a multimedia control centre? Do we want to be able to use the video recorder with it? {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} That is my question also Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: because like new new functions {disfmarker} Project Manager: Well I think that is the user requirements part. Marketing: Requirements. Yeah. Project Manager: As to what they want. Uh do they want all those functions on that small {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah. True. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: But but we need good communication about this stuff, Marketing: Unit. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer:'cause I have to f put the components into the design. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. User Interface: I would first m Industrial Designer: So if I don't know what components to put in, it's kind of hard. Marketing: Yeah well Project Manager: Yeah I understand. Marketing: I I was {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah. I I think we have first to start with the basic functions and we can uh expand them. Marketing: Yeah Project Manager: You can always add a few {disfmarker} Marketing: well like l li like some like some some remotes who are out there, which I know, there's one button which is very easy to switch between devices. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: So you can switch to your video Project Manager: Hmm, Marketing: and then the same buttons control your video. Project Manager: the C_D_ player. Yeah. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: And another function I'll think of switch to your media centre, because that's getting very popular. Industrial Designer: Yeah so {disfmarker} Marketing: And then use your Windows media centre {vocalsound} under your T_V_ with the same remote control. So with the switch, one single switch {gap} Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: Yeah I I know what you mean, but you'll ne need several other buttons for a video player. Marketing: S Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: You need a play and a forw fast forward and a stop function. Marketing: Yeah Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: And you you don't need that for a T_V_. Marketing: records and stuff like that. Industrial Designer: And and for a t uh teletext you need additional buttons as well, Marketing: No. Project Manager: You need additional {disfmarker} yeah. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: so I kind of need to know what we uh need. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Whatever, I'll just put my ideas in uh in here Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and then we can discuss it with the next uh meeting. Marketing: In the project uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: We could just start with the assumption that's only for T_V_ and video. And um reserve the possibility to add other features. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: So we have a basic starting point Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: and you can always extend that so make sure it's extendible. Yeah. User Interface: Yeah it it has yeah it has to be user-friendly. Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: So it's hasn't {gap} {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} yeah. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Th the least amount of functions possible User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: so it's easier to get to know how it works etcetera. User Interface: Okay. Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. I understand. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah? Okay and uh I'll see you again uh when the computer tells us to. Industrial Designer: Alright. Marketing: Yes. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, you're di dismissed. User Interface: Can we leave now Marketing: Half an hour. User Interface: or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Thanks. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} You're fired. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Not yet. Marketing: No. User Interface: Mm. Industrial Designer: Alright. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. Marketing: Alright let's move on. Project Manager: Let's see what we got to do. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} See you later. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: Yeah see you later. User Interface: Good luck. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. Thank you. Marketing: Well good luck. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: What the {disfmarker}

In their first meeting, the team members got familiar with each other through some icebreaker games. Project Manager started to introduce the new remote control project with the team's financial goal. The unit price was determined to be 25 Euros. The production of each remote control would cost 12. 5 Euros. The team would have to make sales amounting to 50 million Euros. Project Manager continued to assign individual tasks to the team members. Industrial Designer had worked out a rough plan for the first phase and would produce a working design. User Interface was supposed to specify the technical functions. Marketing would be responsible for market research. Users mainly expect the remote control to be user-friendly and handy. The team decided to focus on the basic functions at the first stage but make sure the extendibility of the functions as well.

tr-sq-614

tr-sq-614_0

Summarize the discussion about improvements on the baseline Professor B: Is it starting now? PhD E: Yep. Professor B: So what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} from {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} Grad A: Hello? Professor B: Whatever we say from now on, it can be held against us, right? PhD E: That's right. Professor B: and uh Grad A: It's your right to remain silent. Professor B: Yeah. So I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the problem is that I actually don't know how th these held meetings are held, if they are very informal and sort of just people are say what's going on PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: and PhD E: Yeah, that's usually what we do. Professor B: OK. PhD E: We just sorta go around and people say what's going on, what's the latest uh {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. OK. So I guess that what may be a {disfmarker} reasonable is if I uh first make a report on what's happening in Aurora in general, at least what from my perspective. PhD E: Yeah. That would be great. Professor B: And {disfmarker} and uh so, I {disfmarker} I think that Carmen and Stephane reported on uh Amsterdam meeting, PhD D: Uh o Professor B: which was kind of interesting because it was for the first time we realized we are not friends really, but we are competitors. Cuz until then it was sort of like everything was like wonderful and {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. It seemed like there were still some issues, Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: right? that they were trying to decide? Professor B: There is a plenty of {disfmarker} there're plenty of issues. PhD E: Like the voice activity detector, Professor B: Well and what happened was that they realized that if two leading proposals, which was French Telecom Alcatel, and us both had uh voice activity detector. And I said" well big surprise, I mean we could have told you that {pause} n n n four months ago, except we didn't because nobody else was bringing it up" . PhD E: Right. Professor B: Obviously French Telecom didn't volunteer this information either, cuz we were working on {disfmarker} mainly on voice activity detector for past uh several months PhD E: Right. Professor B: because that's buying us the most uh thing. And everybody said" Well but this is not fair. We didn't know that." And of course uh the {disfmarker} it's not working on features really. And be I agreed. PhD E: Right. Professor B: I said" well yeah, you are absolutely right, I mean if I wish that you provided better end point at speech because uh {disfmarker} or at least that if we could modify the recognizer, uh to account for these long silences, because otherwise uh that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} th that wasn't a correct thing." And so then ev ev everybody else says" well we should {disfmarker} we need to do a new eval evaluation without voice activity detector, or we have to do something about it" . PhD E: Right. Professor B: And in principle I {disfmarker} uh I {disfmarker} we agreed. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: We said uh" yeah" . Because uh {disfmarker} but in that case, uh we would like to change the uh {disfmarker} the algorithm because uh if we are working on different data, we probably will use a different set of tricks. PhD E: Right. Professor B: But unfortunately nobody ever officially can somehow acknowledge that this can be done, because French Telecom was saying" no, no, no, now everybody has access to our code, so everybody is going to copy what we did." Yeah well our argument was everybody ha has access to our code, and everybody always had access to our code. We never uh {disfmarker} uh denied that. We thought that people are honest, that if you copy something and if it is protected {disfmarker} protected by patent then you negotiate, or something, PhD E: Yeah. Right. Professor B: right? I mean, if you find our technique useful, we are very happy. PhD E: Right. Professor B: But {disfmarker} And French Telecom was saying" no, no, no, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: there is a lot of little tricks which uh sort of uh cannot be protected and you guys will take them," which probably is also true. I mean, you know, it might be that people will take uh uh th the algorithms apart and use the blocks from that. But I somehow think that it wouldn't be so bad, as long as people are happy abou uh uh uh honest about it. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: And I think they have to be honest in the long run, because winning proposal again {disfmarker} uh what will be available th is {disfmarker} will be a code. So the uh {disfmarker} the people can go to code and say" well listen this is what you stole from me" PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: you know? PhD E: Right. Professor B:" so let's deal with that" . PhD E: Right. Professor B: So I don't see the problem. The biggest problem of course is that f that Alcatel French Telecom cl claims" well we fulfilled the conditions. We are the best. Uh. We are the standard." And e and other people don't feel that, because they {disfmarker} so they now decided that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} the whole thing will be done on well - endpointed data, essentially that somebody will endpoint the data based on clean speech, because most of this the SpeechDat - Car has the also close speaking mike and endpoints will be provided. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Ah. Professor B: And uh we will run again {disfmarker} still not clear if we are going to run the {disfmarker} if we are allowed to run uh uh new algorithms, but I assume so. Because uh we would fight for that, really. uh but {disfmarker} since uh u u n u {disfmarker} at least our experience is that only endpointing a {disfmarker} a mel cepstrum gets uh {disfmarker} gets you twenty - one percent improvement overall and twenty - seven improvement on SpeechDat - Car PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: then obvious the database {disfmarker} uh I mean the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} uh the baseline will go up. And nobody can then achieve fifty percent improvement. PhD E: Right. Professor B: So they agreed that uh there will be a twenty - five percent improvement required on {disfmarker} on uh h u m bad mis badly mismatched {disfmarker} PhD E: But wait a minute, I thought the endpointing really only helped in the noisy cases. Professor B: It uh {disfmarker} PhD E: Oh, but you still have that with the MFCC. Professor B: Y yeah. PhD E: OK. Professor B: Yeah but you have the same prob I mean MFCC basically has an enormous number of uh insertions. PhD E: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Professor B: And so, so now they want to say" we {disfmarker} we will require fifty percent improvement only for well matched condition, and only twenty - five percent for the serial cases." PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And uh {disfmarker} and they almost agreed on that except that it wasn't a hundred percent agreed. And so last time uh during the meeting, I just uh brought up the issue, I said" well you know uh quite frankly I'm surprised how lightly you are making these decisions because this is a major decision. For two years we are fighting for fifty percent improvement and suddenly you are saying" oh no we {disfmarker} we will do something less" , but maybe we should discuss that. And everybody said" oh we discussed that and you were not a mee there" and I said" well a lot of other people were not there because not everybody participates at these teleconferencing c things." Then they said" oh no no no because uh everybody is invited." However, there is only ten or fifteen lines, so people can't even con you know participate. So eh they agreed, and so they said" OK, we will discuss that." Immediately Nokia uh raised the question and they said" oh yeah we agree this is not good to to uh dissolve the uh uh {disfmarker} the uh {disfmarker} the criterion." PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So now officially, Nokia is uh uh complaining and said they {disfmarker} they are looking for support, uh I think QualComm is uh saying, too" we shouldn't abandon the fifty percent yet. We should at least try once again, one more round." PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So this is where we are. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: I hope that {disfmarker} I hope that this is going to be a adopted. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Next Wednesday we are going to have uh another uh teleconferencing call, so we'll see what uh {disfmarker} where it goes. PhD E: So what about the issue of um the weights on the {disfmarker} for the different systems, the well - matched, and medium - mismatched and {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah, that's what {disfmarker} that's a g very good uh point, because David says" well you know we ca we can manipulate this number by choosing the right weights anyways." So while you are right but {disfmarker} uh you know but PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Uh yeah, if of course if you put a zero {disfmarker} uh weight zero on a mismatched condition, or highly mismatched then {disfmarker} then you are done. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: But weights were also deter already decided uh half a year ago. So {disfmarker} PhD E: And they're the {disfmarker} staying the same? Professor B: Well, of course people will not like it. Now {disfmarker} What is happening now is that I th I think that people try to match the criterion to solution. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: They have solution. Now they want to {vocalsound} make sure their criterion is {disfmarker} PhD E: Right. Professor B: And I think that this is not the right way. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Uh it may be that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Eventually it may ha may ha it may have to happen. But it's should happen at a point where everybody feels comfortable that we did all what we could. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: And I don't think we did. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Basically, I think that {disfmarker} that this test was a little bit bogus because of the data and uh essentially {pause} there were these arbitrary decisions made, and {disfmarker} and everything. So, so {disfmarker} so this is {disfmarker} so this is where it is. So what we are doing at OGI now is uh uh uh working basically on our parts which we I think a little bit neglected, like noise separation. Uh so we are looking in ways is {disfmarker} in uh which {disfmarker} uh with which we can provide better initial estimate of the mel spectrum basically, which would be a l uh, f more robust to noise, and so far not much uh success. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: We tried uh things which uh a long time ago Bill Byrne suggested, instead of using Fourier spectrum, from Fourier transform, use the spectrum from LPC model. Their argument there was the LPC model fits the peaks of the spectrum, so it may be m naturally more robust in noise. And I thought" well, that makes sense," but so far we can't get much {disfmarker} much out of it. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: uh we may try some standard techniques like spectral subtraction and {disfmarker} PhD E: You haven't tried that yet? Professor B: not {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not much. Or even I was thinking about uh looking back into these totally ad - hoc techniques PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: like for instance uh Dennis Klatt was suggesting uh the one way to uh deal with noisy speech is to add noise to everything. PhD E: Hmm! Professor B: So. {comment} I mean, uh uh add moderate amount of noise to all data. PhD E: Oh! Professor B: So that makes uh th any additive noise less addi less a a effective, PhD E: I see. Professor B: right? Because you already uh had the noise uh in a {disfmarker} PhD E: Right. Professor B: And it was working at the time. It was kind of like one of these things, you know, but if you think about it, it's actually pretty ingenious. So well, you know, just take a {disfmarker} take a spectrum and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and add of the constant, C, to every {disfmarker} every value. PhD E: Well you're {disfmarker} you're basically y Yeah. So you're making all your training data more uniform. Professor B: Exactly. And if {disfmarker} if then {disfmarker} if this data becomes noisy, it b it becomes eff effectively becomes less noisy basically. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: But of course you cannot add too much noise because then you'll s then you're clean recognition goes down, but I mean it's yet to be seen how much, it's a very simple technique. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Yes indeed it's a very simple technique, you just take your spectrum and {disfmarker} and use whatever is coming from FFT, {pause} add constant, PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: you know? on {disfmarker} onto power spectrum. That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Or the other thing is of course if you have a spectrum, what you can s start doing, you can leave {disfmarker} start leaving out the p the parts which are uh uh low in energy and then perhaps uh one could try to find a {disfmarker} a all - pole model to such a spectrum. Because a all - pole model will still try to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to put the {disfmarker} the continuation basically of the {disfmarker} of the model into these parts where the issue set to zero. That's what we want to try. I have a visitor from Brno. He's a {disfmarker} kind of like young faculty. pretty hard - working so he {disfmarker} so he's {disfmarker} so he's looking into that. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And then most of the effort is uh now also aimed at this e e TRAP recognition. This uh {disfmarker} this is this recognition from temporal patterns. PhD E: Hmm! What is that? Professor B: Ah, you don't know about TRAPS! Grad A: Hmm. PhD E: The TRAPS sound familiar, I {disfmarker} but I don't {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah I mean tha This is familiar like sort of because we gave you the name, but, what it is, is that normally what you do is that you recognize uh speech based on a shortened spectrum. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: Essentially L P - LPC, mel cepstrum, uh, everything starts with a spectral slice. Uh so if you s So, given the spectrogram you essentially are sliding {disfmarker} sliding the spectrogram along the uh f frequency axis PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and you keep shifting this thing, and you have a spectrogram. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So you can say" well you can also take the time trajectory of the energy at a given frequency" , and what you get is then, that you get a p {pause} vector. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: And this vector can be a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} s assigned to s some phoneme. Namely you can say i it {disfmarker} I will {disfmarker} I will say that this vector will eh {disfmarker} will {disfmarker} will describe the phoneme which is in the center of the vector. And you can try to classify based on that. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And you {disfmarker} so you classi so it's a very different vector, very different properties, we don't know much about it, but the truth is {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. But you have many of those vectors per phoneme, Professor B: Well, so you get many decisions. PhD E: right? Uh - huh. Professor B: And then you can start dec thinking about how to combine these decisions. Exactly, that's what {disfmarker} yeah, that's what it is. PhD E: Hmm. Hmm. Professor B: Because if you run this uh recognition, you get {disfmarker} you still get about twenty percent error {disfmarker} uh twenty percent correct. You know, PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: on {disfmarker} on like for the frame by frame basis, so {pause} uh {disfmarker} uh so it's much better than chance. PhD E: How wide are the uh frequency bands? Professor B: That's another thing. Well c currently we start {disfmarker} I mean we start always with critical band spectrum. For various reasons. But uh the latest uh observation uh is that you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you are {disfmarker} you can get quite a big advantage of using two critical bands at the same time. Grad A: Are they adjacent, or are they s Professor B: Adjacent, adjacent. Grad A: OK. Professor B: And the reasons {disfmarker} there are some reasons for that. Because there are some reasons I can {disfmarker} I could talk about, will have to tell you about things like masking experiments which uh uh uh uh yield critical bands, and also experiments with release of masking, which actually tell you that something is happening across critical bands, across bands. And {disfmarker} PhD E: Well how do you {disfmarker} how do you uh convert this uh energy over time in a particular frequency band into a vector of numbers? Professor B: It's uh uh uh I mean time T - zero is one number, {pause} time t PhD E: Yeah but what's the number? Is it just the {disfmarker} Professor B: It's a spectral energy, logarithmic spectral energy, PhD E: it's just the amount of energy in that band from f in that time interval. Professor B: yeah. Yes, yes. Yes, yes. PhD E: OK. Professor B: And that's what {disfmarker} that's what I'm saying then, so this is a {disfmarker} this is a starting vector. It's just like shortened f {pause} spectrum, or something. But now we are trying to understand what this vector actually represents, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: for instance a question is like" how correlated are the elements of this vector?" Turns out they are quite correlated, because I mean, especially the neighboring ones, right? They {disfmarker} they represent the same {disfmarker} almost the same configuration of the vocal tract. PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor B: So there's a very high correlation. So the classifiers which use the diagonal covariance matrix don't like it. So we're thinking about de - correlating them. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Then the question is uh" can you describe elements of this vector by Gaussian distributions" , or to what extent? Because uh {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and so on and so on. So we are learning quite a lot about that. And then another issue is how many vectors we should be using, PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: I mean the {disfmarker} so the minimum is one. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: But I mean is the {disfmarker} is the critical band the right uh uh dimension? So we somehow made arbitrary decision," yes" . Then {disfmarker} but then now we are thinking a lot how to {disfmarker} uh how to use at least the neighboring band because that seems to be happening {disfmarker} This I somehow start to believe that's what's happening in recognition. Cuz a lot of experiments point to the fact that people can split the signal into critical bands, but then oh uh uh so you can {disfmarker} you are quite capable of processing a signal in uh uh independently in individual critical bands. That's what masking experiments tell you. But at the same time you most likely pay attention to at least neighboring bands when you are making any decisions, you compare what's happening in {disfmarker} in this band to what's happening to the band {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to the {disfmarker} to the neighboring bands. And that's how you make uh decisions. That's why the articulatory events, which uh F F Fletcher talks about, they are about two critical bands. You need at least two, basically. You need some relative, relative relation. Grad A: Hmm. Professor B: Absolute number doesn't tell you the right thing. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: You need to {disfmarker} you need to compare it to something else, what's happening but it's what's happening in the {disfmarker} in the close neighborhood. So if you are making decision what's happening at one kilohertz, you want to know what's happening at nine hundred hertz and it {disfmarker} and maybe at eleven hundred hertz, but you don't much care what's happening at three kilohertz. PhD E: So it's really w It's sort of like saying that what's happening at one kilohertz depends on what's happening around it. It's sort of relative to it. Professor B: To some extent, it {disfmarker} that is also true. Yeah. But it's {disfmarker} but for {disfmarker} but for instance, {vocalsound} th uh {vocalsound} uh what {disfmarker} what uh humans are very much capable of doing is that if th if they are exactly the same thing happening in two neighboring critical bands, recognition can discard it. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Is what's happening {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. Grad A: Hey! Professor B: Hey! OK, we need us another {disfmarker} another voice here. PhD E: Hey Stephane. Professor B: Yeah, I think so. Yeah? PhD E: Yep. Sure. Go ahead. Professor B: And so so {disfmarker} so for instance if you d if you a if you add the noise that normally masks {disfmarker} masks the uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the signal right? PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and you can show that in {disfmarker} that if the {disfmarker} if you add the noise outside the critical band, that doesn't affect the {disfmarker} the decisions you're making about a signal within a critical band. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Unless this noise is modulated. If the noise is modulated, with the same modulation frequency as the noise in a critical band, the amount of masking is less. The moment you {disfmarker} moment you provide the noise in n neighboring critical bands. PhD E: Mmm. Professor B: So the s m masking curve, normally it looks like sort of {disfmarker} I start from {disfmarker} from here, so you {disfmarker} {comment} you have uh no noise then you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you are expanding the critical band, so the amount of maching is increasing. And when you e hit a certain point, which is a critical band, then the amount of masking is the same. PhD E: Mmm. Professor B: So that's the famous experiment of Fletcher, a long time ago. Like that's where people started thinking" wow this is interesting!" So. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: But, if you {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if you modulate the noise, the masking goes up and the moment you start hitting the {disfmarker} another critical band, the masking goes down. So essentially {disfmarker} essentially that's a very clear indication that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that {pause} cognition can take uh uh into consideration what's happening in the neighboring bands. But if you go too far in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if the noise is very broad, you are not increasing much more, so {disfmarker} so if you {disfmarker} if you are far away from the signal {disfmarker} uh from the signal f uh the frequency at which the signal is, then the m even the {disfmarker} when the noise is co - modulated it {disfmarker} it's not helping you much. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Mm - hmm. Grad A: Hmm. Professor B: So. So things like this we are kind of playing with {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} with the hope that perhaps we could eventually u use this in a {disfmarker} in a real recognizer. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Like uh partially of course we promised to do this under the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Aurora uh program. PhD E: But you probably won't have anything before the next time we have to evaluate, Professor B: Probably not. PhD E: right? Professor B: Well, maybe, most likely we will not have anything which c would comply with the rules. PhD E: Yeah. Ah. Professor B: like because uh uh PhD E: Latency and things. Professor B: latency currently chops the require uh significant uh latency amount of processing, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: because uh we don't know any better, yet, than to use the neural net classifiers, uh and uh {disfmarker} and uh TRAPS. PhD E: Yeah. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Though the {disfmarker} the work which uh everybody is looking at now aims at s trying to find out what to do with these vectors, so that a g simple Gaussian classifier would be happier with it. PhD C: Hmm. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: or to what extent a Gaussian classifier should be unhappy uh that, and how to Gaussian - ize the vectors, and {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: So this is uh what's happening. Then Sunil is uh uh uh asked me f for one month's vacation and since he did not take any vacation for two years, I had no {disfmarker} I didn't have heart to tell him no. So he's in India. PhD E: Wow. Professor B: And uh {disfmarker} PhD E: Is he getting married or something? Professor B: Uh well, he may be looking for a girl, for {disfmarker} for I don't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I don't ask. I know that Naran - when last time Narayanan did that he came back engaged. PhD E: Right. Well, I mean, I've known other friends who {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they go to Ind - they go back home to India for a month, they come back married, Professor B: Yeah. I know. I know, I know, PhD E: you know, huh. Professor B: and then of course then what happened with Narayanan was that he start pushing me that he needs to get a PHD because they wouldn't give him his wife. And she's very pretty and he loves her and so {disfmarker} so we had to really {disfmarker} PhD E: So he finally had some incentive to finish, Professor B: Oh yeah. We had {disfmarker} well I had a incentive because he {disfmarker} he always had this plan except he never told me. PhD E: huh? Professor B: Sort of figured that {disfmarker} That was a uh that he uh he told me the day when we did very well at our NIST evaluations of speaker recognition, the technology, and he was involved there. PhD E: Oh. Professor B: We were {disfmarker} after presentation we were driving home and he told me. PhD E: When he knew you were happy, Professor B: Yeah. So I {disfmarker} I said" well, yeah, OK" so he took another {disfmarker} another three quarter of the year but uh he was out. PhD E: huh? Professor B: So I {disfmarker} wouldn't surprise me if he has a plan like that, though {disfmarker} though uh Pratibha still needs to get out first. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Cuz Pratibha is there a {disfmarker} a year earlier. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And S and Satya needs to get out very first because he's {disfmarker} he already has uh four years served, though one year he was getting masters. So. So. PhD C: Hmm. PhD E: So have the um {disfmarker} when is the next uh evaluation? June or something? Professor B: Which? Speaker recognition? PhD E: No, for uh Aurora? Professor B: Uh there, we don't know about evaluation, next meeting is in June. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And uh uh but like getting {disfmarker} get together. PhD E: Oh, OK. Are people supposed to rerun their systems, Professor B: Nobody said that yet. PhD E: or {disfmarker}? Professor B: I assume so. Uh yes, uh, but nobody even set up yet the {pause} date for uh delivering uh endpointed data. PhD E: Hmm. Wow. Professor B: And this uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that sort of stuff. But I uh, yeah, what I think would be of course extremely useful, if we can come to our next meeting and say" well you know we did get fifty percent improvement. If {disfmarker} if you are interested we eventually can tell you how" , but uh we can get fifty percent improvement. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Because people will s will be saying it's impossible. PhD E: Hmm. Do you know what the new baseline is? Oh, I guess if you don't have {disfmarker} Professor B: Twenty - two {disfmarker} t twenty {disfmarker} twenty - two percent better than the old baseline. PhD E: Using your uh voice activity detector? Professor B: u Yes. Yes. But I assume that it will be similar, I don't {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't see the reason why it shouldn't be. PhD E: Similar, yeah. Professor B: I d I don't see reason why it should be worse. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Cuz if it is worse, then we will raise the objection, PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: we say" well you know how come?" Because eh if we just use our voice activity detector, which we don't claim even that it's wonderful, it's just like one of them. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: We get this sort of improvement, how come that we don't see it on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on your endpointed data? PhD C: Yeah. I guess it could be even better, Professor B: I think so. PhD C: because the voice activity detector that I choosed is something that cheating, it's using the alignment of the speech recognition system, Professor B: Yeah. C yeah uh PhD C: and only the alignment on the clean channel, and then mapped this alignment to the noisy channel. Professor B: and on clean speech data. Yeah. PhD E: Oh, OK. Professor B: Well David told me {disfmarker} David told me yesterday or Harry actually he told Harry from QualComm and Harry uh brought up the suggestion we should still go for fifty percent he says are you aware that your system does only thirty percent uh comparing to {disfmarker} to endpointed baselines? So they must have run already something. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: So. And Harry said" Yeah. But I mean we think that we {disfmarker} we didn't say the last word yet, that we have other {disfmarker} other things which we can try." PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: So. So there's a lot of discussion now about this uh new criterion. Because Nokia was objecting, with uh QualComm's {disfmarker} we basically supported that, we said" yes" . PhD C: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: Now everybody else is saying" well you guys might {disfmarker} must be out of your mind." uh The {disfmarker} Guenter Hirsch who d doesn't speak for Ericsson anymore because he is not with Ericsson and Ericsson may not {disfmarker} may withdraw from the whole Aurora activity because they have so many troubles now. PhD E: Wow. Professor B: Ericsson's laying off twenty percent of people. Grad A: Wow. PhD E: Where's uh Guenter going? Professor B: Well Guenter is already {disfmarker} he got the job uh already was working on it for past two years or three years {disfmarker} PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: he got a job uh at some {disfmarker} some Fachschule, the technical college not too far from Aachen. PhD E: Hmm! Professor B: So it's like professor {disfmarker} u university professor PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: you know, not quite a university, not quite a sort of {disfmarker} it's not Aachen University, but it's a good school and he {disfmarker} he's happy. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Hmm! Professor B: And he {disfmarker} well, he was hoping to work uh with Ericsson like on t uh like consulting basis, but right now he says {disfmarker} says it doesn't look like that anybody is even thinking about speech recognition. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: They think about survival. PhD E: Wow! Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: So. So. But this is being now discussed right now, and it's possible that uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that it may get through, that we will still stick to fifty percent. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: But that means that nobody will probably get this im this improvement. yet, wi with the current system. Which event es essentially I think that we should be happy with because that {disfmarker} that would mean that at least people may be forced to look into alternative solutions PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and {disfmarker} PhD C: Mm - hmm. But maybe {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean we are not too far from {disfmarker} from fifty percent, from the new baseline. Professor B: Uh, but not {disfmarker} PhD C: Which would mean like sixty percent over the current baseline, which is {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. Yes. Yes. We {disfmarker} we getting {disfmarker} we getting there, right. PhD C: Well. We are around fifty, fifty - five. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: So. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Is it like sort of {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} How did you come up with this number? If you improve twenty {disfmarker} by twenty percent the c the f the all baselines, it's just a quick c comp co computation? PhD C: Yeah. I don't know exactly if it's {disfmarker} Professor B: Uh - huh. I think it's about right. PhD C: Yeah, because it de it depends on the weightings Professor B: Yeah, yeah. PhD C: and {disfmarker} Yeah. But. Mm - hmm. PhD E: Hmm. How's your documentation or whatever it w what was it you guys were working on last week? PhD C: Yeah, finally we {disfmarker} we've not finished with this. We stopped. PhD D: More or less it's finished. PhD C: Yeah. PhD D: Ma - nec to need a little more time to improve the English, and maybe s to fill in something {disfmarker} some small detail, something like that, PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Hmm. PhD D: but it's more or less ready. PhD C: Yeah. Well, we have a document that explain a big part of the experiments, PhD D: Necessary to {disfmarker} to include the bi the bibliography. PhD C: but PhD D: Mm - hmm. PhD C: it's not, yeah, finished yet. Mm - hmm. PhD E: So have you been running some new experiments? I {disfmarker} I thought I saw some jobs of yours running on some of the machine {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah. Right. We've fff {comment} done some strange things like removing C - zero or C - one from the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} the vector of parameters, and we noticed that C - one is almost not useful at all. You can remove it from the vector, it doesn't hurt. PhD E: Really? ! That has no effect? PhD C: Um. PhD E: Eh {disfmarker} Is this in the baseline? or in uh {disfmarker} PhD C: In the {disfmarker} No, in the proposal. PhD E: in {disfmarker} uh - huh, uh - huh. Professor B: So we were just discussing, since you mentioned that, in {disfmarker} it w PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: driving in the car with Morgan this morning, we were discussing a good experiment for b for beginning graduate student who wants to run a lot of {disfmarker} who wants to get a lot of numbers on something PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: which is, like," imagine that you will {disfmarker} you will start putting every co any coefficient, which you are using in your vector, in some general power. PhD E: In some what? Professor B: General pow power. Like sort of you take a s power of two, or take a square root, or something. PhD E: Mm - hmm. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So suppose that you are working with a s C - zer C - one. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So if you put it in a s square root, that effectively makes your model half as efficient. Because uh your uh Gaussian mixture model, right? computes the mean. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: And {disfmarker} and uh i i i but it's {disfmarker} the mean is an exponent of the whatever, the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this Gaussian function. PhD E: You're compressing the range, Professor B: So you're compressing the range of this coefficient, so it's becoming less efficient. PhD E: right? of that {disfmarker} Professor B: Right? PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So. So. Morgan was @ @ and he was {disfmarker} he was saying well this might be the alternative way how to play with a {disfmarker} with a fudge factor, you know, uh in the {disfmarker} PhD E: Oh. Professor B: you know, just compress the whole vector. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: And I said" well in that case why don't we just start compressing individual elements, like when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} because in old days we were doing {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when people still were doing template matching and Euclidean distances, we were doing this liftering of parameters, right? PhD E: Uh - huh. Professor B: because we observed that uh higher parameters were more important than lower for recognition. And basically the {disfmarker} the C - ze C - one contributes mainly slope, PhD E: Right. Professor B: and it's highly affected by uh frequency response of the {disfmarker} of the recording equipment and that sort of thing, PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: so {disfmarker} so we were coming with all these f various lifters. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: uh Bell Labs had he {disfmarker} this uh uh r raised cosine lifter which still I think is built into H {disfmarker} HTK for reasons n unknown to anybody, but {disfmarker} but uh we had exponential lifter, or triangle lifter, basic number of lifters. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And. But so they may be a way to {disfmarker} to fiddle with the f with the f PhD E: Insertions. Professor B: Insertions, deletions, or the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} giving a relative {disfmarker} uh basically modifying relative importance of the various parameters. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: The only of course problem is that there's an infinite number of combinations and if the {disfmarker} if you s if y PhD E: Oh. Uh - huh. You need like a {disfmarker} some kind of a {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah, you need a lot of graduate students, and a lot of computing power. PhD E: You need to have a genetic algorithm, that basically tries random permutations of these things. Professor B: I know. Exactly. Oh. If you were at Bell Labs or {disfmarker} I d d I shouldn't be saying this in {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on a mike, right? Or I {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} IBM, that's what {disfmarker} maybe that's what somebody would be doing. PhD E: Yeah. Grad A: Hmm. Professor B: Oh, I mean, I mean the places which have a lot of computing power, so because it is really it's a p it's a {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it will be reasonable search PhD E: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Professor B: uh but I wonder if there isn't some way of doing this uh search like when we are searching say for best discriminants. PhD E: You know actually, I don't know that this wouldn't be all that bad. I mean you {disfmarker} you compute the features once, Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: right? And then these exponents are just applied to that {disfmarker} Professor B: Absolutely. And hev everything is fixed. PhD E: So. Professor B: Everything is fixed. Each {disfmarker} each {disfmarker} PhD E: And is this something that you would adjust for training? or only recognition? Professor B: For both, you would have to do. Yeah. PhD E: You would do it on both. Professor B: You have to do bo both. PhD E: So you'd actually {disfmarker} Professor B: Because essentially you are saying" uh this feature is not important" . PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Or less important, so that's {disfmarker} th that's a {disfmarker} that's a painful one, yeah. PhD E: So for each {disfmarker} uh set of exponents that you would try, it would require a training and a recognition? Professor B: Yeah. But {disfmarker} but wait a minute. You may not need to re uh uh retrain the m model. You just may n may need to c uh give uh less weight to {disfmarker} to uh a mod uh a component of the model which represents this particular feature. You don't have to retrain it. PhD E: Oh. So if you {disfmarker} Instead of altering the feature vectors themselves, you {disfmarker} you modify the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Gaussians in the models. Professor B: You just multiply. Yeah. Yep. You modify the Gaussian in the model, but in the {disfmarker} in the test data you would have to put it in the power, but in a training what you c in a training uh {disfmarker} in trained model, all you would have to do is to multiply a model by appropriate constant. PhD E: Uh - huh. But why {disfmarker} if you're {disfmarker} if you're multi if you're altering the model, why w in the test data, why would you have to muck with the uh cepstral coefficients? Professor B: Because in uh test {disfmarker} in uh test data you ca don't have a model. You have uh only data. But in a {disfmarker} in a tr PhD E: No. But you're running your data through that same model. Professor B: That is true, but w I mean, so what you want to do {disfmarker} You want to say if uh obs you {disfmarker} if you observe something like Stephane observes, that C - one is not important, you can do two things. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: If you have a trained {disfmarker} trained recognizer, in the model, you know the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the component which {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean di dimension {vocalsound} wh PhD E: Mm - hmm. All of the {disfmarker} all of the mean and variances that correspond to C - one, you put them to zero. Professor B: To the s you {disfmarker} you know it. But what I'm proposing now, if it is important but not as important, you multiply it by point one in a model. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} PhD E: But what are you multiplying? Cuz those are means, right? Grad A: You're multiplying the standard deviation? PhD E: I mean you're {disfmarker} Grad A: So it's {disfmarker} Professor B: I think that you multiply the {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} I would have to look in the {disfmarker} in the math, I mean how {disfmarker} how does the model uh {disfmarker} PhD E: I think you {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah, I think you'd have to modify the standard deviation or something, so that you make it {vocalsound} wider or narrower. Grad A: Cuz {disfmarker} Yeah. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: Effectively, that's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Exactly. That's what you do. That's what you do, you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you modify the standard deviation as it was trained. Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: Effectively you, you know y in f in front of the {disfmarker} of the model, you put a constant. S yeah effectively what you're doing is you {disfmarker} is you are modifying the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the deviation. Right? Grad A: The spread, PhD E: Oop. Grad A: right. PhD E: Sorry. Professor B: Yeah, the spread. Grad A: It's the same {disfmarker} same mean, PhD E: So. Grad A: right? Professor B: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} PhD E: So by making th the standard deviation narrower, {comment} uh your scores get worse for {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: unless it's exactly right on the mean. Professor B: Your als No. By making it narrower, PhD E: Right? Professor B: uh y your {disfmarker} PhD E: I mean there's {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker} you're allowing for less variance. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Yes, so you making this particular dimension less important. Because see what you are fitting is the multidimensional Gaussian, right? PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: It's a {disfmarker} it has {disfmarker} it has uh thirty - nine dimensions, or thirteen dimensions if you g ignore deltas and double - deltas. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: So in order {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} in order to make dimension which {disfmarker} which Stephane sees uh less important, uh uh I mean not {disfmarker} not useful, less important, what you do is that this particular component in the model you can multiply by w you can {disfmarker} you can basically de - weight it in the model. But you can't do it in a {disfmarker} in a test data because you don't have a model for th I mean uh when the test comes, but what you can do is that you put this particular component in {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and you compress it. That becomes uh th gets less variance, subsequently becomes less important. PhD E: Couldn't you just do that to the test data and not do anything with your training data? Professor B: That would be very bad, because uh your t your model was trained uh expecting uh, that wouldn't work. Because your model was trained expecting a certain var variance on C - one. PhD E: Uh - huh. Professor B: And because the model thinks C - one is important. After you train the model, you sort of {disfmarker} y you could do {disfmarker} you could do still what I was proposing initially, that during the training you {disfmarker} you compress C - one that becomes {disfmarker} then it becomes less important in a training. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: But if you have {disfmarker} if you want to run e ex extensive experiment without retraining the model, you don't have to retrain the model. You train it on the original vector. But after, you {disfmarker} wh when you are doing this parametric study of importance of C - one you will de - weight the C - one component in the model, and you will put in the {disfmarker} you will compress the {disfmarker} this component in a {disfmarker} in the test data. s by the same amount. PhD E: Could you also if you wanted to {disfmarker} if you wanted to try an experiment uh by {pause} leaving out say, C - one, couldn't you, in your test data, uh modify the {disfmarker} all of the C - one values to be um way outside of the normal range of the Gaussian for C - one that was trained in the model? So that effectively, the C - one never really contributes to the score? PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: No, that would be a severe mismatch, PhD E: Do you know what I'm say Professor B: right? what you are proposing? N no you don't want that. PhD E: Yeah, someth Professor B: Because that would {disfmarker} then your model would be unlikely. Your likelihood would be low, right? Because you would be providing severe mismatch. PhD E: Mm - hmm. But what if you set if to the mean of the model, then? And it was a cons you set all C - ones coming in through your test data, you {disfmarker} you change whatever value that was there to the mean that your model had. Professor B: No that would be very good match, right? PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: That you would {disfmarker} PhD C: Which {disfmarker} Well, yeah, but we have several means. So. Professor B: I see what you are sa {pause} saying, PhD C: Right? Grad A: Saying. Professor B: but uh, {vocalsound} no, no I don't think that it would be the same. I mean, no, the {disfmarker} If you set it to a mean, that would {disfmarker} No, you can't do that. Y you ca you ca Ch - Chuck, you can't do that. PhD E: Oh, that's true, right, yeah, because you {disfmarker} you have {disfmarker} PhD C: Wait. Which {disfmarker} Professor B: Because that would be a really f fiddling with the data, PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: you can't do that. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: But what you can do, I'm confident you ca PhD E: Professor B: well, I'm reasonably confident and I putting it on the record, right? I mean y people will listen to it for {disfmarker} for centuries now, is {pause} what you can do, is you train the model uh with the {disfmarker} with the original data. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Then you decide that you want to see how important C {disfmarker} C - one is. So what you will do is that a component in the model for C - one, you will divide it by {disfmarker} by two. And you will compress your test data by square root. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Then you will still have a perfect m match. Except that this component of C - one will be half as important in a {disfmarker} in a overall score. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: Then you divide it by four and you take a square, f fourth root. Then if you think that some component is more {disfmarker} is more important then th th th it then {disfmarker} then uh uh i it is, based on training, then you uh multiply this particular component in the model by {disfmarker} by {disfmarker} by {disfmarker} PhD E: You're talking about the standard deviation? Professor B: yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Yeah, multiply this component uh i it by number b larger than one, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and you put your data in power higher than one. Then it becomes more important. In the overall score, I believe. PhD C: Yeah, but, at the {disfmarker} PhD E: But {pause} don't you have to do something to the mean, also? Professor B: No. PhD C: No. Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: No. PhD C: But I think it's {disfmarker} uh the {disfmarker} The variance is on {disfmarker} on the denominator in the {disfmarker} in the Gaussian equation. So. I think it's maybe it's the contrary. If you want to decrease the importance of a c parameter, you have to increase it's variance. Professor B: Yes. Right. Yes. PhD D: Multiply. Professor B: Exactly. Yeah. So you {disfmarker} so you may want to do it other way around, PhD C: Hmm. That's right. OK. Professor B: yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Grad A: Right. PhD E: But if your {disfmarker} If your um original data for C - one had a mean of two. Professor B: Uh - huh. PhD E: And now you're {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker} you're changing that by squaring it. Now your mean of your C - one original data has {disfmarker} {comment} is four. But your model still has a mean of two. So even though you've expended the range, your mean doesn't match anymore. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Let's see. PhD E: Do you see what I mean? PhD C: I think {disfmarker} What I see {disfmarker} What could be done is you don't change your features, which are computed once for all, Professor B: Uh - huh. PhD C: but you just tune the model. So. You have your features. You train your {disfmarker} your model on these features. PhD E: Mm - hmm. PhD C: And then if you want to decrease the importance of C - one you just take the variance of the C - one component in the {disfmarker} in the model and increase it if you want to decrease the importance of C - one or decrease it {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Right. Professor B: Yeah. You would have to modify the mean in the model. I {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} I agree with you. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, but it's {disfmarker} it's i it's do - able, PhD C: Well. PhD E: Yeah, so y Professor B: right? I mean, it's predictable. Uh. Yeah. PhD E: It's predictable, yeah. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah, it's predictable. PhD C: Mmm. PhD E: Yeah. But as a simple thing, you could just {disfmarker} just muck with the variance. PhD C: Just adjust the model, yeah. PhD E: to get uh this {disfmarker} uh this {disfmarker} the effect I think that you're talking about, Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD E: right? Professor B: It might be. PhD E: Could increase the variance to decrease the importance. Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Yeah, because if you had a huge variance, you're dividing by a large number, {comment} you get a very small contribution. Grad A: Doesn't matter {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah, it becomes more flat Grad A: Right. PhD C: and {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Grad A: Yeah, the sharper the variance, the more {disfmarker} more important to get that one right. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Yeah, you know actually, this reminds me of something that happened uh when I was at BBN. We were playing with putting um pitch into the Mandarin recognizer. Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD E: And this particular pitch algorithm um when it didn't think there was any voicing, was spitting out zeros. So we were getting {disfmarker} uh when we did clustering, we were getting groups uh of features Professor B: p Pretty new outliers, interesting outliers, right? PhD E: yeah, with {disfmarker} with a mean of zero and basically zero variance. Professor B: Variance. PhD E: So, when ener {comment} when anytime any one of those vectors came in that had a zero in it, we got a great score. I mean it was just, {nonvocalsound} you know, incredibly {nonvocalsound} high score, and so that was throwing everything off. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: So {vocalsound} if you have very small variance you get really good scores when you get something that matches. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: So. {vocalsound} So that's a way, yeah, yeah {disfmarker} That's a way to increase the {disfmarker} yeah, n That's interesting. So in fact, that would be {disfmarker} That doesn't require any retraining. Professor B: Yeah. No. No. PhD C: No, that's right. So it's PhD E: So that means it's just Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: just tuning the models and testing, actually. PhD E: recognitions. Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. PhD C: It would be quick. PhD E: You {disfmarker} you have a step where you you modify the models, make a d copy of your models with whatever variance modifications you make, and rerun recognition. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: And then do a whole bunch of those. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: That could be set up fairly easily I think, and you have a whole bunch of you know {disfmarker} Professor B: Chuck is getting himself in trouble. PhD E: That's an interesting idea, actually. For testing the {disfmarker} Yeah. Huh! Grad A: Didn't you say you got these uh HTK's set up on the new Linux boxes? PhD E: That's right. Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: Hey! PhD E: In fact, and {disfmarker} and they're just t right now they're installing uh {disfmarker} increasing the memory on that uh {disfmarker} the Linux box. Professor B: And Chuck is sort of really fishing for how to keep his computer busy, Grad A: Right. Professor B: right? PhD E: Yeah. Absinthe. Professor B: Well, you know, that's {disfmarker} PhD E: Absinthe. We've got five processors on that. Grad A: Oh yeah. Professor B: that's {disfmarker} yeah, that's a good thing Grad A: That's right. Professor B: because then y you just write the" do" - loops and then you pretend that you are working while you are sort of {disfmarker} you c you can go fishing. PhD E: And two gigs of memory. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Grad A: Pretend, yeah. PhD E: Exactly. Yeah. PhD D: Go fishing. PhD E: See how many cycles we used? Professor B: Yeah. Then you are sort of in this mode like all of those ARPA people are, right? PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Uh, since it is on the record, I can't say uh which company it was, but it was reported to me that uh somebody visited a company and during a {disfmarker} d during a discussion, there was this guy who was always hitting the carriage returns uh on a computer. PhD E: Uh - huh. Professor B: So after two hours uh the visitor said" wh why are you hitting this carriage return?" And he said" well you know, we are being paid by a computer ty I mean we are {disfmarker} we have a government contract. And they pay us by {disfmarker} by amount of computer time we use." It was in old days when there were uh {disfmarker} of PDP - eights and that sort of thing. PhD E: Oh, my gosh! So he had to make it look like {disfmarker} Professor B: Because so they had a {disfmarker} they literally had to c monitor at the time {disfmarker} at the time on a computer how much time is being spent I {disfmarker} i i or on {disfmarker} on this particular project. PhD E: Yeah. How {disfmarker} Idle time. Grad A: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Nobody was looking even at what was coming out. PhD E: Have you ever seen those little um {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} it's this thing that's the shape of a bird and it has a red ball and its beak dips into the water? Professor B: Yeah, I know, right. PhD E: So {vocalsound} if you could hook that up so it hit the keyboard {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: That's an interesting experiment. Professor B: It would be similar {disfmarker} similar to {disfmarker} I knew some people who were uh that was in old Communist uh Czechoslovakia, right? so we were watching for American airplanes, coming to spy on {disfmarker} on uh {disfmarker} on us at the time, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: so there were three guys uh uh stationed in the middle of the woods on one l lonely uh watching tower, pretty much spending a year and a half there because there was this service right? And so they {disfmarker} very quickly they made friends with local girls and local people in the village PhD E: Ugh! Professor B: and {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: and so but they {disfmarker} there was one plane flying over s always uh uh above, and so that was the only work which they had. They {disfmarker} like four in the afternoon they had to report there was a plane from Prague to Brno Basically f flying there, PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: so they f very q f first thing was that they would always run back and {disfmarker} and at four o'clock and {disfmarker} and quickly make a call," this plane is uh uh passing" then a second thing was that they {disfmarker} they took the line from this u u post to uh uh a local pub. And they were calling from the pub. And they {disfmarker} but third thing which they made, and when they screwed up, they {disfmarker} finally they had to p the {disfmarker} the p the pub owner to make these phone calls because they didn't even bother to be there anymore. And one day there was {disfmarker} there was no plane. At least they were sort of smart enough that they looked if the plane is flying there, right? And the pub owner says" oh my {disfmarker} four o'clock, OK, quickly p pick up the phone, call that there's a plane flying." PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: There was no plane for some reason, PhD E: And there wasn't? Professor B: it was downed, or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and {disfmarker} so they got in trouble. But. {vocalsound} But uh. PhD E: Huh! Well that's {disfmarker} that's a really i Professor B: So. So. Yeah. PhD E: That wouldn't be too difficult to try. Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Maybe I could set that up. Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: And we'll just {disfmarker} Professor B: Well, at least go test the s test the uh assumption about C - C - one I mean to begin with. But then of course one can then think about some predictable result to change all of them. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: It's just like we used to do these uh {disfmarker} these uh {disfmarker} um the {disfmarker} the uh distance measures. It might be that uh {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah, so the first set of uh variance weighting vectors would be just you know one {disfmarker} modifying one and leaving the others the same. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. Maybe. PhD E: And {disfmarker} and do that for each one. Professor B: Because you see, I mean, what is happening here in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in such a model is that it's {disfmarker} tells you yeah what has a low variance uh is uh {disfmarker} is uh {disfmarker} is more reliable, PhD E: That would be one set of experiment {disfmarker} Professor B: right? How do we {disfmarker} PhD E: Wh - yeah, when the data matches that, then you get really {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Right. Professor B: How do we know, especially when it comes to noise? PhD E: But there could just naturally be low variance. Professor B: Yeah? PhD E: Because I {disfmarker} Like, I've noticed in the higher cepstral coefficients, the numbers seem to get smaller, right? So d PhD C: They {disfmarker} t PhD E: I mean, just naturally. PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: Yeah, th that's {disfmarker} PhD C: They have smaller means, also. Uh. PhD E: Yeah. Exactly. And so it seems like they're already sort of compressed. PhD C: Uh - huh. PhD E: The range {pause} of values. Professor B: Yeah that's why uh people used these lifters were inverse variance weighting lifters basically that makes uh uh Euclidean distance more like uh Mahalanobis distance with a diagonal covariance when you knew what all the variances were over the old data. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Hmm. Professor B: What they would do is that they would weight each coefficient by inverse of the variance. Turns out that uh the variance decreases at least at fast, I believe, as the index of the cepstral coefficients. I think you can show that uh uh analytically. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So typically what happens is that you {disfmarker} you need to weight the {disfmarker} uh weight the higher coefficients more than uh the lower coefficients. PhD E: Hmm. Mm - hmm. Hmm. Professor B: So. PhD C: Mmm. PhD E: Professor B: When {disfmarker} Yeah. When we talked about Aurora still I wanted to m make a plea {disfmarker} uh encourage for uh more communication between {disfmarker} between uh {pause} uh different uh parts of the distributed uh {pause} uh center. Uh even when there is absolutely nothing to {disfmarker} to s to say but the weather is good in Ore - in {disfmarker} in Berkeley. I'm sure that it's being appreciated in Oregon and maybe it will generate similar responses down here, like, uh {disfmarker} PhD C: We can set up a webcam maybe. Professor B: Yeah. Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: What {disfmarker} you know, nowadays, yeah. It's actually do - able, almost. PhD E: Is the um {disfmarker} if we mail to" Aurora - inhouse" , does that go up to you guys also? Professor B: I don't think so. No. PhD C: No. PhD E: OK. Professor B: So we should do that. PhD E: So i What is it {disfmarker} Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: We should definitely set up {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah we sh Do we have a mailing list that includes uh the OGI people? Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Uh no. We don't have. Professor B: Uh - huh. PhD E: Oh! Maybe we should set that up. That would make it much easier. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that would make it easier. PhD E: So maybe just call it" Aurora" or something that would {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. And then we also can send the {disfmarker} the dis to the same address right, and it goes to everybody PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: OK. Maybe we can set that up. Professor B: Because what's happening naturally in research, I know, is that people essentially start working on something and they don't want to be much bothered, right? but what the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} then the danger is in a group like this, is that two people are working on the same thing and i c of course both of them come with the s very good solution, but it could have been done somehow in half of the effort or something. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Oh, there's another thing which I wanted to uh uh report. Lucash, I think, uh wrote the software for this Aurora - two system. reasonably uh good one, because he's doing it for Intel, but I trust that we have uh rights to uh use it uh or distribute it and everything. Cuz Intel's intentions originally was to distribute it free of charge anyways. PhD E: Hmm! Professor B: u s And so {disfmarker} so uh we {disfmarker} we will make sure that at least you can see the software and if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if it is of any use. Just uh {disfmarker} PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: It might be a reasonable point for p perhaps uh start converging. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Because Morgan's point is that {disfmarker} He is an experienced guy. He says" well you know it's very difficult to collaborate if you are working with supposedly the same thing, in quotes, except which is not s is not the same. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Which {disfmarker} which uh uh one is using that set of hurdles, another one set {disfmarker} is using another set of hurdles. So. And {disfmarker} And then it's difficult to c compare. PhD C: What about Harry? Uh. We received a mail last week and you are starting to {disfmarker} to do some experiments. Professor B: He got the {disfmarker} he got the software. Yeah. They sent the release. PhD C: And use this Intel version. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD C: Hmm. Professor B: Yeah because Intel paid us uh should I say on a microphone? uh some amount of money, not much. Not much I can say on a microphone. Much less then we should have gotten {vocalsound} for this amount of work. And they wanted uh to {disfmarker} to have software so that they can also play with it, which means that it has to be in a certain environment {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: they use actu actually some Intel libraries, but in the process, Lucash just rewrote the whole thing because he figured rather than trying to f make sense uh of uh {disfmarker} including ICSI software uh not for training on the nets PhD E: Hmm. Grad A: Oh. Professor B: but I think he rewrote the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} or so maybe somehow reused over the parts of the thing so that {disfmarker} so that {disfmarker} the whole thing, including MLP, trained MLP is one piece of uh software. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Wow! Professor B: Is it useful? Grad A: Ye - Yeah. Professor B: Yeah? Grad A: I mean, I remember when we were trying to put together all the ICSI software for the submission. Professor B: Or {disfmarker} That's what he was saying, right. He said that it was like {disfmarker} it was like just so many libraries and nobody knew what was used when, and {disfmarker} and so that's where he started and that's where he realized that it needs to be {disfmarker} needs to be uh uh at least cleaned up, Grad A: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and so I think it {disfmarker} this is available. Grad A: Hmm. Professor B: So {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah. Well, the {disfmarker} the only thing I would check is if he {disfmarker} does he use Intel math libraries, Professor B: uh e ev PhD C: because if it's the case, it's maybe not so easy to use it on another architecture. Professor B: n not maybe {disfmarker} Maybe not in a first {disfmarker} maybe not in a first ap approximation because I think he started first just with a plain C {disfmarker} C or C - plus - plus or something before {disfmarker} PhD C: Ah yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor B: I {disfmarker} I can check on that. Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And uh in {disfmarker} otherwise the Intel libraries, I think they are available free of f freely. But they may be running only on {disfmarker} on uh {disfmarker} on uh Windows. PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: Or on {disfmarker} on the {disfmarker} PhD C: On Intel architecture maybe. Professor B: Yeah, on Intel architecture, may not run in SUN. PhD C: I'm {disfmarker} Yeah. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: That is p that is {disfmarker} that is possible. That's why Intel of course is distributing it, PhD C: Well. Professor B: right? Or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That's {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah. Well there are {disfmarker} at least there are optimized version for their architecture. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: I don't know. I never checked carefully these sorts of {disfmarker} Professor B: I know there was some issues that initially of course we d do all the development on Linux but we use {disfmarker} we don't have {disfmarker} we have only three uh uh uh uh s SUNs and we have them only because they have a SPERT board in. Otherwise {disfmarker} otherwise we t almost exclusively are working with uh PC's now, with Intel. In that way Intel succeeded with us, because they gave us too many good machines for very little money or nothing. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: So. So. So we run everything on Intel. PhD E: Wow! Professor B: And {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. Does anybody have anything else? to {disfmarker} Shall we read some digits? PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: Yes. I have to take my glasses {disfmarker} PhD E: So. Hynek, I don't know if you've ever done this. Professor B: No. PhD E: The way that it works is each person goes around in turn, {comment} and uh you say the transcript number and then you read the digits, the {disfmarker} the strings of numbers as individual digits. Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD E: So you don't say" eight hundred and fifty" , you say" eight five oh" , and so forth. Professor B: OK. OK. So can {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} can I t maybe start then? PhD E: Um. Sure.

The team had gotten a fifty percent improvement on the model. This was significant but left room for further work. They aimed to get a sixty percent improvement from the initial baseline.

tr-sq-615

tr-sq-615_0

What did the professor say about Guenter? Professor B: Is it starting now? PhD E: Yep. Professor B: So what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} from {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} Grad A: Hello? Professor B: Whatever we say from now on, it can be held against us, right? PhD E: That's right. Professor B: and uh Grad A: It's your right to remain silent. Professor B: Yeah. So I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the problem is that I actually don't know how th these held meetings are held, if they are very informal and sort of just people are say what's going on PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: and PhD E: Yeah, that's usually what we do. Professor B: OK. PhD E: We just sorta go around and people say what's going on, what's the latest uh {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. OK. So I guess that what may be a {disfmarker} reasonable is if I uh first make a report on what's happening in Aurora in general, at least what from my perspective. PhD E: Yeah. That would be great. Professor B: And {disfmarker} and uh so, I {disfmarker} I think that Carmen and Stephane reported on uh Amsterdam meeting, PhD D: Uh o Professor B: which was kind of interesting because it was for the first time we realized we are not friends really, but we are competitors. Cuz until then it was sort of like everything was like wonderful and {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. It seemed like there were still some issues, Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: right? that they were trying to decide? Professor B: There is a plenty of {disfmarker} there're plenty of issues. PhD E: Like the voice activity detector, Professor B: Well and what happened was that they realized that if two leading proposals, which was French Telecom Alcatel, and us both had uh voice activity detector. And I said" well big surprise, I mean we could have told you that {pause} n n n four months ago, except we didn't because nobody else was bringing it up" . PhD E: Right. Professor B: Obviously French Telecom didn't volunteer this information either, cuz we were working on {disfmarker} mainly on voice activity detector for past uh several months PhD E: Right. Professor B: because that's buying us the most uh thing. And everybody said" Well but this is not fair. We didn't know that." And of course uh the {disfmarker} it's not working on features really. And be I agreed. PhD E: Right. Professor B: I said" well yeah, you are absolutely right, I mean if I wish that you provided better end point at speech because uh {disfmarker} or at least that if we could modify the recognizer, uh to account for these long silences, because otherwise uh that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} th that wasn't a correct thing." And so then ev ev everybody else says" well we should {disfmarker} we need to do a new eval evaluation without voice activity detector, or we have to do something about it" . PhD E: Right. Professor B: And in principle I {disfmarker} uh I {disfmarker} we agreed. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: We said uh" yeah" . Because uh {disfmarker} but in that case, uh we would like to change the uh {disfmarker} the algorithm because uh if we are working on different data, we probably will use a different set of tricks. PhD E: Right. Professor B: But unfortunately nobody ever officially can somehow acknowledge that this can be done, because French Telecom was saying" no, no, no, now everybody has access to our code, so everybody is going to copy what we did." Yeah well our argument was everybody ha has access to our code, and everybody always had access to our code. We never uh {disfmarker} uh denied that. We thought that people are honest, that if you copy something and if it is protected {disfmarker} protected by patent then you negotiate, or something, PhD E: Yeah. Right. Professor B: right? I mean, if you find our technique useful, we are very happy. PhD E: Right. Professor B: But {disfmarker} And French Telecom was saying" no, no, no, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: there is a lot of little tricks which uh sort of uh cannot be protected and you guys will take them," which probably is also true. I mean, you know, it might be that people will take uh uh th the algorithms apart and use the blocks from that. But I somehow think that it wouldn't be so bad, as long as people are happy abou uh uh uh honest about it. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: And I think they have to be honest in the long run, because winning proposal again {disfmarker} uh what will be available th is {disfmarker} will be a code. So the uh {disfmarker} the people can go to code and say" well listen this is what you stole from me" PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: you know? PhD E: Right. Professor B:" so let's deal with that" . PhD E: Right. Professor B: So I don't see the problem. The biggest problem of course is that f that Alcatel French Telecom cl claims" well we fulfilled the conditions. We are the best. Uh. We are the standard." And e and other people don't feel that, because they {disfmarker} so they now decided that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} the whole thing will be done on well - endpointed data, essentially that somebody will endpoint the data based on clean speech, because most of this the SpeechDat - Car has the also close speaking mike and endpoints will be provided. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Ah. Professor B: And uh we will run again {disfmarker} still not clear if we are going to run the {disfmarker} if we are allowed to run uh uh new algorithms, but I assume so. Because uh we would fight for that, really. uh but {disfmarker} since uh u u n u {disfmarker} at least our experience is that only endpointing a {disfmarker} a mel cepstrum gets uh {disfmarker} gets you twenty - one percent improvement overall and twenty - seven improvement on SpeechDat - Car PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: then obvious the database {disfmarker} uh I mean the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} uh the baseline will go up. And nobody can then achieve fifty percent improvement. PhD E: Right. Professor B: So they agreed that uh there will be a twenty - five percent improvement required on {disfmarker} on uh h u m bad mis badly mismatched {disfmarker} PhD E: But wait a minute, I thought the endpointing really only helped in the noisy cases. Professor B: It uh {disfmarker} PhD E: Oh, but you still have that with the MFCC. Professor B: Y yeah. PhD E: OK. Professor B: Yeah but you have the same prob I mean MFCC basically has an enormous number of uh insertions. PhD E: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Professor B: And so, so now they want to say" we {disfmarker} we will require fifty percent improvement only for well matched condition, and only twenty - five percent for the serial cases." PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And uh {disfmarker} and they almost agreed on that except that it wasn't a hundred percent agreed. And so last time uh during the meeting, I just uh brought up the issue, I said" well you know uh quite frankly I'm surprised how lightly you are making these decisions because this is a major decision. For two years we are fighting for fifty percent improvement and suddenly you are saying" oh no we {disfmarker} we will do something less" , but maybe we should discuss that. And everybody said" oh we discussed that and you were not a mee there" and I said" well a lot of other people were not there because not everybody participates at these teleconferencing c things." Then they said" oh no no no because uh everybody is invited." However, there is only ten or fifteen lines, so people can't even con you know participate. So eh they agreed, and so they said" OK, we will discuss that." Immediately Nokia uh raised the question and they said" oh yeah we agree this is not good to to uh dissolve the uh uh {disfmarker} the uh {disfmarker} the criterion." PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So now officially, Nokia is uh uh complaining and said they {disfmarker} they are looking for support, uh I think QualComm is uh saying, too" we shouldn't abandon the fifty percent yet. We should at least try once again, one more round." PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So this is where we are. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: I hope that {disfmarker} I hope that this is going to be a adopted. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Next Wednesday we are going to have uh another uh teleconferencing call, so we'll see what uh {disfmarker} where it goes. PhD E: So what about the issue of um the weights on the {disfmarker} for the different systems, the well - matched, and medium - mismatched and {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah, that's what {disfmarker} that's a g very good uh point, because David says" well you know we ca we can manipulate this number by choosing the right weights anyways." So while you are right but {disfmarker} uh you know but PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Uh yeah, if of course if you put a zero {disfmarker} uh weight zero on a mismatched condition, or highly mismatched then {disfmarker} then you are done. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: But weights were also deter already decided uh half a year ago. So {disfmarker} PhD E: And they're the {disfmarker} staying the same? Professor B: Well, of course people will not like it. Now {disfmarker} What is happening now is that I th I think that people try to match the criterion to solution. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: They have solution. Now they want to {vocalsound} make sure their criterion is {disfmarker} PhD E: Right. Professor B: And I think that this is not the right way. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Uh it may be that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Eventually it may ha may ha it may have to happen. But it's should happen at a point where everybody feels comfortable that we did all what we could. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: And I don't think we did. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Basically, I think that {disfmarker} that this test was a little bit bogus because of the data and uh essentially {pause} there were these arbitrary decisions made, and {disfmarker} and everything. So, so {disfmarker} so this is {disfmarker} so this is where it is. So what we are doing at OGI now is uh uh uh working basically on our parts which we I think a little bit neglected, like noise separation. Uh so we are looking in ways is {disfmarker} in uh which {disfmarker} uh with which we can provide better initial estimate of the mel spectrum basically, which would be a l uh, f more robust to noise, and so far not much uh success. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: We tried uh things which uh a long time ago Bill Byrne suggested, instead of using Fourier spectrum, from Fourier transform, use the spectrum from LPC model. Their argument there was the LPC model fits the peaks of the spectrum, so it may be m naturally more robust in noise. And I thought" well, that makes sense," but so far we can't get much {disfmarker} much out of it. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: uh we may try some standard techniques like spectral subtraction and {disfmarker} PhD E: You haven't tried that yet? Professor B: not {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not much. Or even I was thinking about uh looking back into these totally ad - hoc techniques PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: like for instance uh Dennis Klatt was suggesting uh the one way to uh deal with noisy speech is to add noise to everything. PhD E: Hmm! Professor B: So. {comment} I mean, uh uh add moderate amount of noise to all data. PhD E: Oh! Professor B: So that makes uh th any additive noise less addi less a a effective, PhD E: I see. Professor B: right? Because you already uh had the noise uh in a {disfmarker} PhD E: Right. Professor B: And it was working at the time. It was kind of like one of these things, you know, but if you think about it, it's actually pretty ingenious. So well, you know, just take a {disfmarker} take a spectrum and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and add of the constant, C, to every {disfmarker} every value. PhD E: Well you're {disfmarker} you're basically y Yeah. So you're making all your training data more uniform. Professor B: Exactly. And if {disfmarker} if then {disfmarker} if this data becomes noisy, it b it becomes eff effectively becomes less noisy basically. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: But of course you cannot add too much noise because then you'll s then you're clean recognition goes down, but I mean it's yet to be seen how much, it's a very simple technique. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Yes indeed it's a very simple technique, you just take your spectrum and {disfmarker} and use whatever is coming from FFT, {pause} add constant, PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: you know? on {disfmarker} onto power spectrum. That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Or the other thing is of course if you have a spectrum, what you can s start doing, you can leave {disfmarker} start leaving out the p the parts which are uh uh low in energy and then perhaps uh one could try to find a {disfmarker} a all - pole model to such a spectrum. Because a all - pole model will still try to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to put the {disfmarker} the continuation basically of the {disfmarker} of the model into these parts where the issue set to zero. That's what we want to try. I have a visitor from Brno. He's a {disfmarker} kind of like young faculty. pretty hard - working so he {disfmarker} so he's {disfmarker} so he's looking into that. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And then most of the effort is uh now also aimed at this e e TRAP recognition. This uh {disfmarker} this is this recognition from temporal patterns. PhD E: Hmm! What is that? Professor B: Ah, you don't know about TRAPS! Grad A: Hmm. PhD E: The TRAPS sound familiar, I {disfmarker} but I don't {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah I mean tha This is familiar like sort of because we gave you the name, but, what it is, is that normally what you do is that you recognize uh speech based on a shortened spectrum. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: Essentially L P - LPC, mel cepstrum, uh, everything starts with a spectral slice. Uh so if you s So, given the spectrogram you essentially are sliding {disfmarker} sliding the spectrogram along the uh f frequency axis PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and you keep shifting this thing, and you have a spectrogram. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So you can say" well you can also take the time trajectory of the energy at a given frequency" , and what you get is then, that you get a p {pause} vector. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: And this vector can be a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} s assigned to s some phoneme. Namely you can say i it {disfmarker} I will {disfmarker} I will say that this vector will eh {disfmarker} will {disfmarker} will describe the phoneme which is in the center of the vector. And you can try to classify based on that. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And you {disfmarker} so you classi so it's a very different vector, very different properties, we don't know much about it, but the truth is {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. But you have many of those vectors per phoneme, Professor B: Well, so you get many decisions. PhD E: right? Uh - huh. Professor B: And then you can start dec thinking about how to combine these decisions. Exactly, that's what {disfmarker} yeah, that's what it is. PhD E: Hmm. Hmm. Professor B: Because if you run this uh recognition, you get {disfmarker} you still get about twenty percent error {disfmarker} uh twenty percent correct. You know, PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: on {disfmarker} on like for the frame by frame basis, so {pause} uh {disfmarker} uh so it's much better than chance. PhD E: How wide are the uh frequency bands? Professor B: That's another thing. Well c currently we start {disfmarker} I mean we start always with critical band spectrum. For various reasons. But uh the latest uh observation uh is that you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you are {disfmarker} you can get quite a big advantage of using two critical bands at the same time. Grad A: Are they adjacent, or are they s Professor B: Adjacent, adjacent. Grad A: OK. Professor B: And the reasons {disfmarker} there are some reasons for that. Because there are some reasons I can {disfmarker} I could talk about, will have to tell you about things like masking experiments which uh uh uh uh yield critical bands, and also experiments with release of masking, which actually tell you that something is happening across critical bands, across bands. And {disfmarker} PhD E: Well how do you {disfmarker} how do you uh convert this uh energy over time in a particular frequency band into a vector of numbers? Professor B: It's uh uh uh I mean time T - zero is one number, {pause} time t PhD E: Yeah but what's the number? Is it just the {disfmarker} Professor B: It's a spectral energy, logarithmic spectral energy, PhD E: it's just the amount of energy in that band from f in that time interval. Professor B: yeah. Yes, yes. Yes, yes. PhD E: OK. Professor B: And that's what {disfmarker} that's what I'm saying then, so this is a {disfmarker} this is a starting vector. It's just like shortened f {pause} spectrum, or something. But now we are trying to understand what this vector actually represents, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: for instance a question is like" how correlated are the elements of this vector?" Turns out they are quite correlated, because I mean, especially the neighboring ones, right? They {disfmarker} they represent the same {disfmarker} almost the same configuration of the vocal tract. PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor B: So there's a very high correlation. So the classifiers which use the diagonal covariance matrix don't like it. So we're thinking about de - correlating them. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Then the question is uh" can you describe elements of this vector by Gaussian distributions" , or to what extent? Because uh {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and so on and so on. So we are learning quite a lot about that. And then another issue is how many vectors we should be using, PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: I mean the {disfmarker} so the minimum is one. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: But I mean is the {disfmarker} is the critical band the right uh uh dimension? So we somehow made arbitrary decision," yes" . Then {disfmarker} but then now we are thinking a lot how to {disfmarker} uh how to use at least the neighboring band because that seems to be happening {disfmarker} This I somehow start to believe that's what's happening in recognition. Cuz a lot of experiments point to the fact that people can split the signal into critical bands, but then oh uh uh so you can {disfmarker} you are quite capable of processing a signal in uh uh independently in individual critical bands. That's what masking experiments tell you. But at the same time you most likely pay attention to at least neighboring bands when you are making any decisions, you compare what's happening in {disfmarker} in this band to what's happening to the band {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to the {disfmarker} to the neighboring bands. And that's how you make uh decisions. That's why the articulatory events, which uh F F Fletcher talks about, they are about two critical bands. You need at least two, basically. You need some relative, relative relation. Grad A: Hmm. Professor B: Absolute number doesn't tell you the right thing. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: You need to {disfmarker} you need to compare it to something else, what's happening but it's what's happening in the {disfmarker} in the close neighborhood. So if you are making decision what's happening at one kilohertz, you want to know what's happening at nine hundred hertz and it {disfmarker} and maybe at eleven hundred hertz, but you don't much care what's happening at three kilohertz. PhD E: So it's really w It's sort of like saying that what's happening at one kilohertz depends on what's happening around it. It's sort of relative to it. Professor B: To some extent, it {disfmarker} that is also true. Yeah. But it's {disfmarker} but for {disfmarker} but for instance, {vocalsound} th uh {vocalsound} uh what {disfmarker} what uh humans are very much capable of doing is that if th if they are exactly the same thing happening in two neighboring critical bands, recognition can discard it. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Is what's happening {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. Grad A: Hey! Professor B: Hey! OK, we need us another {disfmarker} another voice here. PhD E: Hey Stephane. Professor B: Yeah, I think so. Yeah? PhD E: Yep. Sure. Go ahead. Professor B: And so so {disfmarker} so for instance if you d if you a if you add the noise that normally masks {disfmarker} masks the uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the signal right? PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and you can show that in {disfmarker} that if the {disfmarker} if you add the noise outside the critical band, that doesn't affect the {disfmarker} the decisions you're making about a signal within a critical band. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Unless this noise is modulated. If the noise is modulated, with the same modulation frequency as the noise in a critical band, the amount of masking is less. The moment you {disfmarker} moment you provide the noise in n neighboring critical bands. PhD E: Mmm. Professor B: So the s m masking curve, normally it looks like sort of {disfmarker} I start from {disfmarker} from here, so you {disfmarker} {comment} you have uh no noise then you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you are expanding the critical band, so the amount of maching is increasing. And when you e hit a certain point, which is a critical band, then the amount of masking is the same. PhD E: Mmm. Professor B: So that's the famous experiment of Fletcher, a long time ago. Like that's where people started thinking" wow this is interesting!" So. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: But, if you {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if you modulate the noise, the masking goes up and the moment you start hitting the {disfmarker} another critical band, the masking goes down. So essentially {disfmarker} essentially that's a very clear indication that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that {pause} cognition can take uh uh into consideration what's happening in the neighboring bands. But if you go too far in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if the noise is very broad, you are not increasing much more, so {disfmarker} so if you {disfmarker} if you are far away from the signal {disfmarker} uh from the signal f uh the frequency at which the signal is, then the m even the {disfmarker} when the noise is co - modulated it {disfmarker} it's not helping you much. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Mm - hmm. Grad A: Hmm. Professor B: So. So things like this we are kind of playing with {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} with the hope that perhaps we could eventually u use this in a {disfmarker} in a real recognizer. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Like uh partially of course we promised to do this under the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Aurora uh program. PhD E: But you probably won't have anything before the next time we have to evaluate, Professor B: Probably not. PhD E: right? Professor B: Well, maybe, most likely we will not have anything which c would comply with the rules. PhD E: Yeah. Ah. Professor B: like because uh uh PhD E: Latency and things. Professor B: latency currently chops the require uh significant uh latency amount of processing, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: because uh we don't know any better, yet, than to use the neural net classifiers, uh and uh {disfmarker} and uh TRAPS. PhD E: Yeah. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Though the {disfmarker} the work which uh everybody is looking at now aims at s trying to find out what to do with these vectors, so that a g simple Gaussian classifier would be happier with it. PhD C: Hmm. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: or to what extent a Gaussian classifier should be unhappy uh that, and how to Gaussian - ize the vectors, and {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: So this is uh what's happening. Then Sunil is uh uh uh asked me f for one month's vacation and since he did not take any vacation for two years, I had no {disfmarker} I didn't have heart to tell him no. So he's in India. PhD E: Wow. Professor B: And uh {disfmarker} PhD E: Is he getting married or something? Professor B: Uh well, he may be looking for a girl, for {disfmarker} for I don't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I don't ask. I know that Naran - when last time Narayanan did that he came back engaged. PhD E: Right. Well, I mean, I've known other friends who {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they go to Ind - they go back home to India for a month, they come back married, Professor B: Yeah. I know. I know, I know, PhD E: you know, huh. Professor B: and then of course then what happened with Narayanan was that he start pushing me that he needs to get a PHD because they wouldn't give him his wife. And she's very pretty and he loves her and so {disfmarker} so we had to really {disfmarker} PhD E: So he finally had some incentive to finish, Professor B: Oh yeah. We had {disfmarker} well I had a incentive because he {disfmarker} he always had this plan except he never told me. PhD E: huh? Professor B: Sort of figured that {disfmarker} That was a uh that he uh he told me the day when we did very well at our NIST evaluations of speaker recognition, the technology, and he was involved there. PhD E: Oh. Professor B: We were {disfmarker} after presentation we were driving home and he told me. PhD E: When he knew you were happy, Professor B: Yeah. So I {disfmarker} I said" well, yeah, OK" so he took another {disfmarker} another three quarter of the year but uh he was out. PhD E: huh? Professor B: So I {disfmarker} wouldn't surprise me if he has a plan like that, though {disfmarker} though uh Pratibha still needs to get out first. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Cuz Pratibha is there a {disfmarker} a year earlier. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And S and Satya needs to get out very first because he's {disfmarker} he already has uh four years served, though one year he was getting masters. So. So. PhD C: Hmm. PhD E: So have the um {disfmarker} when is the next uh evaluation? June or something? Professor B: Which? Speaker recognition? PhD E: No, for uh Aurora? Professor B: Uh there, we don't know about evaluation, next meeting is in June. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And uh uh but like getting {disfmarker} get together. PhD E: Oh, OK. Are people supposed to rerun their systems, Professor B: Nobody said that yet. PhD E: or {disfmarker}? Professor B: I assume so. Uh yes, uh, but nobody even set up yet the {pause} date for uh delivering uh endpointed data. PhD E: Hmm. Wow. Professor B: And this uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that sort of stuff. But I uh, yeah, what I think would be of course extremely useful, if we can come to our next meeting and say" well you know we did get fifty percent improvement. If {disfmarker} if you are interested we eventually can tell you how" , but uh we can get fifty percent improvement. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Because people will s will be saying it's impossible. PhD E: Hmm. Do you know what the new baseline is? Oh, I guess if you don't have {disfmarker} Professor B: Twenty - two {disfmarker} t twenty {disfmarker} twenty - two percent better than the old baseline. PhD E: Using your uh voice activity detector? Professor B: u Yes. Yes. But I assume that it will be similar, I don't {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't see the reason why it shouldn't be. PhD E: Similar, yeah. Professor B: I d I don't see reason why it should be worse. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Cuz if it is worse, then we will raise the objection, PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: we say" well you know how come?" Because eh if we just use our voice activity detector, which we don't claim even that it's wonderful, it's just like one of them. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: We get this sort of improvement, how come that we don't see it on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on your endpointed data? PhD C: Yeah. I guess it could be even better, Professor B: I think so. PhD C: because the voice activity detector that I choosed is something that cheating, it's using the alignment of the speech recognition system, Professor B: Yeah. C yeah uh PhD C: and only the alignment on the clean channel, and then mapped this alignment to the noisy channel. Professor B: and on clean speech data. Yeah. PhD E: Oh, OK. Professor B: Well David told me {disfmarker} David told me yesterday or Harry actually he told Harry from QualComm and Harry uh brought up the suggestion we should still go for fifty percent he says are you aware that your system does only thirty percent uh comparing to {disfmarker} to endpointed baselines? So they must have run already something. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: So. And Harry said" Yeah. But I mean we think that we {disfmarker} we didn't say the last word yet, that we have other {disfmarker} other things which we can try." PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: So. So there's a lot of discussion now about this uh new criterion. Because Nokia was objecting, with uh QualComm's {disfmarker} we basically supported that, we said" yes" . PhD C: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: Now everybody else is saying" well you guys might {disfmarker} must be out of your mind." uh The {disfmarker} Guenter Hirsch who d doesn't speak for Ericsson anymore because he is not with Ericsson and Ericsson may not {disfmarker} may withdraw from the whole Aurora activity because they have so many troubles now. PhD E: Wow. Professor B: Ericsson's laying off twenty percent of people. Grad A: Wow. PhD E: Where's uh Guenter going? Professor B: Well Guenter is already {disfmarker} he got the job uh already was working on it for past two years or three years {disfmarker} PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: he got a job uh at some {disfmarker} some Fachschule, the technical college not too far from Aachen. PhD E: Hmm! Professor B: So it's like professor {disfmarker} u university professor PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: you know, not quite a university, not quite a sort of {disfmarker} it's not Aachen University, but it's a good school and he {disfmarker} he's happy. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Hmm! Professor B: And he {disfmarker} well, he was hoping to work uh with Ericsson like on t uh like consulting basis, but right now he says {disfmarker} says it doesn't look like that anybody is even thinking about speech recognition. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: They think about survival. PhD E: Wow! Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: So. So. But this is being now discussed right now, and it's possible that uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that it may get through, that we will still stick to fifty percent. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: But that means that nobody will probably get this im this improvement. yet, wi with the current system. Which event es essentially I think that we should be happy with because that {disfmarker} that would mean that at least people may be forced to look into alternative solutions PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and {disfmarker} PhD C: Mm - hmm. But maybe {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean we are not too far from {disfmarker} from fifty percent, from the new baseline. Professor B: Uh, but not {disfmarker} PhD C: Which would mean like sixty percent over the current baseline, which is {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. Yes. Yes. We {disfmarker} we getting {disfmarker} we getting there, right. PhD C: Well. We are around fifty, fifty - five. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: So. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Is it like sort of {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} How did you come up with this number? If you improve twenty {disfmarker} by twenty percent the c the f the all baselines, it's just a quick c comp co computation? PhD C: Yeah. I don't know exactly if it's {disfmarker} Professor B: Uh - huh. I think it's about right. PhD C: Yeah, because it de it depends on the weightings Professor B: Yeah, yeah. PhD C: and {disfmarker} Yeah. But. Mm - hmm. PhD E: Hmm. How's your documentation or whatever it w what was it you guys were working on last week? PhD C: Yeah, finally we {disfmarker} we've not finished with this. We stopped. PhD D: More or less it's finished. PhD C: Yeah. PhD D: Ma - nec to need a little more time to improve the English, and maybe s to fill in something {disfmarker} some small detail, something like that, PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Hmm. PhD D: but it's more or less ready. PhD C: Yeah. Well, we have a document that explain a big part of the experiments, PhD D: Necessary to {disfmarker} to include the bi the bibliography. PhD C: but PhD D: Mm - hmm. PhD C: it's not, yeah, finished yet. Mm - hmm. PhD E: So have you been running some new experiments? I {disfmarker} I thought I saw some jobs of yours running on some of the machine {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah. Right. We've fff {comment} done some strange things like removing C - zero or C - one from the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} the vector of parameters, and we noticed that C - one is almost not useful at all. You can remove it from the vector, it doesn't hurt. PhD E: Really? ! That has no effect? PhD C: Um. PhD E: Eh {disfmarker} Is this in the baseline? or in uh {disfmarker} PhD C: In the {disfmarker} No, in the proposal. PhD E: in {disfmarker} uh - huh, uh - huh. Professor B: So we were just discussing, since you mentioned that, in {disfmarker} it w PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: driving in the car with Morgan this morning, we were discussing a good experiment for b for beginning graduate student who wants to run a lot of {disfmarker} who wants to get a lot of numbers on something PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: which is, like," imagine that you will {disfmarker} you will start putting every co any coefficient, which you are using in your vector, in some general power. PhD E: In some what? Professor B: General pow power. Like sort of you take a s power of two, or take a square root, or something. PhD E: Mm - hmm. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So suppose that you are working with a s C - zer C - one. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So if you put it in a s square root, that effectively makes your model half as efficient. Because uh your uh Gaussian mixture model, right? computes the mean. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: And {disfmarker} and uh i i i but it's {disfmarker} the mean is an exponent of the whatever, the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this Gaussian function. PhD E: You're compressing the range, Professor B: So you're compressing the range of this coefficient, so it's becoming less efficient. PhD E: right? of that {disfmarker} Professor B: Right? PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So. So. Morgan was @ @ and he was {disfmarker} he was saying well this might be the alternative way how to play with a {disfmarker} with a fudge factor, you know, uh in the {disfmarker} PhD E: Oh. Professor B: you know, just compress the whole vector. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: And I said" well in that case why don't we just start compressing individual elements, like when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} because in old days we were doing {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when people still were doing template matching and Euclidean distances, we were doing this liftering of parameters, right? PhD E: Uh - huh. Professor B: because we observed that uh higher parameters were more important than lower for recognition. And basically the {disfmarker} the C - ze C - one contributes mainly slope, PhD E: Right. Professor B: and it's highly affected by uh frequency response of the {disfmarker} of the recording equipment and that sort of thing, PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: so {disfmarker} so we were coming with all these f various lifters. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: uh Bell Labs had he {disfmarker} this uh uh r raised cosine lifter which still I think is built into H {disfmarker} HTK for reasons n unknown to anybody, but {disfmarker} but uh we had exponential lifter, or triangle lifter, basic number of lifters. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And. But so they may be a way to {disfmarker} to fiddle with the f with the f PhD E: Insertions. Professor B: Insertions, deletions, or the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} giving a relative {disfmarker} uh basically modifying relative importance of the various parameters. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: The only of course problem is that there's an infinite number of combinations and if the {disfmarker} if you s if y PhD E: Oh. Uh - huh. You need like a {disfmarker} some kind of a {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah, you need a lot of graduate students, and a lot of computing power. PhD E: You need to have a genetic algorithm, that basically tries random permutations of these things. Professor B: I know. Exactly. Oh. If you were at Bell Labs or {disfmarker} I d d I shouldn't be saying this in {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on a mike, right? Or I {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} IBM, that's what {disfmarker} maybe that's what somebody would be doing. PhD E: Yeah. Grad A: Hmm. Professor B: Oh, I mean, I mean the places which have a lot of computing power, so because it is really it's a p it's a {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it will be reasonable search PhD E: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Professor B: uh but I wonder if there isn't some way of doing this uh search like when we are searching say for best discriminants. PhD E: You know actually, I don't know that this wouldn't be all that bad. I mean you {disfmarker} you compute the features once, Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: right? And then these exponents are just applied to that {disfmarker} Professor B: Absolutely. And hev everything is fixed. PhD E: So. Professor B: Everything is fixed. Each {disfmarker} each {disfmarker} PhD E: And is this something that you would adjust for training? or only recognition? Professor B: For both, you would have to do. Yeah. PhD E: You would do it on both. Professor B: You have to do bo both. PhD E: So you'd actually {disfmarker} Professor B: Because essentially you are saying" uh this feature is not important" . PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Or less important, so that's {disfmarker} th that's a {disfmarker} that's a painful one, yeah. PhD E: So for each {disfmarker} uh set of exponents that you would try, it would require a training and a recognition? Professor B: Yeah. But {disfmarker} but wait a minute. You may not need to re uh uh retrain the m model. You just may n may need to c uh give uh less weight to {disfmarker} to uh a mod uh a component of the model which represents this particular feature. You don't have to retrain it. PhD E: Oh. So if you {disfmarker} Instead of altering the feature vectors themselves, you {disfmarker} you modify the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Gaussians in the models. Professor B: You just multiply. Yeah. Yep. You modify the Gaussian in the model, but in the {disfmarker} in the test data you would have to put it in the power, but in a training what you c in a training uh {disfmarker} in trained model, all you would have to do is to multiply a model by appropriate constant. PhD E: Uh - huh. But why {disfmarker} if you're {disfmarker} if you're multi if you're altering the model, why w in the test data, why would you have to muck with the uh cepstral coefficients? Professor B: Because in uh test {disfmarker} in uh test data you ca don't have a model. You have uh only data. But in a {disfmarker} in a tr PhD E: No. But you're running your data through that same model. Professor B: That is true, but w I mean, so what you want to do {disfmarker} You want to say if uh obs you {disfmarker} if you observe something like Stephane observes, that C - one is not important, you can do two things. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: If you have a trained {disfmarker} trained recognizer, in the model, you know the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the component which {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean di dimension {vocalsound} wh PhD E: Mm - hmm. All of the {disfmarker} all of the mean and variances that correspond to C - one, you put them to zero. Professor B: To the s you {disfmarker} you know it. But what I'm proposing now, if it is important but not as important, you multiply it by point one in a model. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} PhD E: But what are you multiplying? Cuz those are means, right? Grad A: You're multiplying the standard deviation? PhD E: I mean you're {disfmarker} Grad A: So it's {disfmarker} Professor B: I think that you multiply the {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} I would have to look in the {disfmarker} in the math, I mean how {disfmarker} how does the model uh {disfmarker} PhD E: I think you {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah, I think you'd have to modify the standard deviation or something, so that you make it {vocalsound} wider or narrower. Grad A: Cuz {disfmarker} Yeah. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: Effectively, that's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Exactly. That's what you do. That's what you do, you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you modify the standard deviation as it was trained. Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: Effectively you, you know y in f in front of the {disfmarker} of the model, you put a constant. S yeah effectively what you're doing is you {disfmarker} is you are modifying the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the deviation. Right? Grad A: The spread, PhD E: Oop. Grad A: right. PhD E: Sorry. Professor B: Yeah, the spread. Grad A: It's the same {disfmarker} same mean, PhD E: So. Grad A: right? Professor B: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} PhD E: So by making th the standard deviation narrower, {comment} uh your scores get worse for {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: unless it's exactly right on the mean. Professor B: Your als No. By making it narrower, PhD E: Right? Professor B: uh y your {disfmarker} PhD E: I mean there's {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker} you're allowing for less variance. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Yes, so you making this particular dimension less important. Because see what you are fitting is the multidimensional Gaussian, right? PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: It's a {disfmarker} it has {disfmarker} it has uh thirty - nine dimensions, or thirteen dimensions if you g ignore deltas and double - deltas. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: So in order {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} in order to make dimension which {disfmarker} which Stephane sees uh less important, uh uh I mean not {disfmarker} not useful, less important, what you do is that this particular component in the model you can multiply by w you can {disfmarker} you can basically de - weight it in the model. But you can't do it in a {disfmarker} in a test data because you don't have a model for th I mean uh when the test comes, but what you can do is that you put this particular component in {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and you compress it. That becomes uh th gets less variance, subsequently becomes less important. PhD E: Couldn't you just do that to the test data and not do anything with your training data? Professor B: That would be very bad, because uh your t your model was trained uh expecting uh, that wouldn't work. Because your model was trained expecting a certain var variance on C - one. PhD E: Uh - huh. Professor B: And because the model thinks C - one is important. After you train the model, you sort of {disfmarker} y you could do {disfmarker} you could do still what I was proposing initially, that during the training you {disfmarker} you compress C - one that becomes {disfmarker} then it becomes less important in a training. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: But if you have {disfmarker} if you want to run e ex extensive experiment without retraining the model, you don't have to retrain the model. You train it on the original vector. But after, you {disfmarker} wh when you are doing this parametric study of importance of C - one you will de - weight the C - one component in the model, and you will put in the {disfmarker} you will compress the {disfmarker} this component in a {disfmarker} in the test data. s by the same amount. PhD E: Could you also if you wanted to {disfmarker} if you wanted to try an experiment uh by {pause} leaving out say, C - one, couldn't you, in your test data, uh modify the {disfmarker} all of the C - one values to be um way outside of the normal range of the Gaussian for C - one that was trained in the model? So that effectively, the C - one never really contributes to the score? PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: No, that would be a severe mismatch, PhD E: Do you know what I'm say Professor B: right? what you are proposing? N no you don't want that. PhD E: Yeah, someth Professor B: Because that would {disfmarker} then your model would be unlikely. Your likelihood would be low, right? Because you would be providing severe mismatch. PhD E: Mm - hmm. But what if you set if to the mean of the model, then? And it was a cons you set all C - ones coming in through your test data, you {disfmarker} you change whatever value that was there to the mean that your model had. Professor B: No that would be very good match, right? PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: That you would {disfmarker} PhD C: Which {disfmarker} Well, yeah, but we have several means. So. Professor B: I see what you are sa {pause} saying, PhD C: Right? Grad A: Saying. Professor B: but uh, {vocalsound} no, no I don't think that it would be the same. I mean, no, the {disfmarker} If you set it to a mean, that would {disfmarker} No, you can't do that. Y you ca you ca Ch - Chuck, you can't do that. PhD E: Oh, that's true, right, yeah, because you {disfmarker} you have {disfmarker} PhD C: Wait. Which {disfmarker} Professor B: Because that would be a really f fiddling with the data, PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: you can't do that. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: But what you can do, I'm confident you ca PhD E: Professor B: well, I'm reasonably confident and I putting it on the record, right? I mean y people will listen to it for {disfmarker} for centuries now, is {pause} what you can do, is you train the model uh with the {disfmarker} with the original data. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Then you decide that you want to see how important C {disfmarker} C - one is. So what you will do is that a component in the model for C - one, you will divide it by {disfmarker} by two. And you will compress your test data by square root. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Then you will still have a perfect m match. Except that this component of C - one will be half as important in a {disfmarker} in a overall score. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: Then you divide it by four and you take a square, f fourth root. Then if you think that some component is more {disfmarker} is more important then th th th it then {disfmarker} then uh uh i it is, based on training, then you uh multiply this particular component in the model by {disfmarker} by {disfmarker} by {disfmarker} PhD E: You're talking about the standard deviation? Professor B: yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Yeah, multiply this component uh i it by number b larger than one, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and you put your data in power higher than one. Then it becomes more important. In the overall score, I believe. PhD C: Yeah, but, at the {disfmarker} PhD E: But {pause} don't you have to do something to the mean, also? Professor B: No. PhD C: No. Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: No. PhD C: But I think it's {disfmarker} uh the {disfmarker} The variance is on {disfmarker} on the denominator in the {disfmarker} in the Gaussian equation. So. I think it's maybe it's the contrary. If you want to decrease the importance of a c parameter, you have to increase it's variance. Professor B: Yes. Right. Yes. PhD D: Multiply. Professor B: Exactly. Yeah. So you {disfmarker} so you may want to do it other way around, PhD C: Hmm. That's right. OK. Professor B: yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Grad A: Right. PhD E: But if your {disfmarker} If your um original data for C - one had a mean of two. Professor B: Uh - huh. PhD E: And now you're {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker} you're changing that by squaring it. Now your mean of your C - one original data has {disfmarker} {comment} is four. But your model still has a mean of two. So even though you've expended the range, your mean doesn't match anymore. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Let's see. PhD E: Do you see what I mean? PhD C: I think {disfmarker} What I see {disfmarker} What could be done is you don't change your features, which are computed once for all, Professor B: Uh - huh. PhD C: but you just tune the model. So. You have your features. You train your {disfmarker} your model on these features. PhD E: Mm - hmm. PhD C: And then if you want to decrease the importance of C - one you just take the variance of the C - one component in the {disfmarker} in the model and increase it if you want to decrease the importance of C - one or decrease it {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Right. Professor B: Yeah. You would have to modify the mean in the model. I {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} I agree with you. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, but it's {disfmarker} it's i it's do - able, PhD C: Well. PhD E: Yeah, so y Professor B: right? I mean, it's predictable. Uh. Yeah. PhD E: It's predictable, yeah. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah, it's predictable. PhD C: Mmm. PhD E: Yeah. But as a simple thing, you could just {disfmarker} just muck with the variance. PhD C: Just adjust the model, yeah. PhD E: to get uh this {disfmarker} uh this {disfmarker} the effect I think that you're talking about, Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD E: right? Professor B: It might be. PhD E: Could increase the variance to decrease the importance. Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Yeah, because if you had a huge variance, you're dividing by a large number, {comment} you get a very small contribution. Grad A: Doesn't matter {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah, it becomes more flat Grad A: Right. PhD C: and {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Grad A: Yeah, the sharper the variance, the more {disfmarker} more important to get that one right. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Yeah, you know actually, this reminds me of something that happened uh when I was at BBN. We were playing with putting um pitch into the Mandarin recognizer. Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD E: And this particular pitch algorithm um when it didn't think there was any voicing, was spitting out zeros. So we were getting {disfmarker} uh when we did clustering, we were getting groups uh of features Professor B: p Pretty new outliers, interesting outliers, right? PhD E: yeah, with {disfmarker} with a mean of zero and basically zero variance. Professor B: Variance. PhD E: So, when ener {comment} when anytime any one of those vectors came in that had a zero in it, we got a great score. I mean it was just, {nonvocalsound} you know, incredibly {nonvocalsound} high score, and so that was throwing everything off. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: So {vocalsound} if you have very small variance you get really good scores when you get something that matches. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: So. {vocalsound} So that's a way, yeah, yeah {disfmarker} That's a way to increase the {disfmarker} yeah, n That's interesting. So in fact, that would be {disfmarker} That doesn't require any retraining. Professor B: Yeah. No. No. PhD C: No, that's right. So it's PhD E: So that means it's just Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: just tuning the models and testing, actually. PhD E: recognitions. Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. PhD C: It would be quick. PhD E: You {disfmarker} you have a step where you you modify the models, make a d copy of your models with whatever variance modifications you make, and rerun recognition. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: And then do a whole bunch of those. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: That could be set up fairly easily I think, and you have a whole bunch of you know {disfmarker} Professor B: Chuck is getting himself in trouble. PhD E: That's an interesting idea, actually. For testing the {disfmarker} Yeah. Huh! Grad A: Didn't you say you got these uh HTK's set up on the new Linux boxes? PhD E: That's right. Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: Hey! PhD E: In fact, and {disfmarker} and they're just t right now they're installing uh {disfmarker} increasing the memory on that uh {disfmarker} the Linux box. Professor B: And Chuck is sort of really fishing for how to keep his computer busy, Grad A: Right. Professor B: right? PhD E: Yeah. Absinthe. Professor B: Well, you know, that's {disfmarker} PhD E: Absinthe. We've got five processors on that. Grad A: Oh yeah. Professor B: that's {disfmarker} yeah, that's a good thing Grad A: That's right. Professor B: because then y you just write the" do" - loops and then you pretend that you are working while you are sort of {disfmarker} you c you can go fishing. PhD E: And two gigs of memory. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Grad A: Pretend, yeah. PhD E: Exactly. Yeah. PhD D: Go fishing. PhD E: See how many cycles we used? Professor B: Yeah. Then you are sort of in this mode like all of those ARPA people are, right? PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Uh, since it is on the record, I can't say uh which company it was, but it was reported to me that uh somebody visited a company and during a {disfmarker} d during a discussion, there was this guy who was always hitting the carriage returns uh on a computer. PhD E: Uh - huh. Professor B: So after two hours uh the visitor said" wh why are you hitting this carriage return?" And he said" well you know, we are being paid by a computer ty I mean we are {disfmarker} we have a government contract. And they pay us by {disfmarker} by amount of computer time we use." It was in old days when there were uh {disfmarker} of PDP - eights and that sort of thing. PhD E: Oh, my gosh! So he had to make it look like {disfmarker} Professor B: Because so they had a {disfmarker} they literally had to c monitor at the time {disfmarker} at the time on a computer how much time is being spent I {disfmarker} i i or on {disfmarker} on this particular project. PhD E: Yeah. How {disfmarker} Idle time. Grad A: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Nobody was looking even at what was coming out. PhD E: Have you ever seen those little um {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} it's this thing that's the shape of a bird and it has a red ball and its beak dips into the water? Professor B: Yeah, I know, right. PhD E: So {vocalsound} if you could hook that up so it hit the keyboard {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: That's an interesting experiment. Professor B: It would be similar {disfmarker} similar to {disfmarker} I knew some people who were uh that was in old Communist uh Czechoslovakia, right? so we were watching for American airplanes, coming to spy on {disfmarker} on uh {disfmarker} on us at the time, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: so there were three guys uh uh stationed in the middle of the woods on one l lonely uh watching tower, pretty much spending a year and a half there because there was this service right? And so they {disfmarker} very quickly they made friends with local girls and local people in the village PhD E: Ugh! Professor B: and {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: and so but they {disfmarker} there was one plane flying over s always uh uh above, and so that was the only work which they had. They {disfmarker} like four in the afternoon they had to report there was a plane from Prague to Brno Basically f flying there, PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: so they f very q f first thing was that they would always run back and {disfmarker} and at four o'clock and {disfmarker} and quickly make a call," this plane is uh uh passing" then a second thing was that they {disfmarker} they took the line from this u u post to uh uh a local pub. And they were calling from the pub. And they {disfmarker} but third thing which they made, and when they screwed up, they {disfmarker} finally they had to p the {disfmarker} the p the pub owner to make these phone calls because they didn't even bother to be there anymore. And one day there was {disfmarker} there was no plane. At least they were sort of smart enough that they looked if the plane is flying there, right? And the pub owner says" oh my {disfmarker} four o'clock, OK, quickly p pick up the phone, call that there's a plane flying." PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: There was no plane for some reason, PhD E: And there wasn't? Professor B: it was downed, or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and {disfmarker} so they got in trouble. But. {vocalsound} But uh. PhD E: Huh! Well that's {disfmarker} that's a really i Professor B: So. So. Yeah. PhD E: That wouldn't be too difficult to try. Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Maybe I could set that up. Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: And we'll just {disfmarker} Professor B: Well, at least go test the s test the uh assumption about C - C - one I mean to begin with. But then of course one can then think about some predictable result to change all of them. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: It's just like we used to do these uh {disfmarker} these uh {disfmarker} um the {disfmarker} the uh distance measures. It might be that uh {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah, so the first set of uh variance weighting vectors would be just you know one {disfmarker} modifying one and leaving the others the same. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. Maybe. PhD E: And {disfmarker} and do that for each one. Professor B: Because you see, I mean, what is happening here in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in such a model is that it's {disfmarker} tells you yeah what has a low variance uh is uh {disfmarker} is uh {disfmarker} is more reliable, PhD E: That would be one set of experiment {disfmarker} Professor B: right? How do we {disfmarker} PhD E: Wh - yeah, when the data matches that, then you get really {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Right. Professor B: How do we know, especially when it comes to noise? PhD E: But there could just naturally be low variance. Professor B: Yeah? PhD E: Because I {disfmarker} Like, I've noticed in the higher cepstral coefficients, the numbers seem to get smaller, right? So d PhD C: They {disfmarker} t PhD E: I mean, just naturally. PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: Yeah, th that's {disfmarker} PhD C: They have smaller means, also. Uh. PhD E: Yeah. Exactly. And so it seems like they're already sort of compressed. PhD C: Uh - huh. PhD E: The range {pause} of values. Professor B: Yeah that's why uh people used these lifters were inverse variance weighting lifters basically that makes uh uh Euclidean distance more like uh Mahalanobis distance with a diagonal covariance when you knew what all the variances were over the old data. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Hmm. Professor B: What they would do is that they would weight each coefficient by inverse of the variance. Turns out that uh the variance decreases at least at fast, I believe, as the index of the cepstral coefficients. I think you can show that uh uh analytically. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So typically what happens is that you {disfmarker} you need to weight the {disfmarker} uh weight the higher coefficients more than uh the lower coefficients. PhD E: Hmm. Mm - hmm. Hmm. Professor B: So. PhD C: Mmm. PhD E: Professor B: When {disfmarker} Yeah. When we talked about Aurora still I wanted to m make a plea {disfmarker} uh encourage for uh more communication between {disfmarker} between uh {pause} uh different uh parts of the distributed uh {pause} uh center. Uh even when there is absolutely nothing to {disfmarker} to s to say but the weather is good in Ore - in {disfmarker} in Berkeley. I'm sure that it's being appreciated in Oregon and maybe it will generate similar responses down here, like, uh {disfmarker} PhD C: We can set up a webcam maybe. Professor B: Yeah. Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: What {disfmarker} you know, nowadays, yeah. It's actually do - able, almost. PhD E: Is the um {disfmarker} if we mail to" Aurora - inhouse" , does that go up to you guys also? Professor B: I don't think so. No. PhD C: No. PhD E: OK. Professor B: So we should do that. PhD E: So i What is it {disfmarker} Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: We should definitely set up {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah we sh Do we have a mailing list that includes uh the OGI people? Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Uh no. We don't have. Professor B: Uh - huh. PhD E: Oh! Maybe we should set that up. That would make it much easier. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that would make it easier. PhD E: So maybe just call it" Aurora" or something that would {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. And then we also can send the {disfmarker} the dis to the same address right, and it goes to everybody PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: OK. Maybe we can set that up. Professor B: Because what's happening naturally in research, I know, is that people essentially start working on something and they don't want to be much bothered, right? but what the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} then the danger is in a group like this, is that two people are working on the same thing and i c of course both of them come with the s very good solution, but it could have been done somehow in half of the effort or something. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Oh, there's another thing which I wanted to uh uh report. Lucash, I think, uh wrote the software for this Aurora - two system. reasonably uh good one, because he's doing it for Intel, but I trust that we have uh rights to uh use it uh or distribute it and everything. Cuz Intel's intentions originally was to distribute it free of charge anyways. PhD E: Hmm! Professor B: u s And so {disfmarker} so uh we {disfmarker} we will make sure that at least you can see the software and if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if it is of any use. Just uh {disfmarker} PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: It might be a reasonable point for p perhaps uh start converging. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Because Morgan's point is that {disfmarker} He is an experienced guy. He says" well you know it's very difficult to collaborate if you are working with supposedly the same thing, in quotes, except which is not s is not the same. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Which {disfmarker} which uh uh one is using that set of hurdles, another one set {disfmarker} is using another set of hurdles. So. And {disfmarker} And then it's difficult to c compare. PhD C: What about Harry? Uh. We received a mail last week and you are starting to {disfmarker} to do some experiments. Professor B: He got the {disfmarker} he got the software. Yeah. They sent the release. PhD C: And use this Intel version. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD C: Hmm. Professor B: Yeah because Intel paid us uh should I say on a microphone? uh some amount of money, not much. Not much I can say on a microphone. Much less then we should have gotten {vocalsound} for this amount of work. And they wanted uh to {disfmarker} to have software so that they can also play with it, which means that it has to be in a certain environment {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: they use actu actually some Intel libraries, but in the process, Lucash just rewrote the whole thing because he figured rather than trying to f make sense uh of uh {disfmarker} including ICSI software uh not for training on the nets PhD E: Hmm. Grad A: Oh. Professor B: but I think he rewrote the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} or so maybe somehow reused over the parts of the thing so that {disfmarker} so that {disfmarker} the whole thing, including MLP, trained MLP is one piece of uh software. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Wow! Professor B: Is it useful? Grad A: Ye - Yeah. Professor B: Yeah? Grad A: I mean, I remember when we were trying to put together all the ICSI software for the submission. Professor B: Or {disfmarker} That's what he was saying, right. He said that it was like {disfmarker} it was like just so many libraries and nobody knew what was used when, and {disfmarker} and so that's where he started and that's where he realized that it needs to be {disfmarker} needs to be uh uh at least cleaned up, Grad A: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and so I think it {disfmarker} this is available. Grad A: Hmm. Professor B: So {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah. Well, the {disfmarker} the only thing I would check is if he {disfmarker} does he use Intel math libraries, Professor B: uh e ev PhD C: because if it's the case, it's maybe not so easy to use it on another architecture. Professor B: n not maybe {disfmarker} Maybe not in a first {disfmarker} maybe not in a first ap approximation because I think he started first just with a plain C {disfmarker} C or C - plus - plus or something before {disfmarker} PhD C: Ah yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor B: I {disfmarker} I can check on that. Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And uh in {disfmarker} otherwise the Intel libraries, I think they are available free of f freely. But they may be running only on {disfmarker} on uh {disfmarker} on uh Windows. PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: Or on {disfmarker} on the {disfmarker} PhD C: On Intel architecture maybe. Professor B: Yeah, on Intel architecture, may not run in SUN. PhD C: I'm {disfmarker} Yeah. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: That is p that is {disfmarker} that is possible. That's why Intel of course is distributing it, PhD C: Well. Professor B: right? Or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That's {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah. Well there are {disfmarker} at least there are optimized version for their architecture. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: I don't know. I never checked carefully these sorts of {disfmarker} Professor B: I know there was some issues that initially of course we d do all the development on Linux but we use {disfmarker} we don't have {disfmarker} we have only three uh uh uh uh s SUNs and we have them only because they have a SPERT board in. Otherwise {disfmarker} otherwise we t almost exclusively are working with uh PC's now, with Intel. In that way Intel succeeded with us, because they gave us too many good machines for very little money or nothing. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: So. So. So we run everything on Intel. PhD E: Wow! Professor B: And {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. Does anybody have anything else? to {disfmarker} Shall we read some digits? PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: Yes. I have to take my glasses {disfmarker} PhD E: So. Hynek, I don't know if you've ever done this. Professor B: No. PhD E: The way that it works is each person goes around in turn, {comment} and uh you say the transcript number and then you read the digits, the {disfmarker} the strings of numbers as individual digits. Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD E: So you don't say" eight hundred and fifty" , you say" eight five oh" , and so forth. Professor B: OK. OK. So can {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} can I t maybe start then? PhD E: Um. Sure.

The professor explained that Guenter Hirsch had left Ericsson and that Ericsson may withdraw from Aurora altogether. For the past two to three years, he was happily employed at a technical college not too far from Aachen.

tr-sq-616

tr-sq-616_0

What did PhD C think about the baseline? Professor B: Is it starting now? PhD E: Yep. Professor B: So what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} from {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} Grad A: Hello? Professor B: Whatever we say from now on, it can be held against us, right? PhD E: That's right. Professor B: and uh Grad A: It's your right to remain silent. Professor B: Yeah. So I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the problem is that I actually don't know how th these held meetings are held, if they are very informal and sort of just people are say what's going on PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: and PhD E: Yeah, that's usually what we do. Professor B: OK. PhD E: We just sorta go around and people say what's going on, what's the latest uh {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. OK. So I guess that what may be a {disfmarker} reasonable is if I uh first make a report on what's happening in Aurora in general, at least what from my perspective. PhD E: Yeah. That would be great. Professor B: And {disfmarker} and uh so, I {disfmarker} I think that Carmen and Stephane reported on uh Amsterdam meeting, PhD D: Uh o Professor B: which was kind of interesting because it was for the first time we realized we are not friends really, but we are competitors. Cuz until then it was sort of like everything was like wonderful and {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. It seemed like there were still some issues, Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: right? that they were trying to decide? Professor B: There is a plenty of {disfmarker} there're plenty of issues. PhD E: Like the voice activity detector, Professor B: Well and what happened was that they realized that if two leading proposals, which was French Telecom Alcatel, and us both had uh voice activity detector. And I said" well big surprise, I mean we could have told you that {pause} n n n four months ago, except we didn't because nobody else was bringing it up" . PhD E: Right. Professor B: Obviously French Telecom didn't volunteer this information either, cuz we were working on {disfmarker} mainly on voice activity detector for past uh several months PhD E: Right. Professor B: because that's buying us the most uh thing. And everybody said" Well but this is not fair. We didn't know that." And of course uh the {disfmarker} it's not working on features really. And be I agreed. PhD E: Right. Professor B: I said" well yeah, you are absolutely right, I mean if I wish that you provided better end point at speech because uh {disfmarker} or at least that if we could modify the recognizer, uh to account for these long silences, because otherwise uh that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} th that wasn't a correct thing." And so then ev ev everybody else says" well we should {disfmarker} we need to do a new eval evaluation without voice activity detector, or we have to do something about it" . PhD E: Right. Professor B: And in principle I {disfmarker} uh I {disfmarker} we agreed. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: We said uh" yeah" . Because uh {disfmarker} but in that case, uh we would like to change the uh {disfmarker} the algorithm because uh if we are working on different data, we probably will use a different set of tricks. PhD E: Right. Professor B: But unfortunately nobody ever officially can somehow acknowledge that this can be done, because French Telecom was saying" no, no, no, now everybody has access to our code, so everybody is going to copy what we did." Yeah well our argument was everybody ha has access to our code, and everybody always had access to our code. We never uh {disfmarker} uh denied that. We thought that people are honest, that if you copy something and if it is protected {disfmarker} protected by patent then you negotiate, or something, PhD E: Yeah. Right. Professor B: right? I mean, if you find our technique useful, we are very happy. PhD E: Right. Professor B: But {disfmarker} And French Telecom was saying" no, no, no, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: there is a lot of little tricks which uh sort of uh cannot be protected and you guys will take them," which probably is also true. I mean, you know, it might be that people will take uh uh th the algorithms apart and use the blocks from that. But I somehow think that it wouldn't be so bad, as long as people are happy abou uh uh uh honest about it. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: And I think they have to be honest in the long run, because winning proposal again {disfmarker} uh what will be available th is {disfmarker} will be a code. So the uh {disfmarker} the people can go to code and say" well listen this is what you stole from me" PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: you know? PhD E: Right. Professor B:" so let's deal with that" . PhD E: Right. Professor B: So I don't see the problem. The biggest problem of course is that f that Alcatel French Telecom cl claims" well we fulfilled the conditions. We are the best. Uh. We are the standard." And e and other people don't feel that, because they {disfmarker} so they now decided that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} the whole thing will be done on well - endpointed data, essentially that somebody will endpoint the data based on clean speech, because most of this the SpeechDat - Car has the also close speaking mike and endpoints will be provided. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Ah. Professor B: And uh we will run again {disfmarker} still not clear if we are going to run the {disfmarker} if we are allowed to run uh uh new algorithms, but I assume so. Because uh we would fight for that, really. uh but {disfmarker} since uh u u n u {disfmarker} at least our experience is that only endpointing a {disfmarker} a mel cepstrum gets uh {disfmarker} gets you twenty - one percent improvement overall and twenty - seven improvement on SpeechDat - Car PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: then obvious the database {disfmarker} uh I mean the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} uh the baseline will go up. And nobody can then achieve fifty percent improvement. PhD E: Right. Professor B: So they agreed that uh there will be a twenty - five percent improvement required on {disfmarker} on uh h u m bad mis badly mismatched {disfmarker} PhD E: But wait a minute, I thought the endpointing really only helped in the noisy cases. Professor B: It uh {disfmarker} PhD E: Oh, but you still have that with the MFCC. Professor B: Y yeah. PhD E: OK. Professor B: Yeah but you have the same prob I mean MFCC basically has an enormous number of uh insertions. PhD E: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Professor B: And so, so now they want to say" we {disfmarker} we will require fifty percent improvement only for well matched condition, and only twenty - five percent for the serial cases." PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And uh {disfmarker} and they almost agreed on that except that it wasn't a hundred percent agreed. And so last time uh during the meeting, I just uh brought up the issue, I said" well you know uh quite frankly I'm surprised how lightly you are making these decisions because this is a major decision. For two years we are fighting for fifty percent improvement and suddenly you are saying" oh no we {disfmarker} we will do something less" , but maybe we should discuss that. And everybody said" oh we discussed that and you were not a mee there" and I said" well a lot of other people were not there because not everybody participates at these teleconferencing c things." Then they said" oh no no no because uh everybody is invited." However, there is only ten or fifteen lines, so people can't even con you know participate. So eh they agreed, and so they said" OK, we will discuss that." Immediately Nokia uh raised the question and they said" oh yeah we agree this is not good to to uh dissolve the uh uh {disfmarker} the uh {disfmarker} the criterion." PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So now officially, Nokia is uh uh complaining and said they {disfmarker} they are looking for support, uh I think QualComm is uh saying, too" we shouldn't abandon the fifty percent yet. We should at least try once again, one more round." PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So this is where we are. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: I hope that {disfmarker} I hope that this is going to be a adopted. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Next Wednesday we are going to have uh another uh teleconferencing call, so we'll see what uh {disfmarker} where it goes. PhD E: So what about the issue of um the weights on the {disfmarker} for the different systems, the well - matched, and medium - mismatched and {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah, that's what {disfmarker} that's a g very good uh point, because David says" well you know we ca we can manipulate this number by choosing the right weights anyways." So while you are right but {disfmarker} uh you know but PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Uh yeah, if of course if you put a zero {disfmarker} uh weight zero on a mismatched condition, or highly mismatched then {disfmarker} then you are done. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: But weights were also deter already decided uh half a year ago. So {disfmarker} PhD E: And they're the {disfmarker} staying the same? Professor B: Well, of course people will not like it. Now {disfmarker} What is happening now is that I th I think that people try to match the criterion to solution. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: They have solution. Now they want to {vocalsound} make sure their criterion is {disfmarker} PhD E: Right. Professor B: And I think that this is not the right way. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Uh it may be that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Eventually it may ha may ha it may have to happen. But it's should happen at a point where everybody feels comfortable that we did all what we could. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: And I don't think we did. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Basically, I think that {disfmarker} that this test was a little bit bogus because of the data and uh essentially {pause} there were these arbitrary decisions made, and {disfmarker} and everything. So, so {disfmarker} so this is {disfmarker} so this is where it is. So what we are doing at OGI now is uh uh uh working basically on our parts which we I think a little bit neglected, like noise separation. Uh so we are looking in ways is {disfmarker} in uh which {disfmarker} uh with which we can provide better initial estimate of the mel spectrum basically, which would be a l uh, f more robust to noise, and so far not much uh success. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: We tried uh things which uh a long time ago Bill Byrne suggested, instead of using Fourier spectrum, from Fourier transform, use the spectrum from LPC model. Their argument there was the LPC model fits the peaks of the spectrum, so it may be m naturally more robust in noise. And I thought" well, that makes sense," but so far we can't get much {disfmarker} much out of it. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: uh we may try some standard techniques like spectral subtraction and {disfmarker} PhD E: You haven't tried that yet? Professor B: not {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not much. Or even I was thinking about uh looking back into these totally ad - hoc techniques PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: like for instance uh Dennis Klatt was suggesting uh the one way to uh deal with noisy speech is to add noise to everything. PhD E: Hmm! Professor B: So. {comment} I mean, uh uh add moderate amount of noise to all data. PhD E: Oh! Professor B: So that makes uh th any additive noise less addi less a a effective, PhD E: I see. Professor B: right? Because you already uh had the noise uh in a {disfmarker} PhD E: Right. Professor B: And it was working at the time. It was kind of like one of these things, you know, but if you think about it, it's actually pretty ingenious. So well, you know, just take a {disfmarker} take a spectrum and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and add of the constant, C, to every {disfmarker} every value. PhD E: Well you're {disfmarker} you're basically y Yeah. So you're making all your training data more uniform. Professor B: Exactly. And if {disfmarker} if then {disfmarker} if this data becomes noisy, it b it becomes eff effectively becomes less noisy basically. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: But of course you cannot add too much noise because then you'll s then you're clean recognition goes down, but I mean it's yet to be seen how much, it's a very simple technique. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Yes indeed it's a very simple technique, you just take your spectrum and {disfmarker} and use whatever is coming from FFT, {pause} add constant, PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: you know? on {disfmarker} onto power spectrum. That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Or the other thing is of course if you have a spectrum, what you can s start doing, you can leave {disfmarker} start leaving out the p the parts which are uh uh low in energy and then perhaps uh one could try to find a {disfmarker} a all - pole model to such a spectrum. Because a all - pole model will still try to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to put the {disfmarker} the continuation basically of the {disfmarker} of the model into these parts where the issue set to zero. That's what we want to try. I have a visitor from Brno. He's a {disfmarker} kind of like young faculty. pretty hard - working so he {disfmarker} so he's {disfmarker} so he's looking into that. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And then most of the effort is uh now also aimed at this e e TRAP recognition. This uh {disfmarker} this is this recognition from temporal patterns. PhD E: Hmm! What is that? Professor B: Ah, you don't know about TRAPS! Grad A: Hmm. PhD E: The TRAPS sound familiar, I {disfmarker} but I don't {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah I mean tha This is familiar like sort of because we gave you the name, but, what it is, is that normally what you do is that you recognize uh speech based on a shortened spectrum. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: Essentially L P - LPC, mel cepstrum, uh, everything starts with a spectral slice. Uh so if you s So, given the spectrogram you essentially are sliding {disfmarker} sliding the spectrogram along the uh f frequency axis PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and you keep shifting this thing, and you have a spectrogram. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So you can say" well you can also take the time trajectory of the energy at a given frequency" , and what you get is then, that you get a p {pause} vector. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: And this vector can be a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} s assigned to s some phoneme. Namely you can say i it {disfmarker} I will {disfmarker} I will say that this vector will eh {disfmarker} will {disfmarker} will describe the phoneme which is in the center of the vector. And you can try to classify based on that. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And you {disfmarker} so you classi so it's a very different vector, very different properties, we don't know much about it, but the truth is {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. But you have many of those vectors per phoneme, Professor B: Well, so you get many decisions. PhD E: right? Uh - huh. Professor B: And then you can start dec thinking about how to combine these decisions. Exactly, that's what {disfmarker} yeah, that's what it is. PhD E: Hmm. Hmm. Professor B: Because if you run this uh recognition, you get {disfmarker} you still get about twenty percent error {disfmarker} uh twenty percent correct. You know, PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: on {disfmarker} on like for the frame by frame basis, so {pause} uh {disfmarker} uh so it's much better than chance. PhD E: How wide are the uh frequency bands? Professor B: That's another thing. Well c currently we start {disfmarker} I mean we start always with critical band spectrum. For various reasons. But uh the latest uh observation uh is that you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you are {disfmarker} you can get quite a big advantage of using two critical bands at the same time. Grad A: Are they adjacent, or are they s Professor B: Adjacent, adjacent. Grad A: OK. Professor B: And the reasons {disfmarker} there are some reasons for that. Because there are some reasons I can {disfmarker} I could talk about, will have to tell you about things like masking experiments which uh uh uh uh yield critical bands, and also experiments with release of masking, which actually tell you that something is happening across critical bands, across bands. And {disfmarker} PhD E: Well how do you {disfmarker} how do you uh convert this uh energy over time in a particular frequency band into a vector of numbers? Professor B: It's uh uh uh I mean time T - zero is one number, {pause} time t PhD E: Yeah but what's the number? Is it just the {disfmarker} Professor B: It's a spectral energy, logarithmic spectral energy, PhD E: it's just the amount of energy in that band from f in that time interval. Professor B: yeah. Yes, yes. Yes, yes. PhD E: OK. Professor B: And that's what {disfmarker} that's what I'm saying then, so this is a {disfmarker} this is a starting vector. It's just like shortened f {pause} spectrum, or something. But now we are trying to understand what this vector actually represents, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: for instance a question is like" how correlated are the elements of this vector?" Turns out they are quite correlated, because I mean, especially the neighboring ones, right? They {disfmarker} they represent the same {disfmarker} almost the same configuration of the vocal tract. PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor B: So there's a very high correlation. So the classifiers which use the diagonal covariance matrix don't like it. So we're thinking about de - correlating them. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Then the question is uh" can you describe elements of this vector by Gaussian distributions" , or to what extent? Because uh {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and so on and so on. So we are learning quite a lot about that. And then another issue is how many vectors we should be using, PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: I mean the {disfmarker} so the minimum is one. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: But I mean is the {disfmarker} is the critical band the right uh uh dimension? So we somehow made arbitrary decision," yes" . Then {disfmarker} but then now we are thinking a lot how to {disfmarker} uh how to use at least the neighboring band because that seems to be happening {disfmarker} This I somehow start to believe that's what's happening in recognition. Cuz a lot of experiments point to the fact that people can split the signal into critical bands, but then oh uh uh so you can {disfmarker} you are quite capable of processing a signal in uh uh independently in individual critical bands. That's what masking experiments tell you. But at the same time you most likely pay attention to at least neighboring bands when you are making any decisions, you compare what's happening in {disfmarker} in this band to what's happening to the band {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to the {disfmarker} to the neighboring bands. And that's how you make uh decisions. That's why the articulatory events, which uh F F Fletcher talks about, they are about two critical bands. You need at least two, basically. You need some relative, relative relation. Grad A: Hmm. Professor B: Absolute number doesn't tell you the right thing. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: You need to {disfmarker} you need to compare it to something else, what's happening but it's what's happening in the {disfmarker} in the close neighborhood. So if you are making decision what's happening at one kilohertz, you want to know what's happening at nine hundred hertz and it {disfmarker} and maybe at eleven hundred hertz, but you don't much care what's happening at three kilohertz. PhD E: So it's really w It's sort of like saying that what's happening at one kilohertz depends on what's happening around it. It's sort of relative to it. Professor B: To some extent, it {disfmarker} that is also true. Yeah. But it's {disfmarker} but for {disfmarker} but for instance, {vocalsound} th uh {vocalsound} uh what {disfmarker} what uh humans are very much capable of doing is that if th if they are exactly the same thing happening in two neighboring critical bands, recognition can discard it. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Is what's happening {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. Grad A: Hey! Professor B: Hey! OK, we need us another {disfmarker} another voice here. PhD E: Hey Stephane. Professor B: Yeah, I think so. Yeah? PhD E: Yep. Sure. Go ahead. Professor B: And so so {disfmarker} so for instance if you d if you a if you add the noise that normally masks {disfmarker} masks the uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the signal right? PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and you can show that in {disfmarker} that if the {disfmarker} if you add the noise outside the critical band, that doesn't affect the {disfmarker} the decisions you're making about a signal within a critical band. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Unless this noise is modulated. If the noise is modulated, with the same modulation frequency as the noise in a critical band, the amount of masking is less. The moment you {disfmarker} moment you provide the noise in n neighboring critical bands. PhD E: Mmm. Professor B: So the s m masking curve, normally it looks like sort of {disfmarker} I start from {disfmarker} from here, so you {disfmarker} {comment} you have uh no noise then you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you are expanding the critical band, so the amount of maching is increasing. And when you e hit a certain point, which is a critical band, then the amount of masking is the same. PhD E: Mmm. Professor B: So that's the famous experiment of Fletcher, a long time ago. Like that's where people started thinking" wow this is interesting!" So. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: But, if you {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if you modulate the noise, the masking goes up and the moment you start hitting the {disfmarker} another critical band, the masking goes down. So essentially {disfmarker} essentially that's a very clear indication that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that {pause} cognition can take uh uh into consideration what's happening in the neighboring bands. But if you go too far in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if the noise is very broad, you are not increasing much more, so {disfmarker} so if you {disfmarker} if you are far away from the signal {disfmarker} uh from the signal f uh the frequency at which the signal is, then the m even the {disfmarker} when the noise is co - modulated it {disfmarker} it's not helping you much. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Mm - hmm. Grad A: Hmm. Professor B: So. So things like this we are kind of playing with {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} with the hope that perhaps we could eventually u use this in a {disfmarker} in a real recognizer. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Like uh partially of course we promised to do this under the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Aurora uh program. PhD E: But you probably won't have anything before the next time we have to evaluate, Professor B: Probably not. PhD E: right? Professor B: Well, maybe, most likely we will not have anything which c would comply with the rules. PhD E: Yeah. Ah. Professor B: like because uh uh PhD E: Latency and things. Professor B: latency currently chops the require uh significant uh latency amount of processing, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: because uh we don't know any better, yet, than to use the neural net classifiers, uh and uh {disfmarker} and uh TRAPS. PhD E: Yeah. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Though the {disfmarker} the work which uh everybody is looking at now aims at s trying to find out what to do with these vectors, so that a g simple Gaussian classifier would be happier with it. PhD C: Hmm. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: or to what extent a Gaussian classifier should be unhappy uh that, and how to Gaussian - ize the vectors, and {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: So this is uh what's happening. Then Sunil is uh uh uh asked me f for one month's vacation and since he did not take any vacation for two years, I had no {disfmarker} I didn't have heart to tell him no. So he's in India. PhD E: Wow. Professor B: And uh {disfmarker} PhD E: Is he getting married or something? Professor B: Uh well, he may be looking for a girl, for {disfmarker} for I don't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I don't ask. I know that Naran - when last time Narayanan did that he came back engaged. PhD E: Right. Well, I mean, I've known other friends who {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they go to Ind - they go back home to India for a month, they come back married, Professor B: Yeah. I know. I know, I know, PhD E: you know, huh. Professor B: and then of course then what happened with Narayanan was that he start pushing me that he needs to get a PHD because they wouldn't give him his wife. And she's very pretty and he loves her and so {disfmarker} so we had to really {disfmarker} PhD E: So he finally had some incentive to finish, Professor B: Oh yeah. We had {disfmarker} well I had a incentive because he {disfmarker} he always had this plan except he never told me. PhD E: huh? Professor B: Sort of figured that {disfmarker} That was a uh that he uh he told me the day when we did very well at our NIST evaluations of speaker recognition, the technology, and he was involved there. PhD E: Oh. Professor B: We were {disfmarker} after presentation we were driving home and he told me. PhD E: When he knew you were happy, Professor B: Yeah. So I {disfmarker} I said" well, yeah, OK" so he took another {disfmarker} another three quarter of the year but uh he was out. PhD E: huh? Professor B: So I {disfmarker} wouldn't surprise me if he has a plan like that, though {disfmarker} though uh Pratibha still needs to get out first. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Cuz Pratibha is there a {disfmarker} a year earlier. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And S and Satya needs to get out very first because he's {disfmarker} he already has uh four years served, though one year he was getting masters. So. So. PhD C: Hmm. PhD E: So have the um {disfmarker} when is the next uh evaluation? June or something? Professor B: Which? Speaker recognition? PhD E: No, for uh Aurora? Professor B: Uh there, we don't know about evaluation, next meeting is in June. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And uh uh but like getting {disfmarker} get together. PhD E: Oh, OK. Are people supposed to rerun their systems, Professor B: Nobody said that yet. PhD E: or {disfmarker}? Professor B: I assume so. Uh yes, uh, but nobody even set up yet the {pause} date for uh delivering uh endpointed data. PhD E: Hmm. Wow. Professor B: And this uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that sort of stuff. But I uh, yeah, what I think would be of course extremely useful, if we can come to our next meeting and say" well you know we did get fifty percent improvement. If {disfmarker} if you are interested we eventually can tell you how" , but uh we can get fifty percent improvement. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Because people will s will be saying it's impossible. PhD E: Hmm. Do you know what the new baseline is? Oh, I guess if you don't have {disfmarker} Professor B: Twenty - two {disfmarker} t twenty {disfmarker} twenty - two percent better than the old baseline. PhD E: Using your uh voice activity detector? Professor B: u Yes. Yes. But I assume that it will be similar, I don't {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't see the reason why it shouldn't be. PhD E: Similar, yeah. Professor B: I d I don't see reason why it should be worse. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Cuz if it is worse, then we will raise the objection, PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: we say" well you know how come?" Because eh if we just use our voice activity detector, which we don't claim even that it's wonderful, it's just like one of them. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: We get this sort of improvement, how come that we don't see it on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on your endpointed data? PhD C: Yeah. I guess it could be even better, Professor B: I think so. PhD C: because the voice activity detector that I choosed is something that cheating, it's using the alignment of the speech recognition system, Professor B: Yeah. C yeah uh PhD C: and only the alignment on the clean channel, and then mapped this alignment to the noisy channel. Professor B: and on clean speech data. Yeah. PhD E: Oh, OK. Professor B: Well David told me {disfmarker} David told me yesterday or Harry actually he told Harry from QualComm and Harry uh brought up the suggestion we should still go for fifty percent he says are you aware that your system does only thirty percent uh comparing to {disfmarker} to endpointed baselines? So they must have run already something. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: So. And Harry said" Yeah. But I mean we think that we {disfmarker} we didn't say the last word yet, that we have other {disfmarker} other things which we can try." PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: So. So there's a lot of discussion now about this uh new criterion. Because Nokia was objecting, with uh QualComm's {disfmarker} we basically supported that, we said" yes" . PhD C: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: Now everybody else is saying" well you guys might {disfmarker} must be out of your mind." uh The {disfmarker} Guenter Hirsch who d doesn't speak for Ericsson anymore because he is not with Ericsson and Ericsson may not {disfmarker} may withdraw from the whole Aurora activity because they have so many troubles now. PhD E: Wow. Professor B: Ericsson's laying off twenty percent of people. Grad A: Wow. PhD E: Where's uh Guenter going? Professor B: Well Guenter is already {disfmarker} he got the job uh already was working on it for past two years or three years {disfmarker} PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: he got a job uh at some {disfmarker} some Fachschule, the technical college not too far from Aachen. PhD E: Hmm! Professor B: So it's like professor {disfmarker} u university professor PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: you know, not quite a university, not quite a sort of {disfmarker} it's not Aachen University, but it's a good school and he {disfmarker} he's happy. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Hmm! Professor B: And he {disfmarker} well, he was hoping to work uh with Ericsson like on t uh like consulting basis, but right now he says {disfmarker} says it doesn't look like that anybody is even thinking about speech recognition. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: They think about survival. PhD E: Wow! Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: So. So. But this is being now discussed right now, and it's possible that uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that it may get through, that we will still stick to fifty percent. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: But that means that nobody will probably get this im this improvement. yet, wi with the current system. Which event es essentially I think that we should be happy with because that {disfmarker} that would mean that at least people may be forced to look into alternative solutions PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and {disfmarker} PhD C: Mm - hmm. But maybe {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean we are not too far from {disfmarker} from fifty percent, from the new baseline. Professor B: Uh, but not {disfmarker} PhD C: Which would mean like sixty percent over the current baseline, which is {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. Yes. Yes. We {disfmarker} we getting {disfmarker} we getting there, right. PhD C: Well. We are around fifty, fifty - five. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: So. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Is it like sort of {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} How did you come up with this number? If you improve twenty {disfmarker} by twenty percent the c the f the all baselines, it's just a quick c comp co computation? PhD C: Yeah. I don't know exactly if it's {disfmarker} Professor B: Uh - huh. I think it's about right. PhD C: Yeah, because it de it depends on the weightings Professor B: Yeah, yeah. PhD C: and {disfmarker} Yeah. But. Mm - hmm. PhD E: Hmm. How's your documentation or whatever it w what was it you guys were working on last week? PhD C: Yeah, finally we {disfmarker} we've not finished with this. We stopped. PhD D: More or less it's finished. PhD C: Yeah. PhD D: Ma - nec to need a little more time to improve the English, and maybe s to fill in something {disfmarker} some small detail, something like that, PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Hmm. PhD D: but it's more or less ready. PhD C: Yeah. Well, we have a document that explain a big part of the experiments, PhD D: Necessary to {disfmarker} to include the bi the bibliography. PhD C: but PhD D: Mm - hmm. PhD C: it's not, yeah, finished yet. Mm - hmm. PhD E: So have you been running some new experiments? I {disfmarker} I thought I saw some jobs of yours running on some of the machine {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah. Right. We've fff {comment} done some strange things like removing C - zero or C - one from the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} the vector of parameters, and we noticed that C - one is almost not useful at all. You can remove it from the vector, it doesn't hurt. PhD E: Really? ! That has no effect? PhD C: Um. PhD E: Eh {disfmarker} Is this in the baseline? or in uh {disfmarker} PhD C: In the {disfmarker} No, in the proposal. PhD E: in {disfmarker} uh - huh, uh - huh. Professor B: So we were just discussing, since you mentioned that, in {disfmarker} it w PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: driving in the car with Morgan this morning, we were discussing a good experiment for b for beginning graduate student who wants to run a lot of {disfmarker} who wants to get a lot of numbers on something PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: which is, like," imagine that you will {disfmarker} you will start putting every co any coefficient, which you are using in your vector, in some general power. PhD E: In some what? Professor B: General pow power. Like sort of you take a s power of two, or take a square root, or something. PhD E: Mm - hmm. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So suppose that you are working with a s C - zer C - one. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So if you put it in a s square root, that effectively makes your model half as efficient. Because uh your uh Gaussian mixture model, right? computes the mean. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: And {disfmarker} and uh i i i but it's {disfmarker} the mean is an exponent of the whatever, the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this Gaussian function. PhD E: You're compressing the range, Professor B: So you're compressing the range of this coefficient, so it's becoming less efficient. PhD E: right? of that {disfmarker} Professor B: Right? PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So. So. Morgan was @ @ and he was {disfmarker} he was saying well this might be the alternative way how to play with a {disfmarker} with a fudge factor, you know, uh in the {disfmarker} PhD E: Oh. Professor B: you know, just compress the whole vector. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: And I said" well in that case why don't we just start compressing individual elements, like when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} because in old days we were doing {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when people still were doing template matching and Euclidean distances, we were doing this liftering of parameters, right? PhD E: Uh - huh. Professor B: because we observed that uh higher parameters were more important than lower for recognition. And basically the {disfmarker} the C - ze C - one contributes mainly slope, PhD E: Right. Professor B: and it's highly affected by uh frequency response of the {disfmarker} of the recording equipment and that sort of thing, PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: so {disfmarker} so we were coming with all these f various lifters. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: uh Bell Labs had he {disfmarker} this uh uh r raised cosine lifter which still I think is built into H {disfmarker} HTK for reasons n unknown to anybody, but {disfmarker} but uh we had exponential lifter, or triangle lifter, basic number of lifters. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And. But so they may be a way to {disfmarker} to fiddle with the f with the f PhD E: Insertions. Professor B: Insertions, deletions, or the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} giving a relative {disfmarker} uh basically modifying relative importance of the various parameters. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: The only of course problem is that there's an infinite number of combinations and if the {disfmarker} if you s if y PhD E: Oh. Uh - huh. You need like a {disfmarker} some kind of a {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah, you need a lot of graduate students, and a lot of computing power. PhD E: You need to have a genetic algorithm, that basically tries random permutations of these things. Professor B: I know. Exactly. Oh. If you were at Bell Labs or {disfmarker} I d d I shouldn't be saying this in {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on a mike, right? Or I {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} IBM, that's what {disfmarker} maybe that's what somebody would be doing. PhD E: Yeah. Grad A: Hmm. Professor B: Oh, I mean, I mean the places which have a lot of computing power, so because it is really it's a p it's a {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it will be reasonable search PhD E: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Professor B: uh but I wonder if there isn't some way of doing this uh search like when we are searching say for best discriminants. PhD E: You know actually, I don't know that this wouldn't be all that bad. I mean you {disfmarker} you compute the features once, Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: right? And then these exponents are just applied to that {disfmarker} Professor B: Absolutely. And hev everything is fixed. PhD E: So. Professor B: Everything is fixed. Each {disfmarker} each {disfmarker} PhD E: And is this something that you would adjust for training? or only recognition? Professor B: For both, you would have to do. Yeah. PhD E: You would do it on both. Professor B: You have to do bo both. PhD E: So you'd actually {disfmarker} Professor B: Because essentially you are saying" uh this feature is not important" . PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Or less important, so that's {disfmarker} th that's a {disfmarker} that's a painful one, yeah. PhD E: So for each {disfmarker} uh set of exponents that you would try, it would require a training and a recognition? Professor B: Yeah. But {disfmarker} but wait a minute. You may not need to re uh uh retrain the m model. You just may n may need to c uh give uh less weight to {disfmarker} to uh a mod uh a component of the model which represents this particular feature. You don't have to retrain it. PhD E: Oh. So if you {disfmarker} Instead of altering the feature vectors themselves, you {disfmarker} you modify the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Gaussians in the models. Professor B: You just multiply. Yeah. Yep. You modify the Gaussian in the model, but in the {disfmarker} in the test data you would have to put it in the power, but in a training what you c in a training uh {disfmarker} in trained model, all you would have to do is to multiply a model by appropriate constant. PhD E: Uh - huh. But why {disfmarker} if you're {disfmarker} if you're multi if you're altering the model, why w in the test data, why would you have to muck with the uh cepstral coefficients? Professor B: Because in uh test {disfmarker} in uh test data you ca don't have a model. You have uh only data. But in a {disfmarker} in a tr PhD E: No. But you're running your data through that same model. Professor B: That is true, but w I mean, so what you want to do {disfmarker} You want to say if uh obs you {disfmarker} if you observe something like Stephane observes, that C - one is not important, you can do two things. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: If you have a trained {disfmarker} trained recognizer, in the model, you know the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the component which {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean di dimension {vocalsound} wh PhD E: Mm - hmm. All of the {disfmarker} all of the mean and variances that correspond to C - one, you put them to zero. Professor B: To the s you {disfmarker} you know it. But what I'm proposing now, if it is important but not as important, you multiply it by point one in a model. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} PhD E: But what are you multiplying? Cuz those are means, right? Grad A: You're multiplying the standard deviation? PhD E: I mean you're {disfmarker} Grad A: So it's {disfmarker} Professor B: I think that you multiply the {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} I would have to look in the {disfmarker} in the math, I mean how {disfmarker} how does the model uh {disfmarker} PhD E: I think you {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah, I think you'd have to modify the standard deviation or something, so that you make it {vocalsound} wider or narrower. Grad A: Cuz {disfmarker} Yeah. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: Effectively, that's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Exactly. That's what you do. That's what you do, you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you modify the standard deviation as it was trained. Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: Effectively you, you know y in f in front of the {disfmarker} of the model, you put a constant. S yeah effectively what you're doing is you {disfmarker} is you are modifying the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the deviation. Right? Grad A: The spread, PhD E: Oop. Grad A: right. PhD E: Sorry. Professor B: Yeah, the spread. Grad A: It's the same {disfmarker} same mean, PhD E: So. Grad A: right? Professor B: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} PhD E: So by making th the standard deviation narrower, {comment} uh your scores get worse for {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: unless it's exactly right on the mean. Professor B: Your als No. By making it narrower, PhD E: Right? Professor B: uh y your {disfmarker} PhD E: I mean there's {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker} you're allowing for less variance. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Yes, so you making this particular dimension less important. Because see what you are fitting is the multidimensional Gaussian, right? PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: It's a {disfmarker} it has {disfmarker} it has uh thirty - nine dimensions, or thirteen dimensions if you g ignore deltas and double - deltas. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: So in order {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} in order to make dimension which {disfmarker} which Stephane sees uh less important, uh uh I mean not {disfmarker} not useful, less important, what you do is that this particular component in the model you can multiply by w you can {disfmarker} you can basically de - weight it in the model. But you can't do it in a {disfmarker} in a test data because you don't have a model for th I mean uh when the test comes, but what you can do is that you put this particular component in {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and you compress it. That becomes uh th gets less variance, subsequently becomes less important. PhD E: Couldn't you just do that to the test data and not do anything with your training data? Professor B: That would be very bad, because uh your t your model was trained uh expecting uh, that wouldn't work. Because your model was trained expecting a certain var variance on C - one. PhD E: Uh - huh. Professor B: And because the model thinks C - one is important. After you train the model, you sort of {disfmarker} y you could do {disfmarker} you could do still what I was proposing initially, that during the training you {disfmarker} you compress C - one that becomes {disfmarker} then it becomes less important in a training. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: But if you have {disfmarker} if you want to run e ex extensive experiment without retraining the model, you don't have to retrain the model. You train it on the original vector. But after, you {disfmarker} wh when you are doing this parametric study of importance of C - one you will de - weight the C - one component in the model, and you will put in the {disfmarker} you will compress the {disfmarker} this component in a {disfmarker} in the test data. s by the same amount. PhD E: Could you also if you wanted to {disfmarker} if you wanted to try an experiment uh by {pause} leaving out say, C - one, couldn't you, in your test data, uh modify the {disfmarker} all of the C - one values to be um way outside of the normal range of the Gaussian for C - one that was trained in the model? So that effectively, the C - one never really contributes to the score? PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: No, that would be a severe mismatch, PhD E: Do you know what I'm say Professor B: right? what you are proposing? N no you don't want that. PhD E: Yeah, someth Professor B: Because that would {disfmarker} then your model would be unlikely. Your likelihood would be low, right? Because you would be providing severe mismatch. PhD E: Mm - hmm. But what if you set if to the mean of the model, then? And it was a cons you set all C - ones coming in through your test data, you {disfmarker} you change whatever value that was there to the mean that your model had. Professor B: No that would be very good match, right? PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: That you would {disfmarker} PhD C: Which {disfmarker} Well, yeah, but we have several means. So. Professor B: I see what you are sa {pause} saying, PhD C: Right? Grad A: Saying. Professor B: but uh, {vocalsound} no, no I don't think that it would be the same. I mean, no, the {disfmarker} If you set it to a mean, that would {disfmarker} No, you can't do that. Y you ca you ca Ch - Chuck, you can't do that. PhD E: Oh, that's true, right, yeah, because you {disfmarker} you have {disfmarker} PhD C: Wait. Which {disfmarker} Professor B: Because that would be a really f fiddling with the data, PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: you can't do that. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: But what you can do, I'm confident you ca PhD E: Professor B: well, I'm reasonably confident and I putting it on the record, right? I mean y people will listen to it for {disfmarker} for centuries now, is {pause} what you can do, is you train the model uh with the {disfmarker} with the original data. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Then you decide that you want to see how important C {disfmarker} C - one is. So what you will do is that a component in the model for C - one, you will divide it by {disfmarker} by two. And you will compress your test data by square root. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Then you will still have a perfect m match. Except that this component of C - one will be half as important in a {disfmarker} in a overall score. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: Then you divide it by four and you take a square, f fourth root. Then if you think that some component is more {disfmarker} is more important then th th th it then {disfmarker} then uh uh i it is, based on training, then you uh multiply this particular component in the model by {disfmarker} by {disfmarker} by {disfmarker} PhD E: You're talking about the standard deviation? Professor B: yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Yeah, multiply this component uh i it by number b larger than one, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and you put your data in power higher than one. Then it becomes more important. In the overall score, I believe. PhD C: Yeah, but, at the {disfmarker} PhD E: But {pause} don't you have to do something to the mean, also? Professor B: No. PhD C: No. Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: No. PhD C: But I think it's {disfmarker} uh the {disfmarker} The variance is on {disfmarker} on the denominator in the {disfmarker} in the Gaussian equation. So. I think it's maybe it's the contrary. If you want to decrease the importance of a c parameter, you have to increase it's variance. Professor B: Yes. Right. Yes. PhD D: Multiply. Professor B: Exactly. Yeah. So you {disfmarker} so you may want to do it other way around, PhD C: Hmm. That's right. OK. Professor B: yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Grad A: Right. PhD E: But if your {disfmarker} If your um original data for C - one had a mean of two. Professor B: Uh - huh. PhD E: And now you're {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker} you're changing that by squaring it. Now your mean of your C - one original data has {disfmarker} {comment} is four. But your model still has a mean of two. So even though you've expended the range, your mean doesn't match anymore. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Let's see. PhD E: Do you see what I mean? PhD C: I think {disfmarker} What I see {disfmarker} What could be done is you don't change your features, which are computed once for all, Professor B: Uh - huh. PhD C: but you just tune the model. So. You have your features. You train your {disfmarker} your model on these features. PhD E: Mm - hmm. PhD C: And then if you want to decrease the importance of C - one you just take the variance of the C - one component in the {disfmarker} in the model and increase it if you want to decrease the importance of C - one or decrease it {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Right. Professor B: Yeah. You would have to modify the mean in the model. I {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} I agree with you. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, but it's {disfmarker} it's i it's do - able, PhD C: Well. PhD E: Yeah, so y Professor B: right? I mean, it's predictable. Uh. Yeah. PhD E: It's predictable, yeah. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah, it's predictable. PhD C: Mmm. PhD E: Yeah. But as a simple thing, you could just {disfmarker} just muck with the variance. PhD C: Just adjust the model, yeah. PhD E: to get uh this {disfmarker} uh this {disfmarker} the effect I think that you're talking about, Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD E: right? Professor B: It might be. PhD E: Could increase the variance to decrease the importance. Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Yeah, because if you had a huge variance, you're dividing by a large number, {comment} you get a very small contribution. Grad A: Doesn't matter {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah, it becomes more flat Grad A: Right. PhD C: and {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Grad A: Yeah, the sharper the variance, the more {disfmarker} more important to get that one right. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Yeah, you know actually, this reminds me of something that happened uh when I was at BBN. We were playing with putting um pitch into the Mandarin recognizer. Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD E: And this particular pitch algorithm um when it didn't think there was any voicing, was spitting out zeros. So we were getting {disfmarker} uh when we did clustering, we were getting groups uh of features Professor B: p Pretty new outliers, interesting outliers, right? PhD E: yeah, with {disfmarker} with a mean of zero and basically zero variance. Professor B: Variance. PhD E: So, when ener {comment} when anytime any one of those vectors came in that had a zero in it, we got a great score. I mean it was just, {nonvocalsound} you know, incredibly {nonvocalsound} high score, and so that was throwing everything off. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: So {vocalsound} if you have very small variance you get really good scores when you get something that matches. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: So. {vocalsound} So that's a way, yeah, yeah {disfmarker} That's a way to increase the {disfmarker} yeah, n That's interesting. So in fact, that would be {disfmarker} That doesn't require any retraining. Professor B: Yeah. No. No. PhD C: No, that's right. So it's PhD E: So that means it's just Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: just tuning the models and testing, actually. PhD E: recognitions. Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. PhD C: It would be quick. PhD E: You {disfmarker} you have a step where you you modify the models, make a d copy of your models with whatever variance modifications you make, and rerun recognition. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: And then do a whole bunch of those. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: That could be set up fairly easily I think, and you have a whole bunch of you know {disfmarker} Professor B: Chuck is getting himself in trouble. PhD E: That's an interesting idea, actually. For testing the {disfmarker} Yeah. Huh! Grad A: Didn't you say you got these uh HTK's set up on the new Linux boxes? PhD E: That's right. Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: Hey! PhD E: In fact, and {disfmarker} and they're just t right now they're installing uh {disfmarker} increasing the memory on that uh {disfmarker} the Linux box. Professor B: And Chuck is sort of really fishing for how to keep his computer busy, Grad A: Right. Professor B: right? PhD E: Yeah. Absinthe. Professor B: Well, you know, that's {disfmarker} PhD E: Absinthe. We've got five processors on that. Grad A: Oh yeah. Professor B: that's {disfmarker} yeah, that's a good thing Grad A: That's right. Professor B: because then y you just write the" do" - loops and then you pretend that you are working while you are sort of {disfmarker} you c you can go fishing. PhD E: And two gigs of memory. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Grad A: Pretend, yeah. PhD E: Exactly. Yeah. PhD D: Go fishing. PhD E: See how many cycles we used? Professor B: Yeah. Then you are sort of in this mode like all of those ARPA people are, right? PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Uh, since it is on the record, I can't say uh which company it was, but it was reported to me that uh somebody visited a company and during a {disfmarker} d during a discussion, there was this guy who was always hitting the carriage returns uh on a computer. PhD E: Uh - huh. Professor B: So after two hours uh the visitor said" wh why are you hitting this carriage return?" And he said" well you know, we are being paid by a computer ty I mean we are {disfmarker} we have a government contract. And they pay us by {disfmarker} by amount of computer time we use." It was in old days when there were uh {disfmarker} of PDP - eights and that sort of thing. PhD E: Oh, my gosh! So he had to make it look like {disfmarker} Professor B: Because so they had a {disfmarker} they literally had to c monitor at the time {disfmarker} at the time on a computer how much time is being spent I {disfmarker} i i or on {disfmarker} on this particular project. PhD E: Yeah. How {disfmarker} Idle time. Grad A: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Nobody was looking even at what was coming out. PhD E: Have you ever seen those little um {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} it's this thing that's the shape of a bird and it has a red ball and its beak dips into the water? Professor B: Yeah, I know, right. PhD E: So {vocalsound} if you could hook that up so it hit the keyboard {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: That's an interesting experiment. Professor B: It would be similar {disfmarker} similar to {disfmarker} I knew some people who were uh that was in old Communist uh Czechoslovakia, right? so we were watching for American airplanes, coming to spy on {disfmarker} on uh {disfmarker} on us at the time, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: so there were three guys uh uh stationed in the middle of the woods on one l lonely uh watching tower, pretty much spending a year and a half there because there was this service right? And so they {disfmarker} very quickly they made friends with local girls and local people in the village PhD E: Ugh! Professor B: and {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: and so but they {disfmarker} there was one plane flying over s always uh uh above, and so that was the only work which they had. They {disfmarker} like four in the afternoon they had to report there was a plane from Prague to Brno Basically f flying there, PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: so they f very q f first thing was that they would always run back and {disfmarker} and at four o'clock and {disfmarker} and quickly make a call," this plane is uh uh passing" then a second thing was that they {disfmarker} they took the line from this u u post to uh uh a local pub. And they were calling from the pub. And they {disfmarker} but third thing which they made, and when they screwed up, they {disfmarker} finally they had to p the {disfmarker} the p the pub owner to make these phone calls because they didn't even bother to be there anymore. And one day there was {disfmarker} there was no plane. At least they were sort of smart enough that they looked if the plane is flying there, right? And the pub owner says" oh my {disfmarker} four o'clock, OK, quickly p pick up the phone, call that there's a plane flying." PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: There was no plane for some reason, PhD E: And there wasn't? Professor B: it was downed, or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and {disfmarker} so they got in trouble. But. {vocalsound} But uh. PhD E: Huh! Well that's {disfmarker} that's a really i Professor B: So. So. Yeah. PhD E: That wouldn't be too difficult to try. Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Maybe I could set that up. Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: And we'll just {disfmarker} Professor B: Well, at least go test the s test the uh assumption about C - C - one I mean to begin with. But then of course one can then think about some predictable result to change all of them. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: It's just like we used to do these uh {disfmarker} these uh {disfmarker} um the {disfmarker} the uh distance measures. It might be that uh {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah, so the first set of uh variance weighting vectors would be just you know one {disfmarker} modifying one and leaving the others the same. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. Maybe. PhD E: And {disfmarker} and do that for each one. Professor B: Because you see, I mean, what is happening here in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in such a model is that it's {disfmarker} tells you yeah what has a low variance uh is uh {disfmarker} is uh {disfmarker} is more reliable, PhD E: That would be one set of experiment {disfmarker} Professor B: right? How do we {disfmarker} PhD E: Wh - yeah, when the data matches that, then you get really {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Right. Professor B: How do we know, especially when it comes to noise? PhD E: But there could just naturally be low variance. Professor B: Yeah? PhD E: Because I {disfmarker} Like, I've noticed in the higher cepstral coefficients, the numbers seem to get smaller, right? So d PhD C: They {disfmarker} t PhD E: I mean, just naturally. PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: Yeah, th that's {disfmarker} PhD C: They have smaller means, also. Uh. PhD E: Yeah. Exactly. And so it seems like they're already sort of compressed. PhD C: Uh - huh. PhD E: The range {pause} of values. Professor B: Yeah that's why uh people used these lifters were inverse variance weighting lifters basically that makes uh uh Euclidean distance more like uh Mahalanobis distance with a diagonal covariance when you knew what all the variances were over the old data. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Hmm. Professor B: What they would do is that they would weight each coefficient by inverse of the variance. Turns out that uh the variance decreases at least at fast, I believe, as the index of the cepstral coefficients. I think you can show that uh uh analytically. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So typically what happens is that you {disfmarker} you need to weight the {disfmarker} uh weight the higher coefficients more than uh the lower coefficients. PhD E: Hmm. Mm - hmm. Hmm. Professor B: So. PhD C: Mmm. PhD E: Professor B: When {disfmarker} Yeah. When we talked about Aurora still I wanted to m make a plea {disfmarker} uh encourage for uh more communication between {disfmarker} between uh {pause} uh different uh parts of the distributed uh {pause} uh center. Uh even when there is absolutely nothing to {disfmarker} to s to say but the weather is good in Ore - in {disfmarker} in Berkeley. I'm sure that it's being appreciated in Oregon and maybe it will generate similar responses down here, like, uh {disfmarker} PhD C: We can set up a webcam maybe. Professor B: Yeah. Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: What {disfmarker} you know, nowadays, yeah. It's actually do - able, almost. PhD E: Is the um {disfmarker} if we mail to" Aurora - inhouse" , does that go up to you guys also? Professor B: I don't think so. No. PhD C: No. PhD E: OK. Professor B: So we should do that. PhD E: So i What is it {disfmarker} Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: We should definitely set up {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah we sh Do we have a mailing list that includes uh the OGI people? Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Uh no. We don't have. Professor B: Uh - huh. PhD E: Oh! Maybe we should set that up. That would make it much easier. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that would make it easier. PhD E: So maybe just call it" Aurora" or something that would {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. And then we also can send the {disfmarker} the dis to the same address right, and it goes to everybody PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: OK. Maybe we can set that up. Professor B: Because what's happening naturally in research, I know, is that people essentially start working on something and they don't want to be much bothered, right? but what the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} then the danger is in a group like this, is that two people are working on the same thing and i c of course both of them come with the s very good solution, but it could have been done somehow in half of the effort or something. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Oh, there's another thing which I wanted to uh uh report. Lucash, I think, uh wrote the software for this Aurora - two system. reasonably uh good one, because he's doing it for Intel, but I trust that we have uh rights to uh use it uh or distribute it and everything. Cuz Intel's intentions originally was to distribute it free of charge anyways. PhD E: Hmm! Professor B: u s And so {disfmarker} so uh we {disfmarker} we will make sure that at least you can see the software and if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if it is of any use. Just uh {disfmarker} PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: It might be a reasonable point for p perhaps uh start converging. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Because Morgan's point is that {disfmarker} He is an experienced guy. He says" well you know it's very difficult to collaborate if you are working with supposedly the same thing, in quotes, except which is not s is not the same. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Which {disfmarker} which uh uh one is using that set of hurdles, another one set {disfmarker} is using another set of hurdles. So. And {disfmarker} And then it's difficult to c compare. PhD C: What about Harry? Uh. We received a mail last week and you are starting to {disfmarker} to do some experiments. Professor B: He got the {disfmarker} he got the software. Yeah. They sent the release. PhD C: And use this Intel version. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD C: Hmm. Professor B: Yeah because Intel paid us uh should I say on a microphone? uh some amount of money, not much. Not much I can say on a microphone. Much less then we should have gotten {vocalsound} for this amount of work. And they wanted uh to {disfmarker} to have software so that they can also play with it, which means that it has to be in a certain environment {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: they use actu actually some Intel libraries, but in the process, Lucash just rewrote the whole thing because he figured rather than trying to f make sense uh of uh {disfmarker} including ICSI software uh not for training on the nets PhD E: Hmm. Grad A: Oh. Professor B: but I think he rewrote the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} or so maybe somehow reused over the parts of the thing so that {disfmarker} so that {disfmarker} the whole thing, including MLP, trained MLP is one piece of uh software. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Wow! Professor B: Is it useful? Grad A: Ye - Yeah. Professor B: Yeah? Grad A: I mean, I remember when we were trying to put together all the ICSI software for the submission. Professor B: Or {disfmarker} That's what he was saying, right. He said that it was like {disfmarker} it was like just so many libraries and nobody knew what was used when, and {disfmarker} and so that's where he started and that's where he realized that it needs to be {disfmarker} needs to be uh uh at least cleaned up, Grad A: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and so I think it {disfmarker} this is available. Grad A: Hmm. Professor B: So {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah. Well, the {disfmarker} the only thing I would check is if he {disfmarker} does he use Intel math libraries, Professor B: uh e ev PhD C: because if it's the case, it's maybe not so easy to use it on another architecture. Professor B: n not maybe {disfmarker} Maybe not in a first {disfmarker} maybe not in a first ap approximation because I think he started first just with a plain C {disfmarker} C or C - plus - plus or something before {disfmarker} PhD C: Ah yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor B: I {disfmarker} I can check on that. Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And uh in {disfmarker} otherwise the Intel libraries, I think they are available free of f freely. But they may be running only on {disfmarker} on uh {disfmarker} on uh Windows. PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: Or on {disfmarker} on the {disfmarker} PhD C: On Intel architecture maybe. Professor B: Yeah, on Intel architecture, may not run in SUN. PhD C: I'm {disfmarker} Yeah. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: That is p that is {disfmarker} that is possible. That's why Intel of course is distributing it, PhD C: Well. Professor B: right? Or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That's {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah. Well there are {disfmarker} at least there are optimized version for their architecture. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: I don't know. I never checked carefully these sorts of {disfmarker} Professor B: I know there was some issues that initially of course we d do all the development on Linux but we use {disfmarker} we don't have {disfmarker} we have only three uh uh uh uh s SUNs and we have them only because they have a SPERT board in. Otherwise {disfmarker} otherwise we t almost exclusively are working with uh PC's now, with Intel. In that way Intel succeeded with us, because they gave us too many good machines for very little money or nothing. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: So. So. So we run everything on Intel. PhD E: Wow! Professor B: And {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. Does anybody have anything else? to {disfmarker} Shall we read some digits? PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: Yes. I have to take my glasses {disfmarker} PhD E: So. Hynek, I don't know if you've ever done this. Professor B: No. PhD E: The way that it works is each person goes around in turn, {comment} and uh you say the transcript number and then you read the digits, the {disfmarker} the strings of numbers as individual digits. Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD E: So you don't say" eight hundred and fifty" , you say" eight five oh" , and so forth. Professor B: OK. OK. So can {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} can I t maybe start then? PhD E: Um. Sure.

PhD C thought the team was not far from fifty percent over the new baseline, which equated to sixty percent over the old baseline. Their model was around fifty to fifty five over the old baseline at the time. Though, the number would depend on the exact weightings.

tr-sq-617

tr-sq-617_0

Summarize the discussion on professor's suggestions on improving model performance Professor B: Is it starting now? PhD E: Yep. Professor B: So what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} from {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} Grad A: Hello? Professor B: Whatever we say from now on, it can be held against us, right? PhD E: That's right. Professor B: and uh Grad A: It's your right to remain silent. Professor B: Yeah. So I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the problem is that I actually don't know how th these held meetings are held, if they are very informal and sort of just people are say what's going on PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: and PhD E: Yeah, that's usually what we do. Professor B: OK. PhD E: We just sorta go around and people say what's going on, what's the latest uh {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. OK. So I guess that what may be a {disfmarker} reasonable is if I uh first make a report on what's happening in Aurora in general, at least what from my perspective. PhD E: Yeah. That would be great. Professor B: And {disfmarker} and uh so, I {disfmarker} I think that Carmen and Stephane reported on uh Amsterdam meeting, PhD D: Uh o Professor B: which was kind of interesting because it was for the first time we realized we are not friends really, but we are competitors. Cuz until then it was sort of like everything was like wonderful and {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. It seemed like there were still some issues, Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: right? that they were trying to decide? Professor B: There is a plenty of {disfmarker} there're plenty of issues. PhD E: Like the voice activity detector, Professor B: Well and what happened was that they realized that if two leading proposals, which was French Telecom Alcatel, and us both had uh voice activity detector. And I said" well big surprise, I mean we could have told you that {pause} n n n four months ago, except we didn't because nobody else was bringing it up" . PhD E: Right. Professor B: Obviously French Telecom didn't volunteer this information either, cuz we were working on {disfmarker} mainly on voice activity detector for past uh several months PhD E: Right. Professor B: because that's buying us the most uh thing. And everybody said" Well but this is not fair. We didn't know that." And of course uh the {disfmarker} it's not working on features really. And be I agreed. PhD E: Right. Professor B: I said" well yeah, you are absolutely right, I mean if I wish that you provided better end point at speech because uh {disfmarker} or at least that if we could modify the recognizer, uh to account for these long silences, because otherwise uh that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} th that wasn't a correct thing." And so then ev ev everybody else says" well we should {disfmarker} we need to do a new eval evaluation without voice activity detector, or we have to do something about it" . PhD E: Right. Professor B: And in principle I {disfmarker} uh I {disfmarker} we agreed. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: We said uh" yeah" . Because uh {disfmarker} but in that case, uh we would like to change the uh {disfmarker} the algorithm because uh if we are working on different data, we probably will use a different set of tricks. PhD E: Right. Professor B: But unfortunately nobody ever officially can somehow acknowledge that this can be done, because French Telecom was saying" no, no, no, now everybody has access to our code, so everybody is going to copy what we did." Yeah well our argument was everybody ha has access to our code, and everybody always had access to our code. We never uh {disfmarker} uh denied that. We thought that people are honest, that if you copy something and if it is protected {disfmarker} protected by patent then you negotiate, or something, PhD E: Yeah. Right. Professor B: right? I mean, if you find our technique useful, we are very happy. PhD E: Right. Professor B: But {disfmarker} And French Telecom was saying" no, no, no, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: there is a lot of little tricks which uh sort of uh cannot be protected and you guys will take them," which probably is also true. I mean, you know, it might be that people will take uh uh th the algorithms apart and use the blocks from that. But I somehow think that it wouldn't be so bad, as long as people are happy abou uh uh uh honest about it. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: And I think they have to be honest in the long run, because winning proposal again {disfmarker} uh what will be available th is {disfmarker} will be a code. So the uh {disfmarker} the people can go to code and say" well listen this is what you stole from me" PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: you know? PhD E: Right. Professor B:" so let's deal with that" . PhD E: Right. Professor B: So I don't see the problem. The biggest problem of course is that f that Alcatel French Telecom cl claims" well we fulfilled the conditions. We are the best. Uh. We are the standard." And e and other people don't feel that, because they {disfmarker} so they now decided that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} the whole thing will be done on well - endpointed data, essentially that somebody will endpoint the data based on clean speech, because most of this the SpeechDat - Car has the also close speaking mike and endpoints will be provided. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Ah. Professor B: And uh we will run again {disfmarker} still not clear if we are going to run the {disfmarker} if we are allowed to run uh uh new algorithms, but I assume so. Because uh we would fight for that, really. uh but {disfmarker} since uh u u n u {disfmarker} at least our experience is that only endpointing a {disfmarker} a mel cepstrum gets uh {disfmarker} gets you twenty - one percent improvement overall and twenty - seven improvement on SpeechDat - Car PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: then obvious the database {disfmarker} uh I mean the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} uh the baseline will go up. And nobody can then achieve fifty percent improvement. PhD E: Right. Professor B: So they agreed that uh there will be a twenty - five percent improvement required on {disfmarker} on uh h u m bad mis badly mismatched {disfmarker} PhD E: But wait a minute, I thought the endpointing really only helped in the noisy cases. Professor B: It uh {disfmarker} PhD E: Oh, but you still have that with the MFCC. Professor B: Y yeah. PhD E: OK. Professor B: Yeah but you have the same prob I mean MFCC basically has an enormous number of uh insertions. PhD E: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Professor B: And so, so now they want to say" we {disfmarker} we will require fifty percent improvement only for well matched condition, and only twenty - five percent for the serial cases." PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And uh {disfmarker} and they almost agreed on that except that it wasn't a hundred percent agreed. And so last time uh during the meeting, I just uh brought up the issue, I said" well you know uh quite frankly I'm surprised how lightly you are making these decisions because this is a major decision. For two years we are fighting for fifty percent improvement and suddenly you are saying" oh no we {disfmarker} we will do something less" , but maybe we should discuss that. And everybody said" oh we discussed that and you were not a mee there" and I said" well a lot of other people were not there because not everybody participates at these teleconferencing c things." Then they said" oh no no no because uh everybody is invited." However, there is only ten or fifteen lines, so people can't even con you know participate. So eh they agreed, and so they said" OK, we will discuss that." Immediately Nokia uh raised the question and they said" oh yeah we agree this is not good to to uh dissolve the uh uh {disfmarker} the uh {disfmarker} the criterion." PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So now officially, Nokia is uh uh complaining and said they {disfmarker} they are looking for support, uh I think QualComm is uh saying, too" we shouldn't abandon the fifty percent yet. We should at least try once again, one more round." PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So this is where we are. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: I hope that {disfmarker} I hope that this is going to be a adopted. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Next Wednesday we are going to have uh another uh teleconferencing call, so we'll see what uh {disfmarker} where it goes. PhD E: So what about the issue of um the weights on the {disfmarker} for the different systems, the well - matched, and medium - mismatched and {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah, that's what {disfmarker} that's a g very good uh point, because David says" well you know we ca we can manipulate this number by choosing the right weights anyways." So while you are right but {disfmarker} uh you know but PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Uh yeah, if of course if you put a zero {disfmarker} uh weight zero on a mismatched condition, or highly mismatched then {disfmarker} then you are done. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: But weights were also deter already decided uh half a year ago. So {disfmarker} PhD E: And they're the {disfmarker} staying the same? Professor B: Well, of course people will not like it. Now {disfmarker} What is happening now is that I th I think that people try to match the criterion to solution. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: They have solution. Now they want to {vocalsound} make sure their criterion is {disfmarker} PhD E: Right. Professor B: And I think that this is not the right way. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Uh it may be that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Eventually it may ha may ha it may have to happen. But it's should happen at a point where everybody feels comfortable that we did all what we could. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: And I don't think we did. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Basically, I think that {disfmarker} that this test was a little bit bogus because of the data and uh essentially {pause} there were these arbitrary decisions made, and {disfmarker} and everything. So, so {disfmarker} so this is {disfmarker} so this is where it is. So what we are doing at OGI now is uh uh uh working basically on our parts which we I think a little bit neglected, like noise separation. Uh so we are looking in ways is {disfmarker} in uh which {disfmarker} uh with which we can provide better initial estimate of the mel spectrum basically, which would be a l uh, f more robust to noise, and so far not much uh success. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: We tried uh things which uh a long time ago Bill Byrne suggested, instead of using Fourier spectrum, from Fourier transform, use the spectrum from LPC model. Their argument there was the LPC model fits the peaks of the spectrum, so it may be m naturally more robust in noise. And I thought" well, that makes sense," but so far we can't get much {disfmarker} much out of it. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: uh we may try some standard techniques like spectral subtraction and {disfmarker} PhD E: You haven't tried that yet? Professor B: not {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not much. Or even I was thinking about uh looking back into these totally ad - hoc techniques PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: like for instance uh Dennis Klatt was suggesting uh the one way to uh deal with noisy speech is to add noise to everything. PhD E: Hmm! Professor B: So. {comment} I mean, uh uh add moderate amount of noise to all data. PhD E: Oh! Professor B: So that makes uh th any additive noise less addi less a a effective, PhD E: I see. Professor B: right? Because you already uh had the noise uh in a {disfmarker} PhD E: Right. Professor B: And it was working at the time. It was kind of like one of these things, you know, but if you think about it, it's actually pretty ingenious. So well, you know, just take a {disfmarker} take a spectrum and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and add of the constant, C, to every {disfmarker} every value. PhD E: Well you're {disfmarker} you're basically y Yeah. So you're making all your training data more uniform. Professor B: Exactly. And if {disfmarker} if then {disfmarker} if this data becomes noisy, it b it becomes eff effectively becomes less noisy basically. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: But of course you cannot add too much noise because then you'll s then you're clean recognition goes down, but I mean it's yet to be seen how much, it's a very simple technique. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Yes indeed it's a very simple technique, you just take your spectrum and {disfmarker} and use whatever is coming from FFT, {pause} add constant, PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: you know? on {disfmarker} onto power spectrum. That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Or the other thing is of course if you have a spectrum, what you can s start doing, you can leave {disfmarker} start leaving out the p the parts which are uh uh low in energy and then perhaps uh one could try to find a {disfmarker} a all - pole model to such a spectrum. Because a all - pole model will still try to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to put the {disfmarker} the continuation basically of the {disfmarker} of the model into these parts where the issue set to zero. That's what we want to try. I have a visitor from Brno. He's a {disfmarker} kind of like young faculty. pretty hard - working so he {disfmarker} so he's {disfmarker} so he's looking into that. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And then most of the effort is uh now also aimed at this e e TRAP recognition. This uh {disfmarker} this is this recognition from temporal patterns. PhD E: Hmm! What is that? Professor B: Ah, you don't know about TRAPS! Grad A: Hmm. PhD E: The TRAPS sound familiar, I {disfmarker} but I don't {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah I mean tha This is familiar like sort of because we gave you the name, but, what it is, is that normally what you do is that you recognize uh speech based on a shortened spectrum. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: Essentially L P - LPC, mel cepstrum, uh, everything starts with a spectral slice. Uh so if you s So, given the spectrogram you essentially are sliding {disfmarker} sliding the spectrogram along the uh f frequency axis PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and you keep shifting this thing, and you have a spectrogram. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So you can say" well you can also take the time trajectory of the energy at a given frequency" , and what you get is then, that you get a p {pause} vector. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: And this vector can be a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} s assigned to s some phoneme. Namely you can say i it {disfmarker} I will {disfmarker} I will say that this vector will eh {disfmarker} will {disfmarker} will describe the phoneme which is in the center of the vector. And you can try to classify based on that. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And you {disfmarker} so you classi so it's a very different vector, very different properties, we don't know much about it, but the truth is {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. But you have many of those vectors per phoneme, Professor B: Well, so you get many decisions. PhD E: right? Uh - huh. Professor B: And then you can start dec thinking about how to combine these decisions. Exactly, that's what {disfmarker} yeah, that's what it is. PhD E: Hmm. Hmm. Professor B: Because if you run this uh recognition, you get {disfmarker} you still get about twenty percent error {disfmarker} uh twenty percent correct. You know, PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: on {disfmarker} on like for the frame by frame basis, so {pause} uh {disfmarker} uh so it's much better than chance. PhD E: How wide are the uh frequency bands? Professor B: That's another thing. Well c currently we start {disfmarker} I mean we start always with critical band spectrum. For various reasons. But uh the latest uh observation uh is that you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you are {disfmarker} you can get quite a big advantage of using two critical bands at the same time. Grad A: Are they adjacent, or are they s Professor B: Adjacent, adjacent. Grad A: OK. Professor B: And the reasons {disfmarker} there are some reasons for that. Because there are some reasons I can {disfmarker} I could talk about, will have to tell you about things like masking experiments which uh uh uh uh yield critical bands, and also experiments with release of masking, which actually tell you that something is happening across critical bands, across bands. And {disfmarker} PhD E: Well how do you {disfmarker} how do you uh convert this uh energy over time in a particular frequency band into a vector of numbers? Professor B: It's uh uh uh I mean time T - zero is one number, {pause} time t PhD E: Yeah but what's the number? Is it just the {disfmarker} Professor B: It's a spectral energy, logarithmic spectral energy, PhD E: it's just the amount of energy in that band from f in that time interval. Professor B: yeah. Yes, yes. Yes, yes. PhD E: OK. Professor B: And that's what {disfmarker} that's what I'm saying then, so this is a {disfmarker} this is a starting vector. It's just like shortened f {pause} spectrum, or something. But now we are trying to understand what this vector actually represents, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: for instance a question is like" how correlated are the elements of this vector?" Turns out they are quite correlated, because I mean, especially the neighboring ones, right? They {disfmarker} they represent the same {disfmarker} almost the same configuration of the vocal tract. PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor B: So there's a very high correlation. So the classifiers which use the diagonal covariance matrix don't like it. So we're thinking about de - correlating them. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Then the question is uh" can you describe elements of this vector by Gaussian distributions" , or to what extent? Because uh {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and so on and so on. So we are learning quite a lot about that. And then another issue is how many vectors we should be using, PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: I mean the {disfmarker} so the minimum is one. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: But I mean is the {disfmarker} is the critical band the right uh uh dimension? So we somehow made arbitrary decision," yes" . Then {disfmarker} but then now we are thinking a lot how to {disfmarker} uh how to use at least the neighboring band because that seems to be happening {disfmarker} This I somehow start to believe that's what's happening in recognition. Cuz a lot of experiments point to the fact that people can split the signal into critical bands, but then oh uh uh so you can {disfmarker} you are quite capable of processing a signal in uh uh independently in individual critical bands. That's what masking experiments tell you. But at the same time you most likely pay attention to at least neighboring bands when you are making any decisions, you compare what's happening in {disfmarker} in this band to what's happening to the band {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to the {disfmarker} to the neighboring bands. And that's how you make uh decisions. That's why the articulatory events, which uh F F Fletcher talks about, they are about two critical bands. You need at least two, basically. You need some relative, relative relation. Grad A: Hmm. Professor B: Absolute number doesn't tell you the right thing. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: You need to {disfmarker} you need to compare it to something else, what's happening but it's what's happening in the {disfmarker} in the close neighborhood. So if you are making decision what's happening at one kilohertz, you want to know what's happening at nine hundred hertz and it {disfmarker} and maybe at eleven hundred hertz, but you don't much care what's happening at three kilohertz. PhD E: So it's really w It's sort of like saying that what's happening at one kilohertz depends on what's happening around it. It's sort of relative to it. Professor B: To some extent, it {disfmarker} that is also true. Yeah. But it's {disfmarker} but for {disfmarker} but for instance, {vocalsound} th uh {vocalsound} uh what {disfmarker} what uh humans are very much capable of doing is that if th if they are exactly the same thing happening in two neighboring critical bands, recognition can discard it. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Is what's happening {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. Grad A: Hey! Professor B: Hey! OK, we need us another {disfmarker} another voice here. PhD E: Hey Stephane. Professor B: Yeah, I think so. Yeah? PhD E: Yep. Sure. Go ahead. Professor B: And so so {disfmarker} so for instance if you d if you a if you add the noise that normally masks {disfmarker} masks the uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the signal right? PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and you can show that in {disfmarker} that if the {disfmarker} if you add the noise outside the critical band, that doesn't affect the {disfmarker} the decisions you're making about a signal within a critical band. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Unless this noise is modulated. If the noise is modulated, with the same modulation frequency as the noise in a critical band, the amount of masking is less. The moment you {disfmarker} moment you provide the noise in n neighboring critical bands. PhD E: Mmm. Professor B: So the s m masking curve, normally it looks like sort of {disfmarker} I start from {disfmarker} from here, so you {disfmarker} {comment} you have uh no noise then you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you are expanding the critical band, so the amount of maching is increasing. And when you e hit a certain point, which is a critical band, then the amount of masking is the same. PhD E: Mmm. Professor B: So that's the famous experiment of Fletcher, a long time ago. Like that's where people started thinking" wow this is interesting!" So. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: But, if you {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if you modulate the noise, the masking goes up and the moment you start hitting the {disfmarker} another critical band, the masking goes down. So essentially {disfmarker} essentially that's a very clear indication that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that {pause} cognition can take uh uh into consideration what's happening in the neighboring bands. But if you go too far in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if the noise is very broad, you are not increasing much more, so {disfmarker} so if you {disfmarker} if you are far away from the signal {disfmarker} uh from the signal f uh the frequency at which the signal is, then the m even the {disfmarker} when the noise is co - modulated it {disfmarker} it's not helping you much. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Mm - hmm. Grad A: Hmm. Professor B: So. So things like this we are kind of playing with {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} with the hope that perhaps we could eventually u use this in a {disfmarker} in a real recognizer. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Like uh partially of course we promised to do this under the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Aurora uh program. PhD E: But you probably won't have anything before the next time we have to evaluate, Professor B: Probably not. PhD E: right? Professor B: Well, maybe, most likely we will not have anything which c would comply with the rules. PhD E: Yeah. Ah. Professor B: like because uh uh PhD E: Latency and things. Professor B: latency currently chops the require uh significant uh latency amount of processing, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: because uh we don't know any better, yet, than to use the neural net classifiers, uh and uh {disfmarker} and uh TRAPS. PhD E: Yeah. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Though the {disfmarker} the work which uh everybody is looking at now aims at s trying to find out what to do with these vectors, so that a g simple Gaussian classifier would be happier with it. PhD C: Hmm. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: or to what extent a Gaussian classifier should be unhappy uh that, and how to Gaussian - ize the vectors, and {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: So this is uh what's happening. Then Sunil is uh uh uh asked me f for one month's vacation and since he did not take any vacation for two years, I had no {disfmarker} I didn't have heart to tell him no. So he's in India. PhD E: Wow. Professor B: And uh {disfmarker} PhD E: Is he getting married or something? Professor B: Uh well, he may be looking for a girl, for {disfmarker} for I don't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I don't ask. I know that Naran - when last time Narayanan did that he came back engaged. PhD E: Right. Well, I mean, I've known other friends who {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they go to Ind - they go back home to India for a month, they come back married, Professor B: Yeah. I know. I know, I know, PhD E: you know, huh. Professor B: and then of course then what happened with Narayanan was that he start pushing me that he needs to get a PHD because they wouldn't give him his wife. And she's very pretty and he loves her and so {disfmarker} so we had to really {disfmarker} PhD E: So he finally had some incentive to finish, Professor B: Oh yeah. We had {disfmarker} well I had a incentive because he {disfmarker} he always had this plan except he never told me. PhD E: huh? Professor B: Sort of figured that {disfmarker} That was a uh that he uh he told me the day when we did very well at our NIST evaluations of speaker recognition, the technology, and he was involved there. PhD E: Oh. Professor B: We were {disfmarker} after presentation we were driving home and he told me. PhD E: When he knew you were happy, Professor B: Yeah. So I {disfmarker} I said" well, yeah, OK" so he took another {disfmarker} another three quarter of the year but uh he was out. PhD E: huh? Professor B: So I {disfmarker} wouldn't surprise me if he has a plan like that, though {disfmarker} though uh Pratibha still needs to get out first. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Cuz Pratibha is there a {disfmarker} a year earlier. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And S and Satya needs to get out very first because he's {disfmarker} he already has uh four years served, though one year he was getting masters. So. So. PhD C: Hmm. PhD E: So have the um {disfmarker} when is the next uh evaluation? June or something? Professor B: Which? Speaker recognition? PhD E: No, for uh Aurora? Professor B: Uh there, we don't know about evaluation, next meeting is in June. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And uh uh but like getting {disfmarker} get together. PhD E: Oh, OK. Are people supposed to rerun their systems, Professor B: Nobody said that yet. PhD E: or {disfmarker}? Professor B: I assume so. Uh yes, uh, but nobody even set up yet the {pause} date for uh delivering uh endpointed data. PhD E: Hmm. Wow. Professor B: And this uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that sort of stuff. But I uh, yeah, what I think would be of course extremely useful, if we can come to our next meeting and say" well you know we did get fifty percent improvement. If {disfmarker} if you are interested we eventually can tell you how" , but uh we can get fifty percent improvement. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Because people will s will be saying it's impossible. PhD E: Hmm. Do you know what the new baseline is? Oh, I guess if you don't have {disfmarker} Professor B: Twenty - two {disfmarker} t twenty {disfmarker} twenty - two percent better than the old baseline. PhD E: Using your uh voice activity detector? Professor B: u Yes. Yes. But I assume that it will be similar, I don't {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't see the reason why it shouldn't be. PhD E: Similar, yeah. Professor B: I d I don't see reason why it should be worse. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Cuz if it is worse, then we will raise the objection, PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: we say" well you know how come?" Because eh if we just use our voice activity detector, which we don't claim even that it's wonderful, it's just like one of them. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: We get this sort of improvement, how come that we don't see it on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on your endpointed data? PhD C: Yeah. I guess it could be even better, Professor B: I think so. PhD C: because the voice activity detector that I choosed is something that cheating, it's using the alignment of the speech recognition system, Professor B: Yeah. C yeah uh PhD C: and only the alignment on the clean channel, and then mapped this alignment to the noisy channel. Professor B: and on clean speech data. Yeah. PhD E: Oh, OK. Professor B: Well David told me {disfmarker} David told me yesterday or Harry actually he told Harry from QualComm and Harry uh brought up the suggestion we should still go for fifty percent he says are you aware that your system does only thirty percent uh comparing to {disfmarker} to endpointed baselines? So they must have run already something. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: So. And Harry said" Yeah. But I mean we think that we {disfmarker} we didn't say the last word yet, that we have other {disfmarker} other things which we can try." PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: So. So there's a lot of discussion now about this uh new criterion. Because Nokia was objecting, with uh QualComm's {disfmarker} we basically supported that, we said" yes" . PhD C: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: Now everybody else is saying" well you guys might {disfmarker} must be out of your mind." uh The {disfmarker} Guenter Hirsch who d doesn't speak for Ericsson anymore because he is not with Ericsson and Ericsson may not {disfmarker} may withdraw from the whole Aurora activity because they have so many troubles now. PhD E: Wow. Professor B: Ericsson's laying off twenty percent of people. Grad A: Wow. PhD E: Where's uh Guenter going? Professor B: Well Guenter is already {disfmarker} he got the job uh already was working on it for past two years or three years {disfmarker} PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: he got a job uh at some {disfmarker} some Fachschule, the technical college not too far from Aachen. PhD E: Hmm! Professor B: So it's like professor {disfmarker} u university professor PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: you know, not quite a university, not quite a sort of {disfmarker} it's not Aachen University, but it's a good school and he {disfmarker} he's happy. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Hmm! Professor B: And he {disfmarker} well, he was hoping to work uh with Ericsson like on t uh like consulting basis, but right now he says {disfmarker} says it doesn't look like that anybody is even thinking about speech recognition. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: They think about survival. PhD E: Wow! Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: So. So. But this is being now discussed right now, and it's possible that uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that it may get through, that we will still stick to fifty percent. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: But that means that nobody will probably get this im this improvement. yet, wi with the current system. Which event es essentially I think that we should be happy with because that {disfmarker} that would mean that at least people may be forced to look into alternative solutions PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and {disfmarker} PhD C: Mm - hmm. But maybe {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean we are not too far from {disfmarker} from fifty percent, from the new baseline. Professor B: Uh, but not {disfmarker} PhD C: Which would mean like sixty percent over the current baseline, which is {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. Yes. Yes. We {disfmarker} we getting {disfmarker} we getting there, right. PhD C: Well. We are around fifty, fifty - five. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: So. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Is it like sort of {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} How did you come up with this number? If you improve twenty {disfmarker} by twenty percent the c the f the all baselines, it's just a quick c comp co computation? PhD C: Yeah. I don't know exactly if it's {disfmarker} Professor B: Uh - huh. I think it's about right. PhD C: Yeah, because it de it depends on the weightings Professor B: Yeah, yeah. PhD C: and {disfmarker} Yeah. But. Mm - hmm. PhD E: Hmm. How's your documentation or whatever it w what was it you guys were working on last week? PhD C: Yeah, finally we {disfmarker} we've not finished with this. We stopped. PhD D: More or less it's finished. PhD C: Yeah. PhD D: Ma - nec to need a little more time to improve the English, and maybe s to fill in something {disfmarker} some small detail, something like that, PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Hmm. PhD D: but it's more or less ready. PhD C: Yeah. Well, we have a document that explain a big part of the experiments, PhD D: Necessary to {disfmarker} to include the bi the bibliography. PhD C: but PhD D: Mm - hmm. PhD C: it's not, yeah, finished yet. Mm - hmm. PhD E: So have you been running some new experiments? I {disfmarker} I thought I saw some jobs of yours running on some of the machine {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah. Right. We've fff {comment} done some strange things like removing C - zero or C - one from the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} the vector of parameters, and we noticed that C - one is almost not useful at all. You can remove it from the vector, it doesn't hurt. PhD E: Really? ! That has no effect? PhD C: Um. PhD E: Eh {disfmarker} Is this in the baseline? or in uh {disfmarker} PhD C: In the {disfmarker} No, in the proposal. PhD E: in {disfmarker} uh - huh, uh - huh. Professor B: So we were just discussing, since you mentioned that, in {disfmarker} it w PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: driving in the car with Morgan this morning, we were discussing a good experiment for b for beginning graduate student who wants to run a lot of {disfmarker} who wants to get a lot of numbers on something PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: which is, like," imagine that you will {disfmarker} you will start putting every co any coefficient, which you are using in your vector, in some general power. PhD E: In some what? Professor B: General pow power. Like sort of you take a s power of two, or take a square root, or something. PhD E: Mm - hmm. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So suppose that you are working with a s C - zer C - one. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So if you put it in a s square root, that effectively makes your model half as efficient. Because uh your uh Gaussian mixture model, right? computes the mean. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: And {disfmarker} and uh i i i but it's {disfmarker} the mean is an exponent of the whatever, the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this Gaussian function. PhD E: You're compressing the range, Professor B: So you're compressing the range of this coefficient, so it's becoming less efficient. PhD E: right? of that {disfmarker} Professor B: Right? PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So. So. Morgan was @ @ and he was {disfmarker} he was saying well this might be the alternative way how to play with a {disfmarker} with a fudge factor, you know, uh in the {disfmarker} PhD E: Oh. Professor B: you know, just compress the whole vector. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: And I said" well in that case why don't we just start compressing individual elements, like when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} because in old days we were doing {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when people still were doing template matching and Euclidean distances, we were doing this liftering of parameters, right? PhD E: Uh - huh. Professor B: because we observed that uh higher parameters were more important than lower for recognition. And basically the {disfmarker} the C - ze C - one contributes mainly slope, PhD E: Right. Professor B: and it's highly affected by uh frequency response of the {disfmarker} of the recording equipment and that sort of thing, PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: so {disfmarker} so we were coming with all these f various lifters. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: uh Bell Labs had he {disfmarker} this uh uh r raised cosine lifter which still I think is built into H {disfmarker} HTK for reasons n unknown to anybody, but {disfmarker} but uh we had exponential lifter, or triangle lifter, basic number of lifters. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And. But so they may be a way to {disfmarker} to fiddle with the f with the f PhD E: Insertions. Professor B: Insertions, deletions, or the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} giving a relative {disfmarker} uh basically modifying relative importance of the various parameters. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: The only of course problem is that there's an infinite number of combinations and if the {disfmarker} if you s if y PhD E: Oh. Uh - huh. You need like a {disfmarker} some kind of a {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah, you need a lot of graduate students, and a lot of computing power. PhD E: You need to have a genetic algorithm, that basically tries random permutations of these things. Professor B: I know. Exactly. Oh. If you were at Bell Labs or {disfmarker} I d d I shouldn't be saying this in {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on a mike, right? Or I {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} IBM, that's what {disfmarker} maybe that's what somebody would be doing. PhD E: Yeah. Grad A: Hmm. Professor B: Oh, I mean, I mean the places which have a lot of computing power, so because it is really it's a p it's a {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it will be reasonable search PhD E: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Professor B: uh but I wonder if there isn't some way of doing this uh search like when we are searching say for best discriminants. PhD E: You know actually, I don't know that this wouldn't be all that bad. I mean you {disfmarker} you compute the features once, Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: right? And then these exponents are just applied to that {disfmarker} Professor B: Absolutely. And hev everything is fixed. PhD E: So. Professor B: Everything is fixed. Each {disfmarker} each {disfmarker} PhD E: And is this something that you would adjust for training? or only recognition? Professor B: For both, you would have to do. Yeah. PhD E: You would do it on both. Professor B: You have to do bo both. PhD E: So you'd actually {disfmarker} Professor B: Because essentially you are saying" uh this feature is not important" . PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Or less important, so that's {disfmarker} th that's a {disfmarker} that's a painful one, yeah. PhD E: So for each {disfmarker} uh set of exponents that you would try, it would require a training and a recognition? Professor B: Yeah. But {disfmarker} but wait a minute. You may not need to re uh uh retrain the m model. You just may n may need to c uh give uh less weight to {disfmarker} to uh a mod uh a component of the model which represents this particular feature. You don't have to retrain it. PhD E: Oh. So if you {disfmarker} Instead of altering the feature vectors themselves, you {disfmarker} you modify the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Gaussians in the models. Professor B: You just multiply. Yeah. Yep. You modify the Gaussian in the model, but in the {disfmarker} in the test data you would have to put it in the power, but in a training what you c in a training uh {disfmarker} in trained model, all you would have to do is to multiply a model by appropriate constant. PhD E: Uh - huh. But why {disfmarker} if you're {disfmarker} if you're multi if you're altering the model, why w in the test data, why would you have to muck with the uh cepstral coefficients? Professor B: Because in uh test {disfmarker} in uh test data you ca don't have a model. You have uh only data. But in a {disfmarker} in a tr PhD E: No. But you're running your data through that same model. Professor B: That is true, but w I mean, so what you want to do {disfmarker} You want to say if uh obs you {disfmarker} if you observe something like Stephane observes, that C - one is not important, you can do two things. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: If you have a trained {disfmarker} trained recognizer, in the model, you know the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the component which {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean di dimension {vocalsound} wh PhD E: Mm - hmm. All of the {disfmarker} all of the mean and variances that correspond to C - one, you put them to zero. Professor B: To the s you {disfmarker} you know it. But what I'm proposing now, if it is important but not as important, you multiply it by point one in a model. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} PhD E: But what are you multiplying? Cuz those are means, right? Grad A: You're multiplying the standard deviation? PhD E: I mean you're {disfmarker} Grad A: So it's {disfmarker} Professor B: I think that you multiply the {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} I would have to look in the {disfmarker} in the math, I mean how {disfmarker} how does the model uh {disfmarker} PhD E: I think you {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah, I think you'd have to modify the standard deviation or something, so that you make it {vocalsound} wider or narrower. Grad A: Cuz {disfmarker} Yeah. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: Effectively, that's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Exactly. That's what you do. That's what you do, you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you modify the standard deviation as it was trained. Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: Effectively you, you know y in f in front of the {disfmarker} of the model, you put a constant. S yeah effectively what you're doing is you {disfmarker} is you are modifying the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the deviation. Right? Grad A: The spread, PhD E: Oop. Grad A: right. PhD E: Sorry. Professor B: Yeah, the spread. Grad A: It's the same {disfmarker} same mean, PhD E: So. Grad A: right? Professor B: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} PhD E: So by making th the standard deviation narrower, {comment} uh your scores get worse for {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: unless it's exactly right on the mean. Professor B: Your als No. By making it narrower, PhD E: Right? Professor B: uh y your {disfmarker} PhD E: I mean there's {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker} you're allowing for less variance. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Yes, so you making this particular dimension less important. Because see what you are fitting is the multidimensional Gaussian, right? PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: It's a {disfmarker} it has {disfmarker} it has uh thirty - nine dimensions, or thirteen dimensions if you g ignore deltas and double - deltas. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: So in order {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} in order to make dimension which {disfmarker} which Stephane sees uh less important, uh uh I mean not {disfmarker} not useful, less important, what you do is that this particular component in the model you can multiply by w you can {disfmarker} you can basically de - weight it in the model. But you can't do it in a {disfmarker} in a test data because you don't have a model for th I mean uh when the test comes, but what you can do is that you put this particular component in {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and you compress it. That becomes uh th gets less variance, subsequently becomes less important. PhD E: Couldn't you just do that to the test data and not do anything with your training data? Professor B: That would be very bad, because uh your t your model was trained uh expecting uh, that wouldn't work. Because your model was trained expecting a certain var variance on C - one. PhD E: Uh - huh. Professor B: And because the model thinks C - one is important. After you train the model, you sort of {disfmarker} y you could do {disfmarker} you could do still what I was proposing initially, that during the training you {disfmarker} you compress C - one that becomes {disfmarker} then it becomes less important in a training. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: But if you have {disfmarker} if you want to run e ex extensive experiment without retraining the model, you don't have to retrain the model. You train it on the original vector. But after, you {disfmarker} wh when you are doing this parametric study of importance of C - one you will de - weight the C - one component in the model, and you will put in the {disfmarker} you will compress the {disfmarker} this component in a {disfmarker} in the test data. s by the same amount. PhD E: Could you also if you wanted to {disfmarker} if you wanted to try an experiment uh by {pause} leaving out say, C - one, couldn't you, in your test data, uh modify the {disfmarker} all of the C - one values to be um way outside of the normal range of the Gaussian for C - one that was trained in the model? So that effectively, the C - one never really contributes to the score? PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: No, that would be a severe mismatch, PhD E: Do you know what I'm say Professor B: right? what you are proposing? N no you don't want that. PhD E: Yeah, someth Professor B: Because that would {disfmarker} then your model would be unlikely. Your likelihood would be low, right? Because you would be providing severe mismatch. PhD E: Mm - hmm. But what if you set if to the mean of the model, then? And it was a cons you set all C - ones coming in through your test data, you {disfmarker} you change whatever value that was there to the mean that your model had. Professor B: No that would be very good match, right? PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: That you would {disfmarker} PhD C: Which {disfmarker} Well, yeah, but we have several means. So. Professor B: I see what you are sa {pause} saying, PhD C: Right? Grad A: Saying. Professor B: but uh, {vocalsound} no, no I don't think that it would be the same. I mean, no, the {disfmarker} If you set it to a mean, that would {disfmarker} No, you can't do that. Y you ca you ca Ch - Chuck, you can't do that. PhD E: Oh, that's true, right, yeah, because you {disfmarker} you have {disfmarker} PhD C: Wait. Which {disfmarker} Professor B: Because that would be a really f fiddling with the data, PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: you can't do that. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: But what you can do, I'm confident you ca PhD E: Professor B: well, I'm reasonably confident and I putting it on the record, right? I mean y people will listen to it for {disfmarker} for centuries now, is {pause} what you can do, is you train the model uh with the {disfmarker} with the original data. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Then you decide that you want to see how important C {disfmarker} C - one is. So what you will do is that a component in the model for C - one, you will divide it by {disfmarker} by two. And you will compress your test data by square root. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Then you will still have a perfect m match. Except that this component of C - one will be half as important in a {disfmarker} in a overall score. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: Then you divide it by four and you take a square, f fourth root. Then if you think that some component is more {disfmarker} is more important then th th th it then {disfmarker} then uh uh i it is, based on training, then you uh multiply this particular component in the model by {disfmarker} by {disfmarker} by {disfmarker} PhD E: You're talking about the standard deviation? Professor B: yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Yeah, multiply this component uh i it by number b larger than one, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and you put your data in power higher than one. Then it becomes more important. In the overall score, I believe. PhD C: Yeah, but, at the {disfmarker} PhD E: But {pause} don't you have to do something to the mean, also? Professor B: No. PhD C: No. Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: No. PhD C: But I think it's {disfmarker} uh the {disfmarker} The variance is on {disfmarker} on the denominator in the {disfmarker} in the Gaussian equation. So. I think it's maybe it's the contrary. If you want to decrease the importance of a c parameter, you have to increase it's variance. Professor B: Yes. Right. Yes. PhD D: Multiply. Professor B: Exactly. Yeah. So you {disfmarker} so you may want to do it other way around, PhD C: Hmm. That's right. OK. Professor B: yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Grad A: Right. PhD E: But if your {disfmarker} If your um original data for C - one had a mean of two. Professor B: Uh - huh. PhD E: And now you're {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker} you're changing that by squaring it. Now your mean of your C - one original data has {disfmarker} {comment} is four. But your model still has a mean of two. So even though you've expended the range, your mean doesn't match anymore. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Let's see. PhD E: Do you see what I mean? PhD C: I think {disfmarker} What I see {disfmarker} What could be done is you don't change your features, which are computed once for all, Professor B: Uh - huh. PhD C: but you just tune the model. So. You have your features. You train your {disfmarker} your model on these features. PhD E: Mm - hmm. PhD C: And then if you want to decrease the importance of C - one you just take the variance of the C - one component in the {disfmarker} in the model and increase it if you want to decrease the importance of C - one or decrease it {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Right. Professor B: Yeah. You would have to modify the mean in the model. I {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} I agree with you. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, but it's {disfmarker} it's i it's do - able, PhD C: Well. PhD E: Yeah, so y Professor B: right? I mean, it's predictable. Uh. Yeah. PhD E: It's predictable, yeah. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah, it's predictable. PhD C: Mmm. PhD E: Yeah. But as a simple thing, you could just {disfmarker} just muck with the variance. PhD C: Just adjust the model, yeah. PhD E: to get uh this {disfmarker} uh this {disfmarker} the effect I think that you're talking about, Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD E: right? Professor B: It might be. PhD E: Could increase the variance to decrease the importance. Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Yeah, because if you had a huge variance, you're dividing by a large number, {comment} you get a very small contribution. Grad A: Doesn't matter {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah, it becomes more flat Grad A: Right. PhD C: and {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Grad A: Yeah, the sharper the variance, the more {disfmarker} more important to get that one right. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Yeah, you know actually, this reminds me of something that happened uh when I was at BBN. We were playing with putting um pitch into the Mandarin recognizer. Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD E: And this particular pitch algorithm um when it didn't think there was any voicing, was spitting out zeros. So we were getting {disfmarker} uh when we did clustering, we were getting groups uh of features Professor B: p Pretty new outliers, interesting outliers, right? PhD E: yeah, with {disfmarker} with a mean of zero and basically zero variance. Professor B: Variance. PhD E: So, when ener {comment} when anytime any one of those vectors came in that had a zero in it, we got a great score. I mean it was just, {nonvocalsound} you know, incredibly {nonvocalsound} high score, and so that was throwing everything off. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: So {vocalsound} if you have very small variance you get really good scores when you get something that matches. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: So. {vocalsound} So that's a way, yeah, yeah {disfmarker} That's a way to increase the {disfmarker} yeah, n That's interesting. So in fact, that would be {disfmarker} That doesn't require any retraining. Professor B: Yeah. No. No. PhD C: No, that's right. So it's PhD E: So that means it's just Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: just tuning the models and testing, actually. PhD E: recognitions. Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. PhD C: It would be quick. PhD E: You {disfmarker} you have a step where you you modify the models, make a d copy of your models with whatever variance modifications you make, and rerun recognition. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: And then do a whole bunch of those. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: That could be set up fairly easily I think, and you have a whole bunch of you know {disfmarker} Professor B: Chuck is getting himself in trouble. PhD E: That's an interesting idea, actually. For testing the {disfmarker} Yeah. Huh! Grad A: Didn't you say you got these uh HTK's set up on the new Linux boxes? PhD E: That's right. Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: Hey! PhD E: In fact, and {disfmarker} and they're just t right now they're installing uh {disfmarker} increasing the memory on that uh {disfmarker} the Linux box. Professor B: And Chuck is sort of really fishing for how to keep his computer busy, Grad A: Right. Professor B: right? PhD E: Yeah. Absinthe. Professor B: Well, you know, that's {disfmarker} PhD E: Absinthe. We've got five processors on that. Grad A: Oh yeah. Professor B: that's {disfmarker} yeah, that's a good thing Grad A: That's right. Professor B: because then y you just write the" do" - loops and then you pretend that you are working while you are sort of {disfmarker} you c you can go fishing. PhD E: And two gigs of memory. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Grad A: Pretend, yeah. PhD E: Exactly. Yeah. PhD D: Go fishing. PhD E: See how many cycles we used? Professor B: Yeah. Then you are sort of in this mode like all of those ARPA people are, right? PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Uh, since it is on the record, I can't say uh which company it was, but it was reported to me that uh somebody visited a company and during a {disfmarker} d during a discussion, there was this guy who was always hitting the carriage returns uh on a computer. PhD E: Uh - huh. Professor B: So after two hours uh the visitor said" wh why are you hitting this carriage return?" And he said" well you know, we are being paid by a computer ty I mean we are {disfmarker} we have a government contract. And they pay us by {disfmarker} by amount of computer time we use." It was in old days when there were uh {disfmarker} of PDP - eights and that sort of thing. PhD E: Oh, my gosh! So he had to make it look like {disfmarker} Professor B: Because so they had a {disfmarker} they literally had to c monitor at the time {disfmarker} at the time on a computer how much time is being spent I {disfmarker} i i or on {disfmarker} on this particular project. PhD E: Yeah. How {disfmarker} Idle time. Grad A: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Nobody was looking even at what was coming out. PhD E: Have you ever seen those little um {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} it's this thing that's the shape of a bird and it has a red ball and its beak dips into the water? Professor B: Yeah, I know, right. PhD E: So {vocalsound} if you could hook that up so it hit the keyboard {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: That's an interesting experiment. Professor B: It would be similar {disfmarker} similar to {disfmarker} I knew some people who were uh that was in old Communist uh Czechoslovakia, right? so we were watching for American airplanes, coming to spy on {disfmarker} on uh {disfmarker} on us at the time, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: so there were three guys uh uh stationed in the middle of the woods on one l lonely uh watching tower, pretty much spending a year and a half there because there was this service right? And so they {disfmarker} very quickly they made friends with local girls and local people in the village PhD E: Ugh! Professor B: and {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: and so but they {disfmarker} there was one plane flying over s always uh uh above, and so that was the only work which they had. They {disfmarker} like four in the afternoon they had to report there was a plane from Prague to Brno Basically f flying there, PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: so they f very q f first thing was that they would always run back and {disfmarker} and at four o'clock and {disfmarker} and quickly make a call," this plane is uh uh passing" then a second thing was that they {disfmarker} they took the line from this u u post to uh uh a local pub. And they were calling from the pub. And they {disfmarker} but third thing which they made, and when they screwed up, they {disfmarker} finally they had to p the {disfmarker} the p the pub owner to make these phone calls because they didn't even bother to be there anymore. And one day there was {disfmarker} there was no plane. At least they were sort of smart enough that they looked if the plane is flying there, right? And the pub owner says" oh my {disfmarker} four o'clock, OK, quickly p pick up the phone, call that there's a plane flying." PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: There was no plane for some reason, PhD E: And there wasn't? Professor B: it was downed, or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and {disfmarker} so they got in trouble. But. {vocalsound} But uh. PhD E: Huh! Well that's {disfmarker} that's a really i Professor B: So. So. Yeah. PhD E: That wouldn't be too difficult to try. Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Maybe I could set that up. Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: And we'll just {disfmarker} Professor B: Well, at least go test the s test the uh assumption about C - C - one I mean to begin with. But then of course one can then think about some predictable result to change all of them. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: It's just like we used to do these uh {disfmarker} these uh {disfmarker} um the {disfmarker} the uh distance measures. It might be that uh {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah, so the first set of uh variance weighting vectors would be just you know one {disfmarker} modifying one and leaving the others the same. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. Maybe. PhD E: And {disfmarker} and do that for each one. Professor B: Because you see, I mean, what is happening here in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in such a model is that it's {disfmarker} tells you yeah what has a low variance uh is uh {disfmarker} is uh {disfmarker} is more reliable, PhD E: That would be one set of experiment {disfmarker} Professor B: right? How do we {disfmarker} PhD E: Wh - yeah, when the data matches that, then you get really {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Right. Professor B: How do we know, especially when it comes to noise? PhD E: But there could just naturally be low variance. Professor B: Yeah? PhD E: Because I {disfmarker} Like, I've noticed in the higher cepstral coefficients, the numbers seem to get smaller, right? So d PhD C: They {disfmarker} t PhD E: I mean, just naturally. PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: Yeah, th that's {disfmarker} PhD C: They have smaller means, also. Uh. PhD E: Yeah. Exactly. And so it seems like they're already sort of compressed. PhD C: Uh - huh. PhD E: The range {pause} of values. Professor B: Yeah that's why uh people used these lifters were inverse variance weighting lifters basically that makes uh uh Euclidean distance more like uh Mahalanobis distance with a diagonal covariance when you knew what all the variances were over the old data. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Hmm. Professor B: What they would do is that they would weight each coefficient by inverse of the variance. Turns out that uh the variance decreases at least at fast, I believe, as the index of the cepstral coefficients. I think you can show that uh uh analytically. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So typically what happens is that you {disfmarker} you need to weight the {disfmarker} uh weight the higher coefficients more than uh the lower coefficients. PhD E: Hmm. Mm - hmm. Hmm. Professor B: So. PhD C: Mmm. PhD E: Professor B: When {disfmarker} Yeah. When we talked about Aurora still I wanted to m make a plea {disfmarker} uh encourage for uh more communication between {disfmarker} between uh {pause} uh different uh parts of the distributed uh {pause} uh center. Uh even when there is absolutely nothing to {disfmarker} to s to say but the weather is good in Ore - in {disfmarker} in Berkeley. I'm sure that it's being appreciated in Oregon and maybe it will generate similar responses down here, like, uh {disfmarker} PhD C: We can set up a webcam maybe. Professor B: Yeah. Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: What {disfmarker} you know, nowadays, yeah. It's actually do - able, almost. PhD E: Is the um {disfmarker} if we mail to" Aurora - inhouse" , does that go up to you guys also? Professor B: I don't think so. No. PhD C: No. PhD E: OK. Professor B: So we should do that. PhD E: So i What is it {disfmarker} Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: We should definitely set up {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah we sh Do we have a mailing list that includes uh the OGI people? Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Uh no. We don't have. Professor B: Uh - huh. PhD E: Oh! Maybe we should set that up. That would make it much easier. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that would make it easier. PhD E: So maybe just call it" Aurora" or something that would {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. And then we also can send the {disfmarker} the dis to the same address right, and it goes to everybody PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: OK. Maybe we can set that up. Professor B: Because what's happening naturally in research, I know, is that people essentially start working on something and they don't want to be much bothered, right? but what the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} then the danger is in a group like this, is that two people are working on the same thing and i c of course both of them come with the s very good solution, but it could have been done somehow in half of the effort or something. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Oh, there's another thing which I wanted to uh uh report. Lucash, I think, uh wrote the software for this Aurora - two system. reasonably uh good one, because he's doing it for Intel, but I trust that we have uh rights to uh use it uh or distribute it and everything. Cuz Intel's intentions originally was to distribute it free of charge anyways. PhD E: Hmm! Professor B: u s And so {disfmarker} so uh we {disfmarker} we will make sure that at least you can see the software and if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if it is of any use. Just uh {disfmarker} PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: It might be a reasonable point for p perhaps uh start converging. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Because Morgan's point is that {disfmarker} He is an experienced guy. He says" well you know it's very difficult to collaborate if you are working with supposedly the same thing, in quotes, except which is not s is not the same. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Which {disfmarker} which uh uh one is using that set of hurdles, another one set {disfmarker} is using another set of hurdles. So. And {disfmarker} And then it's difficult to c compare. PhD C: What about Harry? Uh. We received a mail last week and you are starting to {disfmarker} to do some experiments. Professor B: He got the {disfmarker} he got the software. Yeah. They sent the release. PhD C: And use this Intel version. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD C: Hmm. Professor B: Yeah because Intel paid us uh should I say on a microphone? uh some amount of money, not much. Not much I can say on a microphone. Much less then we should have gotten {vocalsound} for this amount of work. And they wanted uh to {disfmarker} to have software so that they can also play with it, which means that it has to be in a certain environment {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: they use actu actually some Intel libraries, but in the process, Lucash just rewrote the whole thing because he figured rather than trying to f make sense uh of uh {disfmarker} including ICSI software uh not for training on the nets PhD E: Hmm. Grad A: Oh. Professor B: but I think he rewrote the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} or so maybe somehow reused over the parts of the thing so that {disfmarker} so that {disfmarker} the whole thing, including MLP, trained MLP is one piece of uh software. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Wow! Professor B: Is it useful? Grad A: Ye - Yeah. Professor B: Yeah? Grad A: I mean, I remember when we were trying to put together all the ICSI software for the submission. Professor B: Or {disfmarker} That's what he was saying, right. He said that it was like {disfmarker} it was like just so many libraries and nobody knew what was used when, and {disfmarker} and so that's where he started and that's where he realized that it needs to be {disfmarker} needs to be uh uh at least cleaned up, Grad A: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and so I think it {disfmarker} this is available. Grad A: Hmm. Professor B: So {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah. Well, the {disfmarker} the only thing I would check is if he {disfmarker} does he use Intel math libraries, Professor B: uh e ev PhD C: because if it's the case, it's maybe not so easy to use it on another architecture. Professor B: n not maybe {disfmarker} Maybe not in a first {disfmarker} maybe not in a first ap approximation because I think he started first just with a plain C {disfmarker} C or C - plus - plus or something before {disfmarker} PhD C: Ah yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor B: I {disfmarker} I can check on that. Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And uh in {disfmarker} otherwise the Intel libraries, I think they are available free of f freely. But they may be running only on {disfmarker} on uh {disfmarker} on uh Windows. PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: Or on {disfmarker} on the {disfmarker} PhD C: On Intel architecture maybe. Professor B: Yeah, on Intel architecture, may not run in SUN. PhD C: I'm {disfmarker} Yeah. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: That is p that is {disfmarker} that is possible. That's why Intel of course is distributing it, PhD C: Well. Professor B: right? Or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That's {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah. Well there are {disfmarker} at least there are optimized version for their architecture. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: I don't know. I never checked carefully these sorts of {disfmarker} Professor B: I know there was some issues that initially of course we d do all the development on Linux but we use {disfmarker} we don't have {disfmarker} we have only three uh uh uh uh s SUNs and we have them only because they have a SPERT board in. Otherwise {disfmarker} otherwise we t almost exclusively are working with uh PC's now, with Intel. In that way Intel succeeded with us, because they gave us too many good machines for very little money or nothing. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: So. So. So we run everything on Intel. PhD E: Wow! Professor B: And {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. Does anybody have anything else? to {disfmarker} Shall we read some digits? PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: Yes. I have to take my glasses {disfmarker} PhD E: So. Hynek, I don't know if you've ever done this. Professor B: No. PhD E: The way that it works is each person goes around in turn, {comment} and uh you say the transcript number and then you read the digits, the {disfmarker} the strings of numbers as individual digits. Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD E: So you don't say" eight hundred and fifty" , you say" eight five oh" , and so forth. Professor B: OK. OK. So can {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} can I t maybe start then? PhD E: Um. Sure.

The professor made his suggestions through stories. The Professor wanted to make a point about how they should run a set of experiments to measure the effect of different features with variance in mind. He explained that they should weight each coefficient by inverse of the variance.

tr-sq-618

tr-sq-618_0

What did the Professor say about the soldiers? Professor B: Is it starting now? PhD E: Yep. Professor B: So what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} from {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} Grad A: Hello? Professor B: Whatever we say from now on, it can be held against us, right? PhD E: That's right. Professor B: and uh Grad A: It's your right to remain silent. Professor B: Yeah. So I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the problem is that I actually don't know how th these held meetings are held, if they are very informal and sort of just people are say what's going on PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: and PhD E: Yeah, that's usually what we do. Professor B: OK. PhD E: We just sorta go around and people say what's going on, what's the latest uh {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. OK. So I guess that what may be a {disfmarker} reasonable is if I uh first make a report on what's happening in Aurora in general, at least what from my perspective. PhD E: Yeah. That would be great. Professor B: And {disfmarker} and uh so, I {disfmarker} I think that Carmen and Stephane reported on uh Amsterdam meeting, PhD D: Uh o Professor B: which was kind of interesting because it was for the first time we realized we are not friends really, but we are competitors. Cuz until then it was sort of like everything was like wonderful and {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. It seemed like there were still some issues, Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: right? that they were trying to decide? Professor B: There is a plenty of {disfmarker} there're plenty of issues. PhD E: Like the voice activity detector, Professor B: Well and what happened was that they realized that if two leading proposals, which was French Telecom Alcatel, and us both had uh voice activity detector. And I said" well big surprise, I mean we could have told you that {pause} n n n four months ago, except we didn't because nobody else was bringing it up" . PhD E: Right. Professor B: Obviously French Telecom didn't volunteer this information either, cuz we were working on {disfmarker} mainly on voice activity detector for past uh several months PhD E: Right. Professor B: because that's buying us the most uh thing. And everybody said" Well but this is not fair. We didn't know that." And of course uh the {disfmarker} it's not working on features really. And be I agreed. PhD E: Right. Professor B: I said" well yeah, you are absolutely right, I mean if I wish that you provided better end point at speech because uh {disfmarker} or at least that if we could modify the recognizer, uh to account for these long silences, because otherwise uh that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} th that wasn't a correct thing." And so then ev ev everybody else says" well we should {disfmarker} we need to do a new eval evaluation without voice activity detector, or we have to do something about it" . PhD E: Right. Professor B: And in principle I {disfmarker} uh I {disfmarker} we agreed. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: We said uh" yeah" . Because uh {disfmarker} but in that case, uh we would like to change the uh {disfmarker} the algorithm because uh if we are working on different data, we probably will use a different set of tricks. PhD E: Right. Professor B: But unfortunately nobody ever officially can somehow acknowledge that this can be done, because French Telecom was saying" no, no, no, now everybody has access to our code, so everybody is going to copy what we did." Yeah well our argument was everybody ha has access to our code, and everybody always had access to our code. We never uh {disfmarker} uh denied that. We thought that people are honest, that if you copy something and if it is protected {disfmarker} protected by patent then you negotiate, or something, PhD E: Yeah. Right. Professor B: right? I mean, if you find our technique useful, we are very happy. PhD E: Right. Professor B: But {disfmarker} And French Telecom was saying" no, no, no, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: there is a lot of little tricks which uh sort of uh cannot be protected and you guys will take them," which probably is also true. I mean, you know, it might be that people will take uh uh th the algorithms apart and use the blocks from that. But I somehow think that it wouldn't be so bad, as long as people are happy abou uh uh uh honest about it. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: And I think they have to be honest in the long run, because winning proposal again {disfmarker} uh what will be available th is {disfmarker} will be a code. So the uh {disfmarker} the people can go to code and say" well listen this is what you stole from me" PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: you know? PhD E: Right. Professor B:" so let's deal with that" . PhD E: Right. Professor B: So I don't see the problem. The biggest problem of course is that f that Alcatel French Telecom cl claims" well we fulfilled the conditions. We are the best. Uh. We are the standard." And e and other people don't feel that, because they {disfmarker} so they now decided that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} the whole thing will be done on well - endpointed data, essentially that somebody will endpoint the data based on clean speech, because most of this the SpeechDat - Car has the also close speaking mike and endpoints will be provided. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Ah. Professor B: And uh we will run again {disfmarker} still not clear if we are going to run the {disfmarker} if we are allowed to run uh uh new algorithms, but I assume so. Because uh we would fight for that, really. uh but {disfmarker} since uh u u n u {disfmarker} at least our experience is that only endpointing a {disfmarker} a mel cepstrum gets uh {disfmarker} gets you twenty - one percent improvement overall and twenty - seven improvement on SpeechDat - Car PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: then obvious the database {disfmarker} uh I mean the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} uh the baseline will go up. And nobody can then achieve fifty percent improvement. PhD E: Right. Professor B: So they agreed that uh there will be a twenty - five percent improvement required on {disfmarker} on uh h u m bad mis badly mismatched {disfmarker} PhD E: But wait a minute, I thought the endpointing really only helped in the noisy cases. Professor B: It uh {disfmarker} PhD E: Oh, but you still have that with the MFCC. Professor B: Y yeah. PhD E: OK. Professor B: Yeah but you have the same prob I mean MFCC basically has an enormous number of uh insertions. PhD E: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Professor B: And so, so now they want to say" we {disfmarker} we will require fifty percent improvement only for well matched condition, and only twenty - five percent for the serial cases." PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And uh {disfmarker} and they almost agreed on that except that it wasn't a hundred percent agreed. And so last time uh during the meeting, I just uh brought up the issue, I said" well you know uh quite frankly I'm surprised how lightly you are making these decisions because this is a major decision. For two years we are fighting for fifty percent improvement and suddenly you are saying" oh no we {disfmarker} we will do something less" , but maybe we should discuss that. And everybody said" oh we discussed that and you were not a mee there" and I said" well a lot of other people were not there because not everybody participates at these teleconferencing c things." Then they said" oh no no no because uh everybody is invited." However, there is only ten or fifteen lines, so people can't even con you know participate. So eh they agreed, and so they said" OK, we will discuss that." Immediately Nokia uh raised the question and they said" oh yeah we agree this is not good to to uh dissolve the uh uh {disfmarker} the uh {disfmarker} the criterion." PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So now officially, Nokia is uh uh complaining and said they {disfmarker} they are looking for support, uh I think QualComm is uh saying, too" we shouldn't abandon the fifty percent yet. We should at least try once again, one more round." PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So this is where we are. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: I hope that {disfmarker} I hope that this is going to be a adopted. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Next Wednesday we are going to have uh another uh teleconferencing call, so we'll see what uh {disfmarker} where it goes. PhD E: So what about the issue of um the weights on the {disfmarker} for the different systems, the well - matched, and medium - mismatched and {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah, that's what {disfmarker} that's a g very good uh point, because David says" well you know we ca we can manipulate this number by choosing the right weights anyways." So while you are right but {disfmarker} uh you know but PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Uh yeah, if of course if you put a zero {disfmarker} uh weight zero on a mismatched condition, or highly mismatched then {disfmarker} then you are done. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: But weights were also deter already decided uh half a year ago. So {disfmarker} PhD E: And they're the {disfmarker} staying the same? Professor B: Well, of course people will not like it. Now {disfmarker} What is happening now is that I th I think that people try to match the criterion to solution. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: They have solution. Now they want to {vocalsound} make sure their criterion is {disfmarker} PhD E: Right. Professor B: And I think that this is not the right way. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Uh it may be that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Eventually it may ha may ha it may have to happen. But it's should happen at a point where everybody feels comfortable that we did all what we could. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: And I don't think we did. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Basically, I think that {disfmarker} that this test was a little bit bogus because of the data and uh essentially {pause} there were these arbitrary decisions made, and {disfmarker} and everything. So, so {disfmarker} so this is {disfmarker} so this is where it is. So what we are doing at OGI now is uh uh uh working basically on our parts which we I think a little bit neglected, like noise separation. Uh so we are looking in ways is {disfmarker} in uh which {disfmarker} uh with which we can provide better initial estimate of the mel spectrum basically, which would be a l uh, f more robust to noise, and so far not much uh success. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: We tried uh things which uh a long time ago Bill Byrne suggested, instead of using Fourier spectrum, from Fourier transform, use the spectrum from LPC model. Their argument there was the LPC model fits the peaks of the spectrum, so it may be m naturally more robust in noise. And I thought" well, that makes sense," but so far we can't get much {disfmarker} much out of it. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: uh we may try some standard techniques like spectral subtraction and {disfmarker} PhD E: You haven't tried that yet? Professor B: not {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not much. Or even I was thinking about uh looking back into these totally ad - hoc techniques PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: like for instance uh Dennis Klatt was suggesting uh the one way to uh deal with noisy speech is to add noise to everything. PhD E: Hmm! Professor B: So. {comment} I mean, uh uh add moderate amount of noise to all data. PhD E: Oh! Professor B: So that makes uh th any additive noise less addi less a a effective, PhD E: I see. Professor B: right? Because you already uh had the noise uh in a {disfmarker} PhD E: Right. Professor B: And it was working at the time. It was kind of like one of these things, you know, but if you think about it, it's actually pretty ingenious. So well, you know, just take a {disfmarker} take a spectrum and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and add of the constant, C, to every {disfmarker} every value. PhD E: Well you're {disfmarker} you're basically y Yeah. So you're making all your training data more uniform. Professor B: Exactly. And if {disfmarker} if then {disfmarker} if this data becomes noisy, it b it becomes eff effectively becomes less noisy basically. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: But of course you cannot add too much noise because then you'll s then you're clean recognition goes down, but I mean it's yet to be seen how much, it's a very simple technique. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Yes indeed it's a very simple technique, you just take your spectrum and {disfmarker} and use whatever is coming from FFT, {pause} add constant, PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: you know? on {disfmarker} onto power spectrum. That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Or the other thing is of course if you have a spectrum, what you can s start doing, you can leave {disfmarker} start leaving out the p the parts which are uh uh low in energy and then perhaps uh one could try to find a {disfmarker} a all - pole model to such a spectrum. Because a all - pole model will still try to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to put the {disfmarker} the continuation basically of the {disfmarker} of the model into these parts where the issue set to zero. That's what we want to try. I have a visitor from Brno. He's a {disfmarker} kind of like young faculty. pretty hard - working so he {disfmarker} so he's {disfmarker} so he's looking into that. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And then most of the effort is uh now also aimed at this e e TRAP recognition. This uh {disfmarker} this is this recognition from temporal patterns. PhD E: Hmm! What is that? Professor B: Ah, you don't know about TRAPS! Grad A: Hmm. PhD E: The TRAPS sound familiar, I {disfmarker} but I don't {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah I mean tha This is familiar like sort of because we gave you the name, but, what it is, is that normally what you do is that you recognize uh speech based on a shortened spectrum. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: Essentially L P - LPC, mel cepstrum, uh, everything starts with a spectral slice. Uh so if you s So, given the spectrogram you essentially are sliding {disfmarker} sliding the spectrogram along the uh f frequency axis PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and you keep shifting this thing, and you have a spectrogram. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So you can say" well you can also take the time trajectory of the energy at a given frequency" , and what you get is then, that you get a p {pause} vector. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: And this vector can be a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} s assigned to s some phoneme. Namely you can say i it {disfmarker} I will {disfmarker} I will say that this vector will eh {disfmarker} will {disfmarker} will describe the phoneme which is in the center of the vector. And you can try to classify based on that. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And you {disfmarker} so you classi so it's a very different vector, very different properties, we don't know much about it, but the truth is {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. But you have many of those vectors per phoneme, Professor B: Well, so you get many decisions. PhD E: right? Uh - huh. Professor B: And then you can start dec thinking about how to combine these decisions. Exactly, that's what {disfmarker} yeah, that's what it is. PhD E: Hmm. Hmm. Professor B: Because if you run this uh recognition, you get {disfmarker} you still get about twenty percent error {disfmarker} uh twenty percent correct. You know, PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: on {disfmarker} on like for the frame by frame basis, so {pause} uh {disfmarker} uh so it's much better than chance. PhD E: How wide are the uh frequency bands? Professor B: That's another thing. Well c currently we start {disfmarker} I mean we start always with critical band spectrum. For various reasons. But uh the latest uh observation uh is that you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you are {disfmarker} you can get quite a big advantage of using two critical bands at the same time. Grad A: Are they adjacent, or are they s Professor B: Adjacent, adjacent. Grad A: OK. Professor B: And the reasons {disfmarker} there are some reasons for that. Because there are some reasons I can {disfmarker} I could talk about, will have to tell you about things like masking experiments which uh uh uh uh yield critical bands, and also experiments with release of masking, which actually tell you that something is happening across critical bands, across bands. And {disfmarker} PhD E: Well how do you {disfmarker} how do you uh convert this uh energy over time in a particular frequency band into a vector of numbers? Professor B: It's uh uh uh I mean time T - zero is one number, {pause} time t PhD E: Yeah but what's the number? Is it just the {disfmarker} Professor B: It's a spectral energy, logarithmic spectral energy, PhD E: it's just the amount of energy in that band from f in that time interval. Professor B: yeah. Yes, yes. Yes, yes. PhD E: OK. Professor B: And that's what {disfmarker} that's what I'm saying then, so this is a {disfmarker} this is a starting vector. It's just like shortened f {pause} spectrum, or something. But now we are trying to understand what this vector actually represents, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: for instance a question is like" how correlated are the elements of this vector?" Turns out they are quite correlated, because I mean, especially the neighboring ones, right? They {disfmarker} they represent the same {disfmarker} almost the same configuration of the vocal tract. PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor B: So there's a very high correlation. So the classifiers which use the diagonal covariance matrix don't like it. So we're thinking about de - correlating them. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Then the question is uh" can you describe elements of this vector by Gaussian distributions" , or to what extent? Because uh {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and so on and so on. So we are learning quite a lot about that. And then another issue is how many vectors we should be using, PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: I mean the {disfmarker} so the minimum is one. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: But I mean is the {disfmarker} is the critical band the right uh uh dimension? So we somehow made arbitrary decision," yes" . Then {disfmarker} but then now we are thinking a lot how to {disfmarker} uh how to use at least the neighboring band because that seems to be happening {disfmarker} This I somehow start to believe that's what's happening in recognition. Cuz a lot of experiments point to the fact that people can split the signal into critical bands, but then oh uh uh so you can {disfmarker} you are quite capable of processing a signal in uh uh independently in individual critical bands. That's what masking experiments tell you. But at the same time you most likely pay attention to at least neighboring bands when you are making any decisions, you compare what's happening in {disfmarker} in this band to what's happening to the band {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to the {disfmarker} to the neighboring bands. And that's how you make uh decisions. That's why the articulatory events, which uh F F Fletcher talks about, they are about two critical bands. You need at least two, basically. You need some relative, relative relation. Grad A: Hmm. Professor B: Absolute number doesn't tell you the right thing. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: You need to {disfmarker} you need to compare it to something else, what's happening but it's what's happening in the {disfmarker} in the close neighborhood. So if you are making decision what's happening at one kilohertz, you want to know what's happening at nine hundred hertz and it {disfmarker} and maybe at eleven hundred hertz, but you don't much care what's happening at three kilohertz. PhD E: So it's really w It's sort of like saying that what's happening at one kilohertz depends on what's happening around it. It's sort of relative to it. Professor B: To some extent, it {disfmarker} that is also true. Yeah. But it's {disfmarker} but for {disfmarker} but for instance, {vocalsound} th uh {vocalsound} uh what {disfmarker} what uh humans are very much capable of doing is that if th if they are exactly the same thing happening in two neighboring critical bands, recognition can discard it. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Is what's happening {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. Grad A: Hey! Professor B: Hey! OK, we need us another {disfmarker} another voice here. PhD E: Hey Stephane. Professor B: Yeah, I think so. Yeah? PhD E: Yep. Sure. Go ahead. Professor B: And so so {disfmarker} so for instance if you d if you a if you add the noise that normally masks {disfmarker} masks the uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the signal right? PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and you can show that in {disfmarker} that if the {disfmarker} if you add the noise outside the critical band, that doesn't affect the {disfmarker} the decisions you're making about a signal within a critical band. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Unless this noise is modulated. If the noise is modulated, with the same modulation frequency as the noise in a critical band, the amount of masking is less. The moment you {disfmarker} moment you provide the noise in n neighboring critical bands. PhD E: Mmm. Professor B: So the s m masking curve, normally it looks like sort of {disfmarker} I start from {disfmarker} from here, so you {disfmarker} {comment} you have uh no noise then you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you are expanding the critical band, so the amount of maching is increasing. And when you e hit a certain point, which is a critical band, then the amount of masking is the same. PhD E: Mmm. Professor B: So that's the famous experiment of Fletcher, a long time ago. Like that's where people started thinking" wow this is interesting!" So. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: But, if you {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if you modulate the noise, the masking goes up and the moment you start hitting the {disfmarker} another critical band, the masking goes down. So essentially {disfmarker} essentially that's a very clear indication that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that {pause} cognition can take uh uh into consideration what's happening in the neighboring bands. But if you go too far in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if the noise is very broad, you are not increasing much more, so {disfmarker} so if you {disfmarker} if you are far away from the signal {disfmarker} uh from the signal f uh the frequency at which the signal is, then the m even the {disfmarker} when the noise is co - modulated it {disfmarker} it's not helping you much. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Mm - hmm. Grad A: Hmm. Professor B: So. So things like this we are kind of playing with {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} with the hope that perhaps we could eventually u use this in a {disfmarker} in a real recognizer. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Like uh partially of course we promised to do this under the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Aurora uh program. PhD E: But you probably won't have anything before the next time we have to evaluate, Professor B: Probably not. PhD E: right? Professor B: Well, maybe, most likely we will not have anything which c would comply with the rules. PhD E: Yeah. Ah. Professor B: like because uh uh PhD E: Latency and things. Professor B: latency currently chops the require uh significant uh latency amount of processing, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: because uh we don't know any better, yet, than to use the neural net classifiers, uh and uh {disfmarker} and uh TRAPS. PhD E: Yeah. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Though the {disfmarker} the work which uh everybody is looking at now aims at s trying to find out what to do with these vectors, so that a g simple Gaussian classifier would be happier with it. PhD C: Hmm. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: or to what extent a Gaussian classifier should be unhappy uh that, and how to Gaussian - ize the vectors, and {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: So this is uh what's happening. Then Sunil is uh uh uh asked me f for one month's vacation and since he did not take any vacation for two years, I had no {disfmarker} I didn't have heart to tell him no. So he's in India. PhD E: Wow. Professor B: And uh {disfmarker} PhD E: Is he getting married or something? Professor B: Uh well, he may be looking for a girl, for {disfmarker} for I don't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I don't ask. I know that Naran - when last time Narayanan did that he came back engaged. PhD E: Right. Well, I mean, I've known other friends who {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they go to Ind - they go back home to India for a month, they come back married, Professor B: Yeah. I know. I know, I know, PhD E: you know, huh. Professor B: and then of course then what happened with Narayanan was that he start pushing me that he needs to get a PHD because they wouldn't give him his wife. And she's very pretty and he loves her and so {disfmarker} so we had to really {disfmarker} PhD E: So he finally had some incentive to finish, Professor B: Oh yeah. We had {disfmarker} well I had a incentive because he {disfmarker} he always had this plan except he never told me. PhD E: huh? Professor B: Sort of figured that {disfmarker} That was a uh that he uh he told me the day when we did very well at our NIST evaluations of speaker recognition, the technology, and he was involved there. PhD E: Oh. Professor B: We were {disfmarker} after presentation we were driving home and he told me. PhD E: When he knew you were happy, Professor B: Yeah. So I {disfmarker} I said" well, yeah, OK" so he took another {disfmarker} another three quarter of the year but uh he was out. PhD E: huh? Professor B: So I {disfmarker} wouldn't surprise me if he has a plan like that, though {disfmarker} though uh Pratibha still needs to get out first. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Cuz Pratibha is there a {disfmarker} a year earlier. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And S and Satya needs to get out very first because he's {disfmarker} he already has uh four years served, though one year he was getting masters. So. So. PhD C: Hmm. PhD E: So have the um {disfmarker} when is the next uh evaluation? June or something? Professor B: Which? Speaker recognition? PhD E: No, for uh Aurora? Professor B: Uh there, we don't know about evaluation, next meeting is in June. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And uh uh but like getting {disfmarker} get together. PhD E: Oh, OK. Are people supposed to rerun their systems, Professor B: Nobody said that yet. PhD E: or {disfmarker}? Professor B: I assume so. Uh yes, uh, but nobody even set up yet the {pause} date for uh delivering uh endpointed data. PhD E: Hmm. Wow. Professor B: And this uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that sort of stuff. But I uh, yeah, what I think would be of course extremely useful, if we can come to our next meeting and say" well you know we did get fifty percent improvement. If {disfmarker} if you are interested we eventually can tell you how" , but uh we can get fifty percent improvement. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Because people will s will be saying it's impossible. PhD E: Hmm. Do you know what the new baseline is? Oh, I guess if you don't have {disfmarker} Professor B: Twenty - two {disfmarker} t twenty {disfmarker} twenty - two percent better than the old baseline. PhD E: Using your uh voice activity detector? Professor B: u Yes. Yes. But I assume that it will be similar, I don't {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't see the reason why it shouldn't be. PhD E: Similar, yeah. Professor B: I d I don't see reason why it should be worse. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Cuz if it is worse, then we will raise the objection, PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: we say" well you know how come?" Because eh if we just use our voice activity detector, which we don't claim even that it's wonderful, it's just like one of them. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: We get this sort of improvement, how come that we don't see it on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on your endpointed data? PhD C: Yeah. I guess it could be even better, Professor B: I think so. PhD C: because the voice activity detector that I choosed is something that cheating, it's using the alignment of the speech recognition system, Professor B: Yeah. C yeah uh PhD C: and only the alignment on the clean channel, and then mapped this alignment to the noisy channel. Professor B: and on clean speech data. Yeah. PhD E: Oh, OK. Professor B: Well David told me {disfmarker} David told me yesterday or Harry actually he told Harry from QualComm and Harry uh brought up the suggestion we should still go for fifty percent he says are you aware that your system does only thirty percent uh comparing to {disfmarker} to endpointed baselines? So they must have run already something. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: So. And Harry said" Yeah. But I mean we think that we {disfmarker} we didn't say the last word yet, that we have other {disfmarker} other things which we can try." PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: So. So there's a lot of discussion now about this uh new criterion. Because Nokia was objecting, with uh QualComm's {disfmarker} we basically supported that, we said" yes" . PhD C: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: Now everybody else is saying" well you guys might {disfmarker} must be out of your mind." uh The {disfmarker} Guenter Hirsch who d doesn't speak for Ericsson anymore because he is not with Ericsson and Ericsson may not {disfmarker} may withdraw from the whole Aurora activity because they have so many troubles now. PhD E: Wow. Professor B: Ericsson's laying off twenty percent of people. Grad A: Wow. PhD E: Where's uh Guenter going? Professor B: Well Guenter is already {disfmarker} he got the job uh already was working on it for past two years or three years {disfmarker} PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: he got a job uh at some {disfmarker} some Fachschule, the technical college not too far from Aachen. PhD E: Hmm! Professor B: So it's like professor {disfmarker} u university professor PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: you know, not quite a university, not quite a sort of {disfmarker} it's not Aachen University, but it's a good school and he {disfmarker} he's happy. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Hmm! Professor B: And he {disfmarker} well, he was hoping to work uh with Ericsson like on t uh like consulting basis, but right now he says {disfmarker} says it doesn't look like that anybody is even thinking about speech recognition. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: They think about survival. PhD E: Wow! Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: So. So. But this is being now discussed right now, and it's possible that uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that it may get through, that we will still stick to fifty percent. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: But that means that nobody will probably get this im this improvement. yet, wi with the current system. Which event es essentially I think that we should be happy with because that {disfmarker} that would mean that at least people may be forced to look into alternative solutions PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and {disfmarker} PhD C: Mm - hmm. But maybe {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean we are not too far from {disfmarker} from fifty percent, from the new baseline. Professor B: Uh, but not {disfmarker} PhD C: Which would mean like sixty percent over the current baseline, which is {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. Yes. Yes. We {disfmarker} we getting {disfmarker} we getting there, right. PhD C: Well. We are around fifty, fifty - five. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: So. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Is it like sort of {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} How did you come up with this number? If you improve twenty {disfmarker} by twenty percent the c the f the all baselines, it's just a quick c comp co computation? PhD C: Yeah. I don't know exactly if it's {disfmarker} Professor B: Uh - huh. I think it's about right. PhD C: Yeah, because it de it depends on the weightings Professor B: Yeah, yeah. PhD C: and {disfmarker} Yeah. But. Mm - hmm. PhD E: Hmm. How's your documentation or whatever it w what was it you guys were working on last week? PhD C: Yeah, finally we {disfmarker} we've not finished with this. We stopped. PhD D: More or less it's finished. PhD C: Yeah. PhD D: Ma - nec to need a little more time to improve the English, and maybe s to fill in something {disfmarker} some small detail, something like that, PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Hmm. PhD D: but it's more or less ready. PhD C: Yeah. Well, we have a document that explain a big part of the experiments, PhD D: Necessary to {disfmarker} to include the bi the bibliography. PhD C: but PhD D: Mm - hmm. PhD C: it's not, yeah, finished yet. Mm - hmm. PhD E: So have you been running some new experiments? I {disfmarker} I thought I saw some jobs of yours running on some of the machine {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah. Right. We've fff {comment} done some strange things like removing C - zero or C - one from the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} the vector of parameters, and we noticed that C - one is almost not useful at all. You can remove it from the vector, it doesn't hurt. PhD E: Really? ! That has no effect? PhD C: Um. PhD E: Eh {disfmarker} Is this in the baseline? or in uh {disfmarker} PhD C: In the {disfmarker} No, in the proposal. PhD E: in {disfmarker} uh - huh, uh - huh. Professor B: So we were just discussing, since you mentioned that, in {disfmarker} it w PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: driving in the car with Morgan this morning, we were discussing a good experiment for b for beginning graduate student who wants to run a lot of {disfmarker} who wants to get a lot of numbers on something PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: which is, like," imagine that you will {disfmarker} you will start putting every co any coefficient, which you are using in your vector, in some general power. PhD E: In some what? Professor B: General pow power. Like sort of you take a s power of two, or take a square root, or something. PhD E: Mm - hmm. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So suppose that you are working with a s C - zer C - one. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So if you put it in a s square root, that effectively makes your model half as efficient. Because uh your uh Gaussian mixture model, right? computes the mean. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: And {disfmarker} and uh i i i but it's {disfmarker} the mean is an exponent of the whatever, the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this Gaussian function. PhD E: You're compressing the range, Professor B: So you're compressing the range of this coefficient, so it's becoming less efficient. PhD E: right? of that {disfmarker} Professor B: Right? PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So. So. Morgan was @ @ and he was {disfmarker} he was saying well this might be the alternative way how to play with a {disfmarker} with a fudge factor, you know, uh in the {disfmarker} PhD E: Oh. Professor B: you know, just compress the whole vector. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: And I said" well in that case why don't we just start compressing individual elements, like when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} because in old days we were doing {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when people still were doing template matching and Euclidean distances, we were doing this liftering of parameters, right? PhD E: Uh - huh. Professor B: because we observed that uh higher parameters were more important than lower for recognition. And basically the {disfmarker} the C - ze C - one contributes mainly slope, PhD E: Right. Professor B: and it's highly affected by uh frequency response of the {disfmarker} of the recording equipment and that sort of thing, PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: so {disfmarker} so we were coming with all these f various lifters. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: uh Bell Labs had he {disfmarker} this uh uh r raised cosine lifter which still I think is built into H {disfmarker} HTK for reasons n unknown to anybody, but {disfmarker} but uh we had exponential lifter, or triangle lifter, basic number of lifters. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And. But so they may be a way to {disfmarker} to fiddle with the f with the f PhD E: Insertions. Professor B: Insertions, deletions, or the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} giving a relative {disfmarker} uh basically modifying relative importance of the various parameters. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: The only of course problem is that there's an infinite number of combinations and if the {disfmarker} if you s if y PhD E: Oh. Uh - huh. You need like a {disfmarker} some kind of a {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah, you need a lot of graduate students, and a lot of computing power. PhD E: You need to have a genetic algorithm, that basically tries random permutations of these things. Professor B: I know. Exactly. Oh. If you were at Bell Labs or {disfmarker} I d d I shouldn't be saying this in {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on a mike, right? Or I {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} IBM, that's what {disfmarker} maybe that's what somebody would be doing. PhD E: Yeah. Grad A: Hmm. Professor B: Oh, I mean, I mean the places which have a lot of computing power, so because it is really it's a p it's a {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it will be reasonable search PhD E: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Professor B: uh but I wonder if there isn't some way of doing this uh search like when we are searching say for best discriminants. PhD E: You know actually, I don't know that this wouldn't be all that bad. I mean you {disfmarker} you compute the features once, Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: right? And then these exponents are just applied to that {disfmarker} Professor B: Absolutely. And hev everything is fixed. PhD E: So. Professor B: Everything is fixed. Each {disfmarker} each {disfmarker} PhD E: And is this something that you would adjust for training? or only recognition? Professor B: For both, you would have to do. Yeah. PhD E: You would do it on both. Professor B: You have to do bo both. PhD E: So you'd actually {disfmarker} Professor B: Because essentially you are saying" uh this feature is not important" . PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Or less important, so that's {disfmarker} th that's a {disfmarker} that's a painful one, yeah. PhD E: So for each {disfmarker} uh set of exponents that you would try, it would require a training and a recognition? Professor B: Yeah. But {disfmarker} but wait a minute. You may not need to re uh uh retrain the m model. You just may n may need to c uh give uh less weight to {disfmarker} to uh a mod uh a component of the model which represents this particular feature. You don't have to retrain it. PhD E: Oh. So if you {disfmarker} Instead of altering the feature vectors themselves, you {disfmarker} you modify the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Gaussians in the models. Professor B: You just multiply. Yeah. Yep. You modify the Gaussian in the model, but in the {disfmarker} in the test data you would have to put it in the power, but in a training what you c in a training uh {disfmarker} in trained model, all you would have to do is to multiply a model by appropriate constant. PhD E: Uh - huh. But why {disfmarker} if you're {disfmarker} if you're multi if you're altering the model, why w in the test data, why would you have to muck with the uh cepstral coefficients? Professor B: Because in uh test {disfmarker} in uh test data you ca don't have a model. You have uh only data. But in a {disfmarker} in a tr PhD E: No. But you're running your data through that same model. Professor B: That is true, but w I mean, so what you want to do {disfmarker} You want to say if uh obs you {disfmarker} if you observe something like Stephane observes, that C - one is not important, you can do two things. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: If you have a trained {disfmarker} trained recognizer, in the model, you know the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the component which {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean di dimension {vocalsound} wh PhD E: Mm - hmm. All of the {disfmarker} all of the mean and variances that correspond to C - one, you put them to zero. Professor B: To the s you {disfmarker} you know it. But what I'm proposing now, if it is important but not as important, you multiply it by point one in a model. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} PhD E: But what are you multiplying? Cuz those are means, right? Grad A: You're multiplying the standard deviation? PhD E: I mean you're {disfmarker} Grad A: So it's {disfmarker} Professor B: I think that you multiply the {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} I would have to look in the {disfmarker} in the math, I mean how {disfmarker} how does the model uh {disfmarker} PhD E: I think you {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah, I think you'd have to modify the standard deviation or something, so that you make it {vocalsound} wider or narrower. Grad A: Cuz {disfmarker} Yeah. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: Effectively, that's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Exactly. That's what you do. That's what you do, you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you modify the standard deviation as it was trained. Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: Effectively you, you know y in f in front of the {disfmarker} of the model, you put a constant. S yeah effectively what you're doing is you {disfmarker} is you are modifying the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the deviation. Right? Grad A: The spread, PhD E: Oop. Grad A: right. PhD E: Sorry. Professor B: Yeah, the spread. Grad A: It's the same {disfmarker} same mean, PhD E: So. Grad A: right? Professor B: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} PhD E: So by making th the standard deviation narrower, {comment} uh your scores get worse for {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: unless it's exactly right on the mean. Professor B: Your als No. By making it narrower, PhD E: Right? Professor B: uh y your {disfmarker} PhD E: I mean there's {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker} you're allowing for less variance. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Yes, so you making this particular dimension less important. Because see what you are fitting is the multidimensional Gaussian, right? PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: It's a {disfmarker} it has {disfmarker} it has uh thirty - nine dimensions, or thirteen dimensions if you g ignore deltas and double - deltas. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: So in order {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} in order to make dimension which {disfmarker} which Stephane sees uh less important, uh uh I mean not {disfmarker} not useful, less important, what you do is that this particular component in the model you can multiply by w you can {disfmarker} you can basically de - weight it in the model. But you can't do it in a {disfmarker} in a test data because you don't have a model for th I mean uh when the test comes, but what you can do is that you put this particular component in {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and you compress it. That becomes uh th gets less variance, subsequently becomes less important. PhD E: Couldn't you just do that to the test data and not do anything with your training data? Professor B: That would be very bad, because uh your t your model was trained uh expecting uh, that wouldn't work. Because your model was trained expecting a certain var variance on C - one. PhD E: Uh - huh. Professor B: And because the model thinks C - one is important. After you train the model, you sort of {disfmarker} y you could do {disfmarker} you could do still what I was proposing initially, that during the training you {disfmarker} you compress C - one that becomes {disfmarker} then it becomes less important in a training. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: But if you have {disfmarker} if you want to run e ex extensive experiment without retraining the model, you don't have to retrain the model. You train it on the original vector. But after, you {disfmarker} wh when you are doing this parametric study of importance of C - one you will de - weight the C - one component in the model, and you will put in the {disfmarker} you will compress the {disfmarker} this component in a {disfmarker} in the test data. s by the same amount. PhD E: Could you also if you wanted to {disfmarker} if you wanted to try an experiment uh by {pause} leaving out say, C - one, couldn't you, in your test data, uh modify the {disfmarker} all of the C - one values to be um way outside of the normal range of the Gaussian for C - one that was trained in the model? So that effectively, the C - one never really contributes to the score? PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: No, that would be a severe mismatch, PhD E: Do you know what I'm say Professor B: right? what you are proposing? N no you don't want that. PhD E: Yeah, someth Professor B: Because that would {disfmarker} then your model would be unlikely. Your likelihood would be low, right? Because you would be providing severe mismatch. PhD E: Mm - hmm. But what if you set if to the mean of the model, then? And it was a cons you set all C - ones coming in through your test data, you {disfmarker} you change whatever value that was there to the mean that your model had. Professor B: No that would be very good match, right? PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: That you would {disfmarker} PhD C: Which {disfmarker} Well, yeah, but we have several means. So. Professor B: I see what you are sa {pause} saying, PhD C: Right? Grad A: Saying. Professor B: but uh, {vocalsound} no, no I don't think that it would be the same. I mean, no, the {disfmarker} If you set it to a mean, that would {disfmarker} No, you can't do that. Y you ca you ca Ch - Chuck, you can't do that. PhD E: Oh, that's true, right, yeah, because you {disfmarker} you have {disfmarker} PhD C: Wait. Which {disfmarker} Professor B: Because that would be a really f fiddling with the data, PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: you can't do that. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: But what you can do, I'm confident you ca PhD E: Professor B: well, I'm reasonably confident and I putting it on the record, right? I mean y people will listen to it for {disfmarker} for centuries now, is {pause} what you can do, is you train the model uh with the {disfmarker} with the original data. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Then you decide that you want to see how important C {disfmarker} C - one is. So what you will do is that a component in the model for C - one, you will divide it by {disfmarker} by two. And you will compress your test data by square root. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Then you will still have a perfect m match. Except that this component of C - one will be half as important in a {disfmarker} in a overall score. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: Then you divide it by four and you take a square, f fourth root. Then if you think that some component is more {disfmarker} is more important then th th th it then {disfmarker} then uh uh i it is, based on training, then you uh multiply this particular component in the model by {disfmarker} by {disfmarker} by {disfmarker} PhD E: You're talking about the standard deviation? Professor B: yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Yeah, multiply this component uh i it by number b larger than one, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and you put your data in power higher than one. Then it becomes more important. In the overall score, I believe. PhD C: Yeah, but, at the {disfmarker} PhD E: But {pause} don't you have to do something to the mean, also? Professor B: No. PhD C: No. Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: No. PhD C: But I think it's {disfmarker} uh the {disfmarker} The variance is on {disfmarker} on the denominator in the {disfmarker} in the Gaussian equation. So. I think it's maybe it's the contrary. If you want to decrease the importance of a c parameter, you have to increase it's variance. Professor B: Yes. Right. Yes. PhD D: Multiply. Professor B: Exactly. Yeah. So you {disfmarker} so you may want to do it other way around, PhD C: Hmm. That's right. OK. Professor B: yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Grad A: Right. PhD E: But if your {disfmarker} If your um original data for C - one had a mean of two. Professor B: Uh - huh. PhD E: And now you're {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker} you're changing that by squaring it. Now your mean of your C - one original data has {disfmarker} {comment} is four. But your model still has a mean of two. So even though you've expended the range, your mean doesn't match anymore. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Let's see. PhD E: Do you see what I mean? PhD C: I think {disfmarker} What I see {disfmarker} What could be done is you don't change your features, which are computed once for all, Professor B: Uh - huh. PhD C: but you just tune the model. So. You have your features. You train your {disfmarker} your model on these features. PhD E: Mm - hmm. PhD C: And then if you want to decrease the importance of C - one you just take the variance of the C - one component in the {disfmarker} in the model and increase it if you want to decrease the importance of C - one or decrease it {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Right. Professor B: Yeah. You would have to modify the mean in the model. I {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} I agree with you. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, but it's {disfmarker} it's i it's do - able, PhD C: Well. PhD E: Yeah, so y Professor B: right? I mean, it's predictable. Uh. Yeah. PhD E: It's predictable, yeah. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah, it's predictable. PhD C: Mmm. PhD E: Yeah. But as a simple thing, you could just {disfmarker} just muck with the variance. PhD C: Just adjust the model, yeah. PhD E: to get uh this {disfmarker} uh this {disfmarker} the effect I think that you're talking about, Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD E: right? Professor B: It might be. PhD E: Could increase the variance to decrease the importance. Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Yeah, because if you had a huge variance, you're dividing by a large number, {comment} you get a very small contribution. Grad A: Doesn't matter {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah, it becomes more flat Grad A: Right. PhD C: and {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Grad A: Yeah, the sharper the variance, the more {disfmarker} more important to get that one right. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Yeah, you know actually, this reminds me of something that happened uh when I was at BBN. We were playing with putting um pitch into the Mandarin recognizer. Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD E: And this particular pitch algorithm um when it didn't think there was any voicing, was spitting out zeros. So we were getting {disfmarker} uh when we did clustering, we were getting groups uh of features Professor B: p Pretty new outliers, interesting outliers, right? PhD E: yeah, with {disfmarker} with a mean of zero and basically zero variance. Professor B: Variance. PhD E: So, when ener {comment} when anytime any one of those vectors came in that had a zero in it, we got a great score. I mean it was just, {nonvocalsound} you know, incredibly {nonvocalsound} high score, and so that was throwing everything off. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: So {vocalsound} if you have very small variance you get really good scores when you get something that matches. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: So. {vocalsound} So that's a way, yeah, yeah {disfmarker} That's a way to increase the {disfmarker} yeah, n That's interesting. So in fact, that would be {disfmarker} That doesn't require any retraining. Professor B: Yeah. No. No. PhD C: No, that's right. So it's PhD E: So that means it's just Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: just tuning the models and testing, actually. PhD E: recognitions. Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. PhD C: It would be quick. PhD E: You {disfmarker} you have a step where you you modify the models, make a d copy of your models with whatever variance modifications you make, and rerun recognition. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: And then do a whole bunch of those. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: That could be set up fairly easily I think, and you have a whole bunch of you know {disfmarker} Professor B: Chuck is getting himself in trouble. PhD E: That's an interesting idea, actually. For testing the {disfmarker} Yeah. Huh! Grad A: Didn't you say you got these uh HTK's set up on the new Linux boxes? PhD E: That's right. Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: Hey! PhD E: In fact, and {disfmarker} and they're just t right now they're installing uh {disfmarker} increasing the memory on that uh {disfmarker} the Linux box. Professor B: And Chuck is sort of really fishing for how to keep his computer busy, Grad A: Right. Professor B: right? PhD E: Yeah. Absinthe. Professor B: Well, you know, that's {disfmarker} PhD E: Absinthe. We've got five processors on that. Grad A: Oh yeah. Professor B: that's {disfmarker} yeah, that's a good thing Grad A: That's right. Professor B: because then y you just write the" do" - loops and then you pretend that you are working while you are sort of {disfmarker} you c you can go fishing. PhD E: And two gigs of memory. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Grad A: Pretend, yeah. PhD E: Exactly. Yeah. PhD D: Go fishing. PhD E: See how many cycles we used? Professor B: Yeah. Then you are sort of in this mode like all of those ARPA people are, right? PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Uh, since it is on the record, I can't say uh which company it was, but it was reported to me that uh somebody visited a company and during a {disfmarker} d during a discussion, there was this guy who was always hitting the carriage returns uh on a computer. PhD E: Uh - huh. Professor B: So after two hours uh the visitor said" wh why are you hitting this carriage return?" And he said" well you know, we are being paid by a computer ty I mean we are {disfmarker} we have a government contract. And they pay us by {disfmarker} by amount of computer time we use." It was in old days when there were uh {disfmarker} of PDP - eights and that sort of thing. PhD E: Oh, my gosh! So he had to make it look like {disfmarker} Professor B: Because so they had a {disfmarker} they literally had to c monitor at the time {disfmarker} at the time on a computer how much time is being spent I {disfmarker} i i or on {disfmarker} on this particular project. PhD E: Yeah. How {disfmarker} Idle time. Grad A: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Nobody was looking even at what was coming out. PhD E: Have you ever seen those little um {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} it's this thing that's the shape of a bird and it has a red ball and its beak dips into the water? Professor B: Yeah, I know, right. PhD E: So {vocalsound} if you could hook that up so it hit the keyboard {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: That's an interesting experiment. Professor B: It would be similar {disfmarker} similar to {disfmarker} I knew some people who were uh that was in old Communist uh Czechoslovakia, right? so we were watching for American airplanes, coming to spy on {disfmarker} on uh {disfmarker} on us at the time, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: so there were three guys uh uh stationed in the middle of the woods on one l lonely uh watching tower, pretty much spending a year and a half there because there was this service right? And so they {disfmarker} very quickly they made friends with local girls and local people in the village PhD E: Ugh! Professor B: and {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: and so but they {disfmarker} there was one plane flying over s always uh uh above, and so that was the only work which they had. They {disfmarker} like four in the afternoon they had to report there was a plane from Prague to Brno Basically f flying there, PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: so they f very q f first thing was that they would always run back and {disfmarker} and at four o'clock and {disfmarker} and quickly make a call," this plane is uh uh passing" then a second thing was that they {disfmarker} they took the line from this u u post to uh uh a local pub. And they were calling from the pub. And they {disfmarker} but third thing which they made, and when they screwed up, they {disfmarker} finally they had to p the {disfmarker} the p the pub owner to make these phone calls because they didn't even bother to be there anymore. And one day there was {disfmarker} there was no plane. At least they were sort of smart enough that they looked if the plane is flying there, right? And the pub owner says" oh my {disfmarker} four o'clock, OK, quickly p pick up the phone, call that there's a plane flying." PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: There was no plane for some reason, PhD E: And there wasn't? Professor B: it was downed, or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and {disfmarker} so they got in trouble. But. {vocalsound} But uh. PhD E: Huh! Well that's {disfmarker} that's a really i Professor B: So. So. Yeah. PhD E: That wouldn't be too difficult to try. Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Maybe I could set that up. Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: And we'll just {disfmarker} Professor B: Well, at least go test the s test the uh assumption about C - C - one I mean to begin with. But then of course one can then think about some predictable result to change all of them. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: It's just like we used to do these uh {disfmarker} these uh {disfmarker} um the {disfmarker} the uh distance measures. It might be that uh {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah, so the first set of uh variance weighting vectors would be just you know one {disfmarker} modifying one and leaving the others the same. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. Maybe. PhD E: And {disfmarker} and do that for each one. Professor B: Because you see, I mean, what is happening here in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in such a model is that it's {disfmarker} tells you yeah what has a low variance uh is uh {disfmarker} is uh {disfmarker} is more reliable, PhD E: That would be one set of experiment {disfmarker} Professor B: right? How do we {disfmarker} PhD E: Wh - yeah, when the data matches that, then you get really {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Right. Professor B: How do we know, especially when it comes to noise? PhD E: But there could just naturally be low variance. Professor B: Yeah? PhD E: Because I {disfmarker} Like, I've noticed in the higher cepstral coefficients, the numbers seem to get smaller, right? So d PhD C: They {disfmarker} t PhD E: I mean, just naturally. PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: Yeah, th that's {disfmarker} PhD C: They have smaller means, also. Uh. PhD E: Yeah. Exactly. And so it seems like they're already sort of compressed. PhD C: Uh - huh. PhD E: The range {pause} of values. Professor B: Yeah that's why uh people used these lifters were inverse variance weighting lifters basically that makes uh uh Euclidean distance more like uh Mahalanobis distance with a diagonal covariance when you knew what all the variances were over the old data. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Hmm. Professor B: What they would do is that they would weight each coefficient by inverse of the variance. Turns out that uh the variance decreases at least at fast, I believe, as the index of the cepstral coefficients. I think you can show that uh uh analytically. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So typically what happens is that you {disfmarker} you need to weight the {disfmarker} uh weight the higher coefficients more than uh the lower coefficients. PhD E: Hmm. Mm - hmm. Hmm. Professor B: So. PhD C: Mmm. PhD E: Professor B: When {disfmarker} Yeah. When we talked about Aurora still I wanted to m make a plea {disfmarker} uh encourage for uh more communication between {disfmarker} between uh {pause} uh different uh parts of the distributed uh {pause} uh center. Uh even when there is absolutely nothing to {disfmarker} to s to say but the weather is good in Ore - in {disfmarker} in Berkeley. I'm sure that it's being appreciated in Oregon and maybe it will generate similar responses down here, like, uh {disfmarker} PhD C: We can set up a webcam maybe. Professor B: Yeah. Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: What {disfmarker} you know, nowadays, yeah. It's actually do - able, almost. PhD E: Is the um {disfmarker} if we mail to" Aurora - inhouse" , does that go up to you guys also? Professor B: I don't think so. No. PhD C: No. PhD E: OK. Professor B: So we should do that. PhD E: So i What is it {disfmarker} Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: We should definitely set up {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah we sh Do we have a mailing list that includes uh the OGI people? Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Uh no. We don't have. Professor B: Uh - huh. PhD E: Oh! Maybe we should set that up. That would make it much easier. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that would make it easier. PhD E: So maybe just call it" Aurora" or something that would {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. And then we also can send the {disfmarker} the dis to the same address right, and it goes to everybody PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: OK. Maybe we can set that up. Professor B: Because what's happening naturally in research, I know, is that people essentially start working on something and they don't want to be much bothered, right? but what the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} then the danger is in a group like this, is that two people are working on the same thing and i c of course both of them come with the s very good solution, but it could have been done somehow in half of the effort or something. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Oh, there's another thing which I wanted to uh uh report. Lucash, I think, uh wrote the software for this Aurora - two system. reasonably uh good one, because he's doing it for Intel, but I trust that we have uh rights to uh use it uh or distribute it and everything. Cuz Intel's intentions originally was to distribute it free of charge anyways. PhD E: Hmm! Professor B: u s And so {disfmarker} so uh we {disfmarker} we will make sure that at least you can see the software and if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if it is of any use. Just uh {disfmarker} PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: It might be a reasonable point for p perhaps uh start converging. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Because Morgan's point is that {disfmarker} He is an experienced guy. He says" well you know it's very difficult to collaborate if you are working with supposedly the same thing, in quotes, except which is not s is not the same. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Which {disfmarker} which uh uh one is using that set of hurdles, another one set {disfmarker} is using another set of hurdles. So. And {disfmarker} And then it's difficult to c compare. PhD C: What about Harry? Uh. We received a mail last week and you are starting to {disfmarker} to do some experiments. Professor B: He got the {disfmarker} he got the software. Yeah. They sent the release. PhD C: And use this Intel version. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD C: Hmm. Professor B: Yeah because Intel paid us uh should I say on a microphone? uh some amount of money, not much. Not much I can say on a microphone. Much less then we should have gotten {vocalsound} for this amount of work. And they wanted uh to {disfmarker} to have software so that they can also play with it, which means that it has to be in a certain environment {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: they use actu actually some Intel libraries, but in the process, Lucash just rewrote the whole thing because he figured rather than trying to f make sense uh of uh {disfmarker} including ICSI software uh not for training on the nets PhD E: Hmm. Grad A: Oh. Professor B: but I think he rewrote the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} or so maybe somehow reused over the parts of the thing so that {disfmarker} so that {disfmarker} the whole thing, including MLP, trained MLP is one piece of uh software. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Wow! Professor B: Is it useful? Grad A: Ye - Yeah. Professor B: Yeah? Grad A: I mean, I remember when we were trying to put together all the ICSI software for the submission. Professor B: Or {disfmarker} That's what he was saying, right. He said that it was like {disfmarker} it was like just so many libraries and nobody knew what was used when, and {disfmarker} and so that's where he started and that's where he realized that it needs to be {disfmarker} needs to be uh uh at least cleaned up, Grad A: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and so I think it {disfmarker} this is available. Grad A: Hmm. Professor B: So {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah. Well, the {disfmarker} the only thing I would check is if he {disfmarker} does he use Intel math libraries, Professor B: uh e ev PhD C: because if it's the case, it's maybe not so easy to use it on another architecture. Professor B: n not maybe {disfmarker} Maybe not in a first {disfmarker} maybe not in a first ap approximation because I think he started first just with a plain C {disfmarker} C or C - plus - plus or something before {disfmarker} PhD C: Ah yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor B: I {disfmarker} I can check on that. Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And uh in {disfmarker} otherwise the Intel libraries, I think they are available free of f freely. But they may be running only on {disfmarker} on uh {disfmarker} on uh Windows. PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: Or on {disfmarker} on the {disfmarker} PhD C: On Intel architecture maybe. Professor B: Yeah, on Intel architecture, may not run in SUN. PhD C: I'm {disfmarker} Yeah. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: That is p that is {disfmarker} that is possible. That's why Intel of course is distributing it, PhD C: Well. Professor B: right? Or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That's {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah. Well there are {disfmarker} at least there are optimized version for their architecture. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: I don't know. I never checked carefully these sorts of {disfmarker} Professor B: I know there was some issues that initially of course we d do all the development on Linux but we use {disfmarker} we don't have {disfmarker} we have only three uh uh uh uh s SUNs and we have them only because they have a SPERT board in. Otherwise {disfmarker} otherwise we t almost exclusively are working with uh PC's now, with Intel. In that way Intel succeeded with us, because they gave us too many good machines for very little money or nothing. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: So. So. So we run everything on Intel. PhD E: Wow! Professor B: And {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. Does anybody have anything else? to {disfmarker} Shall we read some digits? PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: Yes. I have to take my glasses {disfmarker} PhD E: So. Hynek, I don't know if you've ever done this. Professor B: No. PhD E: The way that it works is each person goes around in turn, {comment} and uh you say the transcript number and then you read the digits, the {disfmarker} the strings of numbers as individual digits. Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD E: So you don't say" eight hundred and fifty" , you say" eight five oh" , and so forth. Professor B: OK. OK. So can {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} can I t maybe start then? PhD E: Um. Sure.

The professor told the group a story about soldiers assigned to watch out for spy planes. The plane showed up at four each day and the soldiers called it in. Once the pattern was clear, they stopped looking for it and spent time with the locals instead. One day, the plane did not come but the soldiers still reported it, so they got into trouble. The professor used the story to make a point about making an assumption and then seeing if it holds after changing something small.

tr-sq-619

tr-sq-619_0

What did the professor think about carriage returns? Professor B: Is it starting now? PhD E: Yep. Professor B: So what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} from {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} Grad A: Hello? Professor B: Whatever we say from now on, it can be held against us, right? PhD E: That's right. Professor B: and uh Grad A: It's your right to remain silent. Professor B: Yeah. So I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the problem is that I actually don't know how th these held meetings are held, if they are very informal and sort of just people are say what's going on PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: and PhD E: Yeah, that's usually what we do. Professor B: OK. PhD E: We just sorta go around and people say what's going on, what's the latest uh {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. OK. So I guess that what may be a {disfmarker} reasonable is if I uh first make a report on what's happening in Aurora in general, at least what from my perspective. PhD E: Yeah. That would be great. Professor B: And {disfmarker} and uh so, I {disfmarker} I think that Carmen and Stephane reported on uh Amsterdam meeting, PhD D: Uh o Professor B: which was kind of interesting because it was for the first time we realized we are not friends really, but we are competitors. Cuz until then it was sort of like everything was like wonderful and {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. It seemed like there were still some issues, Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: right? that they were trying to decide? Professor B: There is a plenty of {disfmarker} there're plenty of issues. PhD E: Like the voice activity detector, Professor B: Well and what happened was that they realized that if two leading proposals, which was French Telecom Alcatel, and us both had uh voice activity detector. And I said" well big surprise, I mean we could have told you that {pause} n n n four months ago, except we didn't because nobody else was bringing it up" . PhD E: Right. Professor B: Obviously French Telecom didn't volunteer this information either, cuz we were working on {disfmarker} mainly on voice activity detector for past uh several months PhD E: Right. Professor B: because that's buying us the most uh thing. And everybody said" Well but this is not fair. We didn't know that." And of course uh the {disfmarker} it's not working on features really. And be I agreed. PhD E: Right. Professor B: I said" well yeah, you are absolutely right, I mean if I wish that you provided better end point at speech because uh {disfmarker} or at least that if we could modify the recognizer, uh to account for these long silences, because otherwise uh that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} th that wasn't a correct thing." And so then ev ev everybody else says" well we should {disfmarker} we need to do a new eval evaluation without voice activity detector, or we have to do something about it" . PhD E: Right. Professor B: And in principle I {disfmarker} uh I {disfmarker} we agreed. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: We said uh" yeah" . Because uh {disfmarker} but in that case, uh we would like to change the uh {disfmarker} the algorithm because uh if we are working on different data, we probably will use a different set of tricks. PhD E: Right. Professor B: But unfortunately nobody ever officially can somehow acknowledge that this can be done, because French Telecom was saying" no, no, no, now everybody has access to our code, so everybody is going to copy what we did." Yeah well our argument was everybody ha has access to our code, and everybody always had access to our code. We never uh {disfmarker} uh denied that. We thought that people are honest, that if you copy something and if it is protected {disfmarker} protected by patent then you negotiate, or something, PhD E: Yeah. Right. Professor B: right? I mean, if you find our technique useful, we are very happy. PhD E: Right. Professor B: But {disfmarker} And French Telecom was saying" no, no, no, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: there is a lot of little tricks which uh sort of uh cannot be protected and you guys will take them," which probably is also true. I mean, you know, it might be that people will take uh uh th the algorithms apart and use the blocks from that. But I somehow think that it wouldn't be so bad, as long as people are happy abou uh uh uh honest about it. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: And I think they have to be honest in the long run, because winning proposal again {disfmarker} uh what will be available th is {disfmarker} will be a code. So the uh {disfmarker} the people can go to code and say" well listen this is what you stole from me" PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: you know? PhD E: Right. Professor B:" so let's deal with that" . PhD E: Right. Professor B: So I don't see the problem. The biggest problem of course is that f that Alcatel French Telecom cl claims" well we fulfilled the conditions. We are the best. Uh. We are the standard." And e and other people don't feel that, because they {disfmarker} so they now decided that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} the whole thing will be done on well - endpointed data, essentially that somebody will endpoint the data based on clean speech, because most of this the SpeechDat - Car has the also close speaking mike and endpoints will be provided. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Ah. Professor B: And uh we will run again {disfmarker} still not clear if we are going to run the {disfmarker} if we are allowed to run uh uh new algorithms, but I assume so. Because uh we would fight for that, really. uh but {disfmarker} since uh u u n u {disfmarker} at least our experience is that only endpointing a {disfmarker} a mel cepstrum gets uh {disfmarker} gets you twenty - one percent improvement overall and twenty - seven improvement on SpeechDat - Car PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: then obvious the database {disfmarker} uh I mean the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} uh the baseline will go up. And nobody can then achieve fifty percent improvement. PhD E: Right. Professor B: So they agreed that uh there will be a twenty - five percent improvement required on {disfmarker} on uh h u m bad mis badly mismatched {disfmarker} PhD E: But wait a minute, I thought the endpointing really only helped in the noisy cases. Professor B: It uh {disfmarker} PhD E: Oh, but you still have that with the MFCC. Professor B: Y yeah. PhD E: OK. Professor B: Yeah but you have the same prob I mean MFCC basically has an enormous number of uh insertions. PhD E: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Professor B: And so, so now they want to say" we {disfmarker} we will require fifty percent improvement only for well matched condition, and only twenty - five percent for the serial cases." PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And uh {disfmarker} and they almost agreed on that except that it wasn't a hundred percent agreed. And so last time uh during the meeting, I just uh brought up the issue, I said" well you know uh quite frankly I'm surprised how lightly you are making these decisions because this is a major decision. For two years we are fighting for fifty percent improvement and suddenly you are saying" oh no we {disfmarker} we will do something less" , but maybe we should discuss that. And everybody said" oh we discussed that and you were not a mee there" and I said" well a lot of other people were not there because not everybody participates at these teleconferencing c things." Then they said" oh no no no because uh everybody is invited." However, there is only ten or fifteen lines, so people can't even con you know participate. So eh they agreed, and so they said" OK, we will discuss that." Immediately Nokia uh raised the question and they said" oh yeah we agree this is not good to to uh dissolve the uh uh {disfmarker} the uh {disfmarker} the criterion." PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So now officially, Nokia is uh uh complaining and said they {disfmarker} they are looking for support, uh I think QualComm is uh saying, too" we shouldn't abandon the fifty percent yet. We should at least try once again, one more round." PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So this is where we are. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: I hope that {disfmarker} I hope that this is going to be a adopted. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Next Wednesday we are going to have uh another uh teleconferencing call, so we'll see what uh {disfmarker} where it goes. PhD E: So what about the issue of um the weights on the {disfmarker} for the different systems, the well - matched, and medium - mismatched and {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah, that's what {disfmarker} that's a g very good uh point, because David says" well you know we ca we can manipulate this number by choosing the right weights anyways." So while you are right but {disfmarker} uh you know but PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Uh yeah, if of course if you put a zero {disfmarker} uh weight zero on a mismatched condition, or highly mismatched then {disfmarker} then you are done. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: But weights were also deter already decided uh half a year ago. So {disfmarker} PhD E: And they're the {disfmarker} staying the same? Professor B: Well, of course people will not like it. Now {disfmarker} What is happening now is that I th I think that people try to match the criterion to solution. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: They have solution. Now they want to {vocalsound} make sure their criterion is {disfmarker} PhD E: Right. Professor B: And I think that this is not the right way. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Uh it may be that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Eventually it may ha may ha it may have to happen. But it's should happen at a point where everybody feels comfortable that we did all what we could. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: And I don't think we did. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Basically, I think that {disfmarker} that this test was a little bit bogus because of the data and uh essentially {pause} there were these arbitrary decisions made, and {disfmarker} and everything. So, so {disfmarker} so this is {disfmarker} so this is where it is. So what we are doing at OGI now is uh uh uh working basically on our parts which we I think a little bit neglected, like noise separation. Uh so we are looking in ways is {disfmarker} in uh which {disfmarker} uh with which we can provide better initial estimate of the mel spectrum basically, which would be a l uh, f more robust to noise, and so far not much uh success. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: We tried uh things which uh a long time ago Bill Byrne suggested, instead of using Fourier spectrum, from Fourier transform, use the spectrum from LPC model. Their argument there was the LPC model fits the peaks of the spectrum, so it may be m naturally more robust in noise. And I thought" well, that makes sense," but so far we can't get much {disfmarker} much out of it. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: uh we may try some standard techniques like spectral subtraction and {disfmarker} PhD E: You haven't tried that yet? Professor B: not {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not much. Or even I was thinking about uh looking back into these totally ad - hoc techniques PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: like for instance uh Dennis Klatt was suggesting uh the one way to uh deal with noisy speech is to add noise to everything. PhD E: Hmm! Professor B: So. {comment} I mean, uh uh add moderate amount of noise to all data. PhD E: Oh! Professor B: So that makes uh th any additive noise less addi less a a effective, PhD E: I see. Professor B: right? Because you already uh had the noise uh in a {disfmarker} PhD E: Right. Professor B: And it was working at the time. It was kind of like one of these things, you know, but if you think about it, it's actually pretty ingenious. So well, you know, just take a {disfmarker} take a spectrum and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and add of the constant, C, to every {disfmarker} every value. PhD E: Well you're {disfmarker} you're basically y Yeah. So you're making all your training data more uniform. Professor B: Exactly. And if {disfmarker} if then {disfmarker} if this data becomes noisy, it b it becomes eff effectively becomes less noisy basically. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: But of course you cannot add too much noise because then you'll s then you're clean recognition goes down, but I mean it's yet to be seen how much, it's a very simple technique. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Yes indeed it's a very simple technique, you just take your spectrum and {disfmarker} and use whatever is coming from FFT, {pause} add constant, PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: you know? on {disfmarker} onto power spectrum. That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Or the other thing is of course if you have a spectrum, what you can s start doing, you can leave {disfmarker} start leaving out the p the parts which are uh uh low in energy and then perhaps uh one could try to find a {disfmarker} a all - pole model to such a spectrum. Because a all - pole model will still try to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to put the {disfmarker} the continuation basically of the {disfmarker} of the model into these parts where the issue set to zero. That's what we want to try. I have a visitor from Brno. He's a {disfmarker} kind of like young faculty. pretty hard - working so he {disfmarker} so he's {disfmarker} so he's looking into that. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And then most of the effort is uh now also aimed at this e e TRAP recognition. This uh {disfmarker} this is this recognition from temporal patterns. PhD E: Hmm! What is that? Professor B: Ah, you don't know about TRAPS! Grad A: Hmm. PhD E: The TRAPS sound familiar, I {disfmarker} but I don't {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah I mean tha This is familiar like sort of because we gave you the name, but, what it is, is that normally what you do is that you recognize uh speech based on a shortened spectrum. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: Essentially L P - LPC, mel cepstrum, uh, everything starts with a spectral slice. Uh so if you s So, given the spectrogram you essentially are sliding {disfmarker} sliding the spectrogram along the uh f frequency axis PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and you keep shifting this thing, and you have a spectrogram. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So you can say" well you can also take the time trajectory of the energy at a given frequency" , and what you get is then, that you get a p {pause} vector. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: And this vector can be a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} s assigned to s some phoneme. Namely you can say i it {disfmarker} I will {disfmarker} I will say that this vector will eh {disfmarker} will {disfmarker} will describe the phoneme which is in the center of the vector. And you can try to classify based on that. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And you {disfmarker} so you classi so it's a very different vector, very different properties, we don't know much about it, but the truth is {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. But you have many of those vectors per phoneme, Professor B: Well, so you get many decisions. PhD E: right? Uh - huh. Professor B: And then you can start dec thinking about how to combine these decisions. Exactly, that's what {disfmarker} yeah, that's what it is. PhD E: Hmm. Hmm. Professor B: Because if you run this uh recognition, you get {disfmarker} you still get about twenty percent error {disfmarker} uh twenty percent correct. You know, PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: on {disfmarker} on like for the frame by frame basis, so {pause} uh {disfmarker} uh so it's much better than chance. PhD E: How wide are the uh frequency bands? Professor B: That's another thing. Well c currently we start {disfmarker} I mean we start always with critical band spectrum. For various reasons. But uh the latest uh observation uh is that you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you are {disfmarker} you can get quite a big advantage of using two critical bands at the same time. Grad A: Are they adjacent, or are they s Professor B: Adjacent, adjacent. Grad A: OK. Professor B: And the reasons {disfmarker} there are some reasons for that. Because there are some reasons I can {disfmarker} I could talk about, will have to tell you about things like masking experiments which uh uh uh uh yield critical bands, and also experiments with release of masking, which actually tell you that something is happening across critical bands, across bands. And {disfmarker} PhD E: Well how do you {disfmarker} how do you uh convert this uh energy over time in a particular frequency band into a vector of numbers? Professor B: It's uh uh uh I mean time T - zero is one number, {pause} time t PhD E: Yeah but what's the number? Is it just the {disfmarker} Professor B: It's a spectral energy, logarithmic spectral energy, PhD E: it's just the amount of energy in that band from f in that time interval. Professor B: yeah. Yes, yes. Yes, yes. PhD E: OK. Professor B: And that's what {disfmarker} that's what I'm saying then, so this is a {disfmarker} this is a starting vector. It's just like shortened f {pause} spectrum, or something. But now we are trying to understand what this vector actually represents, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: for instance a question is like" how correlated are the elements of this vector?" Turns out they are quite correlated, because I mean, especially the neighboring ones, right? They {disfmarker} they represent the same {disfmarker} almost the same configuration of the vocal tract. PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor B: So there's a very high correlation. So the classifiers which use the diagonal covariance matrix don't like it. So we're thinking about de - correlating them. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Then the question is uh" can you describe elements of this vector by Gaussian distributions" , or to what extent? Because uh {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and so on and so on. So we are learning quite a lot about that. And then another issue is how many vectors we should be using, PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: I mean the {disfmarker} so the minimum is one. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: But I mean is the {disfmarker} is the critical band the right uh uh dimension? So we somehow made arbitrary decision," yes" . Then {disfmarker} but then now we are thinking a lot how to {disfmarker} uh how to use at least the neighboring band because that seems to be happening {disfmarker} This I somehow start to believe that's what's happening in recognition. Cuz a lot of experiments point to the fact that people can split the signal into critical bands, but then oh uh uh so you can {disfmarker} you are quite capable of processing a signal in uh uh independently in individual critical bands. That's what masking experiments tell you. But at the same time you most likely pay attention to at least neighboring bands when you are making any decisions, you compare what's happening in {disfmarker} in this band to what's happening to the band {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to the {disfmarker} to the neighboring bands. And that's how you make uh decisions. That's why the articulatory events, which uh F F Fletcher talks about, they are about two critical bands. You need at least two, basically. You need some relative, relative relation. Grad A: Hmm. Professor B: Absolute number doesn't tell you the right thing. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: You need to {disfmarker} you need to compare it to something else, what's happening but it's what's happening in the {disfmarker} in the close neighborhood. So if you are making decision what's happening at one kilohertz, you want to know what's happening at nine hundred hertz and it {disfmarker} and maybe at eleven hundred hertz, but you don't much care what's happening at three kilohertz. PhD E: So it's really w It's sort of like saying that what's happening at one kilohertz depends on what's happening around it. It's sort of relative to it. Professor B: To some extent, it {disfmarker} that is also true. Yeah. But it's {disfmarker} but for {disfmarker} but for instance, {vocalsound} th uh {vocalsound} uh what {disfmarker} what uh humans are very much capable of doing is that if th if they are exactly the same thing happening in two neighboring critical bands, recognition can discard it. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Is what's happening {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. Grad A: Hey! Professor B: Hey! OK, we need us another {disfmarker} another voice here. PhD E: Hey Stephane. Professor B: Yeah, I think so. Yeah? PhD E: Yep. Sure. Go ahead. Professor B: And so so {disfmarker} so for instance if you d if you a if you add the noise that normally masks {disfmarker} masks the uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the signal right? PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and you can show that in {disfmarker} that if the {disfmarker} if you add the noise outside the critical band, that doesn't affect the {disfmarker} the decisions you're making about a signal within a critical band. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Unless this noise is modulated. If the noise is modulated, with the same modulation frequency as the noise in a critical band, the amount of masking is less. The moment you {disfmarker} moment you provide the noise in n neighboring critical bands. PhD E: Mmm. Professor B: So the s m masking curve, normally it looks like sort of {disfmarker} I start from {disfmarker} from here, so you {disfmarker} {comment} you have uh no noise then you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you are expanding the critical band, so the amount of maching is increasing. And when you e hit a certain point, which is a critical band, then the amount of masking is the same. PhD E: Mmm. Professor B: So that's the famous experiment of Fletcher, a long time ago. Like that's where people started thinking" wow this is interesting!" So. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: But, if you {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if you modulate the noise, the masking goes up and the moment you start hitting the {disfmarker} another critical band, the masking goes down. So essentially {disfmarker} essentially that's a very clear indication that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that {pause} cognition can take uh uh into consideration what's happening in the neighboring bands. But if you go too far in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if the noise is very broad, you are not increasing much more, so {disfmarker} so if you {disfmarker} if you are far away from the signal {disfmarker} uh from the signal f uh the frequency at which the signal is, then the m even the {disfmarker} when the noise is co - modulated it {disfmarker} it's not helping you much. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Mm - hmm. Grad A: Hmm. Professor B: So. So things like this we are kind of playing with {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} with the hope that perhaps we could eventually u use this in a {disfmarker} in a real recognizer. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Like uh partially of course we promised to do this under the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Aurora uh program. PhD E: But you probably won't have anything before the next time we have to evaluate, Professor B: Probably not. PhD E: right? Professor B: Well, maybe, most likely we will not have anything which c would comply with the rules. PhD E: Yeah. Ah. Professor B: like because uh uh PhD E: Latency and things. Professor B: latency currently chops the require uh significant uh latency amount of processing, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: because uh we don't know any better, yet, than to use the neural net classifiers, uh and uh {disfmarker} and uh TRAPS. PhD E: Yeah. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Though the {disfmarker} the work which uh everybody is looking at now aims at s trying to find out what to do with these vectors, so that a g simple Gaussian classifier would be happier with it. PhD C: Hmm. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: or to what extent a Gaussian classifier should be unhappy uh that, and how to Gaussian - ize the vectors, and {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: So this is uh what's happening. Then Sunil is uh uh uh asked me f for one month's vacation and since he did not take any vacation for two years, I had no {disfmarker} I didn't have heart to tell him no. So he's in India. PhD E: Wow. Professor B: And uh {disfmarker} PhD E: Is he getting married or something? Professor B: Uh well, he may be looking for a girl, for {disfmarker} for I don't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I don't ask. I know that Naran - when last time Narayanan did that he came back engaged. PhD E: Right. Well, I mean, I've known other friends who {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they go to Ind - they go back home to India for a month, they come back married, Professor B: Yeah. I know. I know, I know, PhD E: you know, huh. Professor B: and then of course then what happened with Narayanan was that he start pushing me that he needs to get a PHD because they wouldn't give him his wife. And she's very pretty and he loves her and so {disfmarker} so we had to really {disfmarker} PhD E: So he finally had some incentive to finish, Professor B: Oh yeah. We had {disfmarker} well I had a incentive because he {disfmarker} he always had this plan except he never told me. PhD E: huh? Professor B: Sort of figured that {disfmarker} That was a uh that he uh he told me the day when we did very well at our NIST evaluations of speaker recognition, the technology, and he was involved there. PhD E: Oh. Professor B: We were {disfmarker} after presentation we were driving home and he told me. PhD E: When he knew you were happy, Professor B: Yeah. So I {disfmarker} I said" well, yeah, OK" so he took another {disfmarker} another three quarter of the year but uh he was out. PhD E: huh? Professor B: So I {disfmarker} wouldn't surprise me if he has a plan like that, though {disfmarker} though uh Pratibha still needs to get out first. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Cuz Pratibha is there a {disfmarker} a year earlier. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And S and Satya needs to get out very first because he's {disfmarker} he already has uh four years served, though one year he was getting masters. So. So. PhD C: Hmm. PhD E: So have the um {disfmarker} when is the next uh evaluation? June or something? Professor B: Which? Speaker recognition? PhD E: No, for uh Aurora? Professor B: Uh there, we don't know about evaluation, next meeting is in June. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And uh uh but like getting {disfmarker} get together. PhD E: Oh, OK. Are people supposed to rerun their systems, Professor B: Nobody said that yet. PhD E: or {disfmarker}? Professor B: I assume so. Uh yes, uh, but nobody even set up yet the {pause} date for uh delivering uh endpointed data. PhD E: Hmm. Wow. Professor B: And this uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that sort of stuff. But I uh, yeah, what I think would be of course extremely useful, if we can come to our next meeting and say" well you know we did get fifty percent improvement. If {disfmarker} if you are interested we eventually can tell you how" , but uh we can get fifty percent improvement. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Because people will s will be saying it's impossible. PhD E: Hmm. Do you know what the new baseline is? Oh, I guess if you don't have {disfmarker} Professor B: Twenty - two {disfmarker} t twenty {disfmarker} twenty - two percent better than the old baseline. PhD E: Using your uh voice activity detector? Professor B: u Yes. Yes. But I assume that it will be similar, I don't {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't see the reason why it shouldn't be. PhD E: Similar, yeah. Professor B: I d I don't see reason why it should be worse. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Cuz if it is worse, then we will raise the objection, PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: we say" well you know how come?" Because eh if we just use our voice activity detector, which we don't claim even that it's wonderful, it's just like one of them. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: We get this sort of improvement, how come that we don't see it on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on your endpointed data? PhD C: Yeah. I guess it could be even better, Professor B: I think so. PhD C: because the voice activity detector that I choosed is something that cheating, it's using the alignment of the speech recognition system, Professor B: Yeah. C yeah uh PhD C: and only the alignment on the clean channel, and then mapped this alignment to the noisy channel. Professor B: and on clean speech data. Yeah. PhD E: Oh, OK. Professor B: Well David told me {disfmarker} David told me yesterday or Harry actually he told Harry from QualComm and Harry uh brought up the suggestion we should still go for fifty percent he says are you aware that your system does only thirty percent uh comparing to {disfmarker} to endpointed baselines? So they must have run already something. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: So. And Harry said" Yeah. But I mean we think that we {disfmarker} we didn't say the last word yet, that we have other {disfmarker} other things which we can try." PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: So. So there's a lot of discussion now about this uh new criterion. Because Nokia was objecting, with uh QualComm's {disfmarker} we basically supported that, we said" yes" . PhD C: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: Now everybody else is saying" well you guys might {disfmarker} must be out of your mind." uh The {disfmarker} Guenter Hirsch who d doesn't speak for Ericsson anymore because he is not with Ericsson and Ericsson may not {disfmarker} may withdraw from the whole Aurora activity because they have so many troubles now. PhD E: Wow. Professor B: Ericsson's laying off twenty percent of people. Grad A: Wow. PhD E: Where's uh Guenter going? Professor B: Well Guenter is already {disfmarker} he got the job uh already was working on it for past two years or three years {disfmarker} PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: he got a job uh at some {disfmarker} some Fachschule, the technical college not too far from Aachen. PhD E: Hmm! Professor B: So it's like professor {disfmarker} u university professor PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: you know, not quite a university, not quite a sort of {disfmarker} it's not Aachen University, but it's a good school and he {disfmarker} he's happy. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Hmm! Professor B: And he {disfmarker} well, he was hoping to work uh with Ericsson like on t uh like consulting basis, but right now he says {disfmarker} says it doesn't look like that anybody is even thinking about speech recognition. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: They think about survival. PhD E: Wow! Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: So. So. But this is being now discussed right now, and it's possible that uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that it may get through, that we will still stick to fifty percent. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: But that means that nobody will probably get this im this improvement. yet, wi with the current system. Which event es essentially I think that we should be happy with because that {disfmarker} that would mean that at least people may be forced to look into alternative solutions PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and {disfmarker} PhD C: Mm - hmm. But maybe {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean we are not too far from {disfmarker} from fifty percent, from the new baseline. Professor B: Uh, but not {disfmarker} PhD C: Which would mean like sixty percent over the current baseline, which is {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. Yes. Yes. We {disfmarker} we getting {disfmarker} we getting there, right. PhD C: Well. We are around fifty, fifty - five. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: So. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Is it like sort of {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} How did you come up with this number? If you improve twenty {disfmarker} by twenty percent the c the f the all baselines, it's just a quick c comp co computation? PhD C: Yeah. I don't know exactly if it's {disfmarker} Professor B: Uh - huh. I think it's about right. PhD C: Yeah, because it de it depends on the weightings Professor B: Yeah, yeah. PhD C: and {disfmarker} Yeah. But. Mm - hmm. PhD E: Hmm. How's your documentation or whatever it w what was it you guys were working on last week? PhD C: Yeah, finally we {disfmarker} we've not finished with this. We stopped. PhD D: More or less it's finished. PhD C: Yeah. PhD D: Ma - nec to need a little more time to improve the English, and maybe s to fill in something {disfmarker} some small detail, something like that, PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Hmm. PhD D: but it's more or less ready. PhD C: Yeah. Well, we have a document that explain a big part of the experiments, PhD D: Necessary to {disfmarker} to include the bi the bibliography. PhD C: but PhD D: Mm - hmm. PhD C: it's not, yeah, finished yet. Mm - hmm. PhD E: So have you been running some new experiments? I {disfmarker} I thought I saw some jobs of yours running on some of the machine {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah. Right. We've fff {comment} done some strange things like removing C - zero or C - one from the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} the vector of parameters, and we noticed that C - one is almost not useful at all. You can remove it from the vector, it doesn't hurt. PhD E: Really? ! That has no effect? PhD C: Um. PhD E: Eh {disfmarker} Is this in the baseline? or in uh {disfmarker} PhD C: In the {disfmarker} No, in the proposal. PhD E: in {disfmarker} uh - huh, uh - huh. Professor B: So we were just discussing, since you mentioned that, in {disfmarker} it w PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: driving in the car with Morgan this morning, we were discussing a good experiment for b for beginning graduate student who wants to run a lot of {disfmarker} who wants to get a lot of numbers on something PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: which is, like," imagine that you will {disfmarker} you will start putting every co any coefficient, which you are using in your vector, in some general power. PhD E: In some what? Professor B: General pow power. Like sort of you take a s power of two, or take a square root, or something. PhD E: Mm - hmm. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So suppose that you are working with a s C - zer C - one. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So if you put it in a s square root, that effectively makes your model half as efficient. Because uh your uh Gaussian mixture model, right? computes the mean. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: And {disfmarker} and uh i i i but it's {disfmarker} the mean is an exponent of the whatever, the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this Gaussian function. PhD E: You're compressing the range, Professor B: So you're compressing the range of this coefficient, so it's becoming less efficient. PhD E: right? of that {disfmarker} Professor B: Right? PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So. So. Morgan was @ @ and he was {disfmarker} he was saying well this might be the alternative way how to play with a {disfmarker} with a fudge factor, you know, uh in the {disfmarker} PhD E: Oh. Professor B: you know, just compress the whole vector. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: And I said" well in that case why don't we just start compressing individual elements, like when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} because in old days we were doing {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when people still were doing template matching and Euclidean distances, we were doing this liftering of parameters, right? PhD E: Uh - huh. Professor B: because we observed that uh higher parameters were more important than lower for recognition. And basically the {disfmarker} the C - ze C - one contributes mainly slope, PhD E: Right. Professor B: and it's highly affected by uh frequency response of the {disfmarker} of the recording equipment and that sort of thing, PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: so {disfmarker} so we were coming with all these f various lifters. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: uh Bell Labs had he {disfmarker} this uh uh r raised cosine lifter which still I think is built into H {disfmarker} HTK for reasons n unknown to anybody, but {disfmarker} but uh we had exponential lifter, or triangle lifter, basic number of lifters. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And. But so they may be a way to {disfmarker} to fiddle with the f with the f PhD E: Insertions. Professor B: Insertions, deletions, or the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} giving a relative {disfmarker} uh basically modifying relative importance of the various parameters. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: The only of course problem is that there's an infinite number of combinations and if the {disfmarker} if you s if y PhD E: Oh. Uh - huh. You need like a {disfmarker} some kind of a {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah, you need a lot of graduate students, and a lot of computing power. PhD E: You need to have a genetic algorithm, that basically tries random permutations of these things. Professor B: I know. Exactly. Oh. If you were at Bell Labs or {disfmarker} I d d I shouldn't be saying this in {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on a mike, right? Or I {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} IBM, that's what {disfmarker} maybe that's what somebody would be doing. PhD E: Yeah. Grad A: Hmm. Professor B: Oh, I mean, I mean the places which have a lot of computing power, so because it is really it's a p it's a {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it will be reasonable search PhD E: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Professor B: uh but I wonder if there isn't some way of doing this uh search like when we are searching say for best discriminants. PhD E: You know actually, I don't know that this wouldn't be all that bad. I mean you {disfmarker} you compute the features once, Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: right? And then these exponents are just applied to that {disfmarker} Professor B: Absolutely. And hev everything is fixed. PhD E: So. Professor B: Everything is fixed. Each {disfmarker} each {disfmarker} PhD E: And is this something that you would adjust for training? or only recognition? Professor B: For both, you would have to do. Yeah. PhD E: You would do it on both. Professor B: You have to do bo both. PhD E: So you'd actually {disfmarker} Professor B: Because essentially you are saying" uh this feature is not important" . PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Or less important, so that's {disfmarker} th that's a {disfmarker} that's a painful one, yeah. PhD E: So for each {disfmarker} uh set of exponents that you would try, it would require a training and a recognition? Professor B: Yeah. But {disfmarker} but wait a minute. You may not need to re uh uh retrain the m model. You just may n may need to c uh give uh less weight to {disfmarker} to uh a mod uh a component of the model which represents this particular feature. You don't have to retrain it. PhD E: Oh. So if you {disfmarker} Instead of altering the feature vectors themselves, you {disfmarker} you modify the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Gaussians in the models. Professor B: You just multiply. Yeah. Yep. You modify the Gaussian in the model, but in the {disfmarker} in the test data you would have to put it in the power, but in a training what you c in a training uh {disfmarker} in trained model, all you would have to do is to multiply a model by appropriate constant. PhD E: Uh - huh. But why {disfmarker} if you're {disfmarker} if you're multi if you're altering the model, why w in the test data, why would you have to muck with the uh cepstral coefficients? Professor B: Because in uh test {disfmarker} in uh test data you ca don't have a model. You have uh only data. But in a {disfmarker} in a tr PhD E: No. But you're running your data through that same model. Professor B: That is true, but w I mean, so what you want to do {disfmarker} You want to say if uh obs you {disfmarker} if you observe something like Stephane observes, that C - one is not important, you can do two things. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: If you have a trained {disfmarker} trained recognizer, in the model, you know the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the component which {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean di dimension {vocalsound} wh PhD E: Mm - hmm. All of the {disfmarker} all of the mean and variances that correspond to C - one, you put them to zero. Professor B: To the s you {disfmarker} you know it. But what I'm proposing now, if it is important but not as important, you multiply it by point one in a model. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} PhD E: But what are you multiplying? Cuz those are means, right? Grad A: You're multiplying the standard deviation? PhD E: I mean you're {disfmarker} Grad A: So it's {disfmarker} Professor B: I think that you multiply the {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} I would have to look in the {disfmarker} in the math, I mean how {disfmarker} how does the model uh {disfmarker} PhD E: I think you {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah, I think you'd have to modify the standard deviation or something, so that you make it {vocalsound} wider or narrower. Grad A: Cuz {disfmarker} Yeah. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: Effectively, that's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Exactly. That's what you do. That's what you do, you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you modify the standard deviation as it was trained. Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: Effectively you, you know y in f in front of the {disfmarker} of the model, you put a constant. S yeah effectively what you're doing is you {disfmarker} is you are modifying the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the deviation. Right? Grad A: The spread, PhD E: Oop. Grad A: right. PhD E: Sorry. Professor B: Yeah, the spread. Grad A: It's the same {disfmarker} same mean, PhD E: So. Grad A: right? Professor B: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} PhD E: So by making th the standard deviation narrower, {comment} uh your scores get worse for {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: unless it's exactly right on the mean. Professor B: Your als No. By making it narrower, PhD E: Right? Professor B: uh y your {disfmarker} PhD E: I mean there's {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker} you're allowing for less variance. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Yes, so you making this particular dimension less important. Because see what you are fitting is the multidimensional Gaussian, right? PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: It's a {disfmarker} it has {disfmarker} it has uh thirty - nine dimensions, or thirteen dimensions if you g ignore deltas and double - deltas. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: So in order {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} in order to make dimension which {disfmarker} which Stephane sees uh less important, uh uh I mean not {disfmarker} not useful, less important, what you do is that this particular component in the model you can multiply by w you can {disfmarker} you can basically de - weight it in the model. But you can't do it in a {disfmarker} in a test data because you don't have a model for th I mean uh when the test comes, but what you can do is that you put this particular component in {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and you compress it. That becomes uh th gets less variance, subsequently becomes less important. PhD E: Couldn't you just do that to the test data and not do anything with your training data? Professor B: That would be very bad, because uh your t your model was trained uh expecting uh, that wouldn't work. Because your model was trained expecting a certain var variance on C - one. PhD E: Uh - huh. Professor B: And because the model thinks C - one is important. After you train the model, you sort of {disfmarker} y you could do {disfmarker} you could do still what I was proposing initially, that during the training you {disfmarker} you compress C - one that becomes {disfmarker} then it becomes less important in a training. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: But if you have {disfmarker} if you want to run e ex extensive experiment without retraining the model, you don't have to retrain the model. You train it on the original vector. But after, you {disfmarker} wh when you are doing this parametric study of importance of C - one you will de - weight the C - one component in the model, and you will put in the {disfmarker} you will compress the {disfmarker} this component in a {disfmarker} in the test data. s by the same amount. PhD E: Could you also if you wanted to {disfmarker} if you wanted to try an experiment uh by {pause} leaving out say, C - one, couldn't you, in your test data, uh modify the {disfmarker} all of the C - one values to be um way outside of the normal range of the Gaussian for C - one that was trained in the model? So that effectively, the C - one never really contributes to the score? PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: No, that would be a severe mismatch, PhD E: Do you know what I'm say Professor B: right? what you are proposing? N no you don't want that. PhD E: Yeah, someth Professor B: Because that would {disfmarker} then your model would be unlikely. Your likelihood would be low, right? Because you would be providing severe mismatch. PhD E: Mm - hmm. But what if you set if to the mean of the model, then? And it was a cons you set all C - ones coming in through your test data, you {disfmarker} you change whatever value that was there to the mean that your model had. Professor B: No that would be very good match, right? PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: That you would {disfmarker} PhD C: Which {disfmarker} Well, yeah, but we have several means. So. Professor B: I see what you are sa {pause} saying, PhD C: Right? Grad A: Saying. Professor B: but uh, {vocalsound} no, no I don't think that it would be the same. I mean, no, the {disfmarker} If you set it to a mean, that would {disfmarker} No, you can't do that. Y you ca you ca Ch - Chuck, you can't do that. PhD E: Oh, that's true, right, yeah, because you {disfmarker} you have {disfmarker} PhD C: Wait. Which {disfmarker} Professor B: Because that would be a really f fiddling with the data, PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: you can't do that. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: But what you can do, I'm confident you ca PhD E: Professor B: well, I'm reasonably confident and I putting it on the record, right? I mean y people will listen to it for {disfmarker} for centuries now, is {pause} what you can do, is you train the model uh with the {disfmarker} with the original data. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Then you decide that you want to see how important C {disfmarker} C - one is. So what you will do is that a component in the model for C - one, you will divide it by {disfmarker} by two. And you will compress your test data by square root. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Then you will still have a perfect m match. Except that this component of C - one will be half as important in a {disfmarker} in a overall score. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: Then you divide it by four and you take a square, f fourth root. Then if you think that some component is more {disfmarker} is more important then th th th it then {disfmarker} then uh uh i it is, based on training, then you uh multiply this particular component in the model by {disfmarker} by {disfmarker} by {disfmarker} PhD E: You're talking about the standard deviation? Professor B: yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Yeah, multiply this component uh i it by number b larger than one, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and you put your data in power higher than one. Then it becomes more important. In the overall score, I believe. PhD C: Yeah, but, at the {disfmarker} PhD E: But {pause} don't you have to do something to the mean, also? Professor B: No. PhD C: No. Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: No. PhD C: But I think it's {disfmarker} uh the {disfmarker} The variance is on {disfmarker} on the denominator in the {disfmarker} in the Gaussian equation. So. I think it's maybe it's the contrary. If you want to decrease the importance of a c parameter, you have to increase it's variance. Professor B: Yes. Right. Yes. PhD D: Multiply. Professor B: Exactly. Yeah. So you {disfmarker} so you may want to do it other way around, PhD C: Hmm. That's right. OK. Professor B: yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Grad A: Right. PhD E: But if your {disfmarker} If your um original data for C - one had a mean of two. Professor B: Uh - huh. PhD E: And now you're {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker} you're changing that by squaring it. Now your mean of your C - one original data has {disfmarker} {comment} is four. But your model still has a mean of two. So even though you've expended the range, your mean doesn't match anymore. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Let's see. PhD E: Do you see what I mean? PhD C: I think {disfmarker} What I see {disfmarker} What could be done is you don't change your features, which are computed once for all, Professor B: Uh - huh. PhD C: but you just tune the model. So. You have your features. You train your {disfmarker} your model on these features. PhD E: Mm - hmm. PhD C: And then if you want to decrease the importance of C - one you just take the variance of the C - one component in the {disfmarker} in the model and increase it if you want to decrease the importance of C - one or decrease it {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Right. Professor B: Yeah. You would have to modify the mean in the model. I {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} I agree with you. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, but it's {disfmarker} it's i it's do - able, PhD C: Well. PhD E: Yeah, so y Professor B: right? I mean, it's predictable. Uh. Yeah. PhD E: It's predictable, yeah. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah, it's predictable. PhD C: Mmm. PhD E: Yeah. But as a simple thing, you could just {disfmarker} just muck with the variance. PhD C: Just adjust the model, yeah. PhD E: to get uh this {disfmarker} uh this {disfmarker} the effect I think that you're talking about, Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD E: right? Professor B: It might be. PhD E: Could increase the variance to decrease the importance. Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Yeah, because if you had a huge variance, you're dividing by a large number, {comment} you get a very small contribution. Grad A: Doesn't matter {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah, it becomes more flat Grad A: Right. PhD C: and {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Grad A: Yeah, the sharper the variance, the more {disfmarker} more important to get that one right. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Yeah, you know actually, this reminds me of something that happened uh when I was at BBN. We were playing with putting um pitch into the Mandarin recognizer. Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD E: And this particular pitch algorithm um when it didn't think there was any voicing, was spitting out zeros. So we were getting {disfmarker} uh when we did clustering, we were getting groups uh of features Professor B: p Pretty new outliers, interesting outliers, right? PhD E: yeah, with {disfmarker} with a mean of zero and basically zero variance. Professor B: Variance. PhD E: So, when ener {comment} when anytime any one of those vectors came in that had a zero in it, we got a great score. I mean it was just, {nonvocalsound} you know, incredibly {nonvocalsound} high score, and so that was throwing everything off. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: So {vocalsound} if you have very small variance you get really good scores when you get something that matches. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: So. {vocalsound} So that's a way, yeah, yeah {disfmarker} That's a way to increase the {disfmarker} yeah, n That's interesting. So in fact, that would be {disfmarker} That doesn't require any retraining. Professor B: Yeah. No. No. PhD C: No, that's right. So it's PhD E: So that means it's just Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: just tuning the models and testing, actually. PhD E: recognitions. Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. PhD C: It would be quick. PhD E: You {disfmarker} you have a step where you you modify the models, make a d copy of your models with whatever variance modifications you make, and rerun recognition. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: And then do a whole bunch of those. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: That could be set up fairly easily I think, and you have a whole bunch of you know {disfmarker} Professor B: Chuck is getting himself in trouble. PhD E: That's an interesting idea, actually. For testing the {disfmarker} Yeah. Huh! Grad A: Didn't you say you got these uh HTK's set up on the new Linux boxes? PhD E: That's right. Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: Hey! PhD E: In fact, and {disfmarker} and they're just t right now they're installing uh {disfmarker} increasing the memory on that uh {disfmarker} the Linux box. Professor B: And Chuck is sort of really fishing for how to keep his computer busy, Grad A: Right. Professor B: right? PhD E: Yeah. Absinthe. Professor B: Well, you know, that's {disfmarker} PhD E: Absinthe. We've got five processors on that. Grad A: Oh yeah. Professor B: that's {disfmarker} yeah, that's a good thing Grad A: That's right. Professor B: because then y you just write the" do" - loops and then you pretend that you are working while you are sort of {disfmarker} you c you can go fishing. PhD E: And two gigs of memory. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Grad A: Pretend, yeah. PhD E: Exactly. Yeah. PhD D: Go fishing. PhD E: See how many cycles we used? Professor B: Yeah. Then you are sort of in this mode like all of those ARPA people are, right? PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Uh, since it is on the record, I can't say uh which company it was, but it was reported to me that uh somebody visited a company and during a {disfmarker} d during a discussion, there was this guy who was always hitting the carriage returns uh on a computer. PhD E: Uh - huh. Professor B: So after two hours uh the visitor said" wh why are you hitting this carriage return?" And he said" well you know, we are being paid by a computer ty I mean we are {disfmarker} we have a government contract. And they pay us by {disfmarker} by amount of computer time we use." It was in old days when there were uh {disfmarker} of PDP - eights and that sort of thing. PhD E: Oh, my gosh! So he had to make it look like {disfmarker} Professor B: Because so they had a {disfmarker} they literally had to c monitor at the time {disfmarker} at the time on a computer how much time is being spent I {disfmarker} i i or on {disfmarker} on this particular project. PhD E: Yeah. How {disfmarker} Idle time. Grad A: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Nobody was looking even at what was coming out. PhD E: Have you ever seen those little um {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} it's this thing that's the shape of a bird and it has a red ball and its beak dips into the water? Professor B: Yeah, I know, right. PhD E: So {vocalsound} if you could hook that up so it hit the keyboard {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: That's an interesting experiment. Professor B: It would be similar {disfmarker} similar to {disfmarker} I knew some people who were uh that was in old Communist uh Czechoslovakia, right? so we were watching for American airplanes, coming to spy on {disfmarker} on uh {disfmarker} on us at the time, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: so there were three guys uh uh stationed in the middle of the woods on one l lonely uh watching tower, pretty much spending a year and a half there because there was this service right? And so they {disfmarker} very quickly they made friends with local girls and local people in the village PhD E: Ugh! Professor B: and {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: and so but they {disfmarker} there was one plane flying over s always uh uh above, and so that was the only work which they had. They {disfmarker} like four in the afternoon they had to report there was a plane from Prague to Brno Basically f flying there, PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: so they f very q f first thing was that they would always run back and {disfmarker} and at four o'clock and {disfmarker} and quickly make a call," this plane is uh uh passing" then a second thing was that they {disfmarker} they took the line from this u u post to uh uh a local pub. And they were calling from the pub. And they {disfmarker} but third thing which they made, and when they screwed up, they {disfmarker} finally they had to p the {disfmarker} the p the pub owner to make these phone calls because they didn't even bother to be there anymore. And one day there was {disfmarker} there was no plane. At least they were sort of smart enough that they looked if the plane is flying there, right? And the pub owner says" oh my {disfmarker} four o'clock, OK, quickly p pick up the phone, call that there's a plane flying." PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: There was no plane for some reason, PhD E: And there wasn't? Professor B: it was downed, or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and {disfmarker} so they got in trouble. But. {vocalsound} But uh. PhD E: Huh! Well that's {disfmarker} that's a really i Professor B: So. So. Yeah. PhD E: That wouldn't be too difficult to try. Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Maybe I could set that up. Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: And we'll just {disfmarker} Professor B: Well, at least go test the s test the uh assumption about C - C - one I mean to begin with. But then of course one can then think about some predictable result to change all of them. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: It's just like we used to do these uh {disfmarker} these uh {disfmarker} um the {disfmarker} the uh distance measures. It might be that uh {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah, so the first set of uh variance weighting vectors would be just you know one {disfmarker} modifying one and leaving the others the same. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. Maybe. PhD E: And {disfmarker} and do that for each one. Professor B: Because you see, I mean, what is happening here in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in such a model is that it's {disfmarker} tells you yeah what has a low variance uh is uh {disfmarker} is uh {disfmarker} is more reliable, PhD E: That would be one set of experiment {disfmarker} Professor B: right? How do we {disfmarker} PhD E: Wh - yeah, when the data matches that, then you get really {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Right. Professor B: How do we know, especially when it comes to noise? PhD E: But there could just naturally be low variance. Professor B: Yeah? PhD E: Because I {disfmarker} Like, I've noticed in the higher cepstral coefficients, the numbers seem to get smaller, right? So d PhD C: They {disfmarker} t PhD E: I mean, just naturally. PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: Yeah, th that's {disfmarker} PhD C: They have smaller means, also. Uh. PhD E: Yeah. Exactly. And so it seems like they're already sort of compressed. PhD C: Uh - huh. PhD E: The range {pause} of values. Professor B: Yeah that's why uh people used these lifters were inverse variance weighting lifters basically that makes uh uh Euclidean distance more like uh Mahalanobis distance with a diagonal covariance when you knew what all the variances were over the old data. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Hmm. Professor B: What they would do is that they would weight each coefficient by inverse of the variance. Turns out that uh the variance decreases at least at fast, I believe, as the index of the cepstral coefficients. I think you can show that uh uh analytically. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So typically what happens is that you {disfmarker} you need to weight the {disfmarker} uh weight the higher coefficients more than uh the lower coefficients. PhD E: Hmm. Mm - hmm. Hmm. Professor B: So. PhD C: Mmm. PhD E: Professor B: When {disfmarker} Yeah. When we talked about Aurora still I wanted to m make a plea {disfmarker} uh encourage for uh more communication between {disfmarker} between uh {pause} uh different uh parts of the distributed uh {pause} uh center. Uh even when there is absolutely nothing to {disfmarker} to s to say but the weather is good in Ore - in {disfmarker} in Berkeley. I'm sure that it's being appreciated in Oregon and maybe it will generate similar responses down here, like, uh {disfmarker} PhD C: We can set up a webcam maybe. Professor B: Yeah. Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: What {disfmarker} you know, nowadays, yeah. It's actually do - able, almost. PhD E: Is the um {disfmarker} if we mail to" Aurora - inhouse" , does that go up to you guys also? Professor B: I don't think so. No. PhD C: No. PhD E: OK. Professor B: So we should do that. PhD E: So i What is it {disfmarker} Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: We should definitely set up {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah we sh Do we have a mailing list that includes uh the OGI people? Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Uh no. We don't have. Professor B: Uh - huh. PhD E: Oh! Maybe we should set that up. That would make it much easier. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that would make it easier. PhD E: So maybe just call it" Aurora" or something that would {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. And then we also can send the {disfmarker} the dis to the same address right, and it goes to everybody PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: OK. Maybe we can set that up. Professor B: Because what's happening naturally in research, I know, is that people essentially start working on something and they don't want to be much bothered, right? but what the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} then the danger is in a group like this, is that two people are working on the same thing and i c of course both of them come with the s very good solution, but it could have been done somehow in half of the effort or something. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Oh, there's another thing which I wanted to uh uh report. Lucash, I think, uh wrote the software for this Aurora - two system. reasonably uh good one, because he's doing it for Intel, but I trust that we have uh rights to uh use it uh or distribute it and everything. Cuz Intel's intentions originally was to distribute it free of charge anyways. PhD E: Hmm! Professor B: u s And so {disfmarker} so uh we {disfmarker} we will make sure that at least you can see the software and if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if it is of any use. Just uh {disfmarker} PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: It might be a reasonable point for p perhaps uh start converging. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Because Morgan's point is that {disfmarker} He is an experienced guy. He says" well you know it's very difficult to collaborate if you are working with supposedly the same thing, in quotes, except which is not s is not the same. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Which {disfmarker} which uh uh one is using that set of hurdles, another one set {disfmarker} is using another set of hurdles. So. And {disfmarker} And then it's difficult to c compare. PhD C: What about Harry? Uh. We received a mail last week and you are starting to {disfmarker} to do some experiments. Professor B: He got the {disfmarker} he got the software. Yeah. They sent the release. PhD C: And use this Intel version. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD C: Hmm. Professor B: Yeah because Intel paid us uh should I say on a microphone? uh some amount of money, not much. Not much I can say on a microphone. Much less then we should have gotten {vocalsound} for this amount of work. And they wanted uh to {disfmarker} to have software so that they can also play with it, which means that it has to be in a certain environment {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: they use actu actually some Intel libraries, but in the process, Lucash just rewrote the whole thing because he figured rather than trying to f make sense uh of uh {disfmarker} including ICSI software uh not for training on the nets PhD E: Hmm. Grad A: Oh. Professor B: but I think he rewrote the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} or so maybe somehow reused over the parts of the thing so that {disfmarker} so that {disfmarker} the whole thing, including MLP, trained MLP is one piece of uh software. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Wow! Professor B: Is it useful? Grad A: Ye - Yeah. Professor B: Yeah? Grad A: I mean, I remember when we were trying to put together all the ICSI software for the submission. Professor B: Or {disfmarker} That's what he was saying, right. He said that it was like {disfmarker} it was like just so many libraries and nobody knew what was used when, and {disfmarker} and so that's where he started and that's where he realized that it needs to be {disfmarker} needs to be uh uh at least cleaned up, Grad A: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and so I think it {disfmarker} this is available. Grad A: Hmm. Professor B: So {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah. Well, the {disfmarker} the only thing I would check is if he {disfmarker} does he use Intel math libraries, Professor B: uh e ev PhD C: because if it's the case, it's maybe not so easy to use it on another architecture. Professor B: n not maybe {disfmarker} Maybe not in a first {disfmarker} maybe not in a first ap approximation because I think he started first just with a plain C {disfmarker} C or C - plus - plus or something before {disfmarker} PhD C: Ah yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor B: I {disfmarker} I can check on that. Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And uh in {disfmarker} otherwise the Intel libraries, I think they are available free of f freely. But they may be running only on {disfmarker} on uh {disfmarker} on uh Windows. PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: Or on {disfmarker} on the {disfmarker} PhD C: On Intel architecture maybe. Professor B: Yeah, on Intel architecture, may not run in SUN. PhD C: I'm {disfmarker} Yeah. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: That is p that is {disfmarker} that is possible. That's why Intel of course is distributing it, PhD C: Well. Professor B: right? Or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That's {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah. Well there are {disfmarker} at least there are optimized version for their architecture. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: I don't know. I never checked carefully these sorts of {disfmarker} Professor B: I know there was some issues that initially of course we d do all the development on Linux but we use {disfmarker} we don't have {disfmarker} we have only three uh uh uh uh s SUNs and we have them only because they have a SPERT board in. Otherwise {disfmarker} otherwise we t almost exclusively are working with uh PC's now, with Intel. In that way Intel succeeded with us, because they gave us too many good machines for very little money or nothing. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: So. So. So we run everything on Intel. PhD E: Wow! Professor B: And {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. Does anybody have anything else? to {disfmarker} Shall we read some digits? PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: Yes. I have to take my glasses {disfmarker} PhD E: So. Hynek, I don't know if you've ever done this. Professor B: No. PhD E: The way that it works is each person goes around in turn, {comment} and uh you say the transcript number and then you read the digits, the {disfmarker} the strings of numbers as individual digits. Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD E: So you don't say" eight hundred and fifty" , you say" eight five oh" , and so forth. Professor B: OK. OK. So can {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} can I t maybe start then? PhD E: Um. Sure.

The professor told a story about how people could pretend to be working by consuming computer memory without doing anything useful. He recounted a story about a company that was paid by the U. S. government based on the amount of computer time they used. The company ran a useless program to rack up computer time.

tr-gq-620

tr-gq-620_0

Summarize the meeting Professor B: Is it starting now? PhD E: Yep. Professor B: So what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} from {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} Grad A: Hello? Professor B: Whatever we say from now on, it can be held against us, right? PhD E: That's right. Professor B: and uh Grad A: It's your right to remain silent. Professor B: Yeah. So I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the problem is that I actually don't know how th these held meetings are held, if they are very informal and sort of just people are say what's going on PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: and PhD E: Yeah, that's usually what we do. Professor B: OK. PhD E: We just sorta go around and people say what's going on, what's the latest uh {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. OK. So I guess that what may be a {disfmarker} reasonable is if I uh first make a report on what's happening in Aurora in general, at least what from my perspective. PhD E: Yeah. That would be great. Professor B: And {disfmarker} and uh so, I {disfmarker} I think that Carmen and Stephane reported on uh Amsterdam meeting, PhD D: Uh o Professor B: which was kind of interesting because it was for the first time we realized we are not friends really, but we are competitors. Cuz until then it was sort of like everything was like wonderful and {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. It seemed like there were still some issues, Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: right? that they were trying to decide? Professor B: There is a plenty of {disfmarker} there're plenty of issues. PhD E: Like the voice activity detector, Professor B: Well and what happened was that they realized that if two leading proposals, which was French Telecom Alcatel, and us both had uh voice activity detector. And I said" well big surprise, I mean we could have told you that {pause} n n n four months ago, except we didn't because nobody else was bringing it up" . PhD E: Right. Professor B: Obviously French Telecom didn't volunteer this information either, cuz we were working on {disfmarker} mainly on voice activity detector for past uh several months PhD E: Right. Professor B: because that's buying us the most uh thing. And everybody said" Well but this is not fair. We didn't know that." And of course uh the {disfmarker} it's not working on features really. And be I agreed. PhD E: Right. Professor B: I said" well yeah, you are absolutely right, I mean if I wish that you provided better end point at speech because uh {disfmarker} or at least that if we could modify the recognizer, uh to account for these long silences, because otherwise uh that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} th that wasn't a correct thing." And so then ev ev everybody else says" well we should {disfmarker} we need to do a new eval evaluation without voice activity detector, or we have to do something about it" . PhD E: Right. Professor B: And in principle I {disfmarker} uh I {disfmarker} we agreed. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: We said uh" yeah" . Because uh {disfmarker} but in that case, uh we would like to change the uh {disfmarker} the algorithm because uh if we are working on different data, we probably will use a different set of tricks. PhD E: Right. Professor B: But unfortunately nobody ever officially can somehow acknowledge that this can be done, because French Telecom was saying" no, no, no, now everybody has access to our code, so everybody is going to copy what we did." Yeah well our argument was everybody ha has access to our code, and everybody always had access to our code. We never uh {disfmarker} uh denied that. We thought that people are honest, that if you copy something and if it is protected {disfmarker} protected by patent then you negotiate, or something, PhD E: Yeah. Right. Professor B: right? I mean, if you find our technique useful, we are very happy. PhD E: Right. Professor B: But {disfmarker} And French Telecom was saying" no, no, no, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: there is a lot of little tricks which uh sort of uh cannot be protected and you guys will take them," which probably is also true. I mean, you know, it might be that people will take uh uh th the algorithms apart and use the blocks from that. But I somehow think that it wouldn't be so bad, as long as people are happy abou uh uh uh honest about it. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: And I think they have to be honest in the long run, because winning proposal again {disfmarker} uh what will be available th is {disfmarker} will be a code. So the uh {disfmarker} the people can go to code and say" well listen this is what you stole from me" PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: you know? PhD E: Right. Professor B:" so let's deal with that" . PhD E: Right. Professor B: So I don't see the problem. The biggest problem of course is that f that Alcatel French Telecom cl claims" well we fulfilled the conditions. We are the best. Uh. We are the standard." And e and other people don't feel that, because they {disfmarker} so they now decided that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} the whole thing will be done on well - endpointed data, essentially that somebody will endpoint the data based on clean speech, because most of this the SpeechDat - Car has the also close speaking mike and endpoints will be provided. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Ah. Professor B: And uh we will run again {disfmarker} still not clear if we are going to run the {disfmarker} if we are allowed to run uh uh new algorithms, but I assume so. Because uh we would fight for that, really. uh but {disfmarker} since uh u u n u {disfmarker} at least our experience is that only endpointing a {disfmarker} a mel cepstrum gets uh {disfmarker} gets you twenty - one percent improvement overall and twenty - seven improvement on SpeechDat - Car PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: then obvious the database {disfmarker} uh I mean the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} uh the baseline will go up. And nobody can then achieve fifty percent improvement. PhD E: Right. Professor B: So they agreed that uh there will be a twenty - five percent improvement required on {disfmarker} on uh h u m bad mis badly mismatched {disfmarker} PhD E: But wait a minute, I thought the endpointing really only helped in the noisy cases. Professor B: It uh {disfmarker} PhD E: Oh, but you still have that with the MFCC. Professor B: Y yeah. PhD E: OK. Professor B: Yeah but you have the same prob I mean MFCC basically has an enormous number of uh insertions. PhD E: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Professor B: And so, so now they want to say" we {disfmarker} we will require fifty percent improvement only for well matched condition, and only twenty - five percent for the serial cases." PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And uh {disfmarker} and they almost agreed on that except that it wasn't a hundred percent agreed. And so last time uh during the meeting, I just uh brought up the issue, I said" well you know uh quite frankly I'm surprised how lightly you are making these decisions because this is a major decision. For two years we are fighting for fifty percent improvement and suddenly you are saying" oh no we {disfmarker} we will do something less" , but maybe we should discuss that. And everybody said" oh we discussed that and you were not a mee there" and I said" well a lot of other people were not there because not everybody participates at these teleconferencing c things." Then they said" oh no no no because uh everybody is invited." However, there is only ten or fifteen lines, so people can't even con you know participate. So eh they agreed, and so they said" OK, we will discuss that." Immediately Nokia uh raised the question and they said" oh yeah we agree this is not good to to uh dissolve the uh uh {disfmarker} the uh {disfmarker} the criterion." PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So now officially, Nokia is uh uh complaining and said they {disfmarker} they are looking for support, uh I think QualComm is uh saying, too" we shouldn't abandon the fifty percent yet. We should at least try once again, one more round." PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So this is where we are. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: I hope that {disfmarker} I hope that this is going to be a adopted. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Next Wednesday we are going to have uh another uh teleconferencing call, so we'll see what uh {disfmarker} where it goes. PhD E: So what about the issue of um the weights on the {disfmarker} for the different systems, the well - matched, and medium - mismatched and {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah, that's what {disfmarker} that's a g very good uh point, because David says" well you know we ca we can manipulate this number by choosing the right weights anyways." So while you are right but {disfmarker} uh you know but PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Uh yeah, if of course if you put a zero {disfmarker} uh weight zero on a mismatched condition, or highly mismatched then {disfmarker} then you are done. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: But weights were also deter already decided uh half a year ago. So {disfmarker} PhD E: And they're the {disfmarker} staying the same? Professor B: Well, of course people will not like it. Now {disfmarker} What is happening now is that I th I think that people try to match the criterion to solution. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: They have solution. Now they want to {vocalsound} make sure their criterion is {disfmarker} PhD E: Right. Professor B: And I think that this is not the right way. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Uh it may be that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Eventually it may ha may ha it may have to happen. But it's should happen at a point where everybody feels comfortable that we did all what we could. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: And I don't think we did. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Basically, I think that {disfmarker} that this test was a little bit bogus because of the data and uh essentially {pause} there were these arbitrary decisions made, and {disfmarker} and everything. So, so {disfmarker} so this is {disfmarker} so this is where it is. So what we are doing at OGI now is uh uh uh working basically on our parts which we I think a little bit neglected, like noise separation. Uh so we are looking in ways is {disfmarker} in uh which {disfmarker} uh with which we can provide better initial estimate of the mel spectrum basically, which would be a l uh, f more robust to noise, and so far not much uh success. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: We tried uh things which uh a long time ago Bill Byrne suggested, instead of using Fourier spectrum, from Fourier transform, use the spectrum from LPC model. Their argument there was the LPC model fits the peaks of the spectrum, so it may be m naturally more robust in noise. And I thought" well, that makes sense," but so far we can't get much {disfmarker} much out of it. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: uh we may try some standard techniques like spectral subtraction and {disfmarker} PhD E: You haven't tried that yet? Professor B: not {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not much. Or even I was thinking about uh looking back into these totally ad - hoc techniques PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: like for instance uh Dennis Klatt was suggesting uh the one way to uh deal with noisy speech is to add noise to everything. PhD E: Hmm! Professor B: So. {comment} I mean, uh uh add moderate amount of noise to all data. PhD E: Oh! Professor B: So that makes uh th any additive noise less addi less a a effective, PhD E: I see. Professor B: right? Because you already uh had the noise uh in a {disfmarker} PhD E: Right. Professor B: And it was working at the time. It was kind of like one of these things, you know, but if you think about it, it's actually pretty ingenious. So well, you know, just take a {disfmarker} take a spectrum and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and add of the constant, C, to every {disfmarker} every value. PhD E: Well you're {disfmarker} you're basically y Yeah. So you're making all your training data more uniform. Professor B: Exactly. And if {disfmarker} if then {disfmarker} if this data becomes noisy, it b it becomes eff effectively becomes less noisy basically. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: But of course you cannot add too much noise because then you'll s then you're clean recognition goes down, but I mean it's yet to be seen how much, it's a very simple technique. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Yes indeed it's a very simple technique, you just take your spectrum and {disfmarker} and use whatever is coming from FFT, {pause} add constant, PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: you know? on {disfmarker} onto power spectrum. That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Or the other thing is of course if you have a spectrum, what you can s start doing, you can leave {disfmarker} start leaving out the p the parts which are uh uh low in energy and then perhaps uh one could try to find a {disfmarker} a all - pole model to such a spectrum. Because a all - pole model will still try to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to put the {disfmarker} the continuation basically of the {disfmarker} of the model into these parts where the issue set to zero. That's what we want to try. I have a visitor from Brno. He's a {disfmarker} kind of like young faculty. pretty hard - working so he {disfmarker} so he's {disfmarker} so he's looking into that. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And then most of the effort is uh now also aimed at this e e TRAP recognition. This uh {disfmarker} this is this recognition from temporal patterns. PhD E: Hmm! What is that? Professor B: Ah, you don't know about TRAPS! Grad A: Hmm. PhD E: The TRAPS sound familiar, I {disfmarker} but I don't {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah I mean tha This is familiar like sort of because we gave you the name, but, what it is, is that normally what you do is that you recognize uh speech based on a shortened spectrum. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: Essentially L P - LPC, mel cepstrum, uh, everything starts with a spectral slice. Uh so if you s So, given the spectrogram you essentially are sliding {disfmarker} sliding the spectrogram along the uh f frequency axis PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and you keep shifting this thing, and you have a spectrogram. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So you can say" well you can also take the time trajectory of the energy at a given frequency" , and what you get is then, that you get a p {pause} vector. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: And this vector can be a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} s assigned to s some phoneme. Namely you can say i it {disfmarker} I will {disfmarker} I will say that this vector will eh {disfmarker} will {disfmarker} will describe the phoneme which is in the center of the vector. And you can try to classify based on that. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And you {disfmarker} so you classi so it's a very different vector, very different properties, we don't know much about it, but the truth is {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. But you have many of those vectors per phoneme, Professor B: Well, so you get many decisions. PhD E: right? Uh - huh. Professor B: And then you can start dec thinking about how to combine these decisions. Exactly, that's what {disfmarker} yeah, that's what it is. PhD E: Hmm. Hmm. Professor B: Because if you run this uh recognition, you get {disfmarker} you still get about twenty percent error {disfmarker} uh twenty percent correct. You know, PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: on {disfmarker} on like for the frame by frame basis, so {pause} uh {disfmarker} uh so it's much better than chance. PhD E: How wide are the uh frequency bands? Professor B: That's another thing. Well c currently we start {disfmarker} I mean we start always with critical band spectrum. For various reasons. But uh the latest uh observation uh is that you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you are {disfmarker} you can get quite a big advantage of using two critical bands at the same time. Grad A: Are they adjacent, or are they s Professor B: Adjacent, adjacent. Grad A: OK. Professor B: And the reasons {disfmarker} there are some reasons for that. Because there are some reasons I can {disfmarker} I could talk about, will have to tell you about things like masking experiments which uh uh uh uh yield critical bands, and also experiments with release of masking, which actually tell you that something is happening across critical bands, across bands. And {disfmarker} PhD E: Well how do you {disfmarker} how do you uh convert this uh energy over time in a particular frequency band into a vector of numbers? Professor B: It's uh uh uh I mean time T - zero is one number, {pause} time t PhD E: Yeah but what's the number? Is it just the {disfmarker} Professor B: It's a spectral energy, logarithmic spectral energy, PhD E: it's just the amount of energy in that band from f in that time interval. Professor B: yeah. Yes, yes. Yes, yes. PhD E: OK. Professor B: And that's what {disfmarker} that's what I'm saying then, so this is a {disfmarker} this is a starting vector. It's just like shortened f {pause} spectrum, or something. But now we are trying to understand what this vector actually represents, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: for instance a question is like" how correlated are the elements of this vector?" Turns out they are quite correlated, because I mean, especially the neighboring ones, right? They {disfmarker} they represent the same {disfmarker} almost the same configuration of the vocal tract. PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor B: So there's a very high correlation. So the classifiers which use the diagonal covariance matrix don't like it. So we're thinking about de - correlating them. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Then the question is uh" can you describe elements of this vector by Gaussian distributions" , or to what extent? Because uh {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and so on and so on. So we are learning quite a lot about that. And then another issue is how many vectors we should be using, PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: I mean the {disfmarker} so the minimum is one. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: But I mean is the {disfmarker} is the critical band the right uh uh dimension? So we somehow made arbitrary decision," yes" . Then {disfmarker} but then now we are thinking a lot how to {disfmarker} uh how to use at least the neighboring band because that seems to be happening {disfmarker} This I somehow start to believe that's what's happening in recognition. Cuz a lot of experiments point to the fact that people can split the signal into critical bands, but then oh uh uh so you can {disfmarker} you are quite capable of processing a signal in uh uh independently in individual critical bands. That's what masking experiments tell you. But at the same time you most likely pay attention to at least neighboring bands when you are making any decisions, you compare what's happening in {disfmarker} in this band to what's happening to the band {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to the {disfmarker} to the neighboring bands. And that's how you make uh decisions. That's why the articulatory events, which uh F F Fletcher talks about, they are about two critical bands. You need at least two, basically. You need some relative, relative relation. Grad A: Hmm. Professor B: Absolute number doesn't tell you the right thing. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: You need to {disfmarker} you need to compare it to something else, what's happening but it's what's happening in the {disfmarker} in the close neighborhood. So if you are making decision what's happening at one kilohertz, you want to know what's happening at nine hundred hertz and it {disfmarker} and maybe at eleven hundred hertz, but you don't much care what's happening at three kilohertz. PhD E: So it's really w It's sort of like saying that what's happening at one kilohertz depends on what's happening around it. It's sort of relative to it. Professor B: To some extent, it {disfmarker} that is also true. Yeah. But it's {disfmarker} but for {disfmarker} but for instance, {vocalsound} th uh {vocalsound} uh what {disfmarker} what uh humans are very much capable of doing is that if th if they are exactly the same thing happening in two neighboring critical bands, recognition can discard it. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Is what's happening {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. Grad A: Hey! Professor B: Hey! OK, we need us another {disfmarker} another voice here. PhD E: Hey Stephane. Professor B: Yeah, I think so. Yeah? PhD E: Yep. Sure. Go ahead. Professor B: And so so {disfmarker} so for instance if you d if you a if you add the noise that normally masks {disfmarker} masks the uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the signal right? PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and you can show that in {disfmarker} that if the {disfmarker} if you add the noise outside the critical band, that doesn't affect the {disfmarker} the decisions you're making about a signal within a critical band. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Unless this noise is modulated. If the noise is modulated, with the same modulation frequency as the noise in a critical band, the amount of masking is less. The moment you {disfmarker} moment you provide the noise in n neighboring critical bands. PhD E: Mmm. Professor B: So the s m masking curve, normally it looks like sort of {disfmarker} I start from {disfmarker} from here, so you {disfmarker} {comment} you have uh no noise then you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you are expanding the critical band, so the amount of maching is increasing. And when you e hit a certain point, which is a critical band, then the amount of masking is the same. PhD E: Mmm. Professor B: So that's the famous experiment of Fletcher, a long time ago. Like that's where people started thinking" wow this is interesting!" So. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: But, if you {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if you modulate the noise, the masking goes up and the moment you start hitting the {disfmarker} another critical band, the masking goes down. So essentially {disfmarker} essentially that's a very clear indication that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that {pause} cognition can take uh uh into consideration what's happening in the neighboring bands. But if you go too far in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if the noise is very broad, you are not increasing much more, so {disfmarker} so if you {disfmarker} if you are far away from the signal {disfmarker} uh from the signal f uh the frequency at which the signal is, then the m even the {disfmarker} when the noise is co - modulated it {disfmarker} it's not helping you much. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Mm - hmm. Grad A: Hmm. Professor B: So. So things like this we are kind of playing with {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} with the hope that perhaps we could eventually u use this in a {disfmarker} in a real recognizer. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Like uh partially of course we promised to do this under the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Aurora uh program. PhD E: But you probably won't have anything before the next time we have to evaluate, Professor B: Probably not. PhD E: right? Professor B: Well, maybe, most likely we will not have anything which c would comply with the rules. PhD E: Yeah. Ah. Professor B: like because uh uh PhD E: Latency and things. Professor B: latency currently chops the require uh significant uh latency amount of processing, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: because uh we don't know any better, yet, than to use the neural net classifiers, uh and uh {disfmarker} and uh TRAPS. PhD E: Yeah. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Though the {disfmarker} the work which uh everybody is looking at now aims at s trying to find out what to do with these vectors, so that a g simple Gaussian classifier would be happier with it. PhD C: Hmm. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: or to what extent a Gaussian classifier should be unhappy uh that, and how to Gaussian - ize the vectors, and {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: So this is uh what's happening. Then Sunil is uh uh uh asked me f for one month's vacation and since he did not take any vacation for two years, I had no {disfmarker} I didn't have heart to tell him no. So he's in India. PhD E: Wow. Professor B: And uh {disfmarker} PhD E: Is he getting married or something? Professor B: Uh well, he may be looking for a girl, for {disfmarker} for I don't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I don't ask. I know that Naran - when last time Narayanan did that he came back engaged. PhD E: Right. Well, I mean, I've known other friends who {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they go to Ind - they go back home to India for a month, they come back married, Professor B: Yeah. I know. I know, I know, PhD E: you know, huh. Professor B: and then of course then what happened with Narayanan was that he start pushing me that he needs to get a PHD because they wouldn't give him his wife. And she's very pretty and he loves her and so {disfmarker} so we had to really {disfmarker} PhD E: So he finally had some incentive to finish, Professor B: Oh yeah. We had {disfmarker} well I had a incentive because he {disfmarker} he always had this plan except he never told me. PhD E: huh? Professor B: Sort of figured that {disfmarker} That was a uh that he uh he told me the day when we did very well at our NIST evaluations of speaker recognition, the technology, and he was involved there. PhD E: Oh. Professor B: We were {disfmarker} after presentation we were driving home and he told me. PhD E: When he knew you were happy, Professor B: Yeah. So I {disfmarker} I said" well, yeah, OK" so he took another {disfmarker} another three quarter of the year but uh he was out. PhD E: huh? Professor B: So I {disfmarker} wouldn't surprise me if he has a plan like that, though {disfmarker} though uh Pratibha still needs to get out first. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Cuz Pratibha is there a {disfmarker} a year earlier. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And S and Satya needs to get out very first because he's {disfmarker} he already has uh four years served, though one year he was getting masters. So. So. PhD C: Hmm. PhD E: So have the um {disfmarker} when is the next uh evaluation? June or something? Professor B: Which? Speaker recognition? PhD E: No, for uh Aurora? Professor B: Uh there, we don't know about evaluation, next meeting is in June. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And uh uh but like getting {disfmarker} get together. PhD E: Oh, OK. Are people supposed to rerun their systems, Professor B: Nobody said that yet. PhD E: or {disfmarker}? Professor B: I assume so. Uh yes, uh, but nobody even set up yet the {pause} date for uh delivering uh endpointed data. PhD E: Hmm. Wow. Professor B: And this uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that sort of stuff. But I uh, yeah, what I think would be of course extremely useful, if we can come to our next meeting and say" well you know we did get fifty percent improvement. If {disfmarker} if you are interested we eventually can tell you how" , but uh we can get fifty percent improvement. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Because people will s will be saying it's impossible. PhD E: Hmm. Do you know what the new baseline is? Oh, I guess if you don't have {disfmarker} Professor B: Twenty - two {disfmarker} t twenty {disfmarker} twenty - two percent better than the old baseline. PhD E: Using your uh voice activity detector? Professor B: u Yes. Yes. But I assume that it will be similar, I don't {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't see the reason why it shouldn't be. PhD E: Similar, yeah. Professor B: I d I don't see reason why it should be worse. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Cuz if it is worse, then we will raise the objection, PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: we say" well you know how come?" Because eh if we just use our voice activity detector, which we don't claim even that it's wonderful, it's just like one of them. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: We get this sort of improvement, how come that we don't see it on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on your endpointed data? PhD C: Yeah. I guess it could be even better, Professor B: I think so. PhD C: because the voice activity detector that I choosed is something that cheating, it's using the alignment of the speech recognition system, Professor B: Yeah. C yeah uh PhD C: and only the alignment on the clean channel, and then mapped this alignment to the noisy channel. Professor B: and on clean speech data. Yeah. PhD E: Oh, OK. Professor B: Well David told me {disfmarker} David told me yesterday or Harry actually he told Harry from QualComm and Harry uh brought up the suggestion we should still go for fifty percent he says are you aware that your system does only thirty percent uh comparing to {disfmarker} to endpointed baselines? So they must have run already something. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: So. And Harry said" Yeah. But I mean we think that we {disfmarker} we didn't say the last word yet, that we have other {disfmarker} other things which we can try." PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: So. So there's a lot of discussion now about this uh new criterion. Because Nokia was objecting, with uh QualComm's {disfmarker} we basically supported that, we said" yes" . PhD C: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: Now everybody else is saying" well you guys might {disfmarker} must be out of your mind." uh The {disfmarker} Guenter Hirsch who d doesn't speak for Ericsson anymore because he is not with Ericsson and Ericsson may not {disfmarker} may withdraw from the whole Aurora activity because they have so many troubles now. PhD E: Wow. Professor B: Ericsson's laying off twenty percent of people. Grad A: Wow. PhD E: Where's uh Guenter going? Professor B: Well Guenter is already {disfmarker} he got the job uh already was working on it for past two years or three years {disfmarker} PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: he got a job uh at some {disfmarker} some Fachschule, the technical college not too far from Aachen. PhD E: Hmm! Professor B: So it's like professor {disfmarker} u university professor PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: you know, not quite a university, not quite a sort of {disfmarker} it's not Aachen University, but it's a good school and he {disfmarker} he's happy. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Hmm! Professor B: And he {disfmarker} well, he was hoping to work uh with Ericsson like on t uh like consulting basis, but right now he says {disfmarker} says it doesn't look like that anybody is even thinking about speech recognition. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: They think about survival. PhD E: Wow! Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: So. So. But this is being now discussed right now, and it's possible that uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that it may get through, that we will still stick to fifty percent. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: But that means that nobody will probably get this im this improvement. yet, wi with the current system. Which event es essentially I think that we should be happy with because that {disfmarker} that would mean that at least people may be forced to look into alternative solutions PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and {disfmarker} PhD C: Mm - hmm. But maybe {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean we are not too far from {disfmarker} from fifty percent, from the new baseline. Professor B: Uh, but not {disfmarker} PhD C: Which would mean like sixty percent over the current baseline, which is {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. Yes. Yes. We {disfmarker} we getting {disfmarker} we getting there, right. PhD C: Well. We are around fifty, fifty - five. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: So. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Is it like sort of {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} How did you come up with this number? If you improve twenty {disfmarker} by twenty percent the c the f the all baselines, it's just a quick c comp co computation? PhD C: Yeah. I don't know exactly if it's {disfmarker} Professor B: Uh - huh. I think it's about right. PhD C: Yeah, because it de it depends on the weightings Professor B: Yeah, yeah. PhD C: and {disfmarker} Yeah. But. Mm - hmm. PhD E: Hmm. How's your documentation or whatever it w what was it you guys were working on last week? PhD C: Yeah, finally we {disfmarker} we've not finished with this. We stopped. PhD D: More or less it's finished. PhD C: Yeah. PhD D: Ma - nec to need a little more time to improve the English, and maybe s to fill in something {disfmarker} some small detail, something like that, PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Hmm. PhD D: but it's more or less ready. PhD C: Yeah. Well, we have a document that explain a big part of the experiments, PhD D: Necessary to {disfmarker} to include the bi the bibliography. PhD C: but PhD D: Mm - hmm. PhD C: it's not, yeah, finished yet. Mm - hmm. PhD E: So have you been running some new experiments? I {disfmarker} I thought I saw some jobs of yours running on some of the machine {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah. Right. We've fff {comment} done some strange things like removing C - zero or C - one from the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} the vector of parameters, and we noticed that C - one is almost not useful at all. You can remove it from the vector, it doesn't hurt. PhD E: Really? ! That has no effect? PhD C: Um. PhD E: Eh {disfmarker} Is this in the baseline? or in uh {disfmarker} PhD C: In the {disfmarker} No, in the proposal. PhD E: in {disfmarker} uh - huh, uh - huh. Professor B: So we were just discussing, since you mentioned that, in {disfmarker} it w PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: driving in the car with Morgan this morning, we were discussing a good experiment for b for beginning graduate student who wants to run a lot of {disfmarker} who wants to get a lot of numbers on something PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: which is, like," imagine that you will {disfmarker} you will start putting every co any coefficient, which you are using in your vector, in some general power. PhD E: In some what? Professor B: General pow power. Like sort of you take a s power of two, or take a square root, or something. PhD E: Mm - hmm. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So suppose that you are working with a s C - zer C - one. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So if you put it in a s square root, that effectively makes your model half as efficient. Because uh your uh Gaussian mixture model, right? computes the mean. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: And {disfmarker} and uh i i i but it's {disfmarker} the mean is an exponent of the whatever, the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this Gaussian function. PhD E: You're compressing the range, Professor B: So you're compressing the range of this coefficient, so it's becoming less efficient. PhD E: right? of that {disfmarker} Professor B: Right? PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So. So. Morgan was @ @ and he was {disfmarker} he was saying well this might be the alternative way how to play with a {disfmarker} with a fudge factor, you know, uh in the {disfmarker} PhD E: Oh. Professor B: you know, just compress the whole vector. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: And I said" well in that case why don't we just start compressing individual elements, like when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} because in old days we were doing {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when people still were doing template matching and Euclidean distances, we were doing this liftering of parameters, right? PhD E: Uh - huh. Professor B: because we observed that uh higher parameters were more important than lower for recognition. And basically the {disfmarker} the C - ze C - one contributes mainly slope, PhD E: Right. Professor B: and it's highly affected by uh frequency response of the {disfmarker} of the recording equipment and that sort of thing, PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: so {disfmarker} so we were coming with all these f various lifters. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: uh Bell Labs had he {disfmarker} this uh uh r raised cosine lifter which still I think is built into H {disfmarker} HTK for reasons n unknown to anybody, but {disfmarker} but uh we had exponential lifter, or triangle lifter, basic number of lifters. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And. But so they may be a way to {disfmarker} to fiddle with the f with the f PhD E: Insertions. Professor B: Insertions, deletions, or the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} giving a relative {disfmarker} uh basically modifying relative importance of the various parameters. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: The only of course problem is that there's an infinite number of combinations and if the {disfmarker} if you s if y PhD E: Oh. Uh - huh. You need like a {disfmarker} some kind of a {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah, you need a lot of graduate students, and a lot of computing power. PhD E: You need to have a genetic algorithm, that basically tries random permutations of these things. Professor B: I know. Exactly. Oh. If you were at Bell Labs or {disfmarker} I d d I shouldn't be saying this in {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on a mike, right? Or I {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} IBM, that's what {disfmarker} maybe that's what somebody would be doing. PhD E: Yeah. Grad A: Hmm. Professor B: Oh, I mean, I mean the places which have a lot of computing power, so because it is really it's a p it's a {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it will be reasonable search PhD E: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Professor B: uh but I wonder if there isn't some way of doing this uh search like when we are searching say for best discriminants. PhD E: You know actually, I don't know that this wouldn't be all that bad. I mean you {disfmarker} you compute the features once, Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: right? And then these exponents are just applied to that {disfmarker} Professor B: Absolutely. And hev everything is fixed. PhD E: So. Professor B: Everything is fixed. Each {disfmarker} each {disfmarker} PhD E: And is this something that you would adjust for training? or only recognition? Professor B: For both, you would have to do. Yeah. PhD E: You would do it on both. Professor B: You have to do bo both. PhD E: So you'd actually {disfmarker} Professor B: Because essentially you are saying" uh this feature is not important" . PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Or less important, so that's {disfmarker} th that's a {disfmarker} that's a painful one, yeah. PhD E: So for each {disfmarker} uh set of exponents that you would try, it would require a training and a recognition? Professor B: Yeah. But {disfmarker} but wait a minute. You may not need to re uh uh retrain the m model. You just may n may need to c uh give uh less weight to {disfmarker} to uh a mod uh a component of the model which represents this particular feature. You don't have to retrain it. PhD E: Oh. So if you {disfmarker} Instead of altering the feature vectors themselves, you {disfmarker} you modify the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Gaussians in the models. Professor B: You just multiply. Yeah. Yep. You modify the Gaussian in the model, but in the {disfmarker} in the test data you would have to put it in the power, but in a training what you c in a training uh {disfmarker} in trained model, all you would have to do is to multiply a model by appropriate constant. PhD E: Uh - huh. But why {disfmarker} if you're {disfmarker} if you're multi if you're altering the model, why w in the test data, why would you have to muck with the uh cepstral coefficients? Professor B: Because in uh test {disfmarker} in uh test data you ca don't have a model. You have uh only data. But in a {disfmarker} in a tr PhD E: No. But you're running your data through that same model. Professor B: That is true, but w I mean, so what you want to do {disfmarker} You want to say if uh obs you {disfmarker} if you observe something like Stephane observes, that C - one is not important, you can do two things. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: If you have a trained {disfmarker} trained recognizer, in the model, you know the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the component which {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean di dimension {vocalsound} wh PhD E: Mm - hmm. All of the {disfmarker} all of the mean and variances that correspond to C - one, you put them to zero. Professor B: To the s you {disfmarker} you know it. But what I'm proposing now, if it is important but not as important, you multiply it by point one in a model. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} PhD E: But what are you multiplying? Cuz those are means, right? Grad A: You're multiplying the standard deviation? PhD E: I mean you're {disfmarker} Grad A: So it's {disfmarker} Professor B: I think that you multiply the {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} I would have to look in the {disfmarker} in the math, I mean how {disfmarker} how does the model uh {disfmarker} PhD E: I think you {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah, I think you'd have to modify the standard deviation or something, so that you make it {vocalsound} wider or narrower. Grad A: Cuz {disfmarker} Yeah. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: Effectively, that's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Exactly. That's what you do. That's what you do, you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you modify the standard deviation as it was trained. Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: Effectively you, you know y in f in front of the {disfmarker} of the model, you put a constant. S yeah effectively what you're doing is you {disfmarker} is you are modifying the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the deviation. Right? Grad A: The spread, PhD E: Oop. Grad A: right. PhD E: Sorry. Professor B: Yeah, the spread. Grad A: It's the same {disfmarker} same mean, PhD E: So. Grad A: right? Professor B: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} PhD E: So by making th the standard deviation narrower, {comment} uh your scores get worse for {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: unless it's exactly right on the mean. Professor B: Your als No. By making it narrower, PhD E: Right? Professor B: uh y your {disfmarker} PhD E: I mean there's {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker} you're allowing for less variance. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Yes, so you making this particular dimension less important. Because see what you are fitting is the multidimensional Gaussian, right? PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: It's a {disfmarker} it has {disfmarker} it has uh thirty - nine dimensions, or thirteen dimensions if you g ignore deltas and double - deltas. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: So in order {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} in order to make dimension which {disfmarker} which Stephane sees uh less important, uh uh I mean not {disfmarker} not useful, less important, what you do is that this particular component in the model you can multiply by w you can {disfmarker} you can basically de - weight it in the model. But you can't do it in a {disfmarker} in a test data because you don't have a model for th I mean uh when the test comes, but what you can do is that you put this particular component in {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and you compress it. That becomes uh th gets less variance, subsequently becomes less important. PhD E: Couldn't you just do that to the test data and not do anything with your training data? Professor B: That would be very bad, because uh your t your model was trained uh expecting uh, that wouldn't work. Because your model was trained expecting a certain var variance on C - one. PhD E: Uh - huh. Professor B: And because the model thinks C - one is important. After you train the model, you sort of {disfmarker} y you could do {disfmarker} you could do still what I was proposing initially, that during the training you {disfmarker} you compress C - one that becomes {disfmarker} then it becomes less important in a training. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: But if you have {disfmarker} if you want to run e ex extensive experiment without retraining the model, you don't have to retrain the model. You train it on the original vector. But after, you {disfmarker} wh when you are doing this parametric study of importance of C - one you will de - weight the C - one component in the model, and you will put in the {disfmarker} you will compress the {disfmarker} this component in a {disfmarker} in the test data. s by the same amount. PhD E: Could you also if you wanted to {disfmarker} if you wanted to try an experiment uh by {pause} leaving out say, C - one, couldn't you, in your test data, uh modify the {disfmarker} all of the C - one values to be um way outside of the normal range of the Gaussian for C - one that was trained in the model? So that effectively, the C - one never really contributes to the score? PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: No, that would be a severe mismatch, PhD E: Do you know what I'm say Professor B: right? what you are proposing? N no you don't want that. PhD E: Yeah, someth Professor B: Because that would {disfmarker} then your model would be unlikely. Your likelihood would be low, right? Because you would be providing severe mismatch. PhD E: Mm - hmm. But what if you set if to the mean of the model, then? And it was a cons you set all C - ones coming in through your test data, you {disfmarker} you change whatever value that was there to the mean that your model had. Professor B: No that would be very good match, right? PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: That you would {disfmarker} PhD C: Which {disfmarker} Well, yeah, but we have several means. So. Professor B: I see what you are sa {pause} saying, PhD C: Right? Grad A: Saying. Professor B: but uh, {vocalsound} no, no I don't think that it would be the same. I mean, no, the {disfmarker} If you set it to a mean, that would {disfmarker} No, you can't do that. Y you ca you ca Ch - Chuck, you can't do that. PhD E: Oh, that's true, right, yeah, because you {disfmarker} you have {disfmarker} PhD C: Wait. Which {disfmarker} Professor B: Because that would be a really f fiddling with the data, PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: you can't do that. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: But what you can do, I'm confident you ca PhD E: Professor B: well, I'm reasonably confident and I putting it on the record, right? I mean y people will listen to it for {disfmarker} for centuries now, is {pause} what you can do, is you train the model uh with the {disfmarker} with the original data. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Then you decide that you want to see how important C {disfmarker} C - one is. So what you will do is that a component in the model for C - one, you will divide it by {disfmarker} by two. And you will compress your test data by square root. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Then you will still have a perfect m match. Except that this component of C - one will be half as important in a {disfmarker} in a overall score. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: Then you divide it by four and you take a square, f fourth root. Then if you think that some component is more {disfmarker} is more important then th th th it then {disfmarker} then uh uh i it is, based on training, then you uh multiply this particular component in the model by {disfmarker} by {disfmarker} by {disfmarker} PhD E: You're talking about the standard deviation? Professor B: yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Yeah, multiply this component uh i it by number b larger than one, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and you put your data in power higher than one. Then it becomes more important. In the overall score, I believe. PhD C: Yeah, but, at the {disfmarker} PhD E: But {pause} don't you have to do something to the mean, also? Professor B: No. PhD C: No. Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: No. PhD C: But I think it's {disfmarker} uh the {disfmarker} The variance is on {disfmarker} on the denominator in the {disfmarker} in the Gaussian equation. So. I think it's maybe it's the contrary. If you want to decrease the importance of a c parameter, you have to increase it's variance. Professor B: Yes. Right. Yes. PhD D: Multiply. Professor B: Exactly. Yeah. So you {disfmarker} so you may want to do it other way around, PhD C: Hmm. That's right. OK. Professor B: yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Grad A: Right. PhD E: But if your {disfmarker} If your um original data for C - one had a mean of two. Professor B: Uh - huh. PhD E: And now you're {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker} you're changing that by squaring it. Now your mean of your C - one original data has {disfmarker} {comment} is four. But your model still has a mean of two. So even though you've expended the range, your mean doesn't match anymore. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Let's see. PhD E: Do you see what I mean? PhD C: I think {disfmarker} What I see {disfmarker} What could be done is you don't change your features, which are computed once for all, Professor B: Uh - huh. PhD C: but you just tune the model. So. You have your features. You train your {disfmarker} your model on these features. PhD E: Mm - hmm. PhD C: And then if you want to decrease the importance of C - one you just take the variance of the C - one component in the {disfmarker} in the model and increase it if you want to decrease the importance of C - one or decrease it {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Right. Professor B: Yeah. You would have to modify the mean in the model. I {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} I agree with you. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, but it's {disfmarker} it's i it's do - able, PhD C: Well. PhD E: Yeah, so y Professor B: right? I mean, it's predictable. Uh. Yeah. PhD E: It's predictable, yeah. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah, it's predictable. PhD C: Mmm. PhD E: Yeah. But as a simple thing, you could just {disfmarker} just muck with the variance. PhD C: Just adjust the model, yeah. PhD E: to get uh this {disfmarker} uh this {disfmarker} the effect I think that you're talking about, Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD E: right? Professor B: It might be. PhD E: Could increase the variance to decrease the importance. Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Yeah, because if you had a huge variance, you're dividing by a large number, {comment} you get a very small contribution. Grad A: Doesn't matter {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah, it becomes more flat Grad A: Right. PhD C: and {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Grad A: Yeah, the sharper the variance, the more {disfmarker} more important to get that one right. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Yeah, you know actually, this reminds me of something that happened uh when I was at BBN. We were playing with putting um pitch into the Mandarin recognizer. Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD E: And this particular pitch algorithm um when it didn't think there was any voicing, was spitting out zeros. So we were getting {disfmarker} uh when we did clustering, we were getting groups uh of features Professor B: p Pretty new outliers, interesting outliers, right? PhD E: yeah, with {disfmarker} with a mean of zero and basically zero variance. Professor B: Variance. PhD E: So, when ener {comment} when anytime any one of those vectors came in that had a zero in it, we got a great score. I mean it was just, {nonvocalsound} you know, incredibly {nonvocalsound} high score, and so that was throwing everything off. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: So {vocalsound} if you have very small variance you get really good scores when you get something that matches. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: So. {vocalsound} So that's a way, yeah, yeah {disfmarker} That's a way to increase the {disfmarker} yeah, n That's interesting. So in fact, that would be {disfmarker} That doesn't require any retraining. Professor B: Yeah. No. No. PhD C: No, that's right. So it's PhD E: So that means it's just Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: just tuning the models and testing, actually. PhD E: recognitions. Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. PhD C: It would be quick. PhD E: You {disfmarker} you have a step where you you modify the models, make a d copy of your models with whatever variance modifications you make, and rerun recognition. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: And then do a whole bunch of those. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. PhD E: That could be set up fairly easily I think, and you have a whole bunch of you know {disfmarker} Professor B: Chuck is getting himself in trouble. PhD E: That's an interesting idea, actually. For testing the {disfmarker} Yeah. Huh! Grad A: Didn't you say you got these uh HTK's set up on the new Linux boxes? PhD E: That's right. Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: Hey! PhD E: In fact, and {disfmarker} and they're just t right now they're installing uh {disfmarker} increasing the memory on that uh {disfmarker} the Linux box. Professor B: And Chuck is sort of really fishing for how to keep his computer busy, Grad A: Right. Professor B: right? PhD E: Yeah. Absinthe. Professor B: Well, you know, that's {disfmarker} PhD E: Absinthe. We've got five processors on that. Grad A: Oh yeah. Professor B: that's {disfmarker} yeah, that's a good thing Grad A: That's right. Professor B: because then y you just write the" do" - loops and then you pretend that you are working while you are sort of {disfmarker} you c you can go fishing. PhD E: And two gigs of memory. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Grad A: Pretend, yeah. PhD E: Exactly. Yeah. PhD D: Go fishing. PhD E: See how many cycles we used? Professor B: Yeah. Then you are sort of in this mode like all of those ARPA people are, right? PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Uh, since it is on the record, I can't say uh which company it was, but it was reported to me that uh somebody visited a company and during a {disfmarker} d during a discussion, there was this guy who was always hitting the carriage returns uh on a computer. PhD E: Uh - huh. Professor B: So after two hours uh the visitor said" wh why are you hitting this carriage return?" And he said" well you know, we are being paid by a computer ty I mean we are {disfmarker} we have a government contract. And they pay us by {disfmarker} by amount of computer time we use." It was in old days when there were uh {disfmarker} of PDP - eights and that sort of thing. PhD E: Oh, my gosh! So he had to make it look like {disfmarker} Professor B: Because so they had a {disfmarker} they literally had to c monitor at the time {disfmarker} at the time on a computer how much time is being spent I {disfmarker} i i or on {disfmarker} on this particular project. PhD E: Yeah. How {disfmarker} Idle time. Grad A: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: Nobody was looking even at what was coming out. PhD E: Have you ever seen those little um {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} it's this thing that's the shape of a bird and it has a red ball and its beak dips into the water? Professor B: Yeah, I know, right. PhD E: So {vocalsound} if you could hook that up so it hit the keyboard {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: That's an interesting experiment. Professor B: It would be similar {disfmarker} similar to {disfmarker} I knew some people who were uh that was in old Communist uh Czechoslovakia, right? so we were watching for American airplanes, coming to spy on {disfmarker} on uh {disfmarker} on us at the time, PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor B: so there were three guys uh uh stationed in the middle of the woods on one l lonely uh watching tower, pretty much spending a year and a half there because there was this service right? And so they {disfmarker} very quickly they made friends with local girls and local people in the village PhD E: Ugh! Professor B: and {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: and so but they {disfmarker} there was one plane flying over s always uh uh above, and so that was the only work which they had. They {disfmarker} like four in the afternoon they had to report there was a plane from Prague to Brno Basically f flying there, PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: so they f very q f first thing was that they would always run back and {disfmarker} and at four o'clock and {disfmarker} and quickly make a call," this plane is uh uh passing" then a second thing was that they {disfmarker} they took the line from this u u post to uh uh a local pub. And they were calling from the pub. And they {disfmarker} but third thing which they made, and when they screwed up, they {disfmarker} finally they had to p the {disfmarker} the p the pub owner to make these phone calls because they didn't even bother to be there anymore. And one day there was {disfmarker} there was no plane. At least they were sort of smart enough that they looked if the plane is flying there, right? And the pub owner says" oh my {disfmarker} four o'clock, OK, quickly p pick up the phone, call that there's a plane flying." PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: There was no plane for some reason, PhD E: And there wasn't? Professor B: it was downed, or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and {disfmarker} so they got in trouble. But. {vocalsound} But uh. PhD E: Huh! Well that's {disfmarker} that's a really i Professor B: So. So. Yeah. PhD E: That wouldn't be too difficult to try. Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: Maybe I could set that up. Professor B: Yeah. PhD E: And we'll just {disfmarker} Professor B: Well, at least go test the s test the uh assumption about C - C - one I mean to begin with. But then of course one can then think about some predictable result to change all of them. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: It's just like we used to do these uh {disfmarker} these uh {disfmarker} um the {disfmarker} the uh distance measures. It might be that uh {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah, so the first set of uh variance weighting vectors would be just you know one {disfmarker} modifying one and leaving the others the same. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. Maybe. PhD E: And {disfmarker} and do that for each one. Professor B: Because you see, I mean, what is happening here in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in such a model is that it's {disfmarker} tells you yeah what has a low variance uh is uh {disfmarker} is uh {disfmarker} is more reliable, PhD E: That would be one set of experiment {disfmarker} Professor B: right? How do we {disfmarker} PhD E: Wh - yeah, when the data matches that, then you get really {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Right. Professor B: How do we know, especially when it comes to noise? PhD E: But there could just naturally be low variance. Professor B: Yeah? PhD E: Because I {disfmarker} Like, I've noticed in the higher cepstral coefficients, the numbers seem to get smaller, right? So d PhD C: They {disfmarker} t PhD E: I mean, just naturally. PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: Yeah, th that's {disfmarker} PhD C: They have smaller means, also. Uh. PhD E: Yeah. Exactly. And so it seems like they're already sort of compressed. PhD C: Uh - huh. PhD E: The range {pause} of values. Professor B: Yeah that's why uh people used these lifters were inverse variance weighting lifters basically that makes uh uh Euclidean distance more like uh Mahalanobis distance with a diagonal covariance when you knew what all the variances were over the old data. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Hmm. Professor B: What they would do is that they would weight each coefficient by inverse of the variance. Turns out that uh the variance decreases at least at fast, I believe, as the index of the cepstral coefficients. I think you can show that uh uh analytically. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: So typically what happens is that you {disfmarker} you need to weight the {disfmarker} uh weight the higher coefficients more than uh the lower coefficients. PhD E: Hmm. Mm - hmm. Hmm. Professor B: So. PhD C: Mmm. PhD E: Professor B: When {disfmarker} Yeah. When we talked about Aurora still I wanted to m make a plea {disfmarker} uh encourage for uh more communication between {disfmarker} between uh {pause} uh different uh parts of the distributed uh {pause} uh center. Uh even when there is absolutely nothing to {disfmarker} to s to say but the weather is good in Ore - in {disfmarker} in Berkeley. I'm sure that it's being appreciated in Oregon and maybe it will generate similar responses down here, like, uh {disfmarker} PhD C: We can set up a webcam maybe. Professor B: Yeah. Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: What {disfmarker} you know, nowadays, yeah. It's actually do - able, almost. PhD E: Is the um {disfmarker} if we mail to" Aurora - inhouse" , does that go up to you guys also? Professor B: I don't think so. No. PhD C: No. PhD E: OK. Professor B: So we should do that. PhD E: So i What is it {disfmarker} Grad A: Yeah. Professor B: We should definitely set up {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah we sh Do we have a mailing list that includes uh the OGI people? Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Uh no. We don't have. Professor B: Uh - huh. PhD E: Oh! Maybe we should set that up. That would make it much easier. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that would make it easier. PhD E: So maybe just call it" Aurora" or something that would {disfmarker} Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. And then we also can send the {disfmarker} the dis to the same address right, and it goes to everybody PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: OK. Maybe we can set that up. Professor B: Because what's happening naturally in research, I know, is that people essentially start working on something and they don't want to be much bothered, right? but what the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} then the danger is in a group like this, is that two people are working on the same thing and i c of course both of them come with the s very good solution, but it could have been done somehow in half of the effort or something. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Oh, there's another thing which I wanted to uh uh report. Lucash, I think, uh wrote the software for this Aurora - two system. reasonably uh good one, because he's doing it for Intel, but I trust that we have uh rights to uh use it uh or distribute it and everything. Cuz Intel's intentions originally was to distribute it free of charge anyways. PhD E: Hmm! Professor B: u s And so {disfmarker} so uh we {disfmarker} we will make sure that at least you can see the software and if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if it is of any use. Just uh {disfmarker} PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: It might be a reasonable point for p perhaps uh start converging. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Because Morgan's point is that {disfmarker} He is an experienced guy. He says" well you know it's very difficult to collaborate if you are working with supposedly the same thing, in quotes, except which is not s is not the same. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor B: Which {disfmarker} which uh uh one is using that set of hurdles, another one set {disfmarker} is using another set of hurdles. So. And {disfmarker} And then it's difficult to c compare. PhD C: What about Harry? Uh. We received a mail last week and you are starting to {disfmarker} to do some experiments. Professor B: He got the {disfmarker} he got the software. Yeah. They sent the release. PhD C: And use this Intel version. Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PhD C: Hmm. Professor B: Yeah because Intel paid us uh should I say on a microphone? uh some amount of money, not much. Not much I can say on a microphone. Much less then we should have gotten {vocalsound} for this amount of work. And they wanted uh to {disfmarker} to have software so that they can also play with it, which means that it has to be in a certain environment {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: they use actu actually some Intel libraries, but in the process, Lucash just rewrote the whole thing because he figured rather than trying to f make sense uh of uh {disfmarker} including ICSI software uh not for training on the nets PhD E: Hmm. Grad A: Oh. Professor B: but I think he rewrote the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} or so maybe somehow reused over the parts of the thing so that {disfmarker} so that {disfmarker} the whole thing, including MLP, trained MLP is one piece of uh software. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Wow! Professor B: Is it useful? Grad A: Ye - Yeah. Professor B: Yeah? Grad A: I mean, I remember when we were trying to put together all the ICSI software for the submission. Professor B: Or {disfmarker} That's what he was saying, right. He said that it was like {disfmarker} it was like just so many libraries and nobody knew what was used when, and {disfmarker} and so that's where he started and that's where he realized that it needs to be {disfmarker} needs to be uh uh at least cleaned up, Grad A: Yeah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor B: and so I think it {disfmarker} this is available. Grad A: Hmm. Professor B: So {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah. Well, the {disfmarker} the only thing I would check is if he {disfmarker} does he use Intel math libraries, Professor B: uh e ev PhD C: because if it's the case, it's maybe not so easy to use it on another architecture. Professor B: n not maybe {disfmarker} Maybe not in a first {disfmarker} maybe not in a first ap approximation because I think he started first just with a plain C {disfmarker} C or C - plus - plus or something before {disfmarker} PhD C: Ah yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor B: I {disfmarker} I can check on that. Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Hmm. Professor B: And uh in {disfmarker} otherwise the Intel libraries, I think they are available free of f freely. But they may be running only on {disfmarker} on uh {disfmarker} on uh Windows. PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: Or on {disfmarker} on the {disfmarker} PhD C: On Intel architecture maybe. Professor B: Yeah, on Intel architecture, may not run in SUN. PhD C: I'm {disfmarker} Yeah. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: That is p that is {disfmarker} that is possible. That's why Intel of course is distributing it, PhD C: Well. Professor B: right? Or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That's {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah. Well there are {disfmarker} at least there are optimized version for their architecture. Professor B: Yeah. PhD C: I don't know. I never checked carefully these sorts of {disfmarker} Professor B: I know there was some issues that initially of course we d do all the development on Linux but we use {disfmarker} we don't have {disfmarker} we have only three uh uh uh uh s SUNs and we have them only because they have a SPERT board in. Otherwise {disfmarker} otherwise we t almost exclusively are working with uh PC's now, with Intel. In that way Intel succeeded with us, because they gave us too many good machines for very little money or nothing. PhD E: Yeah. Professor B: So. So. So we run everything on Intel. PhD E: Wow! Professor B: And {disfmarker} PhD E: Hmm. Does anybody have anything else? to {disfmarker} Shall we read some digits? PhD C: Yeah. Professor B: Yes. I have to take my glasses {disfmarker} PhD E: So. Hynek, I don't know if you've ever done this. Professor B: No. PhD E: The way that it works is each person goes around in turn, {comment} and uh you say the transcript number and then you read the digits, the {disfmarker} the strings of numbers as individual digits. Professor B: Mm - hmm. PhD E: So you don't say" eight hundred and fifty" , you say" eight five oh" , and so forth. Professor B: OK. OK. So can {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} can I t maybe start then? PhD E: Um. Sure.

The meeting focused on the Aurora project. The Professor began with some updates on how certain decisions made by those leading the project did not make sense. There was some confusion and debate about how to move forward. The team then moved onto a discussion about measuring the effect of a given feature on the model. The professor outlined the specific methodology. At the time, the team was focused on testing for C-zero and C-one only, but they decided to expand their testing. Finally, the professor told some stories to explain future directions and the team had a brief discussion about their hardware.

tr-sq-621

tr-sq-621_0

Summarize the team's evaluation of the remote. Marketing: I wanna find our if our remote works. Project Manager: Me too. {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. Um here's the agenda for our last meeting. Marketing: Whoohoo. Project Manager: Um after the opening we're going to have a prototype presentation, then we're going to discuss the evaluation criteria and the financing of our remote. Then we're going to evaluate the product and I think the whole production process, and then we're gonna close it up, and we have forty minutes, so let's get started. Oh, no, let's have the prototype presentation. Industrial Designer: Mm'kay, User Interface: {gap} Industrial Designer: you ready? User Interface: Um sure. You or me? Industrial Designer: Y you read that stuff, since you wrote it. User Interface: Okay. Well, since our materials aren't exactly what we were going for, I'm just gonna translate what this all means for you. Industrial Designer: I'll be the Vanna. User Interface: {vocalsound} The base is gonna be gunmetal gray, which is what we had decided, and it's gonna be plastic. Um then there's the latex cover, which is what you see as red. Um because it can be replaceable, we just kinda went with the colour. Project Manager: Right. User Interface: Um and then the buttons are actually kind of poking through rather than on top. Um and the buttons will be a l much lighter blue, almost see-through. Project Manager: Hmm. User Interface: It's just sort of a very pale blue and a light-up yellow. Marketing: That's nice. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: The whole thing lights up if you press any button, rather than it {disfmarker} just that one button will light up. Marketing: Good. User Interface: Um and then at the bottom we have our logo. Um bright yellow sort of design with the R_R_ {vocalsound} which will actually look like our logo. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Great. User Interface: And then on the side you have the buttons. {vocalsound} They're one button, but they kind of push up and down. Project Manager: Okay. User Interface: I don't think they're scrolling. Industrial Designer: No. They're just buttons. User Interface: {vocalsound} Right, yeah. And then {disfmarker} yeah, the buttons. Industrial Designer: On off switch will be here and as you've noticed on our prototype um they've ended up with a curvature kind of, by concave sort of thing, except for, you know, {gap} can't see underneath. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: So I'm hoping that when we get to production we can actually make them like that, because they're very nice to stock {gap} you know, stick your finger in. Um the two squared buttons are are two probably least used, menu, mute, User Interface: Thumb-shaped. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and then these are the numbers, so our channel and our volume will be on either side. User Interface: Yeah. And then the last thing is just that it'll be black labelling on top, just which we didn't do. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. And did you determine um the curvature of the bottom part of it for the hand, is it gonna be a single or a double? User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I'd say a single. Project Manager: Single. Single sounds good, User Interface: Single. Project Manager:'cause it's not big enough to really constitute a double. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah, it's only actually the size of my hand. User Interface: Right. Project Manager: Great. Great. I think you did an awesome job. Marketing: Yeah, I think it's a beautiful {disfmarker} Project Manager: It is beautiful, and it's everything that we discussed. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Good job, you guys. Project Manager: Good job. Industrial Designer: Whoohoo. User Interface: Oh thank you. {vocalsound} Marketing: Those are really good. Project Manager: Alright {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {gap} Project Manager: what's next in our agenda? Um we're gonna discuss the evaluation criteria, and that's with Courtney. Marketing: Okay, it's a PowerPoint presentation. I don't really know exactly what we should uh talk about. It's under evaluation. Project Manager: Right. Marketing: Alright. Um so these are the criteria we're gonna ask, is it easy to use, is it fashionable uh {disfmarker} yeah, I guess we should write these down so we can reference them. Project Manager: Mm. User Interface: Feel good meaning what? Marketing: Like does it feel good, like {disfmarker} User Interface: Physically, Project Manager: Right. User Interface: okay. Marketing: yeah, physically. User Interface: {gap} Project Manager: Sqi {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} That's just for current trend. Project Manager: Right. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: It doesn't really count, you guys. Industrial Designer: Yeah, it was a little difficult to incorporate the cover with the cherry fruit on it. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. But it's {disfmarker} so we do have removable covers, right? Project Manager: Right. Industrial Designer: Yes. User Interface: {gap} Marketing: Yeah, well then that's covered. Project Manager:'Kay. Marketing: And so we n k everybody have that? Project Manager: I'll wait. Marketing: Yeah, she's got it. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: It's good. Yeah. Okay so, we're using the criteria uh for a seven point scale, and so we need to discuss how we feel. It falls within this range, so for easy to use, do we feel it's very easy to use? Project Manager: Are we going to indi User Interface: True or false, easy to use. Project Manager: I say we individually rate {disfmarker} what do you say? Marketing: You guys {disfmarker} Project Manager: Just orally. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. Project Manager: Why not? We have {disfmarker} okay. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: Um easy to use. I vote six. Marketing: Oh wait, that's false. Project Manager: Oh, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: two. Marketing: Okay. Industrial Designer: I'd say two as well. User Interface: Yeah, two. Marketing: Two. That's what I say. Project Manager: Uh hello, we're great. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Okay, fashionable? Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um one. Industrial Designer: At the moment, no. Project Manager: No. Marketing: No. I mean like no, I think it's very fashionable. Project Manager: Me too, very chic. {vocalsound} Marketing: I thi I would give it a one. Project Manager: One, I give it a one. Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I'll give it a two, because at the moment it's not looking that way. Project Manager: Oh, and ma it's a prototype, Marketing: Well, that's that's just like {disfmarker} that's a clay, it's a prototype. Project Manager: right. User Interface: Mm I don't think it's that fashionable. Marketing: What do you think? User Interface: I'd give it like three or four. Project Manager: Well, now I'm {gap}. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: So, the average is about a two. User Interface: {vocalsound} But then I'm not fashionable, so Marketing: Yeah, it's a two. Project Manager: Two or three. Two point five. User Interface: don't use my opinion. Marketing: That's okay. Yeah. Industrial Designer: Neither are all o all the customers we have, either. Marketing: {vocalsound} Um User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: does it feel good? Project Manager: Imagine, since we obviously don't have that. User Interface: Does it feel good? Marketing: I feel like {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Uh the shape of it actually does uh. Project Manager: And it's i it is very ergonomically designed. It's gonna be curved. User Interface: Yeah, it's gonna be thicker. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: Depth. Marketing: I think it feels good. Project Manager: I think so too. Marketing: I'll give it a two. Project Manager:'Kay. Two. User Interface: {vocalsound} I'll give it a one. Marketing: What do you say? Industrial Designer: I'd say a two. Project Manager: Alright, average is two. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: Is it technologically innovative? Oh sorry I'm taking over your job here. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh no, it's fine, Project Manager: Go right ahead. {vocalsound} Marketing: you're {disfmarker} I mean you're Project Manager. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Um yeah, I mean and it {disfmarker} does it have voice {disfmarker} I mean the phrase recognition on it? Project Manager: Yes. Right? We were able to do it with that kind of chip. User Interface: Oh right, the {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: We could do it with the chip, yes. It wasn't {disfmarker} we have no reflection of it on the prototype, Marketing: And there's no way you can represent it on here. Y Project Manager: Yeah, right. Industrial Designer: but that's because it's only two dimensions, really. Project Manager: That was {disfmarker}'kay. And we discussed that being included. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, so. User Interface: Right. Marketing: Then yes, then I would {disfmarker} well it isn't {disfmarker} what else would it need for it to be technologically innovative? Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} Project Manager: Well we don'have the {disfmarker} you know, we can't say channel, and it changes the channel, channel eight. Marketing: And it doesn't cover anything other then T_V_, Project Manager: Right. Marketing: so I'd probably give it a three. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Even though it is {disfmarker} for just a T_V_ remote it's uh very advanced. But it is just a T_V_ remote. Project Manager: Yeah. I'd go for a three or four on that one, so {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah I go four. Project Manager: okay, let's go for a three point five. User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Three and an half. Project Manager: Alright, and the last criteria {disfmarker} is it is it um {disfmarker} User Interface: Squishy and fruity. Marketing: {vocalsound} Well yeah, so I'd give it a two. Project Manager: Well, we've covered that with the User Interface: It's just trendy, basically. Project Manager: trendy. Sure. Capable. Very capable. Industrial Designer: It's capable of being squishy and fruity. Marketing: Oh, it's very capable of being squishy and fruity. User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Project Manager: And {vocalsound} it's very important.'Kay, there we go. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: So. Marketing: Okay, next. Project Manager: Next. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} So um our re model slightly resembling a giant delicious cookie appears to be a winner, Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: and uh hopefully we'll sell millions. Good job, team. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} How did you get that in there? User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} What? Industrial Designer: The {vocalsound} slightly resembling a giant delicious cookie. Project Manager: {vocalsound} It does. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: It {vocalsound} it does. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That was good. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Very good. Marketing: Thanks. Project Manager: Alright, let's go back to this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No, that's it. Hmm. Oops. Okay, so now uh we're moving on to finance, okay. I'm gonna show you an Excel spreadsheet and we're going to fill it in together based on what components we're including in our remote and see if it's under twelve fifty Euro. If so, we can proceed, if not, we need to go back to the drawing board a little bit.'Kay? So let me bring that up. Here we go. Alright. Um it's not hand dynamo, it's powered by battery, so we give it a {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yep. Marketing: Two. Project Manager: Number of components you plan to use. Do I just put quantity being one battery, or {disfmarker} Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Mm'kay. Project Manager: But if it's a {disfmarker} do you wanna go for {disfmarker} this is where we need to make a final call on if it's a lithium or do we wanna go triple A_s,'cause triple A_s we're gonna have t do more than one battery. Oh, let's just go for a lithium. What do you say? Industrial Designer: Yeah, User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah, let's let's do a lithium. Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think uh I think the people who purchase this are gonna be technologically Industrial Designer: it's {gap}. Marketing: We're gon that's gon Nologically advanced, Project Manager: {disfmarker} right. Marketing: yeah. Project Manager: Okay, down to the electronics um section. We're gonna need this kind, correct, if we do the voice sensor, Industrial Designer: Yep. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: so one of those. It is a single-curved, so one of those. Marketing: Uh {gap}. Project Manager: Oh. What's that? Yeah, that's correct. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager:'Kay, down here, case material. User Interface: It's plastic. Marketing: We {disfmarker} Project Manager: Plastic. Marketing: plastic. User Interface: And special colour. Marketing: And special colour. Project Manager:'Kay. {vocalsound} Down here, interface type. We're gonna have the integrated scroll scroll wheel. User Interface: No, we don't have the scroll. Project Manager: Isn't {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: oh those are just regular buttons. Industrial Designer: Well, that's the push-button too, right there. User Interface: Buttons. Marketing: But it's {disfmarker} Yeah, Project Manager: This? Marketing: but i so i Industrial Designer: Integrated scroll-wheel or push-button. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: We're really having just push-button interface. Project Manager: Okay, so we can just go {disfmarker} um. Marketing: But will we w actually we'll need two, won't we? One for the top and then one for the s one e for each side. Industrial Designer: But it {disfmarker} that just covers the type of button we're having. Because we're not doing a scroll on the side, it's still push-button. User Interface: Oh like the {disfmarker} twenty nine means like you have both scrolls and Industrial Designer: Push-button. Project Manager: Right I think she's {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: But we just have push User Interface: push-buttons. Marketing: Okay. User Interface: But we don't have any scrolls. Project Manager: I think what Courtney's talking about is do we need to put two here? Marketing: Like because there's like one interface right here and then {disfmarker} because it's not gonna be on the same plane when you press the button. Project Manager: Right. Marketing: There's gonna have to be additional signals on the sides. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Okay. Marketing: So is that gonna be an extra one on each side? Project Manager: I don't know, they might put us {disfmarker} well, let's just. User Interface: Two interfaces, is that what w should we s say? Project Manager: Two or would it be three? Industrial Designer: Let's call it th Marketing: Or three, because of one on each side and one on top. User Interface: Okay, fine. Yeah. Marketing: I mean it's fine'cause it comes out the same as twenty nine. Well less than twenty nine even. Project Manager: Okay Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: and we're gonna {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: button supplements {disfmarker} the buttons are no uh okay. Marketing: They're a special colour. Um they're uh they're a special form,'cause they're indented. Project Manager: Are they? Oh, right. User Interface: And then s Marketing: And, they're a special material. User Interface: yeah. Project Manager: Mm. Well, we're under cost then. Alright. User Interface: We're over? Project Manager: No, we're under. Industrial Designer: Grand. Marketing: We're under. Project Manager: Twelve point five is our limit. User Interface: Okay. Project Manager: We've got eleven point two. User Interface: Oh, I see. Project Manager: Alright. Industrial Designer: So we can go to production. Project Manager: We can go to {disfmarker} I dunno what I just did. {vocalsound} Okay. Now we're gonna talk about the project process um and whether or not we're satisfied with the whole process and the result. Um did we have a lot of room for creativity? Did we have a lot of room for individual leadership, um teamwork, and the means, meaning the technology that we used to produce our little guy there, and if we found any new ideas. Now, question is, how do we do this? User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Go back. Marketing: {vocalsound} I think we just discuss it. Project Manager: Discuss, sure. Industrial Designer: Previous. Project Manager: Alright. Who want who would like to go first? Industrial Designer: We think we got stifled for cri {vocalsound} creativity by the company itself, in restricting us only to using a T_V_ remote, initially. User Interface: We didn't have a whiteboard. Project Manager: Hmm. Hmm. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Oh that's true. User Interface: And no internet. Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} No, yeah, that's a good point.'Cause I'd forgotten that that wasn't our decision, yeah. Project Manager: {vocalsound} And how did you feel about the whole the whole process though? Marketing: Oh, overall I mean I thought we did a good job like {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: We got to choose {disfmarker} basically we had control over {disfmarker} minus it being just merely a T_V_ remote we got to choose what we wanted to do with it. Project Manager: Right, and we got say over what {disfmarker} how technologically advanced it should be and also how fashionable, which I kind of like {disfmarker} Marketing: And we're a fashion forward technology company. Project Manager: we {disfmarker} yep. You know it. Industrial Designer: {gap} right. Project Manager: Um what about um the teamwork aspect? How did you guys enjoy making the model, the prototype? Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah. User Interface: I think we did well. Project Manager: I think ya'did. Did you work well together in there, and {disfmarker} User Interface: Yep. {vocalsound} Project Manager:'kay. Industrial Designer: Well, no, there was there was scratching and fighting, but {disfmarker} no {vocalsound}. Marketing: Minus that one fight. User Interface: {vocalsound} Gouges. Project Manager: Oh my God, Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: and we've all been a pretty congenial team here, I think. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: We hadn't had any ma fallings out. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. I mean minus you guys being wha what is it, the survey, annoying or what is it? Project Manager: {vocalsound} Irritating. Industrial Designer: Irritating. {vocalsound} User Interface: Irritating. Marketing: Irritating, yeah. Wow that's a {disfmarker} it's definitely a strong one. Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: The means, the whiteboard didn't work. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. User Interface: And no internet. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: I have to knock that one down a couple notches. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A and our friend here really feels strongly about the internet. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah, and no internet. User Interface: Misses. I do. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: There's so much available. Marketing: And the digital the digital pens User Interface: Like it's information Project Manager: Yeah, digital pens. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I really appreciated those, yeah. Marketing: were {disfmarker} they were pretty cool. Project Manager: They were fine. Marketing: Yeah they were fun, even though I'm not really sure what I could do with them, but they are awesome. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: The use of the laptops for receiving everything. Project Manager: Right, laptops are extremely handy, Industrial Designer: It was wireless too, so. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: wireless. And that we have a shared network where we can put all of the {disfmarker} Marketing: And these things whoa. Industrial Designer: And let's not forget the sexy dual microphones everyone gets to wear. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. And Big Brother. Project Manager: Big brother. Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager:'Kay, have we found any new ideas through this process? Marketing: Um we are really gonna sell this. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Ta-da. Project Manager: For something that looks cool and also has what I want it to b do technologically. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: And that's your right brain taking over, w wanting the artistic, the fashionable, the hip, you know. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: If we all just went out and bought useful things, I don't think {disfmarker} I mean that's not what technology. User Interface: Well, that's why I don't like uh Macs or Apples, just'cause I look at it, and I know it's probably a very good computer, but I look at it, and I'm taken back to elementary school,'cause they look the same. Project Manager: Mm. User Interface: They look like they did when I was in elementary school, Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and that's so old-fashioned to me. Marketing: Yeah,'cause they're pretty and just like {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: The Toronto district school would only use his Macs with their kids. User Interface: Exactly, so I associate them with like really low-tech, really cheap, bad {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. Just the Mac font bothers me even. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Uh yeah. Project Manager: But I do like iPods, go figure. Marketing: Yeah, no, iPods {vocalsound} {disfmarker} They want all those words for presentation, even the plugs. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Well, i iPods are now quite trendy, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and they come in different colours. Project Manager: Colours. Exactly. I mean how many people went out and bough a Nokia phone, back when we were like in high school, just so they could get the changeable face plates. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh yeah, everybody. Project Manager: Okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Anyway, so that is definitely at work. Industrial Designer: Not me. Marketing: {vocalsound} Mine is amber. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I didn't have a phone'til university. User Interface: But the {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} but my one issue is just like the whole it's for T_V_ only. Marketing: Oh. User Interface: I was like who's gonna buy a remote just for the T_V_ unless they've lost theirs. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Look at it. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Fashionable chic people will. User Interface: You're kidding. Marketing: That is a piece of work. User Interface: No, no. Marketing: {vocalsound} Wow. Marketing Director says yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} No, marketing has to actually create the desire for it. {vocalsound} Marketing: Fashionable people will buy it. Oh, I will create desire. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: That's okay. We can create a commercial where they think that all their needs will be met. This will help them find the one. User Interface: Ri {vocalsound} They'll be sexy with it. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Hmm. Industrial Designer: That's right. Marketing: We could have like an Adam and Eve type commercial, and that's the fig-leaf. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: Oh right. Marketing: Mm. {vocalsound} That'll sell. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And so the serpent says, use our remote. {vocalsound} Project Manager: There you go, marketing {gap}. User Interface: Let you loose. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: Yeah, no. Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay, we're gonna wrap this up now. Um the costs are within the budget, we evaluated the project, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: and now we're gonna complete the final questionnaire and meeting summary, and then we're going to have a big giant party, apparently, according to this, so. Alright, thank you team, Industrial Designer: Whoohoo. Margaritas for everyone. {vocalsound} Project Manager: you did a great job, it was lovely working with you. User Interface: {vocalsound} Good. Marketing: You too. Industrial Designer: Yay. Thanks to the Project Leader. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Now we know w

Marketing first presented the evaluation criteria, including whether the remote was easy to use, whether it was fashionable, whether it feels good physically, and some other aspects. Using a seven-point scale from true to false, the team rated the remote on these aspects. All agreed to give 2 points for the remote being easy to use. With slight variations, the average point for it being fashionable is 2. 5. The average is 2 for it feeling good physically, and 3. 5 for it being technologically innovative. Finally, the team also agreed on it being trendy and capable with a score around 2.

tr-sq-622

tr-sq-622_0

Describe the team's disagreement when evaluating whether the remote was fashionable. Marketing: I wanna find our if our remote works. Project Manager: Me too. {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. Um here's the agenda for our last meeting. Marketing: Whoohoo. Project Manager: Um after the opening we're going to have a prototype presentation, then we're going to discuss the evaluation criteria and the financing of our remote. Then we're going to evaluate the product and I think the whole production process, and then we're gonna close it up, and we have forty minutes, so let's get started. Oh, no, let's have the prototype presentation. Industrial Designer: Mm'kay, User Interface: {gap} Industrial Designer: you ready? User Interface: Um sure. You or me? Industrial Designer: Y you read that stuff, since you wrote it. User Interface: Okay. Well, since our materials aren't exactly what we were going for, I'm just gonna translate what this all means for you. Industrial Designer: I'll be the Vanna. User Interface: {vocalsound} The base is gonna be gunmetal gray, which is what we had decided, and it's gonna be plastic. Um then there's the latex cover, which is what you see as red. Um because it can be replaceable, we just kinda went with the colour. Project Manager: Right. User Interface: Um and then the buttons are actually kind of poking through rather than on top. Um and the buttons will be a l much lighter blue, almost see-through. Project Manager: Hmm. User Interface: It's just sort of a very pale blue and a light-up yellow. Marketing: That's nice. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: The whole thing lights up if you press any button, rather than it {disfmarker} just that one button will light up. Marketing: Good. User Interface: Um and then at the bottom we have our logo. Um bright yellow sort of design with the R_R_ {vocalsound} which will actually look like our logo. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Great. User Interface: And then on the side you have the buttons. {vocalsound} They're one button, but they kind of push up and down. Project Manager: Okay. User Interface: I don't think they're scrolling. Industrial Designer: No. They're just buttons. User Interface: {vocalsound} Right, yeah. And then {disfmarker} yeah, the buttons. Industrial Designer: On off switch will be here and as you've noticed on our prototype um they've ended up with a curvature kind of, by concave sort of thing, except for, you know, {gap} can't see underneath. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: So I'm hoping that when we get to production we can actually make them like that, because they're very nice to stock {gap} you know, stick your finger in. Um the two squared buttons are are two probably least used, menu, mute, User Interface: Thumb-shaped. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and then these are the numbers, so our channel and our volume will be on either side. User Interface: Yeah. And then the last thing is just that it'll be black labelling on top, just which we didn't do. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. And did you determine um the curvature of the bottom part of it for the hand, is it gonna be a single or a double? User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I'd say a single. Project Manager: Single. Single sounds good, User Interface: Single. Project Manager:'cause it's not big enough to really constitute a double. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah, it's only actually the size of my hand. User Interface: Right. Project Manager: Great. Great. I think you did an awesome job. Marketing: Yeah, I think it's a beautiful {disfmarker} Project Manager: It is beautiful, and it's everything that we discussed. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Good job, you guys. Project Manager: Good job. Industrial Designer: Whoohoo. User Interface: Oh thank you. {vocalsound} Marketing: Those are really good. Project Manager: Alright {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {gap} Project Manager: what's next in our agenda? Um we're gonna discuss the evaluation criteria, and that's with Courtney. Marketing: Okay, it's a PowerPoint presentation. I don't really know exactly what we should uh talk about. It's under evaluation. Project Manager: Right. Marketing: Alright. Um so these are the criteria we're gonna ask, is it easy to use, is it fashionable uh {disfmarker} yeah, I guess we should write these down so we can reference them. Project Manager: Mm. User Interface: Feel good meaning what? Marketing: Like does it feel good, like {disfmarker} User Interface: Physically, Project Manager: Right. User Interface: okay. Marketing: yeah, physically. User Interface: {gap} Project Manager: Sqi {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} That's just for current trend. Project Manager: Right. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: It doesn't really count, you guys. Industrial Designer: Yeah, it was a little difficult to incorporate the cover with the cherry fruit on it. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. But it's {disfmarker} so we do have removable covers, right? Project Manager: Right. Industrial Designer: Yes. User Interface: {gap} Marketing: Yeah, well then that's covered. Project Manager:'Kay. Marketing: And so we n k everybody have that? Project Manager: I'll wait. Marketing: Yeah, she's got it. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: It's good. Yeah. Okay so, we're using the criteria uh for a seven point scale, and so we need to discuss how we feel. It falls within this range, so for easy to use, do we feel it's very easy to use? Project Manager: Are we going to indi User Interface: True or false, easy to use. Project Manager: I say we individually rate {disfmarker} what do you say? Marketing: You guys {disfmarker} Project Manager: Just orally. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. Project Manager: Why not? We have {disfmarker} okay. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: Um easy to use. I vote six. Marketing: Oh wait, that's false. Project Manager: Oh, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: two. Marketing: Okay. Industrial Designer: I'd say two as well. User Interface: Yeah, two. Marketing: Two. That's what I say. Project Manager: Uh hello, we're great. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Okay, fashionable? Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um one. Industrial Designer: At the moment, no. Project Manager: No. Marketing: No. I mean like no, I think it's very fashionable. Project Manager: Me too, very chic. {vocalsound} Marketing: I thi I would give it a one. Project Manager: One, I give it a one. Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I'll give it a two, because at the moment it's not looking that way. Project Manager: Oh, and ma it's a prototype, Marketing: Well, that's that's just like {disfmarker} that's a clay, it's a prototype. Project Manager: right. User Interface: Mm I don't think it's that fashionable. Marketing: What do you think? User Interface: I'd give it like three or four. Project Manager: Well, now I'm {gap}. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: So, the average is about a two. User Interface: {vocalsound} But then I'm not fashionable, so Marketing: Yeah, it's a two. Project Manager: Two or three. Two point five. User Interface: don't use my opinion. Marketing: That's okay. Yeah. Industrial Designer: Neither are all o all the customers we have, either. Marketing: {vocalsound} Um User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: does it feel good? Project Manager: Imagine, since we obviously don't have that. User Interface: Does it feel good? Marketing: I feel like {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Uh the shape of it actually does uh. Project Manager: And it's i it is very ergonomically designed. It's gonna be curved. User Interface: Yeah, it's gonna be thicker. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: Depth. Marketing: I think it feels good. Project Manager: I think so too. Marketing: I'll give it a two. Project Manager:'Kay. Two. User Interface: {vocalsound} I'll give it a one. Marketing: What do you say? Industrial Designer: I'd say a two. Project Manager: Alright, average is two. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: Is it technologically innovative? Oh sorry I'm taking over your job here. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh no, it's fine, Project Manager: Go right ahead. {vocalsound} Marketing: you're {disfmarker} I mean you're Project Manager. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Um yeah, I mean and it {disfmarker} does it have voice {disfmarker} I mean the phrase recognition on it? Project Manager: Yes. Right? We were able to do it with that kind of chip. User Interface: Oh right, the {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: We could do it with the chip, yes. It wasn't {disfmarker} we have no reflection of it on the prototype, Marketing: And there's no way you can represent it on here. Y Project Manager: Yeah, right. Industrial Designer: but that's because it's only two dimensions, really. Project Manager: That was {disfmarker}'kay. And we discussed that being included. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, so. User Interface: Right. Marketing: Then yes, then I would {disfmarker} well it isn't {disfmarker} what else would it need for it to be technologically innovative? Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} Project Manager: Well we don'have the {disfmarker} you know, we can't say channel, and it changes the channel, channel eight. Marketing: And it doesn't cover anything other then T_V_, Project Manager: Right. Marketing: so I'd probably give it a three. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Even though it is {disfmarker} for just a T_V_ remote it's uh very advanced. But it is just a T_V_ remote. Project Manager: Yeah. I'd go for a three or four on that one, so {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah I go four. Project Manager: okay, let's go for a three point five. User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Three and an half. Project Manager: Alright, and the last criteria {disfmarker} is it is it um {disfmarker} User Interface: Squishy and fruity. Marketing: {vocalsound} Well yeah, so I'd give it a two. Project Manager: Well, we've covered that with the User Interface: It's just trendy, basically. Project Manager: trendy. Sure. Capable. Very capable. Industrial Designer: It's capable of being squishy and fruity. Marketing: Oh, it's very capable of being squishy and fruity. User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Project Manager: And {vocalsound} it's very important.'Kay, there we go. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: So. Marketing: Okay, next. Project Manager: Next. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} So um our re model slightly resembling a giant delicious cookie appears to be a winner, Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: and uh hopefully we'll sell millions. Good job, team. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} How did you get that in there? User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} What? Industrial Designer: The {vocalsound} slightly resembling a giant delicious cookie. Project Manager: {vocalsound} It does. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: It {vocalsound} it does. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That was good. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Very good. Marketing: Thanks. Project Manager: Alright, let's go back to this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No, that's it. Hmm. Oops. Okay, so now uh we're moving on to finance, okay. I'm gonna show you an Excel spreadsheet and we're going to fill it in together based on what components we're including in our remote and see if it's under twelve fifty Euro. If so, we can proceed, if not, we need to go back to the drawing board a little bit.'Kay? So let me bring that up. Here we go. Alright. Um it's not hand dynamo, it's powered by battery, so we give it a {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yep. Marketing: Two. Project Manager: Number of components you plan to use. Do I just put quantity being one battery, or {disfmarker} Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Mm'kay. Project Manager: But if it's a {disfmarker} do you wanna go for {disfmarker} this is where we need to make a final call on if it's a lithium or do we wanna go triple A_s,'cause triple A_s we're gonna have t do more than one battery. Oh, let's just go for a lithium. What do you say? Industrial Designer: Yeah, User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah, let's let's do a lithium. Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think uh I think the people who purchase this are gonna be technologically Industrial Designer: it's {gap}. Marketing: We're gon that's gon Nologically advanced, Project Manager: {disfmarker} right. Marketing: yeah. Project Manager: Okay, down to the electronics um section. We're gonna need this kind, correct, if we do the voice sensor, Industrial Designer: Yep. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: so one of those. It is a single-curved, so one of those. Marketing: Uh {gap}. Project Manager: Oh. What's that? Yeah, that's correct. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager:'Kay, down here, case material. User Interface: It's plastic. Marketing: We {disfmarker} Project Manager: Plastic. Marketing: plastic. User Interface: And special colour. Marketing: And special colour. Project Manager:'Kay. {vocalsound} Down here, interface type. We're gonna have the integrated scroll scroll wheel. User Interface: No, we don't have the scroll. Project Manager: Isn't {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: oh those are just regular buttons. Industrial Designer: Well, that's the push-button too, right there. User Interface: Buttons. Marketing: But it's {disfmarker} Yeah, Project Manager: This? Marketing: but i so i Industrial Designer: Integrated scroll-wheel or push-button. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: We're really having just push-button interface. Project Manager: Okay, so we can just go {disfmarker} um. Marketing: But will we w actually we'll need two, won't we? One for the top and then one for the s one e for each side. Industrial Designer: But it {disfmarker} that just covers the type of button we're having. Because we're not doing a scroll on the side, it's still push-button. User Interface: Oh like the {disfmarker} twenty nine means like you have both scrolls and Industrial Designer: Push-button. Project Manager: Right I think she's {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: But we just have push User Interface: push-buttons. Marketing: Okay. User Interface: But we don't have any scrolls. Project Manager: I think what Courtney's talking about is do we need to put two here? Marketing: Like because there's like one interface right here and then {disfmarker} because it's not gonna be on the same plane when you press the button. Project Manager: Right. Marketing: There's gonna have to be additional signals on the sides. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Okay. Marketing: So is that gonna be an extra one on each side? Project Manager: I don't know, they might put us {disfmarker} well, let's just. User Interface: Two interfaces, is that what w should we s say? Project Manager: Two or would it be three? Industrial Designer: Let's call it th Marketing: Or three, because of one on each side and one on top. User Interface: Okay, fine. Yeah. Marketing: I mean it's fine'cause it comes out the same as twenty nine. Well less than twenty nine even. Project Manager: Okay Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: and we're gonna {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: button supplements {disfmarker} the buttons are no uh okay. Marketing: They're a special colour. Um they're uh they're a special form,'cause they're indented. Project Manager: Are they? Oh, right. User Interface: And then s Marketing: And, they're a special material. User Interface: yeah. Project Manager: Mm. Well, we're under cost then. Alright. User Interface: We're over? Project Manager: No, we're under. Industrial Designer: Grand. Marketing: We're under. Project Manager: Twelve point five is our limit. User Interface: Okay. Project Manager: We've got eleven point two. User Interface: Oh, I see. Project Manager: Alright. Industrial Designer: So we can go to production. Project Manager: We can go to {disfmarker} I dunno what I just did. {vocalsound} Okay. Now we're gonna talk about the project process um and whether or not we're satisfied with the whole process and the result. Um did we have a lot of room for creativity? Did we have a lot of room for individual leadership, um teamwork, and the means, meaning the technology that we used to produce our little guy there, and if we found any new ideas. Now, question is, how do we do this? User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Go back. Marketing: {vocalsound} I think we just discuss it. Project Manager: Discuss, sure. Industrial Designer: Previous. Project Manager: Alright. Who want who would like to go first? Industrial Designer: We think we got stifled for cri {vocalsound} creativity by the company itself, in restricting us only to using a T_V_ remote, initially. User Interface: We didn't have a whiteboard. Project Manager: Hmm. Hmm. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Oh that's true. User Interface: And no internet. Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} No, yeah, that's a good point.'Cause I'd forgotten that that wasn't our decision, yeah. Project Manager: {vocalsound} And how did you feel about the whole the whole process though? Marketing: Oh, overall I mean I thought we did a good job like {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: We got to choose {disfmarker} basically we had control over {disfmarker} minus it being just merely a T_V_ remote we got to choose what we wanted to do with it. Project Manager: Right, and we got say over what {disfmarker} how technologically advanced it should be and also how fashionable, which I kind of like {disfmarker} Marketing: And we're a fashion forward technology company. Project Manager: we {disfmarker} yep. You know it. Industrial Designer: {gap} right. Project Manager: Um what about um the teamwork aspect? How did you guys enjoy making the model, the prototype? Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah. User Interface: I think we did well. Project Manager: I think ya'did. Did you work well together in there, and {disfmarker} User Interface: Yep. {vocalsound} Project Manager:'kay. Industrial Designer: Well, no, there was there was scratching and fighting, but {disfmarker} no {vocalsound}. Marketing: Minus that one fight. User Interface: {vocalsound} Gouges. Project Manager: Oh my God, Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: and we've all been a pretty congenial team here, I think. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: We hadn't had any ma fallings out. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. I mean minus you guys being wha what is it, the survey, annoying or what is it? Project Manager: {vocalsound} Irritating. Industrial Designer: Irritating. {vocalsound} User Interface: Irritating. Marketing: Irritating, yeah. Wow that's a {disfmarker} it's definitely a strong one. Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: The means, the whiteboard didn't work. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. User Interface: And no internet. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: I have to knock that one down a couple notches. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A and our friend here really feels strongly about the internet. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah, and no internet. User Interface: Misses. I do. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: There's so much available. Marketing: And the digital the digital pens User Interface: Like it's information Project Manager: Yeah, digital pens. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I really appreciated those, yeah. Marketing: were {disfmarker} they were pretty cool. Project Manager: They were fine. Marketing: Yeah they were fun, even though I'm not really sure what I could do with them, but they are awesome. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: The use of the laptops for receiving everything. Project Manager: Right, laptops are extremely handy, Industrial Designer: It was wireless too, so. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: wireless. And that we have a shared network where we can put all of the {disfmarker} Marketing: And these things whoa. Industrial Designer: And let's not forget the sexy dual microphones everyone gets to wear. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. And Big Brother. Project Manager: Big brother. Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager:'Kay, have we found any new ideas through this process? Marketing: Um we are really gonna sell this. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Ta-da. Project Manager: For something that looks cool and also has what I want it to b do technologically. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: And that's your right brain taking over, w wanting the artistic, the fashionable, the hip, you know. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: If we all just went out and bought useful things, I don't think {disfmarker} I mean that's not what technology. User Interface: Well, that's why I don't like uh Macs or Apples, just'cause I look at it, and I know it's probably a very good computer, but I look at it, and I'm taken back to elementary school,'cause they look the same. Project Manager: Mm. User Interface: They look like they did when I was in elementary school, Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and that's so old-fashioned to me. Marketing: Yeah,'cause they're pretty and just like {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: The Toronto district school would only use his Macs with their kids. User Interface: Exactly, so I associate them with like really low-tech, really cheap, bad {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. Just the Mac font bothers me even. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Uh yeah. Project Manager: But I do like iPods, go figure. Marketing: Yeah, no, iPods {vocalsound} {disfmarker} They want all those words for presentation, even the plugs. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Well, i iPods are now quite trendy, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and they come in different colours. Project Manager: Colours. Exactly. I mean how many people went out and bough a Nokia phone, back when we were like in high school, just so they could get the changeable face plates. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh yeah, everybody. Project Manager: Okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Anyway, so that is definitely at work. Industrial Designer: Not me. Marketing: {vocalsound} Mine is amber. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I didn't have a phone'til university. User Interface: But the {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} but my one issue is just like the whole it's for T_V_ only. Marketing: Oh. User Interface: I was like who's gonna buy a remote just for the T_V_ unless they've lost theirs. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Look at it. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Fashionable chic people will. User Interface: You're kidding. Marketing: That is a piece of work. User Interface: No, no. Marketing: {vocalsound} Wow. Marketing Director says yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} No, marketing has to actually create the desire for it. {vocalsound} Marketing: Fashionable people will buy it. Oh, I will create desire. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: That's okay. We can create a commercial where they think that all their needs will be met. This will help them find the one. User Interface: Ri {vocalsound} They'll be sexy with it. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Hmm. Industrial Designer: That's right. Marketing: We could have like an Adam and Eve type commercial, and that's the fig-leaf. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: Oh right. Marketing: Mm. {vocalsound} That'll sell. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And so the serpent says, use our remote. {vocalsound} Project Manager: There you go, marketing {gap}. User Interface: Let you loose. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: Yeah, no. Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay, we're gonna wrap this up now. Um the costs are within the budget, we evaluated the project, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: and now we're gonna complete the final questionnaire and meeting summary, and then we're going to have a big giant party, apparently, according to this, so. Alright, thank you team, Industrial Designer: Whoohoo. Margaritas for everyone. {vocalsound} Project Manager: you did a great job, it was lovely working with you. User Interface: {vocalsound} Good. Marketing: You too. Industrial Designer: Yay. Thanks to the Project Leader. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Now we know w

On a 7-point scale from true to false, Project Manager first rated the remote at 1 point for it being undoubtedly fashionable. Yet Industrial Designer immediately objected to this. After Marketing seconded Project Manager's evaluation, Industrial Designer hesitatingly gave it a 2, saying it's not fashionable enough at the moment. When Marketing and Project Manager defended their views by pointing out it's only a prototype they're seeing, Industrial Designer insisted on his objection and rerated it at 3 or 4. This disagreement finally presented the average rating of 2 for the remote on the fashion criterion.

tr-sq-623

tr-sq-623_0

Describe the team's discussion and evaluating process on whether the remote was technologically innovative. Marketing: I wanna find our if our remote works. Project Manager: Me too. {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. Um here's the agenda for our last meeting. Marketing: Whoohoo. Project Manager: Um after the opening we're going to have a prototype presentation, then we're going to discuss the evaluation criteria and the financing of our remote. Then we're going to evaluate the product and I think the whole production process, and then we're gonna close it up, and we have forty minutes, so let's get started. Oh, no, let's have the prototype presentation. Industrial Designer: Mm'kay, User Interface: {gap} Industrial Designer: you ready? User Interface: Um sure. You or me? Industrial Designer: Y you read that stuff, since you wrote it. User Interface: Okay. Well, since our materials aren't exactly what we were going for, I'm just gonna translate what this all means for you. Industrial Designer: I'll be the Vanna. User Interface: {vocalsound} The base is gonna be gunmetal gray, which is what we had decided, and it's gonna be plastic. Um then there's the latex cover, which is what you see as red. Um because it can be replaceable, we just kinda went with the colour. Project Manager: Right. User Interface: Um and then the buttons are actually kind of poking through rather than on top. Um and the buttons will be a l much lighter blue, almost see-through. Project Manager: Hmm. User Interface: It's just sort of a very pale blue and a light-up yellow. Marketing: That's nice. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: The whole thing lights up if you press any button, rather than it {disfmarker} just that one button will light up. Marketing: Good. User Interface: Um and then at the bottom we have our logo. Um bright yellow sort of design with the R_R_ {vocalsound} which will actually look like our logo. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Great. User Interface: And then on the side you have the buttons. {vocalsound} They're one button, but they kind of push up and down. Project Manager: Okay. User Interface: I don't think they're scrolling. Industrial Designer: No. They're just buttons. User Interface: {vocalsound} Right, yeah. And then {disfmarker} yeah, the buttons. Industrial Designer: On off switch will be here and as you've noticed on our prototype um they've ended up with a curvature kind of, by concave sort of thing, except for, you know, {gap} can't see underneath. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: So I'm hoping that when we get to production we can actually make them like that, because they're very nice to stock {gap} you know, stick your finger in. Um the two squared buttons are are two probably least used, menu, mute, User Interface: Thumb-shaped. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and then these are the numbers, so our channel and our volume will be on either side. User Interface: Yeah. And then the last thing is just that it'll be black labelling on top, just which we didn't do. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. And did you determine um the curvature of the bottom part of it for the hand, is it gonna be a single or a double? User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I'd say a single. Project Manager: Single. Single sounds good, User Interface: Single. Project Manager:'cause it's not big enough to really constitute a double. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah, it's only actually the size of my hand. User Interface: Right. Project Manager: Great. Great. I think you did an awesome job. Marketing: Yeah, I think it's a beautiful {disfmarker} Project Manager: It is beautiful, and it's everything that we discussed. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Good job, you guys. Project Manager: Good job. Industrial Designer: Whoohoo. User Interface: Oh thank you. {vocalsound} Marketing: Those are really good. Project Manager: Alright {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {gap} Project Manager: what's next in our agenda? Um we're gonna discuss the evaluation criteria, and that's with Courtney. Marketing: Okay, it's a PowerPoint presentation. I don't really know exactly what we should uh talk about. It's under evaluation. Project Manager: Right. Marketing: Alright. Um so these are the criteria we're gonna ask, is it easy to use, is it fashionable uh {disfmarker} yeah, I guess we should write these down so we can reference them. Project Manager: Mm. User Interface: Feel good meaning what? Marketing: Like does it feel good, like {disfmarker} User Interface: Physically, Project Manager: Right. User Interface: okay. Marketing: yeah, physically. User Interface: {gap} Project Manager: Sqi {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} That's just for current trend. Project Manager: Right. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: It doesn't really count, you guys. Industrial Designer: Yeah, it was a little difficult to incorporate the cover with the cherry fruit on it. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. But it's {disfmarker} so we do have removable covers, right? Project Manager: Right. Industrial Designer: Yes. User Interface: {gap} Marketing: Yeah, well then that's covered. Project Manager:'Kay. Marketing: And so we n k everybody have that? Project Manager: I'll wait. Marketing: Yeah, she's got it. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: It's good. Yeah. Okay so, we're using the criteria uh for a seven point scale, and so we need to discuss how we feel. It falls within this range, so for easy to use, do we feel it's very easy to use? Project Manager: Are we going to indi User Interface: True or false, easy to use. Project Manager: I say we individually rate {disfmarker} what do you say? Marketing: You guys {disfmarker} Project Manager: Just orally. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. Project Manager: Why not? We have {disfmarker} okay. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: Um easy to use. I vote six. Marketing: Oh wait, that's false. Project Manager: Oh, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: two. Marketing: Okay. Industrial Designer: I'd say two as well. User Interface: Yeah, two. Marketing: Two. That's what I say. Project Manager: Uh hello, we're great. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Okay, fashionable? Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um one. Industrial Designer: At the moment, no. Project Manager: No. Marketing: No. I mean like no, I think it's very fashionable. Project Manager: Me too, very chic. {vocalsound} Marketing: I thi I would give it a one. Project Manager: One, I give it a one. Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I'll give it a two, because at the moment it's not looking that way. Project Manager: Oh, and ma it's a prototype, Marketing: Well, that's that's just like {disfmarker} that's a clay, it's a prototype. Project Manager: right. User Interface: Mm I don't think it's that fashionable. Marketing: What do you think? User Interface: I'd give it like three or four. Project Manager: Well, now I'm {gap}. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: So, the average is about a two. User Interface: {vocalsound} But then I'm not fashionable, so Marketing: Yeah, it's a two. Project Manager: Two or three. Two point five. User Interface: don't use my opinion. Marketing: That's okay. Yeah. Industrial Designer: Neither are all o all the customers we have, either. Marketing: {vocalsound} Um User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: does it feel good? Project Manager: Imagine, since we obviously don't have that. User Interface: Does it feel good? Marketing: I feel like {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Uh the shape of it actually does uh. Project Manager: And it's i it is very ergonomically designed. It's gonna be curved. User Interface: Yeah, it's gonna be thicker. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: Depth. Marketing: I think it feels good. Project Manager: I think so too. Marketing: I'll give it a two. Project Manager:'Kay. Two. User Interface: {vocalsound} I'll give it a one. Marketing: What do you say? Industrial Designer: I'd say a two. Project Manager: Alright, average is two. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: Is it technologically innovative? Oh sorry I'm taking over your job here. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh no, it's fine, Project Manager: Go right ahead. {vocalsound} Marketing: you're {disfmarker} I mean you're Project Manager. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Um yeah, I mean and it {disfmarker} does it have voice {disfmarker} I mean the phrase recognition on it? Project Manager: Yes. Right? We were able to do it with that kind of chip. User Interface: Oh right, the {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: We could do it with the chip, yes. It wasn't {disfmarker} we have no reflection of it on the prototype, Marketing: And there's no way you can represent it on here. Y Project Manager: Yeah, right. Industrial Designer: but that's because it's only two dimensions, really. Project Manager: That was {disfmarker}'kay. And we discussed that being included. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, so. User Interface: Right. Marketing: Then yes, then I would {disfmarker} well it isn't {disfmarker} what else would it need for it to be technologically innovative? Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} Project Manager: Well we don'have the {disfmarker} you know, we can't say channel, and it changes the channel, channel eight. Marketing: And it doesn't cover anything other then T_V_, Project Manager: Right. Marketing: so I'd probably give it a three. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Even though it is {disfmarker} for just a T_V_ remote it's uh very advanced. But it is just a T_V_ remote. Project Manager: Yeah. I'd go for a three or four on that one, so {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah I go four. Project Manager: okay, let's go for a three point five. User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Three and an half. Project Manager: Alright, and the last criteria {disfmarker} is it is it um {disfmarker} User Interface: Squishy and fruity. Marketing: {vocalsound} Well yeah, so I'd give it a two. Project Manager: Well, we've covered that with the User Interface: It's just trendy, basically. Project Manager: trendy. Sure. Capable. Very capable. Industrial Designer: It's capable of being squishy and fruity. Marketing: Oh, it's very capable of being squishy and fruity. User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Project Manager: And {vocalsound} it's very important.'Kay, there we go. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: So. Marketing: Okay, next. Project Manager: Next. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} So um our re model slightly resembling a giant delicious cookie appears to be a winner, Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: and uh hopefully we'll sell millions. Good job, team. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} How did you get that in there? User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} What? Industrial Designer: The {vocalsound} slightly resembling a giant delicious cookie. Project Manager: {vocalsound} It does. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: It {vocalsound} it does. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That was good. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Very good. Marketing: Thanks. Project Manager: Alright, let's go back to this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No, that's it. Hmm. Oops. Okay, so now uh we're moving on to finance, okay. I'm gonna show you an Excel spreadsheet and we're going to fill it in together based on what components we're including in our remote and see if it's under twelve fifty Euro. If so, we can proceed, if not, we need to go back to the drawing board a little bit.'Kay? So let me bring that up. Here we go. Alright. Um it's not hand dynamo, it's powered by battery, so we give it a {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yep. Marketing: Two. Project Manager: Number of components you plan to use. Do I just put quantity being one battery, or {disfmarker} Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Mm'kay. Project Manager: But if it's a {disfmarker} do you wanna go for {disfmarker} this is where we need to make a final call on if it's a lithium or do we wanna go triple A_s,'cause triple A_s we're gonna have t do more than one battery. Oh, let's just go for a lithium. What do you say? Industrial Designer: Yeah, User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah, let's let's do a lithium. Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think uh I think the people who purchase this are gonna be technologically Industrial Designer: it's {gap}. Marketing: We're gon that's gon Nologically advanced, Project Manager: {disfmarker} right. Marketing: yeah. Project Manager: Okay, down to the electronics um section. We're gonna need this kind, correct, if we do the voice sensor, Industrial Designer: Yep. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: so one of those. It is a single-curved, so one of those. Marketing: Uh {gap}. Project Manager: Oh. What's that? Yeah, that's correct. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager:'Kay, down here, case material. User Interface: It's plastic. Marketing: We {disfmarker} Project Manager: Plastic. Marketing: plastic. User Interface: And special colour. Marketing: And special colour. Project Manager:'Kay. {vocalsound} Down here, interface type. We're gonna have the integrated scroll scroll wheel. User Interface: No, we don't have the scroll. Project Manager: Isn't {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: oh those are just regular buttons. Industrial Designer: Well, that's the push-button too, right there. User Interface: Buttons. Marketing: But it's {disfmarker} Yeah, Project Manager: This? Marketing: but i so i Industrial Designer: Integrated scroll-wheel or push-button. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: We're really having just push-button interface. Project Manager: Okay, so we can just go {disfmarker} um. Marketing: But will we w actually we'll need two, won't we? One for the top and then one for the s one e for each side. Industrial Designer: But it {disfmarker} that just covers the type of button we're having. Because we're not doing a scroll on the side, it's still push-button. User Interface: Oh like the {disfmarker} twenty nine means like you have both scrolls and Industrial Designer: Push-button. Project Manager: Right I think she's {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: But we just have push User Interface: push-buttons. Marketing: Okay. User Interface: But we don't have any scrolls. Project Manager: I think what Courtney's talking about is do we need to put two here? Marketing: Like because there's like one interface right here and then {disfmarker} because it's not gonna be on the same plane when you press the button. Project Manager: Right. Marketing: There's gonna have to be additional signals on the sides. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Okay. Marketing: So is that gonna be an extra one on each side? Project Manager: I don't know, they might put us {disfmarker} well, let's just. User Interface: Two interfaces, is that what w should we s say? Project Manager: Two or would it be three? Industrial Designer: Let's call it th Marketing: Or three, because of one on each side and one on top. User Interface: Okay, fine. Yeah. Marketing: I mean it's fine'cause it comes out the same as twenty nine. Well less than twenty nine even. Project Manager: Okay Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: and we're gonna {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: button supplements {disfmarker} the buttons are no uh okay. Marketing: They're a special colour. Um they're uh they're a special form,'cause they're indented. Project Manager: Are they? Oh, right. User Interface: And then s Marketing: And, they're a special material. User Interface: yeah. Project Manager: Mm. Well, we're under cost then. Alright. User Interface: We're over? Project Manager: No, we're under. Industrial Designer: Grand. Marketing: We're under. Project Manager: Twelve point five is our limit. User Interface: Okay. Project Manager: We've got eleven point two. User Interface: Oh, I see. Project Manager: Alright. Industrial Designer: So we can go to production. Project Manager: We can go to {disfmarker} I dunno what I just did. {vocalsound} Okay. Now we're gonna talk about the project process um and whether or not we're satisfied with the whole process and the result. Um did we have a lot of room for creativity? Did we have a lot of room for individual leadership, um teamwork, and the means, meaning the technology that we used to produce our little guy there, and if we found any new ideas. Now, question is, how do we do this? User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Go back. Marketing: {vocalsound} I think we just discuss it. Project Manager: Discuss, sure. Industrial Designer: Previous. Project Manager: Alright. Who want who would like to go first? Industrial Designer: We think we got stifled for cri {vocalsound} creativity by the company itself, in restricting us only to using a T_V_ remote, initially. User Interface: We didn't have a whiteboard. Project Manager: Hmm. Hmm. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Oh that's true. User Interface: And no internet. Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} No, yeah, that's a good point.'Cause I'd forgotten that that wasn't our decision, yeah. Project Manager: {vocalsound} And how did you feel about the whole the whole process though? Marketing: Oh, overall I mean I thought we did a good job like {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: We got to choose {disfmarker} basically we had control over {disfmarker} minus it being just merely a T_V_ remote we got to choose what we wanted to do with it. Project Manager: Right, and we got say over what {disfmarker} how technologically advanced it should be and also how fashionable, which I kind of like {disfmarker} Marketing: And we're a fashion forward technology company. Project Manager: we {disfmarker} yep. You know it. Industrial Designer: {gap} right. Project Manager: Um what about um the teamwork aspect? How did you guys enjoy making the model, the prototype? Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah. User Interface: I think we did well. Project Manager: I think ya'did. Did you work well together in there, and {disfmarker} User Interface: Yep. {vocalsound} Project Manager:'kay. Industrial Designer: Well, no, there was there was scratching and fighting, but {disfmarker} no {vocalsound}. Marketing: Minus that one fight. User Interface: {vocalsound} Gouges. Project Manager: Oh my God, Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: and we've all been a pretty congenial team here, I think. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: We hadn't had any ma fallings out. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. I mean minus you guys being wha what is it, the survey, annoying or what is it? Project Manager: {vocalsound} Irritating. Industrial Designer: Irritating. {vocalsound} User Interface: Irritating. Marketing: Irritating, yeah. Wow that's a {disfmarker} it's definitely a strong one. Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: The means, the whiteboard didn't work. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. User Interface: And no internet. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: I have to knock that one down a couple notches. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A and our friend here really feels strongly about the internet. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah, and no internet. User Interface: Misses. I do. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: There's so much available. Marketing: And the digital the digital pens User Interface: Like it's information Project Manager: Yeah, digital pens. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I really appreciated those, yeah. Marketing: were {disfmarker} they were pretty cool. Project Manager: They were fine. Marketing: Yeah they were fun, even though I'm not really sure what I could do with them, but they are awesome. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: The use of the laptops for receiving everything. Project Manager: Right, laptops are extremely handy, Industrial Designer: It was wireless too, so. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: wireless. And that we have a shared network where we can put all of the {disfmarker} Marketing: And these things whoa. Industrial Designer: And let's not forget the sexy dual microphones everyone gets to wear. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. And Big Brother. Project Manager: Big brother. Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager:'Kay, have we found any new ideas through this process? Marketing: Um we are really gonna sell this. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Ta-da. Project Manager: For something that looks cool and also has what I want it to b do technologically. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: And that's your right brain taking over, w wanting the artistic, the fashionable, the hip, you know. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: If we all just went out and bought useful things, I don't think {disfmarker} I mean that's not what technology. User Interface: Well, that's why I don't like uh Macs or Apples, just'cause I look at it, and I know it's probably a very good computer, but I look at it, and I'm taken back to elementary school,'cause they look the same. Project Manager: Mm. User Interface: They look like they did when I was in elementary school, Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and that's so old-fashioned to me. Marketing: Yeah,'cause they're pretty and just like {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: The Toronto district school would only use his Macs with their kids. User Interface: Exactly, so I associate them with like really low-tech, really cheap, bad {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. Just the Mac font bothers me even. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Uh yeah. Project Manager: But I do like iPods, go figure. Marketing: Yeah, no, iPods {vocalsound} {disfmarker} They want all those words for presentation, even the plugs. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Well, i iPods are now quite trendy, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and they come in different colours. Project Manager: Colours. Exactly. I mean how many people went out and bough a Nokia phone, back when we were like in high school, just so they could get the changeable face plates. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh yeah, everybody. Project Manager: Okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Anyway, so that is definitely at work. Industrial Designer: Not me. Marketing: {vocalsound} Mine is amber. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I didn't have a phone'til university. User Interface: But the {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} but my one issue is just like the whole it's for T_V_ only. Marketing: Oh. User Interface: I was like who's gonna buy a remote just for the T_V_ unless they've lost theirs. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Look at it. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Fashionable chic people will. User Interface: You're kidding. Marketing: That is a piece of work. User Interface: No, no. Marketing: {vocalsound} Wow. Marketing Director says yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} No, marketing has to actually create the desire for it. {vocalsound} Marketing: Fashionable people will buy it. Oh, I will create desire. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: That's okay. We can create a commercial where they think that all their needs will be met. This will help them find the one. User Interface: Ri {vocalsound} They'll be sexy with it. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Hmm. Industrial Designer: That's right. Marketing: We could have like an Adam and Eve type commercial, and that's the fig-leaf. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: Oh right. Marketing: Mm. {vocalsound} That'll sell. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And so the serpent says, use our remote. {vocalsound} Project Manager: There you go, marketing {gap}. User Interface: Let you loose. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: Yeah, no. Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay, we're gonna wrap this up now. Um the costs are within the budget, we evaluated the project, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: and now we're gonna complete the final questionnaire and meeting summary, and then we're going to have a big giant party, apparently, according to this, so. Alright, thank you team, Industrial Designer: Whoohoo. Margaritas for everyone. {vocalsound} Project Manager: you did a great job, it was lovely working with you. User Interface: {vocalsound} Good. Marketing: You too. Industrial Designer: Yay. Thanks to the Project Leader. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Now we know w

Marketing first wanted to check whether the remote was going to have the phrase recognition function. This function was not reflected on the model they were seeing, but User Interface and Industrial Designer confirmed that it could be realized with a special chip. Marketing thus decided that the remote was technologically innovative enough. Since the remote was only designed for TVs, it was rated 3 by Marketing, 3 or 4 by Project Manager, and 4 by User Interface. With an average of 3. 5, they agreed that the remote had reasonable technological innovation and was sufficient for their project.

tr-sq-624

tr-sq-624_0

Summarize the team's discussion and evaluation of the whole production process. Marketing: I wanna find our if our remote works. Project Manager: Me too. {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. Um here's the agenda for our last meeting. Marketing: Whoohoo. Project Manager: Um after the opening we're going to have a prototype presentation, then we're going to discuss the evaluation criteria and the financing of our remote. Then we're going to evaluate the product and I think the whole production process, and then we're gonna close it up, and we have forty minutes, so let's get started. Oh, no, let's have the prototype presentation. Industrial Designer: Mm'kay, User Interface: {gap} Industrial Designer: you ready? User Interface: Um sure. You or me? Industrial Designer: Y you read that stuff, since you wrote it. User Interface: Okay. Well, since our materials aren't exactly what we were going for, I'm just gonna translate what this all means for you. Industrial Designer: I'll be the Vanna. User Interface: {vocalsound} The base is gonna be gunmetal gray, which is what we had decided, and it's gonna be plastic. Um then there's the latex cover, which is what you see as red. Um because it can be replaceable, we just kinda went with the colour. Project Manager: Right. User Interface: Um and then the buttons are actually kind of poking through rather than on top. Um and the buttons will be a l much lighter blue, almost see-through. Project Manager: Hmm. User Interface: It's just sort of a very pale blue and a light-up yellow. Marketing: That's nice. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: The whole thing lights up if you press any button, rather than it {disfmarker} just that one button will light up. Marketing: Good. User Interface: Um and then at the bottom we have our logo. Um bright yellow sort of design with the R_R_ {vocalsound} which will actually look like our logo. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Great. User Interface: And then on the side you have the buttons. {vocalsound} They're one button, but they kind of push up and down. Project Manager: Okay. User Interface: I don't think they're scrolling. Industrial Designer: No. They're just buttons. User Interface: {vocalsound} Right, yeah. And then {disfmarker} yeah, the buttons. Industrial Designer: On off switch will be here and as you've noticed on our prototype um they've ended up with a curvature kind of, by concave sort of thing, except for, you know, {gap} can't see underneath. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: So I'm hoping that when we get to production we can actually make them like that, because they're very nice to stock {gap} you know, stick your finger in. Um the two squared buttons are are two probably least used, menu, mute, User Interface: Thumb-shaped. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and then these are the numbers, so our channel and our volume will be on either side. User Interface: Yeah. And then the last thing is just that it'll be black labelling on top, just which we didn't do. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. And did you determine um the curvature of the bottom part of it for the hand, is it gonna be a single or a double? User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I'd say a single. Project Manager: Single. Single sounds good, User Interface: Single. Project Manager:'cause it's not big enough to really constitute a double. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah, it's only actually the size of my hand. User Interface: Right. Project Manager: Great. Great. I think you did an awesome job. Marketing: Yeah, I think it's a beautiful {disfmarker} Project Manager: It is beautiful, and it's everything that we discussed. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Good job, you guys. Project Manager: Good job. Industrial Designer: Whoohoo. User Interface: Oh thank you. {vocalsound} Marketing: Those are really good. Project Manager: Alright {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {gap} Project Manager: what's next in our agenda? Um we're gonna discuss the evaluation criteria, and that's with Courtney. Marketing: Okay, it's a PowerPoint presentation. I don't really know exactly what we should uh talk about. It's under evaluation. Project Manager: Right. Marketing: Alright. Um so these are the criteria we're gonna ask, is it easy to use, is it fashionable uh {disfmarker} yeah, I guess we should write these down so we can reference them. Project Manager: Mm. User Interface: Feel good meaning what? Marketing: Like does it feel good, like {disfmarker} User Interface: Physically, Project Manager: Right. User Interface: okay. Marketing: yeah, physically. User Interface: {gap} Project Manager: Sqi {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} That's just for current trend. Project Manager: Right. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: It doesn't really count, you guys. Industrial Designer: Yeah, it was a little difficult to incorporate the cover with the cherry fruit on it. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. But it's {disfmarker} so we do have removable covers, right? Project Manager: Right. Industrial Designer: Yes. User Interface: {gap} Marketing: Yeah, well then that's covered. Project Manager:'Kay. Marketing: And so we n k everybody have that? Project Manager: I'll wait. Marketing: Yeah, she's got it. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: It's good. Yeah. Okay so, we're using the criteria uh for a seven point scale, and so we need to discuss how we feel. It falls within this range, so for easy to use, do we feel it's very easy to use? Project Manager: Are we going to indi User Interface: True or false, easy to use. Project Manager: I say we individually rate {disfmarker} what do you say? Marketing: You guys {disfmarker} Project Manager: Just orally. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. Project Manager: Why not? We have {disfmarker} okay. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: Um easy to use. I vote six. Marketing: Oh wait, that's false. Project Manager: Oh, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: two. Marketing: Okay. Industrial Designer: I'd say two as well. User Interface: Yeah, two. Marketing: Two. That's what I say. Project Manager: Uh hello, we're great. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Okay, fashionable? Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um one. Industrial Designer: At the moment, no. Project Manager: No. Marketing: No. I mean like no, I think it's very fashionable. Project Manager: Me too, very chic. {vocalsound} Marketing: I thi I would give it a one. Project Manager: One, I give it a one. Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I'll give it a two, because at the moment it's not looking that way. Project Manager: Oh, and ma it's a prototype, Marketing: Well, that's that's just like {disfmarker} that's a clay, it's a prototype. Project Manager: right. User Interface: Mm I don't think it's that fashionable. Marketing: What do you think? User Interface: I'd give it like three or four. Project Manager: Well, now I'm {gap}. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: So, the average is about a two. User Interface: {vocalsound} But then I'm not fashionable, so Marketing: Yeah, it's a two. Project Manager: Two or three. Two point five. User Interface: don't use my opinion. Marketing: That's okay. Yeah. Industrial Designer: Neither are all o all the customers we have, either. Marketing: {vocalsound} Um User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: does it feel good? Project Manager: Imagine, since we obviously don't have that. User Interface: Does it feel good? Marketing: I feel like {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Uh the shape of it actually does uh. Project Manager: And it's i it is very ergonomically designed. It's gonna be curved. User Interface: Yeah, it's gonna be thicker. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: Depth. Marketing: I think it feels good. Project Manager: I think so too. Marketing: I'll give it a two. Project Manager:'Kay. Two. User Interface: {vocalsound} I'll give it a one. Marketing: What do you say? Industrial Designer: I'd say a two. Project Manager: Alright, average is two. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: Is it technologically innovative? Oh sorry I'm taking over your job here. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh no, it's fine, Project Manager: Go right ahead. {vocalsound} Marketing: you're {disfmarker} I mean you're Project Manager. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Um yeah, I mean and it {disfmarker} does it have voice {disfmarker} I mean the phrase recognition on it? Project Manager: Yes. Right? We were able to do it with that kind of chip. User Interface: Oh right, the {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: We could do it with the chip, yes. It wasn't {disfmarker} we have no reflection of it on the prototype, Marketing: And there's no way you can represent it on here. Y Project Manager: Yeah, right. Industrial Designer: but that's because it's only two dimensions, really. Project Manager: That was {disfmarker}'kay. And we discussed that being included. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, so. User Interface: Right. Marketing: Then yes, then I would {disfmarker} well it isn't {disfmarker} what else would it need for it to be technologically innovative? Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} Project Manager: Well we don'have the {disfmarker} you know, we can't say channel, and it changes the channel, channel eight. Marketing: And it doesn't cover anything other then T_V_, Project Manager: Right. Marketing: so I'd probably give it a three. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Even though it is {disfmarker} for just a T_V_ remote it's uh very advanced. But it is just a T_V_ remote. Project Manager: Yeah. I'd go for a three or four on that one, so {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah I go four. Project Manager: okay, let's go for a three point five. User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Three and an half. Project Manager: Alright, and the last criteria {disfmarker} is it is it um {disfmarker} User Interface: Squishy and fruity. Marketing: {vocalsound} Well yeah, so I'd give it a two. Project Manager: Well, we've covered that with the User Interface: It's just trendy, basically. Project Manager: trendy. Sure. Capable. Very capable. Industrial Designer: It's capable of being squishy and fruity. Marketing: Oh, it's very capable of being squishy and fruity. User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Project Manager: And {vocalsound} it's very important.'Kay, there we go. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: So. Marketing: Okay, next. Project Manager: Next. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} So um our re model slightly resembling a giant delicious cookie appears to be a winner, Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: and uh hopefully we'll sell millions. Good job, team. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} How did you get that in there? User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} What? Industrial Designer: The {vocalsound} slightly resembling a giant delicious cookie. Project Manager: {vocalsound} It does. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: It {vocalsound} it does. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That was good. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Very good. Marketing: Thanks. Project Manager: Alright, let's go back to this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No, that's it. Hmm. Oops. Okay, so now uh we're moving on to finance, okay. I'm gonna show you an Excel spreadsheet and we're going to fill it in together based on what components we're including in our remote and see if it's under twelve fifty Euro. If so, we can proceed, if not, we need to go back to the drawing board a little bit.'Kay? So let me bring that up. Here we go. Alright. Um it's not hand dynamo, it's powered by battery, so we give it a {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yep. Marketing: Two. Project Manager: Number of components you plan to use. Do I just put quantity being one battery, or {disfmarker} Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Mm'kay. Project Manager: But if it's a {disfmarker} do you wanna go for {disfmarker} this is where we need to make a final call on if it's a lithium or do we wanna go triple A_s,'cause triple A_s we're gonna have t do more than one battery. Oh, let's just go for a lithium. What do you say? Industrial Designer: Yeah, User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah, let's let's do a lithium. Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think uh I think the people who purchase this are gonna be technologically Industrial Designer: it's {gap}. Marketing: We're gon that's gon Nologically advanced, Project Manager: {disfmarker} right. Marketing: yeah. Project Manager: Okay, down to the electronics um section. We're gonna need this kind, correct, if we do the voice sensor, Industrial Designer: Yep. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: so one of those. It is a single-curved, so one of those. Marketing: Uh {gap}. Project Manager: Oh. What's that? Yeah, that's correct. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager:'Kay, down here, case material. User Interface: It's plastic. Marketing: We {disfmarker} Project Manager: Plastic. Marketing: plastic. User Interface: And special colour. Marketing: And special colour. Project Manager:'Kay. {vocalsound} Down here, interface type. We're gonna have the integrated scroll scroll wheel. User Interface: No, we don't have the scroll. Project Manager: Isn't {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: oh those are just regular buttons. Industrial Designer: Well, that's the push-button too, right there. User Interface: Buttons. Marketing: But it's {disfmarker} Yeah, Project Manager: This? Marketing: but i so i Industrial Designer: Integrated scroll-wheel or push-button. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: We're really having just push-button interface. Project Manager: Okay, so we can just go {disfmarker} um. Marketing: But will we w actually we'll need two, won't we? One for the top and then one for the s one e for each side. Industrial Designer: But it {disfmarker} that just covers the type of button we're having. Because we're not doing a scroll on the side, it's still push-button. User Interface: Oh like the {disfmarker} twenty nine means like you have both scrolls and Industrial Designer: Push-button. Project Manager: Right I think she's {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: But we just have push User Interface: push-buttons. Marketing: Okay. User Interface: But we don't have any scrolls. Project Manager: I think what Courtney's talking about is do we need to put two here? Marketing: Like because there's like one interface right here and then {disfmarker} because it's not gonna be on the same plane when you press the button. Project Manager: Right. Marketing: There's gonna have to be additional signals on the sides. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Okay. Marketing: So is that gonna be an extra one on each side? Project Manager: I don't know, they might put us {disfmarker} well, let's just. User Interface: Two interfaces, is that what w should we s say? Project Manager: Two or would it be three? Industrial Designer: Let's call it th Marketing: Or three, because of one on each side and one on top. User Interface: Okay, fine. Yeah. Marketing: I mean it's fine'cause it comes out the same as twenty nine. Well less than twenty nine even. Project Manager: Okay Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: and we're gonna {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: button supplements {disfmarker} the buttons are no uh okay. Marketing: They're a special colour. Um they're uh they're a special form,'cause they're indented. Project Manager: Are they? Oh, right. User Interface: And then s Marketing: And, they're a special material. User Interface: yeah. Project Manager: Mm. Well, we're under cost then. Alright. User Interface: We're over? Project Manager: No, we're under. Industrial Designer: Grand. Marketing: We're under. Project Manager: Twelve point five is our limit. User Interface: Okay. Project Manager: We've got eleven point two. User Interface: Oh, I see. Project Manager: Alright. Industrial Designer: So we can go to production. Project Manager: We can go to {disfmarker} I dunno what I just did. {vocalsound} Okay. Now we're gonna talk about the project process um and whether or not we're satisfied with the whole process and the result. Um did we have a lot of room for creativity? Did we have a lot of room for individual leadership, um teamwork, and the means, meaning the technology that we used to produce our little guy there, and if we found any new ideas. Now, question is, how do we do this? User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Go back. Marketing: {vocalsound} I think we just discuss it. Project Manager: Discuss, sure. Industrial Designer: Previous. Project Manager: Alright. Who want who would like to go first? Industrial Designer: We think we got stifled for cri {vocalsound} creativity by the company itself, in restricting us only to using a T_V_ remote, initially. User Interface: We didn't have a whiteboard. Project Manager: Hmm. Hmm. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Oh that's true. User Interface: And no internet. Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} No, yeah, that's a good point.'Cause I'd forgotten that that wasn't our decision, yeah. Project Manager: {vocalsound} And how did you feel about the whole the whole process though? Marketing: Oh, overall I mean I thought we did a good job like {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: We got to choose {disfmarker} basically we had control over {disfmarker} minus it being just merely a T_V_ remote we got to choose what we wanted to do with it. Project Manager: Right, and we got say over what {disfmarker} how technologically advanced it should be and also how fashionable, which I kind of like {disfmarker} Marketing: And we're a fashion forward technology company. Project Manager: we {disfmarker} yep. You know it. Industrial Designer: {gap} right. Project Manager: Um what about um the teamwork aspect? How did you guys enjoy making the model, the prototype? Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah. User Interface: I think we did well. Project Manager: I think ya'did. Did you work well together in there, and {disfmarker} User Interface: Yep. {vocalsound} Project Manager:'kay. Industrial Designer: Well, no, there was there was scratching and fighting, but {disfmarker} no {vocalsound}. Marketing: Minus that one fight. User Interface: {vocalsound} Gouges. Project Manager: Oh my God, Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: and we've all been a pretty congenial team here, I think. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: We hadn't had any ma fallings out. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. I mean minus you guys being wha what is it, the survey, annoying or what is it? Project Manager: {vocalsound} Irritating. Industrial Designer: Irritating. {vocalsound} User Interface: Irritating. Marketing: Irritating, yeah. Wow that's a {disfmarker} it's definitely a strong one. Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: The means, the whiteboard didn't work. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. User Interface: And no internet. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: I have to knock that one down a couple notches. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A and our friend here really feels strongly about the internet. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah, and no internet. User Interface: Misses. I do. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: There's so much available. Marketing: And the digital the digital pens User Interface: Like it's information Project Manager: Yeah, digital pens. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I really appreciated those, yeah. Marketing: were {disfmarker} they were pretty cool. Project Manager: They were fine. Marketing: Yeah they were fun, even though I'm not really sure what I could do with them, but they are awesome. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: The use of the laptops for receiving everything. Project Manager: Right, laptops are extremely handy, Industrial Designer: It was wireless too, so. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: wireless. And that we have a shared network where we can put all of the {disfmarker} Marketing: And these things whoa. Industrial Designer: And let's not forget the sexy dual microphones everyone gets to wear. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. And Big Brother. Project Manager: Big brother. Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager:'Kay, have we found any new ideas through this process? Marketing: Um we are really gonna sell this. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Ta-da. Project Manager: For something that looks cool and also has what I want it to b do technologically. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: And that's your right brain taking over, w wanting the artistic, the fashionable, the hip, you know. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: If we all just went out and bought useful things, I don't think {disfmarker} I mean that's not what technology. User Interface: Well, that's why I don't like uh Macs or Apples, just'cause I look at it, and I know it's probably a very good computer, but I look at it, and I'm taken back to elementary school,'cause they look the same. Project Manager: Mm. User Interface: They look like they did when I was in elementary school, Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and that's so old-fashioned to me. Marketing: Yeah,'cause they're pretty and just like {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: The Toronto district school would only use his Macs with their kids. User Interface: Exactly, so I associate them with like really low-tech, really cheap, bad {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. Just the Mac font bothers me even. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Uh yeah. Project Manager: But I do like iPods, go figure. Marketing: Yeah, no, iPods {vocalsound} {disfmarker} They want all those words for presentation, even the plugs. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Well, i iPods are now quite trendy, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and they come in different colours. Project Manager: Colours. Exactly. I mean how many people went out and bough a Nokia phone, back when we were like in high school, just so they could get the changeable face plates. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh yeah, everybody. Project Manager: Okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Anyway, so that is definitely at work. Industrial Designer: Not me. Marketing: {vocalsound} Mine is amber. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I didn't have a phone'til university. User Interface: But the {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} but my one issue is just like the whole it's for T_V_ only. Marketing: Oh. User Interface: I was like who's gonna buy a remote just for the T_V_ unless they've lost theirs. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Look at it. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Fashionable chic people will. User Interface: You're kidding. Marketing: That is a piece of work. User Interface: No, no. Marketing: {vocalsound} Wow. Marketing Director says yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} No, marketing has to actually create the desire for it. {vocalsound} Marketing: Fashionable people will buy it. Oh, I will create desire. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: That's okay. We can create a commercial where they think that all their needs will be met. This will help them find the one. User Interface: Ri {vocalsound} They'll be sexy with it. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Hmm. Industrial Designer: That's right. Marketing: We could have like an Adam and Eve type commercial, and that's the fig-leaf. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: Oh right. Marketing: Mm. {vocalsound} That'll sell. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And so the serpent says, use our remote. {vocalsound} Project Manager: There you go, marketing {gap}. User Interface: Let you loose. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: Yeah, no. Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay, we're gonna wrap this up now. Um the costs are within the budget, we evaluated the project, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: and now we're gonna complete the final questionnaire and meeting summary, and then we're going to have a big giant party, apparently, according to this, so. Alright, thank you team, Industrial Designer: Whoohoo. Margaritas for everyone. {vocalsound} Project Manager: you did a great job, it was lovely working with you. User Interface: {vocalsound} Good. Marketing: You too. Industrial Designer: Yay. Thanks to the Project Leader. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Now we know w

Industrial Designer first pointed out that they got stifled for creativity by the company restricting their product to only a TV remote. User Interface complained about having no whiteboard or Internet. Marketing thought they did a great job in general, having control over the actual design. Industrial Designer and User Interface were satisfied with their teamwork, while Project Manager also commented on them being a congenial team. Further complaints were made on the survey, yet they appreciated the digital pens, wireless laptops, a shared network, dual microphones and Big Brother. Many new ideas were also found through this process.

tr-sq-625

tr-sq-625_0

What aspects didn't the team like when evaluating the whole production process? Marketing: I wanna find our if our remote works. Project Manager: Me too. {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. Um here's the agenda for our last meeting. Marketing: Whoohoo. Project Manager: Um after the opening we're going to have a prototype presentation, then we're going to discuss the evaluation criteria and the financing of our remote. Then we're going to evaluate the product and I think the whole production process, and then we're gonna close it up, and we have forty minutes, so let's get started. Oh, no, let's have the prototype presentation. Industrial Designer: Mm'kay, User Interface: {gap} Industrial Designer: you ready? User Interface: Um sure. You or me? Industrial Designer: Y you read that stuff, since you wrote it. User Interface: Okay. Well, since our materials aren't exactly what we were going for, I'm just gonna translate what this all means for you. Industrial Designer: I'll be the Vanna. User Interface: {vocalsound} The base is gonna be gunmetal gray, which is what we had decided, and it's gonna be plastic. Um then there's the latex cover, which is what you see as red. Um because it can be replaceable, we just kinda went with the colour. Project Manager: Right. User Interface: Um and then the buttons are actually kind of poking through rather than on top. Um and the buttons will be a l much lighter blue, almost see-through. Project Manager: Hmm. User Interface: It's just sort of a very pale blue and a light-up yellow. Marketing: That's nice. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: The whole thing lights up if you press any button, rather than it {disfmarker} just that one button will light up. Marketing: Good. User Interface: Um and then at the bottom we have our logo. Um bright yellow sort of design with the R_R_ {vocalsound} which will actually look like our logo. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Great. User Interface: And then on the side you have the buttons. {vocalsound} They're one button, but they kind of push up and down. Project Manager: Okay. User Interface: I don't think they're scrolling. Industrial Designer: No. They're just buttons. User Interface: {vocalsound} Right, yeah. And then {disfmarker} yeah, the buttons. Industrial Designer: On off switch will be here and as you've noticed on our prototype um they've ended up with a curvature kind of, by concave sort of thing, except for, you know, {gap} can't see underneath. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: So I'm hoping that when we get to production we can actually make them like that, because they're very nice to stock {gap} you know, stick your finger in. Um the two squared buttons are are two probably least used, menu, mute, User Interface: Thumb-shaped. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and then these are the numbers, so our channel and our volume will be on either side. User Interface: Yeah. And then the last thing is just that it'll be black labelling on top, just which we didn't do. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. And did you determine um the curvature of the bottom part of it for the hand, is it gonna be a single or a double? User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I'd say a single. Project Manager: Single. Single sounds good, User Interface: Single. Project Manager:'cause it's not big enough to really constitute a double. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah, it's only actually the size of my hand. User Interface: Right. Project Manager: Great. Great. I think you did an awesome job. Marketing: Yeah, I think it's a beautiful {disfmarker} Project Manager: It is beautiful, and it's everything that we discussed. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Good job, you guys. Project Manager: Good job. Industrial Designer: Whoohoo. User Interface: Oh thank you. {vocalsound} Marketing: Those are really good. Project Manager: Alright {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {gap} Project Manager: what's next in our agenda? Um we're gonna discuss the evaluation criteria, and that's with Courtney. Marketing: Okay, it's a PowerPoint presentation. I don't really know exactly what we should uh talk about. It's under evaluation. Project Manager: Right. Marketing: Alright. Um so these are the criteria we're gonna ask, is it easy to use, is it fashionable uh {disfmarker} yeah, I guess we should write these down so we can reference them. Project Manager: Mm. User Interface: Feel good meaning what? Marketing: Like does it feel good, like {disfmarker} User Interface: Physically, Project Manager: Right. User Interface: okay. Marketing: yeah, physically. User Interface: {gap} Project Manager: Sqi {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} That's just for current trend. Project Manager: Right. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: It doesn't really count, you guys. Industrial Designer: Yeah, it was a little difficult to incorporate the cover with the cherry fruit on it. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. But it's {disfmarker} so we do have removable covers, right? Project Manager: Right. Industrial Designer: Yes. User Interface: {gap} Marketing: Yeah, well then that's covered. Project Manager:'Kay. Marketing: And so we n k everybody have that? Project Manager: I'll wait. Marketing: Yeah, she's got it. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: It's good. Yeah. Okay so, we're using the criteria uh for a seven point scale, and so we need to discuss how we feel. It falls within this range, so for easy to use, do we feel it's very easy to use? Project Manager: Are we going to indi User Interface: True or false, easy to use. Project Manager: I say we individually rate {disfmarker} what do you say? Marketing: You guys {disfmarker} Project Manager: Just orally. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. Project Manager: Why not? We have {disfmarker} okay. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: Um easy to use. I vote six. Marketing: Oh wait, that's false. Project Manager: Oh, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: two. Marketing: Okay. Industrial Designer: I'd say two as well. User Interface: Yeah, two. Marketing: Two. That's what I say. Project Manager: Uh hello, we're great. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Okay, fashionable? Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um one. Industrial Designer: At the moment, no. Project Manager: No. Marketing: No. I mean like no, I think it's very fashionable. Project Manager: Me too, very chic. {vocalsound} Marketing: I thi I would give it a one. Project Manager: One, I give it a one. Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I'll give it a two, because at the moment it's not looking that way. Project Manager: Oh, and ma it's a prototype, Marketing: Well, that's that's just like {disfmarker} that's a clay, it's a prototype. Project Manager: right. User Interface: Mm I don't think it's that fashionable. Marketing: What do you think? User Interface: I'd give it like three or four. Project Manager: Well, now I'm {gap}. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: So, the average is about a two. User Interface: {vocalsound} But then I'm not fashionable, so Marketing: Yeah, it's a two. Project Manager: Two or three. Two point five. User Interface: don't use my opinion. Marketing: That's okay. Yeah. Industrial Designer: Neither are all o all the customers we have, either. Marketing: {vocalsound} Um User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: does it feel good? Project Manager: Imagine, since we obviously don't have that. User Interface: Does it feel good? Marketing: I feel like {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Uh the shape of it actually does uh. Project Manager: And it's i it is very ergonomically designed. It's gonna be curved. User Interface: Yeah, it's gonna be thicker. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: Depth. Marketing: I think it feels good. Project Manager: I think so too. Marketing: I'll give it a two. Project Manager:'Kay. Two. User Interface: {vocalsound} I'll give it a one. Marketing: What do you say? Industrial Designer: I'd say a two. Project Manager: Alright, average is two. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: Is it technologically innovative? Oh sorry I'm taking over your job here. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh no, it's fine, Project Manager: Go right ahead. {vocalsound} Marketing: you're {disfmarker} I mean you're Project Manager. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Um yeah, I mean and it {disfmarker} does it have voice {disfmarker} I mean the phrase recognition on it? Project Manager: Yes. Right? We were able to do it with that kind of chip. User Interface: Oh right, the {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: We could do it with the chip, yes. It wasn't {disfmarker} we have no reflection of it on the prototype, Marketing: And there's no way you can represent it on here. Y Project Manager: Yeah, right. Industrial Designer: but that's because it's only two dimensions, really. Project Manager: That was {disfmarker}'kay. And we discussed that being included. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, so. User Interface: Right. Marketing: Then yes, then I would {disfmarker} well it isn't {disfmarker} what else would it need for it to be technologically innovative? Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} Project Manager: Well we don'have the {disfmarker} you know, we can't say channel, and it changes the channel, channel eight. Marketing: And it doesn't cover anything other then T_V_, Project Manager: Right. Marketing: so I'd probably give it a three. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Even though it is {disfmarker} for just a T_V_ remote it's uh very advanced. But it is just a T_V_ remote. Project Manager: Yeah. I'd go for a three or four on that one, so {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah I go four. Project Manager: okay, let's go for a three point five. User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Three and an half. Project Manager: Alright, and the last criteria {disfmarker} is it is it um {disfmarker} User Interface: Squishy and fruity. Marketing: {vocalsound} Well yeah, so I'd give it a two. Project Manager: Well, we've covered that with the User Interface: It's just trendy, basically. Project Manager: trendy. Sure. Capable. Very capable. Industrial Designer: It's capable of being squishy and fruity. Marketing: Oh, it's very capable of being squishy and fruity. User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Project Manager: And {vocalsound} it's very important.'Kay, there we go. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: So. Marketing: Okay, next. Project Manager: Next. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} So um our re model slightly resembling a giant delicious cookie appears to be a winner, Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: and uh hopefully we'll sell millions. Good job, team. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} How did you get that in there? User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} What? Industrial Designer: The {vocalsound} slightly resembling a giant delicious cookie. Project Manager: {vocalsound} It does. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: It {vocalsound} it does. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That was good. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Very good. Marketing: Thanks. Project Manager: Alright, let's go back to this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No, that's it. Hmm. Oops. Okay, so now uh we're moving on to finance, okay. I'm gonna show you an Excel spreadsheet and we're going to fill it in together based on what components we're including in our remote and see if it's under twelve fifty Euro. If so, we can proceed, if not, we need to go back to the drawing board a little bit.'Kay? So let me bring that up. Here we go. Alright. Um it's not hand dynamo, it's powered by battery, so we give it a {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yep. Marketing: Two. Project Manager: Number of components you plan to use. Do I just put quantity being one battery, or {disfmarker} Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Mm'kay. Project Manager: But if it's a {disfmarker} do you wanna go for {disfmarker} this is where we need to make a final call on if it's a lithium or do we wanna go triple A_s,'cause triple A_s we're gonna have t do more than one battery. Oh, let's just go for a lithium. What do you say? Industrial Designer: Yeah, User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah, let's let's do a lithium. Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think uh I think the people who purchase this are gonna be technologically Industrial Designer: it's {gap}. Marketing: We're gon that's gon Nologically advanced, Project Manager: {disfmarker} right. Marketing: yeah. Project Manager: Okay, down to the electronics um section. We're gonna need this kind, correct, if we do the voice sensor, Industrial Designer: Yep. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: so one of those. It is a single-curved, so one of those. Marketing: Uh {gap}. Project Manager: Oh. What's that? Yeah, that's correct. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager:'Kay, down here, case material. User Interface: It's plastic. Marketing: We {disfmarker} Project Manager: Plastic. Marketing: plastic. User Interface: And special colour. Marketing: And special colour. Project Manager:'Kay. {vocalsound} Down here, interface type. We're gonna have the integrated scroll scroll wheel. User Interface: No, we don't have the scroll. Project Manager: Isn't {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: oh those are just regular buttons. Industrial Designer: Well, that's the push-button too, right there. User Interface: Buttons. Marketing: But it's {disfmarker} Yeah, Project Manager: This? Marketing: but i so i Industrial Designer: Integrated scroll-wheel or push-button. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: We're really having just push-button interface. Project Manager: Okay, so we can just go {disfmarker} um. Marketing: But will we w actually we'll need two, won't we? One for the top and then one for the s one e for each side. Industrial Designer: But it {disfmarker} that just covers the type of button we're having. Because we're not doing a scroll on the side, it's still push-button. User Interface: Oh like the {disfmarker} twenty nine means like you have both scrolls and Industrial Designer: Push-button. Project Manager: Right I think she's {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: But we just have push User Interface: push-buttons. Marketing: Okay. User Interface: But we don't have any scrolls. Project Manager: I think what Courtney's talking about is do we need to put two here? Marketing: Like because there's like one interface right here and then {disfmarker} because it's not gonna be on the same plane when you press the button. Project Manager: Right. Marketing: There's gonna have to be additional signals on the sides. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Okay. Marketing: So is that gonna be an extra one on each side? Project Manager: I don't know, they might put us {disfmarker} well, let's just. User Interface: Two interfaces, is that what w should we s say? Project Manager: Two or would it be three? Industrial Designer: Let's call it th Marketing: Or three, because of one on each side and one on top. User Interface: Okay, fine. Yeah. Marketing: I mean it's fine'cause it comes out the same as twenty nine. Well less than twenty nine even. Project Manager: Okay Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: and we're gonna {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: button supplements {disfmarker} the buttons are no uh okay. Marketing: They're a special colour. Um they're uh they're a special form,'cause they're indented. Project Manager: Are they? Oh, right. User Interface: And then s Marketing: And, they're a special material. User Interface: yeah. Project Manager: Mm. Well, we're under cost then. Alright. User Interface: We're over? Project Manager: No, we're under. Industrial Designer: Grand. Marketing: We're under. Project Manager: Twelve point five is our limit. User Interface: Okay. Project Manager: We've got eleven point two. User Interface: Oh, I see. Project Manager: Alright. Industrial Designer: So we can go to production. Project Manager: We can go to {disfmarker} I dunno what I just did. {vocalsound} Okay. Now we're gonna talk about the project process um and whether or not we're satisfied with the whole process and the result. Um did we have a lot of room for creativity? Did we have a lot of room for individual leadership, um teamwork, and the means, meaning the technology that we used to produce our little guy there, and if we found any new ideas. Now, question is, how do we do this? User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Go back. Marketing: {vocalsound} I think we just discuss it. Project Manager: Discuss, sure. Industrial Designer: Previous. Project Manager: Alright. Who want who would like to go first? Industrial Designer: We think we got stifled for cri {vocalsound} creativity by the company itself, in restricting us only to using a T_V_ remote, initially. User Interface: We didn't have a whiteboard. Project Manager: Hmm. Hmm. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Oh that's true. User Interface: And no internet. Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} No, yeah, that's a good point.'Cause I'd forgotten that that wasn't our decision, yeah. Project Manager: {vocalsound} And how did you feel about the whole the whole process though? Marketing: Oh, overall I mean I thought we did a good job like {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: We got to choose {disfmarker} basically we had control over {disfmarker} minus it being just merely a T_V_ remote we got to choose what we wanted to do with it. Project Manager: Right, and we got say over what {disfmarker} how technologically advanced it should be and also how fashionable, which I kind of like {disfmarker} Marketing: And we're a fashion forward technology company. Project Manager: we {disfmarker} yep. You know it. Industrial Designer: {gap} right. Project Manager: Um what about um the teamwork aspect? How did you guys enjoy making the model, the prototype? Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah. User Interface: I think we did well. Project Manager: I think ya'did. Did you work well together in there, and {disfmarker} User Interface: Yep. {vocalsound} Project Manager:'kay. Industrial Designer: Well, no, there was there was scratching and fighting, but {disfmarker} no {vocalsound}. Marketing: Minus that one fight. User Interface: {vocalsound} Gouges. Project Manager: Oh my God, Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: and we've all been a pretty congenial team here, I think. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: We hadn't had any ma fallings out. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. I mean minus you guys being wha what is it, the survey, annoying or what is it? Project Manager: {vocalsound} Irritating. Industrial Designer: Irritating. {vocalsound} User Interface: Irritating. Marketing: Irritating, yeah. Wow that's a {disfmarker} it's definitely a strong one. Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: The means, the whiteboard didn't work. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. User Interface: And no internet. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: I have to knock that one down a couple notches. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A and our friend here really feels strongly about the internet. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah, and no internet. User Interface: Misses. I do. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: There's so much available. Marketing: And the digital the digital pens User Interface: Like it's information Project Manager: Yeah, digital pens. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I really appreciated those, yeah. Marketing: were {disfmarker} they were pretty cool. Project Manager: They were fine. Marketing: Yeah they were fun, even though I'm not really sure what I could do with them, but they are awesome. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: The use of the laptops for receiving everything. Project Manager: Right, laptops are extremely handy, Industrial Designer: It was wireless too, so. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: wireless. And that we have a shared network where we can put all of the {disfmarker} Marketing: And these things whoa. Industrial Designer: And let's not forget the sexy dual microphones everyone gets to wear. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. And Big Brother. Project Manager: Big brother. Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager:'Kay, have we found any new ideas through this process? Marketing: Um we are really gonna sell this. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Ta-da. Project Manager: For something that looks cool and also has what I want it to b do technologically. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: And that's your right brain taking over, w wanting the artistic, the fashionable, the hip, you know. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: If we all just went out and bought useful things, I don't think {disfmarker} I mean that's not what technology. User Interface: Well, that's why I don't like uh Macs or Apples, just'cause I look at it, and I know it's probably a very good computer, but I look at it, and I'm taken back to elementary school,'cause they look the same. Project Manager: Mm. User Interface: They look like they did when I was in elementary school, Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and that's so old-fashioned to me. Marketing: Yeah,'cause they're pretty and just like {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: The Toronto district school would only use his Macs with their kids. User Interface: Exactly, so I associate them with like really low-tech, really cheap, bad {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. Just the Mac font bothers me even. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Uh yeah. Project Manager: But I do like iPods, go figure. Marketing: Yeah, no, iPods {vocalsound} {disfmarker} They want all those words for presentation, even the plugs. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Well, i iPods are now quite trendy, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and they come in different colours. Project Manager: Colours. Exactly. I mean how many people went out and bough a Nokia phone, back when we were like in high school, just so they could get the changeable face plates. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh yeah, everybody. Project Manager: Okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Anyway, so that is definitely at work. Industrial Designer: Not me. Marketing: {vocalsound} Mine is amber. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I didn't have a phone'til university. User Interface: But the {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} but my one issue is just like the whole it's for T_V_ only. Marketing: Oh. User Interface: I was like who's gonna buy a remote just for the T_V_ unless they've lost theirs. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Look at it. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Fashionable chic people will. User Interface: You're kidding. Marketing: That is a piece of work. User Interface: No, no. Marketing: {vocalsound} Wow. Marketing Director says yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} No, marketing has to actually create the desire for it. {vocalsound} Marketing: Fashionable people will buy it. Oh, I will create desire. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: That's okay. We can create a commercial where they think that all their needs will be met. This will help them find the one. User Interface: Ri {vocalsound} They'll be sexy with it. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Hmm. Industrial Designer: That's right. Marketing: We could have like an Adam and Eve type commercial, and that's the fig-leaf. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: Oh right. Marketing: Mm. {vocalsound} That'll sell. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And so the serpent says, use our remote. {vocalsound} Project Manager: There you go, marketing {gap}. User Interface: Let you loose. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: Yeah, no. Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay, we're gonna wrap this up now. Um the costs are within the budget, we evaluated the project, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: and now we're gonna complete the final questionnaire and meeting summary, and then we're going to have a big giant party, apparently, according to this, so. Alright, thank you team, Industrial Designer: Whoohoo. Margaritas for everyone. {vocalsound} Project Manager: you did a great job, it was lovely working with you. User Interface: {vocalsound} Good. Marketing: You too. Industrial Designer: Yay. Thanks to the Project Leader. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Now we know w

Industrial Designer first complained that their creativity was limited by the company, since their initial idea for a multifunctional remote could not be realized. User Interface then complained about their lack of a whiteboard and the Internet, which was reiterated later in their discussion. Also, Project Manager, Industrial Designer and User Interface all said the survey they conducted was irritating.

tr-sq-626

tr-sq-626_0

What aspects did the team like when evaluating the whole production process? Marketing: I wanna find our if our remote works. Project Manager: Me too. {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. Um here's the agenda for our last meeting. Marketing: Whoohoo. Project Manager: Um after the opening we're going to have a prototype presentation, then we're going to discuss the evaluation criteria and the financing of our remote. Then we're going to evaluate the product and I think the whole production process, and then we're gonna close it up, and we have forty minutes, so let's get started. Oh, no, let's have the prototype presentation. Industrial Designer: Mm'kay, User Interface: {gap} Industrial Designer: you ready? User Interface: Um sure. You or me? Industrial Designer: Y you read that stuff, since you wrote it. User Interface: Okay. Well, since our materials aren't exactly what we were going for, I'm just gonna translate what this all means for you. Industrial Designer: I'll be the Vanna. User Interface: {vocalsound} The base is gonna be gunmetal gray, which is what we had decided, and it's gonna be plastic. Um then there's the latex cover, which is what you see as red. Um because it can be replaceable, we just kinda went with the colour. Project Manager: Right. User Interface: Um and then the buttons are actually kind of poking through rather than on top. Um and the buttons will be a l much lighter blue, almost see-through. Project Manager: Hmm. User Interface: It's just sort of a very pale blue and a light-up yellow. Marketing: That's nice. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: The whole thing lights up if you press any button, rather than it {disfmarker} just that one button will light up. Marketing: Good. User Interface: Um and then at the bottom we have our logo. Um bright yellow sort of design with the R_R_ {vocalsound} which will actually look like our logo. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Great. User Interface: And then on the side you have the buttons. {vocalsound} They're one button, but they kind of push up and down. Project Manager: Okay. User Interface: I don't think they're scrolling. Industrial Designer: No. They're just buttons. User Interface: {vocalsound} Right, yeah. And then {disfmarker} yeah, the buttons. Industrial Designer: On off switch will be here and as you've noticed on our prototype um they've ended up with a curvature kind of, by concave sort of thing, except for, you know, {gap} can't see underneath. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: So I'm hoping that when we get to production we can actually make them like that, because they're very nice to stock {gap} you know, stick your finger in. Um the two squared buttons are are two probably least used, menu, mute, User Interface: Thumb-shaped. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and then these are the numbers, so our channel and our volume will be on either side. User Interface: Yeah. And then the last thing is just that it'll be black labelling on top, just which we didn't do. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. And did you determine um the curvature of the bottom part of it for the hand, is it gonna be a single or a double? User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I'd say a single. Project Manager: Single. Single sounds good, User Interface: Single. Project Manager:'cause it's not big enough to really constitute a double. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah, it's only actually the size of my hand. User Interface: Right. Project Manager: Great. Great. I think you did an awesome job. Marketing: Yeah, I think it's a beautiful {disfmarker} Project Manager: It is beautiful, and it's everything that we discussed. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Good job, you guys. Project Manager: Good job. Industrial Designer: Whoohoo. User Interface: Oh thank you. {vocalsound} Marketing: Those are really good. Project Manager: Alright {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {gap} Project Manager: what's next in our agenda? Um we're gonna discuss the evaluation criteria, and that's with Courtney. Marketing: Okay, it's a PowerPoint presentation. I don't really know exactly what we should uh talk about. It's under evaluation. Project Manager: Right. Marketing: Alright. Um so these are the criteria we're gonna ask, is it easy to use, is it fashionable uh {disfmarker} yeah, I guess we should write these down so we can reference them. Project Manager: Mm. User Interface: Feel good meaning what? Marketing: Like does it feel good, like {disfmarker} User Interface: Physically, Project Manager: Right. User Interface: okay. Marketing: yeah, physically. User Interface: {gap} Project Manager: Sqi {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} That's just for current trend. Project Manager: Right. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: It doesn't really count, you guys. Industrial Designer: Yeah, it was a little difficult to incorporate the cover with the cherry fruit on it. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. But it's {disfmarker} so we do have removable covers, right? Project Manager: Right. Industrial Designer: Yes. User Interface: {gap} Marketing: Yeah, well then that's covered. Project Manager:'Kay. Marketing: And so we n k everybody have that? Project Manager: I'll wait. Marketing: Yeah, she's got it. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: It's good. Yeah. Okay so, we're using the criteria uh for a seven point scale, and so we need to discuss how we feel. It falls within this range, so for easy to use, do we feel it's very easy to use? Project Manager: Are we going to indi User Interface: True or false, easy to use. Project Manager: I say we individually rate {disfmarker} what do you say? Marketing: You guys {disfmarker} Project Manager: Just orally. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. Project Manager: Why not? We have {disfmarker} okay. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: Um easy to use. I vote six. Marketing: Oh wait, that's false. Project Manager: Oh, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: two. Marketing: Okay. Industrial Designer: I'd say two as well. User Interface: Yeah, two. Marketing: Two. That's what I say. Project Manager: Uh hello, we're great. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Okay, fashionable? Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um one. Industrial Designer: At the moment, no. Project Manager: No. Marketing: No. I mean like no, I think it's very fashionable. Project Manager: Me too, very chic. {vocalsound} Marketing: I thi I would give it a one. Project Manager: One, I give it a one. Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I'll give it a two, because at the moment it's not looking that way. Project Manager: Oh, and ma it's a prototype, Marketing: Well, that's that's just like {disfmarker} that's a clay, it's a prototype. Project Manager: right. User Interface: Mm I don't think it's that fashionable. Marketing: What do you think? User Interface: I'd give it like three or four. Project Manager: Well, now I'm {gap}. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: So, the average is about a two. User Interface: {vocalsound} But then I'm not fashionable, so Marketing: Yeah, it's a two. Project Manager: Two or three. Two point five. User Interface: don't use my opinion. Marketing: That's okay. Yeah. Industrial Designer: Neither are all o all the customers we have, either. Marketing: {vocalsound} Um User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: does it feel good? Project Manager: Imagine, since we obviously don't have that. User Interface: Does it feel good? Marketing: I feel like {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Uh the shape of it actually does uh. Project Manager: And it's i it is very ergonomically designed. It's gonna be curved. User Interface: Yeah, it's gonna be thicker. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: Depth. Marketing: I think it feels good. Project Manager: I think so too. Marketing: I'll give it a two. Project Manager:'Kay. Two. User Interface: {vocalsound} I'll give it a one. Marketing: What do you say? Industrial Designer: I'd say a two. Project Manager: Alright, average is two. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: Is it technologically innovative? Oh sorry I'm taking over your job here. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh no, it's fine, Project Manager: Go right ahead. {vocalsound} Marketing: you're {disfmarker} I mean you're Project Manager. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Um yeah, I mean and it {disfmarker} does it have voice {disfmarker} I mean the phrase recognition on it? Project Manager: Yes. Right? We were able to do it with that kind of chip. User Interface: Oh right, the {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: We could do it with the chip, yes. It wasn't {disfmarker} we have no reflection of it on the prototype, Marketing: And there's no way you can represent it on here. Y Project Manager: Yeah, right. Industrial Designer: but that's because it's only two dimensions, really. Project Manager: That was {disfmarker}'kay. And we discussed that being included. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, so. User Interface: Right. Marketing: Then yes, then I would {disfmarker} well it isn't {disfmarker} what else would it need for it to be technologically innovative? Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} Project Manager: Well we don'have the {disfmarker} you know, we can't say channel, and it changes the channel, channel eight. Marketing: And it doesn't cover anything other then T_V_, Project Manager: Right. Marketing: so I'd probably give it a three. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Even though it is {disfmarker} for just a T_V_ remote it's uh very advanced. But it is just a T_V_ remote. Project Manager: Yeah. I'd go for a three or four on that one, so {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah I go four. Project Manager: okay, let's go for a three point five. User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Three and an half. Project Manager: Alright, and the last criteria {disfmarker} is it is it um {disfmarker} User Interface: Squishy and fruity. Marketing: {vocalsound} Well yeah, so I'd give it a two. Project Manager: Well, we've covered that with the User Interface: It's just trendy, basically. Project Manager: trendy. Sure. Capable. Very capable. Industrial Designer: It's capable of being squishy and fruity. Marketing: Oh, it's very capable of being squishy and fruity. User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Project Manager: And {vocalsound} it's very important.'Kay, there we go. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: So. Marketing: Okay, next. Project Manager: Next. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} So um our re model slightly resembling a giant delicious cookie appears to be a winner, Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: and uh hopefully we'll sell millions. Good job, team. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} How did you get that in there? User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} What? Industrial Designer: The {vocalsound} slightly resembling a giant delicious cookie. Project Manager: {vocalsound} It does. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: It {vocalsound} it does. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That was good. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Very good. Marketing: Thanks. Project Manager: Alright, let's go back to this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No, that's it. Hmm. Oops. Okay, so now uh we're moving on to finance, okay. I'm gonna show you an Excel spreadsheet and we're going to fill it in together based on what components we're including in our remote and see if it's under twelve fifty Euro. If so, we can proceed, if not, we need to go back to the drawing board a little bit.'Kay? So let me bring that up. Here we go. Alright. Um it's not hand dynamo, it's powered by battery, so we give it a {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yep. Marketing: Two. Project Manager: Number of components you plan to use. Do I just put quantity being one battery, or {disfmarker} Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Mm'kay. Project Manager: But if it's a {disfmarker} do you wanna go for {disfmarker} this is where we need to make a final call on if it's a lithium or do we wanna go triple A_s,'cause triple A_s we're gonna have t do more than one battery. Oh, let's just go for a lithium. What do you say? Industrial Designer: Yeah, User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah, let's let's do a lithium. Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think uh I think the people who purchase this are gonna be technologically Industrial Designer: it's {gap}. Marketing: We're gon that's gon Nologically advanced, Project Manager: {disfmarker} right. Marketing: yeah. Project Manager: Okay, down to the electronics um section. We're gonna need this kind, correct, if we do the voice sensor, Industrial Designer: Yep. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: so one of those. It is a single-curved, so one of those. Marketing: Uh {gap}. Project Manager: Oh. What's that? Yeah, that's correct. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager:'Kay, down here, case material. User Interface: It's plastic. Marketing: We {disfmarker} Project Manager: Plastic. Marketing: plastic. User Interface: And special colour. Marketing: And special colour. Project Manager:'Kay. {vocalsound} Down here, interface type. We're gonna have the integrated scroll scroll wheel. User Interface: No, we don't have the scroll. Project Manager: Isn't {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: oh those are just regular buttons. Industrial Designer: Well, that's the push-button too, right there. User Interface: Buttons. Marketing: But it's {disfmarker} Yeah, Project Manager: This? Marketing: but i so i Industrial Designer: Integrated scroll-wheel or push-button. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: We're really having just push-button interface. Project Manager: Okay, so we can just go {disfmarker} um. Marketing: But will we w actually we'll need two, won't we? One for the top and then one for the s one e for each side. Industrial Designer: But it {disfmarker} that just covers the type of button we're having. Because we're not doing a scroll on the side, it's still push-button. User Interface: Oh like the {disfmarker} twenty nine means like you have both scrolls and Industrial Designer: Push-button. Project Manager: Right I think she's {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: But we just have push User Interface: push-buttons. Marketing: Okay. User Interface: But we don't have any scrolls. Project Manager: I think what Courtney's talking about is do we need to put two here? Marketing: Like because there's like one interface right here and then {disfmarker} because it's not gonna be on the same plane when you press the button. Project Manager: Right. Marketing: There's gonna have to be additional signals on the sides. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Okay. Marketing: So is that gonna be an extra one on each side? Project Manager: I don't know, they might put us {disfmarker} well, let's just. User Interface: Two interfaces, is that what w should we s say? Project Manager: Two or would it be three? Industrial Designer: Let's call it th Marketing: Or three, because of one on each side and one on top. User Interface: Okay, fine. Yeah. Marketing: I mean it's fine'cause it comes out the same as twenty nine. Well less than twenty nine even. Project Manager: Okay Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: and we're gonna {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: button supplements {disfmarker} the buttons are no uh okay. Marketing: They're a special colour. Um they're uh they're a special form,'cause they're indented. Project Manager: Are they? Oh, right. User Interface: And then s Marketing: And, they're a special material. User Interface: yeah. Project Manager: Mm. Well, we're under cost then. Alright. User Interface: We're over? Project Manager: No, we're under. Industrial Designer: Grand. Marketing: We're under. Project Manager: Twelve point five is our limit. User Interface: Okay. Project Manager: We've got eleven point two. User Interface: Oh, I see. Project Manager: Alright. Industrial Designer: So we can go to production. Project Manager: We can go to {disfmarker} I dunno what I just did. {vocalsound} Okay. Now we're gonna talk about the project process um and whether or not we're satisfied with the whole process and the result. Um did we have a lot of room for creativity? Did we have a lot of room for individual leadership, um teamwork, and the means, meaning the technology that we used to produce our little guy there, and if we found any new ideas. Now, question is, how do we do this? User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Go back. Marketing: {vocalsound} I think we just discuss it. Project Manager: Discuss, sure. Industrial Designer: Previous. Project Manager: Alright. Who want who would like to go first? Industrial Designer: We think we got stifled for cri {vocalsound} creativity by the company itself, in restricting us only to using a T_V_ remote, initially. User Interface: We didn't have a whiteboard. Project Manager: Hmm. Hmm. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Oh that's true. User Interface: And no internet. Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} No, yeah, that's a good point.'Cause I'd forgotten that that wasn't our decision, yeah. Project Manager: {vocalsound} And how did you feel about the whole the whole process though? Marketing: Oh, overall I mean I thought we did a good job like {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: We got to choose {disfmarker} basically we had control over {disfmarker} minus it being just merely a T_V_ remote we got to choose what we wanted to do with it. Project Manager: Right, and we got say over what {disfmarker} how technologically advanced it should be and also how fashionable, which I kind of like {disfmarker} Marketing: And we're a fashion forward technology company. Project Manager: we {disfmarker} yep. You know it. Industrial Designer: {gap} right. Project Manager: Um what about um the teamwork aspect? How did you guys enjoy making the model, the prototype? Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah. User Interface: I think we did well. Project Manager: I think ya'did. Did you work well together in there, and {disfmarker} User Interface: Yep. {vocalsound} Project Manager:'kay. Industrial Designer: Well, no, there was there was scratching and fighting, but {disfmarker} no {vocalsound}. Marketing: Minus that one fight. User Interface: {vocalsound} Gouges. Project Manager: Oh my God, Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: and we've all been a pretty congenial team here, I think. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: We hadn't had any ma fallings out. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. I mean minus you guys being wha what is it, the survey, annoying or what is it? Project Manager: {vocalsound} Irritating. Industrial Designer: Irritating. {vocalsound} User Interface: Irritating. Marketing: Irritating, yeah. Wow that's a {disfmarker} it's definitely a strong one. Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: The means, the whiteboard didn't work. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. User Interface: And no internet. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: I have to knock that one down a couple notches. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A and our friend here really feels strongly about the internet. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah, and no internet. User Interface: Misses. I do. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: There's so much available. Marketing: And the digital the digital pens User Interface: Like it's information Project Manager: Yeah, digital pens. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I really appreciated those, yeah. Marketing: were {disfmarker} they were pretty cool. Project Manager: They were fine. Marketing: Yeah they were fun, even though I'm not really sure what I could do with them, but they are awesome. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: The use of the laptops for receiving everything. Project Manager: Right, laptops are extremely handy, Industrial Designer: It was wireless too, so. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: wireless. And that we have a shared network where we can put all of the {disfmarker} Marketing: And these things whoa. Industrial Designer: And let's not forget the sexy dual microphones everyone gets to wear. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. And Big Brother. Project Manager: Big brother. Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager:'Kay, have we found any new ideas through this process? Marketing: Um we are really gonna sell this. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Ta-da. Project Manager: For something that looks cool and also has what I want it to b do technologically. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: And that's your right brain taking over, w wanting the artistic, the fashionable, the hip, you know. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: If we all just went out and bought useful things, I don't think {disfmarker} I mean that's not what technology. User Interface: Well, that's why I don't like uh Macs or Apples, just'cause I look at it, and I know it's probably a very good computer, but I look at it, and I'm taken back to elementary school,'cause they look the same. Project Manager: Mm. User Interface: They look like they did when I was in elementary school, Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and that's so old-fashioned to me. Marketing: Yeah,'cause they're pretty and just like {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: The Toronto district school would only use his Macs with their kids. User Interface: Exactly, so I associate them with like really low-tech, really cheap, bad {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. Just the Mac font bothers me even. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Uh yeah. Project Manager: But I do like iPods, go figure. Marketing: Yeah, no, iPods {vocalsound} {disfmarker} They want all those words for presentation, even the plugs. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Well, i iPods are now quite trendy, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and they come in different colours. Project Manager: Colours. Exactly. I mean how many people went out and bough a Nokia phone, back when we were like in high school, just so they could get the changeable face plates. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh yeah, everybody. Project Manager: Okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Anyway, so that is definitely at work. Industrial Designer: Not me. Marketing: {vocalsound} Mine is amber. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I didn't have a phone'til university. User Interface: But the {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} but my one issue is just like the whole it's for T_V_ only. Marketing: Oh. User Interface: I was like who's gonna buy a remote just for the T_V_ unless they've lost theirs. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Look at it. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Fashionable chic people will. User Interface: You're kidding. Marketing: That is a piece of work. User Interface: No, no. Marketing: {vocalsound} Wow. Marketing Director says yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} No, marketing has to actually create the desire for it. {vocalsound} Marketing: Fashionable people will buy it. Oh, I will create desire. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: That's okay. We can create a commercial where they think that all their needs will be met. This will help them find the one. User Interface: Ri {vocalsound} They'll be sexy with it. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Hmm. Industrial Designer: That's right. Marketing: We could have like an Adam and Eve type commercial, and that's the fig-leaf. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: Oh right. Marketing: Mm. {vocalsound} That'll sell. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And so the serpent says, use our remote. {vocalsound} Project Manager: There you go, marketing {gap}. User Interface: Let you loose. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: Yeah, no. Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay, we're gonna wrap this up now. Um the costs are within the budget, we evaluated the project, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: and now we're gonna complete the final questionnaire and meeting summary, and then we're going to have a big giant party, apparently, according to this, so. Alright, thank you team, Industrial Designer: Whoohoo. Margaritas for everyone. {vocalsound} Project Manager: you did a great job, it was lovely working with you. User Interface: {vocalsound} Good. Marketing: You too. Industrial Designer: Yay. Thanks to the Project Leader. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Now we know w

Marketing commented on the overall process as fairly satisfying, since they had control over most of the detailed design of the remote, how it should be advanced as well as fashionable. As for teamwork, Industrial Designer and User Interface thought they worked well together, and Project Manager praised the team for being congenial. They also appreciated many things that were available to them, including digital pens, wireless laptops, a shared network, dual microphones, and Big Brother. They agreed that many new ideas were developed as well.

tr-gq-627

tr-gq-627_0

Summarize the whole meeting. Marketing: I wanna find our if our remote works. Project Manager: Me too. {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. Um here's the agenda for our last meeting. Marketing: Whoohoo. Project Manager: Um after the opening we're going to have a prototype presentation, then we're going to discuss the evaluation criteria and the financing of our remote. Then we're going to evaluate the product and I think the whole production process, and then we're gonna close it up, and we have forty minutes, so let's get started. Oh, no, let's have the prototype presentation. Industrial Designer: Mm'kay, User Interface: {gap} Industrial Designer: you ready? User Interface: Um sure. You or me? Industrial Designer: Y you read that stuff, since you wrote it. User Interface: Okay. Well, since our materials aren't exactly what we were going for, I'm just gonna translate what this all means for you. Industrial Designer: I'll be the Vanna. User Interface: {vocalsound} The base is gonna be gunmetal gray, which is what we had decided, and it's gonna be plastic. Um then there's the latex cover, which is what you see as red. Um because it can be replaceable, we just kinda went with the colour. Project Manager: Right. User Interface: Um and then the buttons are actually kind of poking through rather than on top. Um and the buttons will be a l much lighter blue, almost see-through. Project Manager: Hmm. User Interface: It's just sort of a very pale blue and a light-up yellow. Marketing: That's nice. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: The whole thing lights up if you press any button, rather than it {disfmarker} just that one button will light up. Marketing: Good. User Interface: Um and then at the bottom we have our logo. Um bright yellow sort of design with the R_R_ {vocalsound} which will actually look like our logo. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Great. User Interface: And then on the side you have the buttons. {vocalsound} They're one button, but they kind of push up and down. Project Manager: Okay. User Interface: I don't think they're scrolling. Industrial Designer: No. They're just buttons. User Interface: {vocalsound} Right, yeah. And then {disfmarker} yeah, the buttons. Industrial Designer: On off switch will be here and as you've noticed on our prototype um they've ended up with a curvature kind of, by concave sort of thing, except for, you know, {gap} can't see underneath. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: So I'm hoping that when we get to production we can actually make them like that, because they're very nice to stock {gap} you know, stick your finger in. Um the two squared buttons are are two probably least used, menu, mute, User Interface: Thumb-shaped. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and then these are the numbers, so our channel and our volume will be on either side. User Interface: Yeah. And then the last thing is just that it'll be black labelling on top, just which we didn't do. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. And did you determine um the curvature of the bottom part of it for the hand, is it gonna be a single or a double? User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I'd say a single. Project Manager: Single. Single sounds good, User Interface: Single. Project Manager:'cause it's not big enough to really constitute a double. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah, it's only actually the size of my hand. User Interface: Right. Project Manager: Great. Great. I think you did an awesome job. Marketing: Yeah, I think it's a beautiful {disfmarker} Project Manager: It is beautiful, and it's everything that we discussed. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. Good job, you guys. Project Manager: Good job. Industrial Designer: Whoohoo. User Interface: Oh thank you. {vocalsound} Marketing: Those are really good. Project Manager: Alright {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {gap} Project Manager: what's next in our agenda? Um we're gonna discuss the evaluation criteria, and that's with Courtney. Marketing: Okay, it's a PowerPoint presentation. I don't really know exactly what we should uh talk about. It's under evaluation. Project Manager: Right. Marketing: Alright. Um so these are the criteria we're gonna ask, is it easy to use, is it fashionable uh {disfmarker} yeah, I guess we should write these down so we can reference them. Project Manager: Mm. User Interface: Feel good meaning what? Marketing: Like does it feel good, like {disfmarker} User Interface: Physically, Project Manager: Right. User Interface: okay. Marketing: yeah, physically. User Interface: {gap} Project Manager: Sqi {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} That's just for current trend. Project Manager: Right. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: It doesn't really count, you guys. Industrial Designer: Yeah, it was a little difficult to incorporate the cover with the cherry fruit on it. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. But it's {disfmarker} so we do have removable covers, right? Project Manager: Right. Industrial Designer: Yes. User Interface: {gap} Marketing: Yeah, well then that's covered. Project Manager:'Kay. Marketing: And so we n k everybody have that? Project Manager: I'll wait. Marketing: Yeah, she's got it. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: It's good. Yeah. Okay so, we're using the criteria uh for a seven point scale, and so we need to discuss how we feel. It falls within this range, so for easy to use, do we feel it's very easy to use? Project Manager: Are we going to indi User Interface: True or false, easy to use. Project Manager: I say we individually rate {disfmarker} what do you say? Marketing: You guys {disfmarker} Project Manager: Just orally. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. Project Manager: Why not? We have {disfmarker} okay. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: Um easy to use. I vote six. Marketing: Oh wait, that's false. Project Manager: Oh, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: two. Marketing: Okay. Industrial Designer: I'd say two as well. User Interface: Yeah, two. Marketing: Two. That's what I say. Project Manager: Uh hello, we're great. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Okay, fashionable? Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um one. Industrial Designer: At the moment, no. Project Manager: No. Marketing: No. I mean like no, I think it's very fashionable. Project Manager: Me too, very chic. {vocalsound} Marketing: I thi I would give it a one. Project Manager: One, I give it a one. Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I'll give it a two, because at the moment it's not looking that way. Project Manager: Oh, and ma it's a prototype, Marketing: Well, that's that's just like {disfmarker} that's a clay, it's a prototype. Project Manager: right. User Interface: Mm I don't think it's that fashionable. Marketing: What do you think? User Interface: I'd give it like three or four. Project Manager: Well, now I'm {gap}. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: So, the average is about a two. User Interface: {vocalsound} But then I'm not fashionable, so Marketing: Yeah, it's a two. Project Manager: Two or three. Two point five. User Interface: don't use my opinion. Marketing: That's okay. Yeah. Industrial Designer: Neither are all o all the customers we have, either. Marketing: {vocalsound} Um User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: does it feel good? Project Manager: Imagine, since we obviously don't have that. User Interface: Does it feel good? Marketing: I feel like {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Uh the shape of it actually does uh. Project Manager: And it's i it is very ergonomically designed. It's gonna be curved. User Interface: Yeah, it's gonna be thicker. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: Depth. Marketing: I think it feels good. Project Manager: I think so too. Marketing: I'll give it a two. Project Manager:'Kay. Two. User Interface: {vocalsound} I'll give it a one. Marketing: What do you say? Industrial Designer: I'd say a two. Project Manager: Alright, average is two. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: Is it technologically innovative? Oh sorry I'm taking over your job here. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh no, it's fine, Project Manager: Go right ahead. {vocalsound} Marketing: you're {disfmarker} I mean you're Project Manager. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Um yeah, I mean and it {disfmarker} does it have voice {disfmarker} I mean the phrase recognition on it? Project Manager: Yes. Right? We were able to do it with that kind of chip. User Interface: Oh right, the {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: We could do it with the chip, yes. It wasn't {disfmarker} we have no reflection of it on the prototype, Marketing: And there's no way you can represent it on here. Y Project Manager: Yeah, right. Industrial Designer: but that's because it's only two dimensions, really. Project Manager: That was {disfmarker}'kay. And we discussed that being included. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, so. User Interface: Right. Marketing: Then yes, then I would {disfmarker} well it isn't {disfmarker} what else would it need for it to be technologically innovative? Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} Project Manager: Well we don'have the {disfmarker} you know, we can't say channel, and it changes the channel, channel eight. Marketing: And it doesn't cover anything other then T_V_, Project Manager: Right. Marketing: so I'd probably give it a three. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Even though it is {disfmarker} for just a T_V_ remote it's uh very advanced. But it is just a T_V_ remote. Project Manager: Yeah. I'd go for a three or four on that one, so {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah I go four. Project Manager: okay, let's go for a three point five. User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Three and an half. Project Manager: Alright, and the last criteria {disfmarker} is it is it um {disfmarker} User Interface: Squishy and fruity. Marketing: {vocalsound} Well yeah, so I'd give it a two. Project Manager: Well, we've covered that with the User Interface: It's just trendy, basically. Project Manager: trendy. Sure. Capable. Very capable. Industrial Designer: It's capable of being squishy and fruity. Marketing: Oh, it's very capable of being squishy and fruity. User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Project Manager: And {vocalsound} it's very important.'Kay, there we go. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: So. Marketing: Okay, next. Project Manager: Next. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} So um our re model slightly resembling a giant delicious cookie appears to be a winner, Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: and uh hopefully we'll sell millions. Good job, team. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} How did you get that in there? User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} What? Industrial Designer: The {vocalsound} slightly resembling a giant delicious cookie. Project Manager: {vocalsound} It does. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: It {vocalsound} it does. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That was good. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Very good. Marketing: Thanks. Project Manager: Alright, let's go back to this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No, that's it. Hmm. Oops. Okay, so now uh we're moving on to finance, okay. I'm gonna show you an Excel spreadsheet and we're going to fill it in together based on what components we're including in our remote and see if it's under twelve fifty Euro. If so, we can proceed, if not, we need to go back to the drawing board a little bit.'Kay? So let me bring that up. Here we go. Alright. Um it's not hand dynamo, it's powered by battery, so we give it a {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yep. Marketing: Two. Project Manager: Number of components you plan to use. Do I just put quantity being one battery, or {disfmarker} Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Mm'kay. Project Manager: But if it's a {disfmarker} do you wanna go for {disfmarker} this is where we need to make a final call on if it's a lithium or do we wanna go triple A_s,'cause triple A_s we're gonna have t do more than one battery. Oh, let's just go for a lithium. What do you say? Industrial Designer: Yeah, User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah, let's let's do a lithium. Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think uh I think the people who purchase this are gonna be technologically Industrial Designer: it's {gap}. Marketing: We're gon that's gon Nologically advanced, Project Manager: {disfmarker} right. Marketing: yeah. Project Manager: Okay, down to the electronics um section. We're gonna need this kind, correct, if we do the voice sensor, Industrial Designer: Yep. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: so one of those. It is a single-curved, so one of those. Marketing: Uh {gap}. Project Manager: Oh. What's that? Yeah, that's correct. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager:'Kay, down here, case material. User Interface: It's plastic. Marketing: We {disfmarker} Project Manager: Plastic. Marketing: plastic. User Interface: And special colour. Marketing: And special colour. Project Manager:'Kay. {vocalsound} Down here, interface type. We're gonna have the integrated scroll scroll wheel. User Interface: No, we don't have the scroll. Project Manager: Isn't {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: oh those are just regular buttons. Industrial Designer: Well, that's the push-button too, right there. User Interface: Buttons. Marketing: But it's {disfmarker} Yeah, Project Manager: This? Marketing: but i so i Industrial Designer: Integrated scroll-wheel or push-button. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: We're really having just push-button interface. Project Manager: Okay, so we can just go {disfmarker} um. Marketing: But will we w actually we'll need two, won't we? One for the top and then one for the s one e for each side. Industrial Designer: But it {disfmarker} that just covers the type of button we're having. Because we're not doing a scroll on the side, it's still push-button. User Interface: Oh like the {disfmarker} twenty nine means like you have both scrolls and Industrial Designer: Push-button. Project Manager: Right I think she's {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: But we just have push User Interface: push-buttons. Marketing: Okay. User Interface: But we don't have any scrolls. Project Manager: I think what Courtney's talking about is do we need to put two here? Marketing: Like because there's like one interface right here and then {disfmarker} because it's not gonna be on the same plane when you press the button. Project Manager: Right. Marketing: There's gonna have to be additional signals on the sides. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Okay. Marketing: So is that gonna be an extra one on each side? Project Manager: I don't know, they might put us {disfmarker} well, let's just. User Interface: Two interfaces, is that what w should we s say? Project Manager: Two or would it be three? Industrial Designer: Let's call it th Marketing: Or three, because of one on each side and one on top. User Interface: Okay, fine. Yeah. Marketing: I mean it's fine'cause it comes out the same as twenty nine. Well less than twenty nine even. Project Manager: Okay Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: and we're gonna {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: button supplements {disfmarker} the buttons are no uh okay. Marketing: They're a special colour. Um they're uh they're a special form,'cause they're indented. Project Manager: Are they? Oh, right. User Interface: And then s Marketing: And, they're a special material. User Interface: yeah. Project Manager: Mm. Well, we're under cost then. Alright. User Interface: We're over? Project Manager: No, we're under. Industrial Designer: Grand. Marketing: We're under. Project Manager: Twelve point five is our limit. User Interface: Okay. Project Manager: We've got eleven point two. User Interface: Oh, I see. Project Manager: Alright. Industrial Designer: So we can go to production. Project Manager: We can go to {disfmarker} I dunno what I just did. {vocalsound} Okay. Now we're gonna talk about the project process um and whether or not we're satisfied with the whole process and the result. Um did we have a lot of room for creativity? Did we have a lot of room for individual leadership, um teamwork, and the means, meaning the technology that we used to produce our little guy there, and if we found any new ideas. Now, question is, how do we do this? User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Go back. Marketing: {vocalsound} I think we just discuss it. Project Manager: Discuss, sure. Industrial Designer: Previous. Project Manager: Alright. Who want who would like to go first? Industrial Designer: We think we got stifled for cri {vocalsound} creativity by the company itself, in restricting us only to using a T_V_ remote, initially. User Interface: We didn't have a whiteboard. Project Manager: Hmm. Hmm. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Oh that's true. User Interface: And no internet. Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} No, yeah, that's a good point.'Cause I'd forgotten that that wasn't our decision, yeah. Project Manager: {vocalsound} And how did you feel about the whole the whole process though? Marketing: Oh, overall I mean I thought we did a good job like {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: We got to choose {disfmarker} basically we had control over {disfmarker} minus it being just merely a T_V_ remote we got to choose what we wanted to do with it. Project Manager: Right, and we got say over what {disfmarker} how technologically advanced it should be and also how fashionable, which I kind of like {disfmarker} Marketing: And we're a fashion forward technology company. Project Manager: we {disfmarker} yep. You know it. Industrial Designer: {gap} right. Project Manager: Um what about um the teamwork aspect? How did you guys enjoy making the model, the prototype? Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah. User Interface: I think we did well. Project Manager: I think ya'did. Did you work well together in there, and {disfmarker} User Interface: Yep. {vocalsound} Project Manager:'kay. Industrial Designer: Well, no, there was there was scratching and fighting, but {disfmarker} no {vocalsound}. Marketing: Minus that one fight. User Interface: {vocalsound} Gouges. Project Manager: Oh my God, Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: and we've all been a pretty congenial team here, I think. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: We hadn't had any ma fallings out. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. I mean minus you guys being wha what is it, the survey, annoying or what is it? Project Manager: {vocalsound} Irritating. Industrial Designer: Irritating. {vocalsound} User Interface: Irritating. Marketing: Irritating, yeah. Wow that's a {disfmarker} it's definitely a strong one. Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: The means, the whiteboard didn't work. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. User Interface: And no internet. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: I have to knock that one down a couple notches. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A and our friend here really feels strongly about the internet. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah, and no internet. User Interface: Misses. I do. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: There's so much available. Marketing: And the digital the digital pens User Interface: Like it's information Project Manager: Yeah, digital pens. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I really appreciated those, yeah. Marketing: were {disfmarker} they were pretty cool. Project Manager: They were fine. Marketing: Yeah they were fun, even though I'm not really sure what I could do with them, but they are awesome. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: The use of the laptops for receiving everything. Project Manager: Right, laptops are extremely handy, Industrial Designer: It was wireless too, so. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: wireless. And that we have a shared network where we can put all of the {disfmarker} Marketing: And these things whoa. Industrial Designer: And let's not forget the sexy dual microphones everyone gets to wear. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. And Big Brother. Project Manager: Big brother. Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager:'Kay, have we found any new ideas through this process? Marketing: Um we are really gonna sell this. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Ta-da. Project Manager: For something that looks cool and also has what I want it to b do technologically. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: And that's your right brain taking over, w wanting the artistic, the fashionable, the hip, you know. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: If we all just went out and bought useful things, I don't think {disfmarker} I mean that's not what technology. User Interface: Well, that's why I don't like uh Macs or Apples, just'cause I look at it, and I know it's probably a very good computer, but I look at it, and I'm taken back to elementary school,'cause they look the same. Project Manager: Mm. User Interface: They look like they did when I was in elementary school, Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and that's so old-fashioned to me. Marketing: Yeah,'cause they're pretty and just like {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: The Toronto district school would only use his Macs with their kids. User Interface: Exactly, so I associate them with like really low-tech, really cheap, bad {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. Just the Mac font bothers me even. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Uh yeah. Project Manager: But I do like iPods, go figure. Marketing: Yeah, no, iPods {vocalsound} {disfmarker} They want all those words for presentation, even the plugs. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Well, i iPods are now quite trendy, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and they come in different colours. Project Manager: Colours. Exactly. I mean how many people went out and bough a Nokia phone, back when we were like in high school, just so they could get the changeable face plates. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh yeah, everybody. Project Manager: Okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Anyway, so that is definitely at work. Industrial Designer: Not me. Marketing: {vocalsound} Mine is amber. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I didn't have a phone'til university. User Interface: But the {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} but my one issue is just like the whole it's for T_V_ only. Marketing: Oh. User Interface: I was like who's gonna buy a remote just for the T_V_ unless they've lost theirs. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Look at it. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Fashionable chic people will. User Interface: You're kidding. Marketing: That is a piece of work. User Interface: No, no. Marketing: {vocalsound} Wow. Marketing Director says yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} No, marketing has to actually create the desire for it. {vocalsound} Marketing: Fashionable people will buy it. Oh, I will create desire. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: That's okay. We can create a commercial where they think that all their needs will be met. This will help them find the one. User Interface: Ri {vocalsound} They'll be sexy with it. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Hmm. Industrial Designer: That's right. Marketing: We could have like an Adam and Eve type commercial, and that's the fig-leaf. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: Oh right. Marketing: Mm. {vocalsound} That'll sell. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And so the serpent says, use our remote. {vocalsound} Project Manager: There you go, marketing {gap}. User Interface: Let you loose. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: Yeah, no. Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay, we're gonna wrap this up now. Um the costs are within the budget, we evaluated the project, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: and now we're gonna complete the final questionnaire and meeting summary, and then we're going to have a big giant party, apparently, according to this, so. Alright, thank you team, Industrial Designer: Whoohoo. Margaritas for everyone. {vocalsound} Project Manager: you did a great job, it was lovely working with you. User Interface: {vocalsound} Good. Marketing: You too. Industrial Designer: Yay. Thanks to the Project Leader. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Now we know w

This was the last meeting on the remote project. Industrial Designer and User Interface first gave the prototype presentation with a model remote they made based on previous team decisions, showing the design of colours, buttons, and shapes. Marketing then led the discussion on the evaluation criteria of their product, after which the team evaluated the remote in various aspects. As for finance, the team calculated the costs of each component of the remote, finding the total cost under their budget and thus allowing the remote to go into production. Finally, the team talked about their experience in the project process, digressing into a casual discussion on computers, cell phones, and ideas for commercials. The team members thanked each other for their effort.

tr-sq-628

tr-sq-628_0

What were the difficulties faced by the municipal sector? The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.) ): We'll call this meeting to order. Welcome to the fifth meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. Pursuant to the order passed on Monday, April20, the committee is meeting today to consider ministerial announcements, to allow members of the committee to present petitions, and to question ministers, including the Prime Minister, about the COVID-19 pandemic. Tomorrow, May8, Dr. AndreaMcCrady, Dominion Carillonneur, will give a special recital to mark the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day. Victory in Europe Day, VE Day, commemorates the formal acceptance of Germany's surrender by allied forces at the end of the Second World War. While the pandemic prevents us from gathering to celebrate in person, tomorrow at noon the voice of our nation will ring out in remembrance of this milestone in our history. Today's meeting is taking place by video conference. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. Just so you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entire committee. I would like to remind members that, as in the House of Commons or committee, they should not take photos of their colleagues or film the proceedings. In order to facilitate the work of the interpreters and to allow the meeting to proceed smoothly, I would ask you to follow some instructions. The video conference will be interpreted as in normal meetings of committees and in the House. In the lower part of your screen, you can choose the language: floor, English or French. Please wait until I call on you by name before you begin to speak. When you are ready to speak, click on the microphone icon to activate your microphone, or hold the space bar down while you are speaking. If you release the bar, your microphone will revert to mute, just like a walkie-talkie. Honourable members, I would like to remind you that if you want to speak English, you should be on the English channel. If you want to speak French, you should be on the French channel. Should you wish to alternate between the two languages, you should change the channel to the language that you are speaking each time you switch languages. Please direct your remarks through the chair. Should you need to request the floor outside of your designated speaking time, you should activate your mike and state that you have a point of order. If a member of the committee wishes to intervene on a point of order raised by another person, you should use the raised hand function to indicate to the chair that you wish to speak. To do this, click on the participant button at the bottom of your screen. When the list appears, you will see the raised hand option beside your name. Speak slowly and clearly at all times. When you are not speaking, leave your microphone on mute. It is highly recommended that you use a headset with a microphone. You have to remember to switch languages. Should any technical challenges arise, for example, in relation to interpretation, please advise the chair immediately by raising a point of order, and the technical team will work on resolving them. Please note that we may need to suspend during these times in order to correct a problem. I want to remind the honourable members to mute their microphones when they are not speaking. If you get accidentally disconnected, please try to rejoin the meeting with the information you used to join initially. If you are unable to rejoin, please contact our technical support team. Before we get started, please note that in the top right-hand corner of your screen is a button that you can use to change views. Speaker view allows you to focus on the person currently speaking; gallery view allows you to see a larger number of participants. You can click through the multiple pages in the gallery view to see who is on and how many more participants there are. I understand there are no ministerial announcements today. We will now proceed to presenting petitions for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during the meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. In addition, to ensure a petition is considered properly presented, the certificate of the petition and each page of the petition for a petition certified in a previous Parliament should be mailed to the committee no later than 6 p. m. the day before. Now we'll go to presenting petitions. Mr. Genuis. Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Mr. Chair, five years ago when Parliament passed Bill C-14, then justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said that it represented a finely tuned balance between access and safeguards. It also included a five-year review. Petitioners on the first petition I'm presenting are very concerned to see Bill C-7 before Parliament, which removes safeguards ahead of that five-year review. Petitioners specifically mention their concerns about the removal of the mandatory 10-day reflection period, which can already be waived in certain circumstances. They are concerned about reducing the number of witnesses required to oversee it and ensure that a request has been properly made. I commend that petition to the consideration of the House. The second and final petition that I will be presenting today is with respect to Senate Bill S-204. This would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ from a person who did not consent. This responds specifically to concerns about organ harvesting in the People's Republic of China involving Falun Gong practitioners and increasing concerns that this is being or about to be applied to Uighurs as well. Canada can and should take action on this. Petitioners are noting that in the previous Parliament there were bills on this, Bill C-350 and Bill S-240. Now, in this Parliament there is a bill, Bill S-204, and the petitioners hope that this 43rd Parliament will be the one that gets it passed. The Chair: We will go to Ms. May. Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's an honour. This is my first occasion to present a petition in our virtual format of the COVID-19 committee. Thank you to you and your staff, Mr. Chair, for developing a system that allows us to present petitions electronically. The petition I am presenting today, which was previously approved, is from a number of constituents who are concerned that we pursue the Paris Agreement to hold the global average temperature increase to no more than 1. 5C. The Paris Agreement itself embeds in it the concept of Just Transition with a capital J and a capital T, the concept of just transition ensuring fairness and support for all workers in the fossil fuel sector. The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to move forward with an act to ensure just transition and to ensure adequate funding so that workers and communities dependent on the fossil fuel sector receive meaningful support to ensure security in their lives in the transition to more sustainable energy use. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Chair: Those are all the petitions for today. I want to thank the honourable members for their usual collaboration and now we'll go on to Mr. James Bezan (SelkirkInterlakeEastman, CPC): On a point of order, Mr. Chair, on Tuesday, at our COVID-19 committee of the whole meeting, I was asking a question which started at 12: 56: 06 and was cut off at 1: 00: 32, so I still have 34 seconds of time remaining in my question time of five minutes. You said it could be no more than five minutes but that I had up to five minutes. Thirty-four seconds leaves a lot of time to have a quick question and a quick response. If you believe that my time was unjustly cut off and that it was unfair treatment of the official opposition when we were raising our points of order, I would ask that the 34 seconds be tacked on to the opening round for the opposition and credited to Rosemarie Falk, who will be leading off for the Conservatives. The Chair: Normally what happens is the chair uses judgment, and with 35 seconds, there isn't enough time obviously for a full question or answer, most of the time. I'll take it under advisement. I can't allot it. I want everyone to know that I do have a timer next to me and I am timing the questions, and I will be treating the answers the same way. If it's a 25-second question, it will be a 25-second answer. Thank you for bringing that up. I believe that issue has been remedied. We've taken a little bit of the chair's ability to give judgment on it, but it will be from now on. Thank you. Mr. James Bezan: Mr. Chair, 34 seconds is a considerable amount of time to do a short question and a short answer. The Chair: I appreciate the advice. Thank you, Mr. Bezan. We'll now proceed to the questioning of ministers. I would like to remind the honourable members that no member will be recognized for more than five minutes at a time and that members may split their time with one or more members by so indicating to the chair. Ministers responding to the questions should do so by simply turning on their microphone and speaking. Our first questioner is Ms. Falk. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk (BattlefordsLloydminster, CPC): Mr. Chair, yesterday, Elizabeth May and the leader of the separatists declared oil to be dead. It's certainly not dead, but it's dying under the Trudeau government. Will the Prime Minister stand up for Canada's energy workers, or does he agree with the fringe left and those who want to destroy our country? Ms. Elizabeth May: I have a point of order. The Chair: Go ahead, Ms. May. Ms. Elizabeth May: Mr. Chair, I believe that the language that the honourable member just used is unparliamentary Mr. Garnett Genuis: That's not a point of order. Ms. Elizabeth May: We can have differences of opinion, but it is absolutely Some hon. members: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: unacceptable and violates my privileges to An hon member: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: No, it's not debate. I would ask the chair to rule on that, not the member from the Conservative Party. It is unacceptable to assert that anyone who wants to make a point about our economy is trying to destroy the country. This allegation is a violation of my privilege. An hon. member: She was also named by the The Chair: Order. I didn't recognize anyone. I don't know who is speaking, so I'll just start talking myself. I want to remind honourable members to have respect in their questions and in their answers. When you refer to someone, please refer to them respectfully. This is a committee of the House, and I would expect no less of the honourable members. We'll go to the right honourable Prime Minister. You have 16 seconds. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. As I pointed out this morning in my press conference, we cannot move forward on a transformation of our energy sector without supporting the workers in that energy sector. We need their innovation and we need their hard work if we are going to lower our emissions, if we are going to reach our The Chair: We'll go to Ms. Falk again. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, it has been 43 days since the finance minister promised Canada's energy sector liquidity through the Business Development Bank of Canada. For 43 days the finance minister has failed to deliver on that promise. These delays cost jobs and they are costing us Canadian businesses. If the government doesn't step up to support our energy sector, they are in effect doubling down on their support for foreign, unethically sourced oil. Mr. Chair, when will the credit options be available to Canada's small and medium energy firms? The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that we do have interpreters who are listening and translating. In consideration to them, please speak at a reasonable pace so that they can understand and then translate. The right honourable Prime Minister. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, our priority through this pandemic and this crisis has been to support workers across the country. We have sent billions of dollars to workers right across the country, including Alberta, Saskatchewan, B. C. , and Newfoundland and Labrador in the energy sector for them to be able to support their families through this difficult time. We are also working on sectoral supports right across the country. Those will be announced in due course. Our focus from the get-go has been The Chair: We'll move to Ms. Falk. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, another group that has been ignored by the Liberals is our farmers. The announcements to date fall well short of what is needed to maintain a steady supply of affordable and healthy food. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture has asked the government for a $2. 6-billion emergency fund. Instead of responding to specific COVID-19 challenges, our farmers are facing the Liberals'reannounced $125 million that was already budgeted in the AgriRecovery program. Will the Prime Minister finally step up and take our food supply chain seriously, or is agriculture just an afterthought for him? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: On the contrary, Mr. Chair, we take agriculture and our agricultural sector extremely seriously, which is why we announced hundreds of millions of dollars a couple of days ago to respond to pressing needs. We will continue to make investments to ensure both the safety of workers in our agricultural sector and the safety of our communities, as well as the continued flow of high-quality Canadian food onto our tables right across the country. Supporting the people who produce our food is a priority for this government and will continue to be. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Well, Mr. Chair, recycled program announcements do not respond to the immediate needs facing our farmers. This is absolutely unacceptable. Our farmers are faced with rising operational costs, a disrupted service industry, labour shortages and a reduced capacity at processing plants. The government has a responsibility to take domestic food security seriously. When will the Prime Minister deliver adequate support to address the critical changes facing our ag industry? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I would suggest respectfully that the honourable member take a look once again at the announcement we made, which actually highlights significant new investments to support our agricultural industry. I certainly agree that there is more to do. Every step of the way in this unprecedented situation, we've been moving forward on doing more, on adjusting and on investing more. We need to support our agricultural sector and the people who work so hard to put food on Canadians'tables right across the country and we will continue to. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, Canadians expect to find healthy and affordable food at their grocery stores, but if the government does not take action now, that's not a given. Our farmers are trying to keep Canadians fed while keeping their heads above water. The Liberal government's own failed federal carbon tax is weighing them down. It is an enormous hit to their bottom line, and the recent carbon tax hike is taking even more money out of the pockets of farmers at a time when they can afford it the least. Will the Prime Minister exempt all farm operations from the carbon tax and reimburse the money that they have already taken from them? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, it's a shame to hear the member opposite accidentallyunintentionally, I'm certainmislead the House and Canadians. The price on pollution actually puts more money into Canadians'pockets, and that includes farm families. People who pay the cost of the price on pollution on average receive more money back. This is the way of creating a better future for our kids and grandkids, which I know people in communities right across the country, including our farm communities, want to see happen. We are moving forward in a responsible way to put a price on pollution and put more money in average Canadians'pockets. The Chair: We now continue with Mrs. Gill. Mrs. Gill, you have the floor. Mrs. Marilne Gill (Manicouagan, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. As you know, all sectors of the economy are fragile at the moment, specifically the fisheries. I am thinking about the lobster fishery in the Magdalen Islands, the crab fishery on the Cte-Nord or those fishing for herring in the south of the Gasp. Because imports have ceased, because the domestic market is weak and in decline because of the interruption of the tourism and restaurant industries, the fishing industry and its fishers must be supported. I would like to know what the government has done to support our fishers since the crisis began. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Our fishers do exceptional work that is extremely important in feeding Canadians and in contributing to our economic success through their exports around the world. This crisis has struck them very hard. That is why we have established measures in the tens of millions of dollars to support our processors. We have also announced help for the fishers. We know that these are difficult and unprecedented times, and we are going to Mrs. Marilne Gill: My thanks to the Prime Minister. I am actually talking about help for the fishers. I know about the processing industry and the $62. 5million to be used essentially for freezing products, but I am talking about the fishers themselves. Given the economic situation, most of our fishers are getting ready to leave. First, there are health risks. We know very well that it is impossible for them to observe all the social distancing measures. They have to incur additional expenses in order to conduct their normal fishing activities. In addition, they feel that they will be losing money, because of the drop in the price of their resource. They are just as essential as farmers, but they are going to have to work at a loss and they are not going to have workers to assist them. Workers in the seasonal industry do not know what tomorrow will bring. They do not even know whether they will be able to put food on the table next year. Are you going to do anything else, in addition to the assistance of $62. 5million? Time is of the essence. Our fishers have lacked certainty for weeks and they are very concerned. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Yes, indeed, we are going to do other things. Other investments will be made in various sectors in order to support Canadians. We recognize the challenges that fishers must face in terms of social distancing and of work that is often seasonal. We are going to continue working with the industry, with the fishers, and with the coastal communities in order to ensure that people have confidence in their abilities and in their future. In times of crisis, it is important for the government to be there to support people, and that is exactly what we are going to continue to do. This is an unprecedented crisis, but we can see once more that Canadians are there for each other. Our government will continue to be there for the fishers and the fishing industry. Mrs. Marilne Gill: I would have preferred us to be there from the start. Clearly, this is a difficult crisis. But, given the cyclical nature of the industry, some sectors have had to postpone for several weeks the preparations they need for fishing activities. The current program could be modified in a number of ways, to accommodate the cycle, the dates, and the size of the companies. They would really like to take advantage of the $40,000loan, but they cannot because of their payroll. Given the dates, they are also ineligible for the 75%salary subsidy. I can already suggest a number of solutions to the government and to the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, that would bring help to those businesses very quickly. The fishers carry on, because it is a duty for them, because they want to help us and to be part of the effort at this time of crisis. At the same time, they have no guarantee that they will be supported. I would really like to hear a guarantee that they will be supported, that they will be able to put food on the table this year, and that they will be able to support the communities that often depend on the fishing industry, a major industry in those communities. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Minister Jordan has been working with the fishers, the fishing industry and the communities affected by the crisis since the crisis began. We are assessing a number of solutions. We have proposed various solutions to support the communities, the workers and the families. This is an unprecedented situation. From the outset, our priority has been to support the millions of Canadians from coast to coast who have lost their jobs. We have been able to do so, but we are going to continue to work for those who must now face difficulties. We are going to be there for each other. That is what people are expecting from our government and from other Canadians. The Chair: Before we move to the next question, I would like to remind members of the committee to speak slowly, and to address their remarks to the chair and not directly to each other. Thank you very much. We will now go to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach (SkeenaBulkley Valley, NDP): Mr. Chair, municipalities across Canada are facing a financial crisis. They've seen revenues plummet, and at the same time the cost of delivering municipal services has risen. As the Prime Minister knows, municipalities are unable to run deficits and so they are facing the reality of cutbacks and serious cuts to the services that Canadians depend on. We know that municipalities are vital during this time to provide services to Canadians. They're going to be even more important during the recovery, especially when it comes to delivering on the infrastructure programs before us. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities and mayors across Canada have called for emergency financial relief for the municipal sector. My question for the Prime Minister is, when can they expect federal financial support to arrive? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, no government in Canada's history has done more to work with our municipalities, with our cities, with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to respond to the challenges they're facing and to partner with them. Things from infrastructure to investments have made a huge difference right across the country in the quality of life of Canadians in towns, large and small, from coast to coast to coast. As I'm sure the member well knows, our Constitution requires that most of the funding for municipalities flow through the provinces. We are working with the provinces, as we continue to work with the cities, to ensure that we're able to support this order of government that delivers the vast majority of services to Canadians with very little financial means. We know how difficult it is for our cities. We will continue The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, it would seem that the federal government has the fiscal capacity and the responsibility to help municipalities weather this crisis. Transit systems have been hit particularly hard and have seen the bulk of the layoffs in the municipal sector. These transit services carry essential workers to work, whether they are health care workers, grocery store workers, janitors or others. The risk is that we will see higher fares to deal with this financial crisis. We will see service cutbacks precisely at a time when we want to be expanding transit and improving transit in our communities. Does the Prime Minister acknowledge that the federal government needs to step in to safeguard and protect Canada's transit services? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, this federal government recognizes how important it is to support all Canadians, which is why we put forward unprecedented measures to help millions upon millions of Canadians with the CERB and with the wage subsidy. We will continue to work with the provinces, which have jurisdiction over the municipalities. I'll be having a conversation with all other first ministers tonight to talk about a broad range of issues. I can highlight that the issue of transit funding has come up. We have continued to engage with them, but again, it is important to respect the Constitution and understand that funding for municipalities and cities does go through the provinces. The federal government is happy to be there to support, but it must be The Chair: We will go to Mr. Bachrach again. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I am wondering how the Prime Minister could explain to a bus driver in Vancouver who has been laid off that as a public sector worker, she can't access the federal wage subsidy, while an equivalent worker in the airline industry gets to keep her job with the federal help of that program. Could the Prime Minister explain how that is fair? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I'm happy to explain to the member and to all Canadians that our Constitution creates federal areas of jurisdiction and provincial areas of jurisdiction. The airline industry, like banking, like telecommunications, is a federal area of jurisdiction that we have been able to move forward on. More than that, we brought the Canada emergency response benefit and the wage subsidy to all industries across this country, because we knew that as the federal government, it was something that we needed to step up on The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I'd like to shift gears a little bit. Faced with minimal health care capacity, remote indigenous communities in my riding are taking matters into their own hands. The Nuxalk have put up a checkpoint on Highway 20 to protect community members and prevent non-essential travel. In particular, it is to protect the three remaining fluent speakers of the Nuxalk language, these cherished elders in their community. The Haida on Haida Gwaii have set up a similar checkpoint, as have communities throughout British Columbia, yet federal support for indigenous communities amounts to only $39 million for all of the indigenous communities in B. C. Does the Prime Minister not agree that more support is warranted to help indigenous communities in my riding and across the country? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, we made funds available to Canadians right across the country, particularly people in indigenous remote or northern communities who we knew would be facing more difficult challenges because of the existing vulnerabilities in their health care system and socio-economic circumstances. We have made unprecedented investments and we will continue to make the necessary investments, because we need to make sure that indigenous Canadians, and indeed all Canadians, have the supports they need to make it through this crisis. The Chair: We will continue with Mr. Berthold. Mr. Berthold, you have the floor. Mr. Luc Berthold (MganticL'rable, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I am going to keep talking about the area of jurisdiction that the Prime Minister likes to talk about, except that I want to point out the incompetence of the Liberals in keeping their commitments on infrastructure projects. My question is very simple. As the provinces gradually restart their economies, can the Prime Minister tell us how many projects that the provinces have submitted are waiting for approval from his government? Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, I hope that the length of the pause will not be taken out of my time. The Chair: No, I stopped the clock for your time. Ms. McKenna, you have the floor. Hon. Catherine McKenna (Minister of Infrastructure and Communities): I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, I was on mute. I'm very pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. I have spoken with all of my provincial and territorial counterparts over the last couple of weeks. Work on our historic infrastructure program is progressing well. My department has worked very hard to approve projects, and we will continue to do so. It is very important to build projects that will create good jobs The Chair: We are returning to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: We still haven't had a response. How many projects are currently awaiting government approval? I know that the minister has been meeting virtually with the provinces over the last few days. However, there are still hundreds of projects waiting for approval from the Liberal government. Rather than wait for the right political opportunity to approve these files, will the minister commit today to respecting the provinces and approving by next week all the projects that are sitting on her desk? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I'm pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. We are approving projects. If the hon. member speaks to the provinces and territories, he will see how well we are working together. We will announce the approval of projects because it's very important for our economy, our communities and creating good jobs. Mr. Luc Berthold: Does the minister understand that she hasn't told us how many projects are still pending? The construction season is very short. Approval of a project in July means that work can't begin until next year, which won't help revive our economy. Hon. Catherine McKenna: I want to make it clear that we have approved hundreds of projects in the last few weeks. We will work with the provinces, territories, municipalities and indigenous communities to implement these projects. These projects are important for the economy and the environment, as well as for jobs The Chair: We return now to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, while the minister is calling for a green recovery of the country's economy, public transit is at risk. Physical distancing measures will cause public transit use to drop for several months. The Union des municipalits du Qubec estimates that the monthly losses are between $75million and $100million. Other countries have included public transit in pandemic relief programs. Why isn't Canada? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, we recognize the importance of public transit for our economy, since some essential workers use public transit. We are working very closely with our counterparts and are listening to the municipalities. As the Prime Minister said, it's the provinces that must help because the money The Chair: We return now to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, once again, what we're hearing is that the government is passing the buck to the provinces. Unfortunately, the minister was unable to answer a single question about the number of infrastructure projects still on the federal government's desk, which is very important. Several large municipalities are waiting for the approval of projects. Moreover, public transit systems are facing an extremely serious financial crisis. Ridership in most systems is down 85%to90%. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is asking for help for small communities, as well as large municipalities. Why is the federal government ignoring the municipalities in the Canadian Federation of Municipalities at this time? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I can reassure the hon. member that we are working very closely with the municipalities. We are listening to the municipalities to find out what their issues are and how we can support them. Of course, we need the help of the provinces and territories. In terms of the number of projects that we've approved, I would be happy to inform the hon. member of the exact number of all the approved projects that my department has been working very hard on over the past few months to approve projects to go forward. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, do I have any time left? The Chair: No, your time is up. We'll now go on to Mr. Fast. Hon. Ed Fast (Abbotsford, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. This question is directed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. On March 28, the minister personally tweeted out a thank you to the People's Republic of China for donating PPE to Canada. This tweet happened within three hours of China's announcement of that gift. As it turned out, much of the PPE was defective and could not be used. More recently, Taiwan donated half a million surgical masks to Canada, yet here we are, two weeks later, and the minister has yet to personally thank Taiwan for its generosity. Will the minister now thank this free and democratic country for its generous gift to Canadians? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne (Minister of Foreign Affairs): Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank my colleague for the question. Indeed, we are very grateful to every nation for helping Canada. This is a global pandemic that knows no borders. We have been expressing our thanks to many nations that have contributed. We will continue to do so. It is important in a time of pandemic, Mr. Chair, that we not play politics and that humanity comes together. I can say, after my COVID foreign ministers call, that the world community has come together to make sure that supply chains will remain intact and that we will have transit hubs and air bridges. We will continue to work with every nation when it comes to health. This is a public good. We want to work together with everyone. The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Fast now. Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, I didn't hear a thank you there, so I'm going to try again. On May 4, the Government of Taiwan delivered 25,000 surgical masks to the Government of British Columbia. On hand were B. C. Minister of Citizens'Services Anne Kang and Minister of State for Child Care Katrina Chen, who, as ministers, officially thanked the Government of Taiwan for its donation. Again, will the minister now do the right thing and, on behalf of Canadians, recognize the generosity of Taiwan and thank its government for that timely donation? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, as I said to you before, Canada is grateful to all who have given supplies to Canada. This is a common endeavour. We are thankful. We are grateful to every nation and we will continue to be. As I said, when it comes to global health, when it comes to helping each other, I think it is a duty for all to come together. We are grateful and thankful for all those who have agreed to help Canada and Canadians from coast to coast to coast in times of need. I've repeated that and have said many times in many forums that we are grateful and thankful to all of those who are helping Canada. Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, again there was no specific thank you to Taiwan. The Government of Taiwan has been the world leader in successfully fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. We have a lot to learn from them and their response. Sadly, the People's Republic of China continues to oppose Taiwan's membership in the World Health Organization. Will the minister now do the right thing and assure Canadians that he will fully support efforts to grant Taiwan membership in the World Health Organization? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the member. As a former trade minister, he's very well aware of Canada's one China policy. That said, we support Taiwan to continue meaningful participation in international multilateral forums, particularly when it comes to health. This is a global good, and we want to support every nation. We recognize that Taiwan and others have been doing very well in fighting this pandemic. We also believe that Taiwan's role as an observer in the World Health Assembly meeting is of interest to the international health community and we have been supportive of that. Hon. Ed Fast: Mr. Chair, I'm going to pivot to repatriation flights. The minister has publicly said that over 20,000 stranded Canadians have been repatriated from abroad. Can he tell us exactly how many Canadians remain abroad who have expressed a desire to be repatriated? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Yes, Mr. Chair, I am very happy to update members. As of today, we have repatriated more than 20,000 Canadians on 232 flights from 87 countries. I would say that this is team Canada, and it knows no parties. Many members have written to me to make sure that we take care. It's not an exact science. We have, as I said, repatriated thousands and thousands. We continue, because we know there are still pockets of Canadian travellers who are stranded abroad. As the Prime Minister and I have said from the beginning, we will make our best effort to repatriate everyone who wants to come back home during the crisis. The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Moore now. Hon. Rob Moore (Fundy Royal, CPC): Mr. Chair, Canadians need to have faith in their justice system, even in a time of crisis. My office has received correspondence from Canadians concerned that trial delays due to COVID-19 may result in criminals walking free. As this government has been working overtime to criminalize law-abiding citizens with new and useless gun laws, will the Minister of Justice ensure that real criminals will not walk free as a result of delays in the justice system? Hon. David Lametti (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada): Mr. Chair, I thank the honourable member for his question. We have been working with my provincial counterparts across Canada, as well as with the various federal courts and also, through my provincial counterparts, with the superior courts and courts of appeal across Canada. Each particular jurisdiction has taken measures to ensure that basic essential services within the court system are maintained, through a variety of means, and we believe that we will be able to solve these various challenges. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, the regional relief and recovery fund was announced weeks ago as a way to help small and medium-sized businesses in rural communities, like those in my riding. In Atlantic Canada, these funds were to be distributed to the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. This is yet another announcement with no details from this Liberal government. Can the minister clarify whether we are days away or weeks away from this support flowing to the businesses that need it so desperately? Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): Mr. Chair, I had the chance to talk with many of the chambers of commerce and business owners throughout Atlantic Canada, and we hear their anxiety. That's why ACOA's doing great work on the ground to make sure we can help them through this very difficult period. The member is right. We have increased the budget of ACOAgood newsand I'll be coming up with the details very soon. It will be a pleasure to collaborate with him to make sure that we can help many businesses and business owners across the Atlantic region. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, my office has heard from many small business owners who have reached out to me. I know many have reached out to many of my colleagues and probably to all of us here today. They are frustrated by the eligibility requirements for some of the federal programs. In particular, they are unable to access the emergency business account, because they do not have a payroll. This could be the hair salon in my riding that subcontracts out its chairs. There are hundreds and thousands of small businesses in this very situation, vital small businesses in our communities, but they do not meet this requirement. These businesses, many of them, are weeks away from shutting down permanently. What does the Minister of Finance have to say to these small businesses that are suffering right now? Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Mr. Chair, I want to thank my honourable colleague for that really important question. I want all the businesses that he is talking about and all of them throughout the country to know that we continue to work very hard to make sure they're supported through this difficult period. More work needs to be done, and we will continue to do that work. We know that businesses are being supported through getting access to the wage subsidy to keep their employees together, and they're getting help, whether it's with rent or to defray costs by deferring GST and HST or customs duty payments. We're going to continue to work with all our businesses across the country. The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Moore for a brief question. You have less than 20 seconds, please. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, it's a very specific issue. There are small businesses, thousands of them, that do not have a payroll. Some have a personal account that they've dealt with over the years rather than a business account, and that makes them ineligible. These businesses need help right now. Hon. Mary Ng: I agree with the honourable member. Those businesses absolutely need support from us. We are going to keep working to ensure they are supported. The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Cumming next. Mr. James Cumming (Edmonton Centre, CPC): Mr. Chair, small businesses are concerned about their ability to survive, and no amount of deferrals, loans or subsidies can substitute for their need to be open and servicing their customers. Can the government confirm that a sectoral risk analysis has taken place to assist the provinces in reopening the economy? Hon. Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry): Mr. Chair, I can assure the member that we've been very clear in terms of our strategy around reopening the economy. We need to make sure that we follow the advice of the experts and the health authorities to do so in a manner that does not compromise the health and well-being of Canadians. We of course will have a sectoral lens, and as you can see by some of the initiatives and the support packages we've put forward The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Cumming now. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, thousands of business owners make a living and utilize dividends as their salary. They also use independent contractors. Can the government confirm that the programs currently in place will be expanded to these hard-working Canadians? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to assure the honourable member that we continue to work with all of our small businesses and I want to thank him for raising this very important issue. I want to assure our Canadian small businesses that we are going to continue to do this work to make sure they are supported. Mr. James Cumming: Can the minister give me a date when she will be able to announce to these businesses that they will be eligible? Hon. Mary Ng: I want to assure our Canadian small businesses of their importance and of the importance of their contributions to all of our communities. I want them to know that we continue to listen and that we will ensure that they are supported and continue to be supported during this difficult time. Mr. James Cumming: Minister, they need more than assurance. Can you give me a date when I can tell these thousands of businesses they will be supported if they pay dividends or if they use contractors within their businesses? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, these businesses are absolutely important and are getting support through a range of means. We will continue to work with these businesses to make sure they are supported through this difficult period. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, I spoke to a Second Cup owner whose landlord is not offering any kind of rent relief. The landlord says that he doesn't have the 25% needed to be eligible for the program because he's already paying for common area costs and deferrals on utilities, which he will have to pay on his mortgage. Will the government reform the rent relief program to focus on tenants and not just the landlords? Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr. Chair, I want to let the member know that we are working to make sure that the details of the emergency program for rent are out there so that both tenants and landlords can understand the situation. We're seeing a significant number of both landlords and tenants coming forward to register for this program, and we are convinced that it will be in the best interests of landlords to move forward and give tenants this relief. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, we've been hearing, however, from small business owners that their landlords don't find the government's rent relief program appealing enough. Can the government confirm, given the program's low eligibility rate, that the program will be expanded and be more efficient in helping tenants? Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we recognize that it's critically important that all of the details of this program be out there for landlords and tenants to understand. Those details are being worked on right now. This is a program that we've put out within the last week, and we are confident that it's in the best interests of tenants and landlords. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, during these trying times for small businesses, small businesses need all the help they can get. One easy way to do that would be to expand the Canada summer jobs program to businesses with over 50 employees. Will the government consider doing so to allow students to gain that very valuable work experience over the coming months? Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Mr. Chair, we are very excited about the uptake of the Canada summer jobs program this year. The second uptake provided employers across the country with the ability to add their needs for students to the mix. I'm looking forward to announcing a possible expansion of this program in the coming days. The Chair: The next question session will go to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall (SimcoeGrey, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. During this pandemic, the government has consistently called for a team Canada, non-partisan approach, and I was glad to hear that said a little earlier today. In fact, the public has called for that approach as well. However, at the same time, the current government has used a parliamentary back door to launch a poorly thought out gun ban. We have a government that didn't win the popular vote, and I'm just wondering how I explain to my residents, because I'm getting so many calls, that this is not a bloated response because, quite frankly, it is. Hon. Bill Blair (Scarborough Southwest, Lib.): First of all, Mr. Chair, I think the honourable member can explain to his constituents that the forming of regulations through order in council is actually the process prescribed in law in Canada under section 117. 15 of the Criminal Code. I would also invite the member to advise his constituents that way back in 1991, when there were some Conservatives who called themselves Progressive, the Mulroney government brought forward, in Bill C-17, the authority under that section for an order in council to prescribe specific makes, models and variants of military firearms as prohibited or restricted. The Harper government used the same tool The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall: I'm not sure, but I'm hoping, that I'll get an honest answer on this question from the minister, who has everything from rocket launchers to basically toy guns on the ban list. When will we get the cost of this buyback program? The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to please be careful in their language when they are referring to others. I won't comment on this one particularly, but I want all of you to be very, very careful when referring to other members. The honourable minister. Hon. Bill Blair: It's a good opportunity, Mr. Chair, to respond to some of the obfuscations and deceptions that have been put out there. We're not banning any toys and we're not banning shotguns. That's all misinformation that's being put out. I think it's very clear, and I invite the member to look at the list of weapons that are The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Thank you. What will be the cost of the buyback program, please? Hon. Bill Blair: Actually, I'm very much looking forward to bringing forward legislation as soon as the House resumes. We will have a vigorous debate in Parliament about the form a buyback will take and we will bring forward a budget at that time. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Will those with illegal weapons be eligible for the buyback program? Hon. Bill Blair: If people are illegally in possession of the weapons and they're committing a crime, they will be dealt with for the crimes they commit. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Okay. I'm going to switch it over. Canadians in my riding who suffer from cystic fibrosis are among the most vulnerable to COVID-19 infection. While these Canadians with existing lung conditions are incredibly worried about a virus that attacks the ability to breathe, the good news is that there are life-saving medicines for those with CF. The problem is with the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board and its restrictive guidelines. I am wondering if and when the government will correct these guidelines and give access to life-saving medicines for our most vulnerable. Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Mr. Chair, as you know, the government has been very committed to improving access and affordability for prescription medications for all Canadians. The PMPRB regulatory amendments will help Canadians be able to afford their prescriptions, and Canada will continue to be an important market for new medicines. In fact, many countries with much lower medicine prices gained access to new medicines in the same time frame as Canada frame, or even faster, so we are excited to do this work. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Mr. Chair, our seniors are being particularly hard hit right now during this pandemic, yet seniors have not been given any direct support. It's one of the number one calls I'm getting in my office. Funding to charities like the United Way is being labelled as support for seniors, but most won't see any of this support. Seniors in my riding have asked for an increase in their CPP and OAS, and to be able to make untaxed bulk withdrawals from their RRSPs while they still have some value. Can the minister confirm when these real and direct supports for seniors will be forthcoming? Hon. Deb Schulte (Minister of Seniors): I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. He mentioned. I'm not quite sure what's happening with my machine. I apologize. The Chair: You might want to try your space bar and keep it down while you're speaking. That might solve the problem. Hon. Deb Schulte: Okay, I'll try that. Thank you very much. I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. We have introduced a supplementary GST payment for low- and modest-income seniors. We've reduced the minimum RRIF withdrawal by 25%, and we've made the CERB available to working seniors who have lost their jobs due to the COVID pandemic. We know there's more work to do, and we'll have more to say in the future. The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that if there are issues, we are taking note of them, and we'll hopefully resolve them by the next meeting. We are getting much better, and we're all new at this. Thank you for your patience. We'll now go to Ms. Gaudreau. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau (LaurentidesLabelle, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My first question is for the Prime Minister. We've heard a lot about contact tracing apps. Several provinces have already made announcements on this, and others want to follow suit. Today, I'd like to know where the government stands on this. We've been talking about a national strategy for some time. Where are we now? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Obviously, contact tracing is an important part of managing any outbreak. In fact, we have been looking at a number of ways to support increased contact tracing across the country, including working with provinces and territories to boost their capacity through human resources and volunteer organizations. We are working very closely with them to make sure we have the capacity. The member is right that many other countries have used digital contact tracing apps. Anything we put forward as a digital tool to assist with contact tracing would be thoroughly considerate of Canadians'privacy rights. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Let me clarify my question a little. Yes, we are talking about public health, and we are currently experiencing a crisis. But you know as well as I do that the Privacy Commissioner has been calling us to task for a very long time now, because there is also a crisis of confidence. You know as well as I do that for 90%of Canadians, the misuse of their personal data is a cause for concern, whether it be for profiling or business development purposes. This is an issue that concerns all Canadians. The commissioner is indeed calling for a focus on reform of the Privacy Act. I'd like to know whether this commitment will be implemented quickly so that legislation can be passed on this issue, in this case the Privacy Act. Hon. Navdeep Bains: Particular attention must be paid to transparency, privacy and ethical concerns. Naturally, Canadians are concerned about how their data is used. New technologies are subject to the Privacy Act. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: We're talking about public health. The provinces are currently in the process of legislating. We're talking about what is going on in Quebec, among other places, and I would like to make sure that the federal government commits to respecting the proposals regarding geolocation and contact tracing possibilities, with full respect for the right to privacy. Can we commit to respecting the provinces? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have worked very closely with provinces and territories for a long time before the outbreak, but certainly ever since the outbreak. We respect the rights of jurisdictional authorities to use tools that have been properly vetted through their own provincial and territorial legislation. Nothing we would ever do at the federal level would put Canadians'privacy in jeopardy. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Concerning privacy, there are 30million Quebeckers and Canadians who have had their personal data leaked. Why is it that our laws don't allow us to apply financial penalties so that we can then go further? The very basis is to be concerned about our fundamental rights. The commissioner has been making this request for several years now. As the critic for access to information and privacy, I'd like a commitment that the federal government will deal not with what the provinces are doing, but with the Privacy Act. The Chair: Your time is up, but I'll give the floor to the minister for 30seconds. Hon. Navdeep Bains: Thank you for the question. Our government will ensure the privacy of Canadians is respected, support responsible innovation and take reasonable steps to strengthen enforcement powers. That's why we created a digital charter. We are strengthening Canada's privacy laws in response to the digital age. The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Baker. Mr. Yvan Baker (Etobicoke Centre, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll be sharing my time with the member for Malpeque. Mr. Chair, my question is for the Minister of Seniors. Minister, in my riding of Etobicoke Centre, we are mourning the loss of 40 residents to COVID-19 at the Eatonville long-term care centre. Over 143 residents and 88 staff members have now tested positive for the virus. This tragedy is not only taking place in Etobicoke Centre but across Canada. Of all Canadians who have died from COVID-19,79% were living in long-term care homes. That's over 2,000 seniors. This is a catastrophe, and it's frankly unacceptable. Our seniors and their families deserve better. I understand that long-term care homes fall within the jurisdiction of provincial governments in Canada, but this is a crisis. What is the federal government doing right now to help protect our seniors who are living in long-term care homes from COVID-19? What will we do to reform our long-term care homes in the future to ensure that our seniors in Etobicoke Centre and across Canada get the care they deserve? Hon. Deb Schulte: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to my colleague from Etobicoke Centre for his very thoughtful question. We are deeply concerned by the outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care facilities, and our thoughts are with those who have lost a loved one. It's a very difficult time. As my colleague mentioned, while these facilities are regulated by provinces and territories, we have been focused on protecting the health and safety of long-term care residents and staff while working with our partners in a team Canada approach. We've released guidelines to prevent and control COVID-19 infections. We're working with the provinces and territories to cost-share a temporary salary top-up for long-term care workers. We are working through investing $2 billion to secure personal protective equipment for the health of workers, including those in the long-term care homes, and we've deployed the Canadian Armed Forces to assist 25 long-term care homes in Quebec and Ontario. We all have a role to play to stop the spread of COVID-19 and to protect our seniors and caregivers. The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Easter. Hon. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. At the finance committee, we've heard a lot of concerns from all sectors of the economy as a result of COVID-19 and we've been presented with quite a number of possible solutions as well, several of which the government has acted upon. My question is on the support offered to the agri-food sector announced on Tuesday. It is very welcome support, but I sincerely believe the farm sector will be taking the Prime Minister up on the suggestion that $250 million should be seen as an initial investment. Potatoes are the number one commodity in Prince Edward Island. However, as a result of reduced processor contracts for next year, plus cancelled seed contracts, millions of dollars of seed and process potatoes have no home. To make matters worse, farmers have high fixed costs that they now have to spread over fewer acres. How does the minister see Tuesday's announcement addressing potato farmers'concerns? Second, in 2013, long-term financial safety nets were gutted by the Harper government. Will the minister be coming forward with improved business risk management programs as a result? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): Mr. Chair, I want to thank Mr. Easter, the member for the riding of Malpeque on Prince Edward Island. It's a beautiful rural riding with lots of agricultural production. I want to recognize the hard work of farmers throughout the crisis. On Tuesday, I was proud to announce one more step for supporting our producers and processors. We know the importance of our potato farmers, and that's why we are launching a first-ever surplus food purchase program, a $50-million fund designed to help redistribute existing inventories, such as potatoes, to local food organizations. On the financial safety net that we have in place for our farmers, called the business risk management program, we announced up to $125 million in funding through AgriRecovery and made changes to AgriStability that will help producers quickly. I will continue to discuss with my provincial counterparts toenhance and improve the BRM programs. In the meantime, I want to reiterate that BRM programs, including AgriInvest, are there to help farmers in difficult times. The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Johns now. Mr. Gord Johns (CourtenayAlberni, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, small businesses across Canada closed their doors to stop the spread and for public health. Now they're currently hanging off the edge of a cliff waiting for financial help. Robyn, who has owned Arbutus Health in Tofino for over 13 years, can't apply for the Canada emergency business account loan, simply because she doesn't have a payroll of over $20,000. All of her practitioners are paid contractors, so she is ineligible. With no business income and without emergency financing, it is virtually impossible for her to pay her bills or come up with the 25% needed for the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program. The government promised to be flexible and willing to adjust its COVID response rollout so that nobody falls through the cracks, but Robyn, like tens of thousands of proprietors who are the economic job creators of our communities, urgently needs the government's help now. Will the government amend its programs to help more business owners so that people like Robyn don't lose their businesses? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for his really good question. I know he and I have talked about this, and I appreciate the input and the feedback that he is providing from business directly. I want to assure Robyn and her businesses, and many businesses across the country, that we are absolutely listening, and we will continue to make sure we are supporting those businesses during this period. We know that many businesses are being helped through the Canada emergency business account. There are well over 550,000 businesses that are getting support through this emergency business account. We also know that more has to be done, and we will continue to work with you and businesses across the country so that we can indeed give them that necessary support to weather this difficult period of COVID-19. Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, that's not going to help Robyn feel comfort. I was talking to Heather last night, who also owns a business in Tofino, Basic Goodness Pizzeria, with her partner Marco. Like many proprietors of family businesses who aren't on payroll, they don't qualify for the business loans. They don't qualify for the wage subsidy because they're a seasonal business. Now with the new rollout of the rent support, they're not sure if their landlord is willing to play ball and even apply. That's three separate programs that leave them out. Heather was in tears last night as she told me that they have done nothing wrong to deserve being excluded from these emergency programs. I agree. Will the government fix the rent support program so that tenants can apply, instead of leaving it up to landlords, and so businesses can get the help they desperately need? Hon. Mona Fortier (OttawaVanier, Lib.): Mr. Chair, we've been working on this program since the beginning. We've been working on offering a response for small businesses and charities and non-profit organizations, and we are continuing to listen on the ground to how we can better assist the businesses that fall through the cracks. We will continue to do that as we go along in this emergency situation. Thank you very much to the honourable member for sharing the realities of his constituents. Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, when the government rolled out its commercial rent support program, why didn't it negotiate an eviction moratorium with the provinces, as Australia and other countries did, to protect business owners? Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as we know, Canadians are taking action and fighting against COVID-19. We know that many small businesses are worried about being able to pay rent. We've recognized it and we've been working with the provinces and territories to implement the Canada emergency commercial rent The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Johns. Mr. Gord Johns: To qualify for the Canada emergency wage subsidy, a 30% drop in revenue has to be shown. Anyone who's owned a business knows that even with this program, it's going to be hard to survive. Why is the government using a 70% measurement drop to qualify for the rent support program, but a 30% drop for the wage subsidy? Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, Mr. Chair, thank you to the honourable member for sharing his views on this program. We've been working with provinces and territories to provide forgivable loans to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rents for their tenants by 75%. We're hoping that tenants and landlords will be working together so we can support businesses during this very difficult crisis. The Chair: Before we move on to the next question, Mr. Berthold, did you have a question or a point of order? Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, I have a point of order. I checked the clock from the first round of five minutes, and as you may recall, it took a very long time for me to get an answer from the government. I went back and forth with MinisterMcKenna for four minutes and 14seconds. The Chair: Just a moment. The interpretation isn't coming through. It's working now. Go ahead, Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: I'll start over. During my first turn, it took 50seconds before a government minister deigned to answer my questions. After checking my time, I realized that the discussion between Ms. McKenna and I went on for four minutes and 14seconds, so I wasn't able to ask the minister one final question, a very important one. I would ask you to take that into account and allow me to ask MinisterMcKenna one last question, please. The Chair: The person chairing the meeting uses their judgment and does their best to keep an eye on what's going on. They try to be as fair as possible. I'll try to do a better job. I think it's more or less equal for all the members, but I apologize if the honourable member feels that he was denied a few seconds. Our next question goes to Mr. Doherty. Mr. Todd Doherty (CaribooPrince George, CPC): Mr. Chair, the Canada-U. S. border agreement is set to expire on May 20. Will the two governments renew the current agreement, or will it be modified? Hon. Bill Blair: The decision to close the border was made in Canada by Canadians in the best interest of Canadians. We're continuing to monitor the situation carefully. Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government be in a position to inform Canadians of any changes to the agreement? Hon. Bill Blair: I'm pleased to advise the member that we're continuing to monitor the situation, but I'm strongly of the opinion that the circumstances on both sides of our border do not indicate that this is the right time to make a change in the restrictions. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the government confirm whether there are any discussions about reopening the border to certain modes of transportation and restricting others? The Chair: Before I go to the minister, I want to remind the honourable members that we do have translators, and they are trying to translate. With respect to them, I know we're trying to get as many questions in as possible, but they do have to translate them, so please be considerate of our interpreters. The honourable minister has the floor. Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Let me please inform the honourable member that we are, of course, aware that the current agreement expires. I had a long conversation yesterday with the Prime Minister Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government announce a relief package for Canada's aviation industry? Hon. Navdeep Bains: We are engaged with the industry, and we are working with them on a solution, Mr. Chair. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, will this relief package include funding for airline ticket refunds similar to what other countries around the world have done? Yes or no? Hon. Navdeep Bains: It's early to say anything at this moment. We're taking a sectoral approach. This is about making sure that we restart the economy and have a strong recovery. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the Minister of Transport confirm that temperature screening is taking place at Canadian airports. Yes or no? Hon. Marc Garneau (Minister of Transport): Mr. Chair, I can confirm that Air Canada has now adopted a policy of checking temperatures for passengers boarding Air Canada flights. Mr. Todd Doherty: At which airports is that, and when did this practice start? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the announcement was made recently by Air Canada. It will start shortly and will apply to all places and destinations where Air Canada flies. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, this is for the Minister of Transport. Last week I asked the Minister of Labour if they were aware of a letter written on April 6 by CUPE to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Minister, were you aware of that letter? The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly. Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I didn't understand the reference to a letter from CUPE. Could my colleague please clarify? Mr. Todd Doherty: On April 6, CUPE wrote a letter to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Is the minister aware of that letter? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, could my colleague clarify what CUPE is referring to? Mr. Todd Doherty: CUPE is the labour organization that represents thousands of flight attendants across our country. Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I do understand. Yes, I will confirm that CUPE, which represents the flight attendants, did write to us. Before that I had conversations with CUPE with respect to flight attendants and the use of personal protective equipment. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the minister confirm whether or not they have provided PPE to the flight attendants and/or training for front-line staff for airlines and airports? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the airlines are providing PPE to flight attendants and flight crews. This has become a policy to ensure the safety not only of passengers on board but also of the flight attendants and flight crew. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, a business owner from Quesnel wrote to my office recently. He stated that he couldn't give his small business tenants a break on rent because the government is penalizing him for paying off his mortgage. When will the government change the CECRA rules to help more businesses? Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as you know, we laid out the CECRA program just last week, and we are encouraging landlords to take that opportunity to support the renters. We will continue to look at how we can provide some relief to small businesses with rents. Mr. Todd Doherty: With all due respect, Mr. Chair, any landlord who does not have a mortgage on their business is ineligible for CECRA. Is the minister aware of this, and are they trying to revise the CECRA program? Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with provinces and territories to present that program. Of course, we will continue to monitor how this program works for landlords and tenants. We are asking, actually encouraging, landlords to do their part and help tenants, like the one you mentioned, go through this. The Chair: We'll go to the next questioner. Go ahead, Ms. Dancho. Ms. Raquel Dancho (KildonanSt. Paul, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Small businesses in Manitoba employ 73% of Manitobans. That's over 286,000 Manitobans. I've been speaking with many small business owners in my riding. It's been heartbreaking, frankly, to hear that everything they've built and sacrificed for is in serious jeopardy, and through no fault of their own. Your government has created programs that are supposed to help them, but many legitimate businesses aren't able to apply. That could mean bankruptcy and cost thousands of Manitobans jobs. This is wrong. I'm hoping to hear specifics, not just nice words, on what you're going to do to help them. There are three issues regarding access to the $40,000 CEBA loan. First, businesses that recently incorporatedfor example, in late 2019are unable to apply their entire 2019 payroll. As a result, many are falling short of the $20,000 payroll threshold required to qualify for this loan. Second, many businesses contract their employees rather than have them on payroll. They also are unable to qualify for this loan. Third, many businesses use personal rather than business banking accounts. They aren't able to qualify for this loan either. What is your government going to do about these three scenarios? The Chair: I just want to remind honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly to the minister. As well, please take into consideration the interpreters, who have to listen and translate, so that we can have this conversation. Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for that question. Right from the very beginning, we've always said that we will listen and that we will work to make sure that measures go out to help our Canadian small businesses. She's absolutely right: 98% of all our businesses in this country are small businesses, so they absolutely contribute enormously to our communities and are job creators. That is why we have put out significant measures. For the Canada emergency business account, over 550,000 small businesses have been approved and are getting that support. I absolutely acknowledge that there is more work to do. I can assure the honourable member that we will continue to do this work so that businesses, all businesses, are supported, whether it is helping keep your employees together, helping with rent support, helping to keep your business's expenses low, or of course helping with the capital that is needed so that you can pay your operating expenses and your bills through this difficult time. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, I didn't hear any answers from the minister's remarks, unfortunately. Moving on, there are two issues regarding the 50% commercial rent assistance subsidy, where landlords pay 25%, the government pays 50%, and the tenant is responsible for 25%. First, many of the small landlords aren't able to take a 25% hit to their income, and are unable to provide the subsidy to their tenants. Second, with the 70% decline in revenue threshold for small businesses to even be eligible for the rent assist, many restaurants are at 65% or 67% decline. They desperately need this subsidy but aren't able to qualify. This is not about problems with the program details. What is the government planning to do to streamline this program for small businesses that can't access but desperately need the rent subsidy? Hon. Mlanie Joly: Mr. Chair, as the Minister of Official Languages, I just want to raise the fact that interpretation is very complicated right now. In order to make sure that we can continue to uphold bilingualism within the House, I would love it if my colleagues could take down the pace a bit. That would help the interpreters a whole lot. They are working very hard and trying to keep up. The Chair: That's a reasonable request. I just want to remind everyone again that when you're asking a question, make sure you are doing it at a pace at which you're considering the people who are interpreting Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, this is how fast I speak when we're in the House of Commons. It's just how I talk. The Chair: I understand. I have a lot of friends who speak very quickly. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Right. I understand. Perhaps we could get back to my question about the rent subsidy. The Chair: We stopped the time. You're not losing any time on this one. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Okay. I will try to speak more slowly. The Chair: I appreciate it. Thank you. The interpreters appreciate it. Now we'll go to the minister, please. Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with the provinces and territories to provide this forgivable loan to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rent of their tenants by 75%. We will continue to monitor how this program is delivered, as we announced it last week. It will be offered pretty soon. It will be very important that we understand what happens across the country, and we will monitor and adapt the program as we Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, it has been in the media quite a bit that this rent subsidy is not helping many, many, many small business owners. It's falling short of everything that was announced, so I think it needs to be taken a bit more seriously than that. There are two issues regarding the 75% wage subsidy. First, employers who pay themselves and their employees dividends rather than wages are unable to qualify. Second, there is also a 30% threshold revenue decline needed in order to apply. Many of the businesses in my riding are at 27% or 29%. They desperately need these funds but are unable to qualify. What is the government planning to do for these small businesses? Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, thank you to the hon. member for sharing the realities she's hearing from small business owners. We are providing help and support for businesses through these very difficult times. The wage subsidy has been taken up and is working for many businesses. We know that some still fall through the cracks and we will look at how we can continue to support businesses across the country. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends (BrossardSaint-Lambert, Lib.) ): We are now going to Mr. Kevin Waugh. Mr. Kevin Waugh (SaskatoonGrasswood, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. Three weeks ago, on April 17, the Minister of Canadian Heritage announced funding of $500 million to assist Canada's arts, sports and cultural sectors. We are still waiting to hear who is eligible and when they can expect to receive this funding. Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Canadian Heritage): Madam Chair, we will be releasing the details of that announcement, and how the money is going to be spent, in the coming days. Mr. Kevin Waugh: We all know that many media organizations, large and small, in Canada are struggling right now. Allegations have arisen that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CBC, is currently engaging in predatory behaviour and taking advantage of the current situation to harm its competitors using rate cuts. We've seen this from the province of Quebec. Many journalists have talked about this. What is the government going to do to address these allegations against the CBC? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have not been informed of these allegations. We will look into this, and we will get back to the hon. colleague if we do find any valuable information. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Local community and ethnic media outlets and papers have strong ties to their communities that often go much deeper than the major media outlets. Is the government currently using any local or ethnic media outlets to provide crucial coronavirus information through advertising? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, I totally agree with my colleague. We need to get the information to Canadians on COVID-19, which is why we have started an ad-buy campaign of $30 million, which is being distributed in more than 900 local, regional and national newspapers across the country and 500 radio and TV stations in 12 different languages, including Farsi, Mandarin, Spanish, Italian and many more. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Mr. Minister, I talked to the Winnipeg Free Press yesterday. It has received two ads from an ad agency in connection with the $30 million the government is doling out to help media outlets. They had one ad on March 27. The second ad was on April 11. That is two ads in the Winnipeg Free Press in the last eight weeks. Is this the kind of money you're attempting to dole out to help media: two ads in eight weeks? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have been doing a number of things for our media in Canada over the last few months and will continue to do so. On top of that $30 million ad-buy campaign, we have been investing $50 million in local journalism. Just this year, it means that 200 journalists will be hired in areas across the country where journalism is more poorly defined. The federal government has paid part I licence fees of our broadcasters to the CRTC. That means $30 million is staying in the pockets of our broadcasters. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Madam Chair, last week, as the minister would know, 15 community newspapers, including eight in Manitoba and seven in the province of Ontario, closed their doors for good. Is the government currently planning any further measures aimed at assisting community or ethnic media organizations? We understand that many more will close their doors within the next 30 to 60 days. Hon. Steven Guilbeault: We are planning a number of other measures, some of which will be included in the $500 million. I will be announcing the details of that in the coming days. Of the $595 million that the media will receive, we have a tax credit that has now entered into force, and the cheques should be in the mail by the end of the summer. So there are a number of things we've done and a number of things we will be doing in the coming months as well. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Waugh, you may have a short question. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Well, finally, you have the five members associated with that committee to dole out the $595 million. They haven't even met yet. When will they meet? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: I would like to remind my hon. colleague that in order for us to provide tax breaks for the 2019 period, media outlets had to file their tax returns so we could go ahead. This will now be able to proceed, Madam Chair. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We now move on to Mr. Godin. Mr. Godin, you may go ahead. Mr. Jol Godin (PortneufJacques-Cartier, CPC): Thank you, MadamChair. This being the first time I've had the floor during a virtual sitting of Parliament, I'd like to take this opportunity to greet my fellow members, all 259participants. I hope they are taking care of themselves. I'd like to talk about the Prime Minister's appearance on the show Tout le monde en parle. This is what he had to say about his economic recovery plan: We are going to remain focused on the economy as a wholeinnovationresearch and science, the green economy and a fairer economyThere are things we are all reflecting on right now that reflection is going to continue. That was a weak answer. It didn't inspire much confidence. Can the government assure Canadians that it is being proactive and working on a plan to get the economy moving again? It must act now. Things are starting to reopen gradually. Is the government going to take concrete action to revive the economy? Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Yes, absolutely. Our government is wholly committed to restarting the economy, and we are working closely with the provinces to do just that. Last week, our government, together with the provincial and territorial premiers, released the principles that will guide efforts to restore economic activity across the country. That is key. The discussion between the Prime Minister and the premiers is continuing today. Mr. Jol Godin: MadamChair, before we go any further, since it took a while for the minister, or the government, to answer the question, can I have that time back to ask questions? The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I stopped the clock, Mr. Godin. Mr. Jol Godin: Thank you. The Prime Minister's answer during his appearance on Tout le monde en parle didn't inspire much confidence and doesn't line up with the Deputy Prime Minister's comments. How can the government be proud of announcing $252million in assistance for the agri-food sector, when that is less than 1% of all the program funding the government has committed to help Canadians get through the COVID-19 crisis? Clearly, the government doesn't see the food supply chain as a priority and has no regard for farmers and pork and beef producers. Does the government realize that eating is vital to Canadians? When is the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food going to adjust the program and show respect for Canadian farmers? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: I have the utmost respect for farmers. We are going step by step. We've already confirmed various supports for the agricultural sector. This week, we focused on beef and pork producers and processors, as well as sectors with product surpluses that can be redirected to food banks. I can assure my fellow member that this is an additional step and that more supports are on the way in the weeks ahead. Bear in mind that a number of programs are already available to farmers. Mr. Jol Godin: I'd like to switch topics now. PortneufJacques-Cartier is home to a company that is already licensed by Health Canada and that, for 20years, has been manufacturing medical equipment including masks, face shields and thermometers. This is equipment our health workers need. The company has a licence from the federal government. In mid-March, Health Canada reached out to the company to find out how much equipment it could manufacture to help fight COVID-19. The company confirmed that it could immediately start producing 200,000masks a week, ramping up to a million masks over the next few weeks. Forty-five days later, it is still waiting on its first order from the Canadian government. We are managing a crisis with a limited supply of medical equipment. Can the health minister tell us why, 45days later, this company licensed by Health Canada hasn't received an order? Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Thank you for the question. Industry and suppliers have enthusiastically answered our call to equip Canada with products and goods during the crisis. Many of those suppliers have already received contracts. We have reached out to all the others and will negotiate contracts as needed. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I would now like to invite hon. member Jenica Atwin to speak. Mrs. Jenica Atwin (Fredericton, GP): Thank you, Madam Chair. Seniors living alone are most at risk of economic insecurity, particularly single senior women, as gender inequality in the job market has translated all too often into inadequate retirement income. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a poverty reduction plan that addresses the unique challenges faced by older women? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to assure the member that we are quite aware that this pandemic has typically affected single seniors, and many of those, given that they live longer, are single senior women. I want to assure her that we are working on this issue, and we have provided some supports already through measures such as the GST supplementary payment. That is on average almost $400 for single seniors. There's more work to do. We know that, so stay tuned. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, older women represent a high proportion of residents in long-term care facilities. Having spent their lives caring for parents, children and often their partners, they find themselves needing care in nursing homes. Multiple outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care homes in Canada have highlighted systemic gaps that senior and elderly women may face in such facilities, as well as the working conditions of the female-dominated ranks of nurses and personal support workers. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a federal strategy for long-term care homes that recognizes quality of life for residents and working conditions for the employees, ideally one that goes hand in hand with a poverty reduction plan and enhanced home and community care investments across the country? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I do want to thank the hon. member for her question. It's an important one. We are obviously deeply saddened by the outbreaks that have been going on in long-term care facilities and those who have lost their lives. We do recognize that the administration of long-term care and palliative care is the responsibility of provinces and territories; however, we have been taking a team Canada approach, and as you already know, we've been doing tremendous work with them to try to ensure that those who live in those facilities can be well cared for and safe. We are doing that with guidelines The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms. Atwin has the floor. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, from May 4 to May 10, we are observing Mental Health Week. We know that our essential workers right now are experiencing unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety, on top of putting their own physical safety and health on the line. Most of these workers work in precarious jobs with no access to paid sick leave or vacation, and without any benefits to access mental health services. Apart from the very welcome investments in online resources, can the minister explain how the government will support these workers now and once the crisis is behind us? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, thank you very much to the member for the question. I'm so glad that she's raising the issue of mental health and in particular how poor mental health is oftentimes connected to our socio-economic status. I appreciate the nuance in that question. She's right. We do have new resources that are available to all Canadians free of charge through the Wellness Together portal, but there is more to do. I think the announcement of top-up wages, for example, which the Prime Minister spoke about today, is another example of how we're taking the health and wellness of all low-income Canadians very seriously. We know that mental health is not divorced from socio-economic status, and I look forward to working with her more on other measures that we can take together. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, we're all very aware of the importance of temporary foreign workers and their role in ensuring our food sovereignty across this country. The pandemic has highlighted how we depend on their work. How are we protecting them? Madam Chair, will the government take action to strengthen legislation and ensure Canadians have access to the food they need while the workers who help bring it to our tables have safe working conditions, regardless of where they are working in this country? Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Thank you, Madam Chair. We are very concerned, as are countries around the world, that we support and create the environment for the health and safety of our temporary foreign workers and we value their contribution to our food supply chain here in Canada. We have issued guidelines to employers and are working very closely with local public health authorities in the provinces and territories to make sure workers are protected, that physical distancing and other recommendations are adhered to and that there are severe consequences if employers don't take care of their workers. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We are now going to Mr. MacGregor. Mr. Alistair MacGregor (CowichanMalahatLangford, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. My first question is this: Will the Liberal government prevent federal bailout funds from going to companies that use tax havens and avoid paying their fair share here in Canada, yes or no? Hon. Diane Lebouthillier (Minister of National Revenue): We are working to make sure that anyone who tries to circumvent the rules faces serious consequences. We are asking businesses to designate a representative to attest their claims. Any employer receiving the subsidy who is deemed ineligible will have to repay the full amount. Anyone who abuses the program could face fines of up to 225% of the subsidy amount as well as five years in prison. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, I didn't really hear a yes to that question, so I'll repeat it. Does the government really think it's appropriate for tax-avoiding corporations to receive funding provided for by taxpayers? Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: We will keep going after companies that engage in tax evasion. I want to be clear. We will target those who are responsible, not innocent workers. An employee is an employee, regardless of who they work for. The wage subsidy program does not hand a blank cheque over to employers. It is meant to help Canadians pay their bills, keep their jobs and get through the crisis. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, the agriculture funding announced by the government earlier this week amounts to less than 10% of what the Canadian Federation of Agriculture estimates will be required to help farmers weather this crisis. Why has the Minister of Agriculture shortchanged our farmers? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, this is one more step. This was one more step. We have already committed significant support to our farmers through different programs, and we will do more. I have to remind my colleague that we have put in $5 billion through FCC, $50 million for the temporary foreign workers, two times $50 million for pork and beef producers this week, and $77 million for food processing. This is only the beginning, and we should not forget that the business risk management programs are still there to offer support. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Yes, Madam Chair, but we're nearly two months into this pandemic and this announcement only came this week. Farmers need certainty. When can farmers expect further updates on funding, and how much will the government be providing? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, we are working closely with the farmers and their representatives to identify where the gaps are, but once again, we have made improvements to the AgriStability program. They can get, depending on the province, either 50% or 75% in advance payments, and they can also, right now, access their AgriInvest program. There is more than $2 billion ready to access today, if they have The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. MacGregor. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, federal disability recipients and seniors on fixed incomes have been hardest hit by cost of living increases from COVID-19. If we acknowledge that $2,000 per month is the minimum needed to get through this time, why are they being asked to survive on far less? When can they expect assistance, and how much will they receive? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to make sure people realize that we have provided some assistance through the GST supplementary benefit. We are also providing support to those who are still working, and we have done that by allowing them to access the CERB. There is more work to be done, so you'll be hearing more in the near future. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, as I think we've heard through today's question period, there are countless example of this government designing programs to exclude many small businesses that desperately need help. Whether it's the payroll requirements or other eligibility, we still, to this day, almost two months into the pandemic, have too many small businesses falling through the cracks. Madam Chair, why has the government taken this approach and when can we finally expect fixes to the whole system? Hon. Mary Ng: Madam Chair, right from the get-go, we have been committed to making sure that Canadians are helped through this crisis, and that small businesses get the support that they need, so that we are saving businesses and jobs in this country. That is what we have done with many of our programs. You're seeing that we are also listening, so that we can modify them as we need. I want to assure the member that the work is not done. We continue to do this. The Chair: Thank you. It is now over to Mr. Perron. Mr. Perron, you may go ahead. Mr. Yves Perron (BerthierMaskinong, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question will come as no surprise, since it has to do with agriculture. I hear the questions my fellow members are asking, and to be frank, I don't find the answers satisfactory. It is well and good to talk about existing programs, but they aren't working, so enough with that refrain. That's what people are telling us. It's not just members of the opposition saying it. This morning, both farmers and processors came together for a press conference at the Union des producteurs agricoles's head office in Longueuil. Six stakeholders from different sectors sounded the alarm. Can the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food therefore tell us when she will announce significant supports for the industry? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We have already announced significant amounts of support, and more is on the way. I'd like to correct my fellow member. It's not that the programs aren't working; it's that they aren't generous enough in farmers'eyes. That's why I'm working with my provincial counterparts to make improvements to programming, including AgriStability. Here's an example. After using the online AgriStability benefit estimator, a pork producer found out that he would get $11 per head, as they say in the industry. Pork producers are calling for $20 per head, so it's a good start, even though it's not enough and it isn't what they are asking for. We want to keep working together, but farmers have to access the money available to them through AgriStability. Mr. Yves Perron: Now it's my turn to correct the minister. Even before the crisis, we were hearing from people in the industry that the programs were neither suitable nor sufficient. We are in a crisis, and this is an exceptional situation. In the case of mad cow disease, farmers received direct assistance. That's the kind of assistance we are calling for. We don't want to hear about growing levels of debt. Of course, this is a first step, but farms are already deep in debt. A few days ago, the government announced $50million in funding for pork producers, even though they are asking for $20per hog for 27million hogs. The government's support covers just 2. 5million hogs. When I call the measure insufficient, I mean it is grossly insufficient. It's high time the government put forth more support. It has to stop saying that it's working hard and examining the situation. The government has to listen to the people in the industry. Again, this morning, they had some interesting proposals. When is the government going to announce a whole lot more in funding support? What's been announced so far is only 10% of what farmers are asking for. Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We are going step by step. The programs are already in place. We are trying to make them better, and we are committed to doing that. These programs are cost-shared with the provinces. However, I would point out to the member that, when it comes to AgriRecovery, we made an exception to the rule. We are moving forward in every province to help pork and beef producers. That's two funding envelopes of $50million each to help cover the additional costs from the decrease in plant processing capacity. That's new money that was not yet available, money we introduced this week. As the Prime Minister said, we are going to do more, and we are moving forward step by step. Mr. Yves Perron: What we concluded in committee this week is that the $125million is not new money. It was already earmarked for the programs. The government can't say that programs already exist and, at the same time, claim that they are new programs. Something doesn't add up there. What's more, there are different ways to make money available. I'd like to talk compensation. Everyone knows that the Canada-U. S. -Mexico Agreement came into force a month earlier than planned, despite the promises that had been made. That resulted in additional losses, once again. An easy way to make money available without committing new spending is to provide compensation and announce programs for supply-managed sectors that got nothing. It seems to me that a time of crisis is a time for the government to practise some judo and announce measures. I am reaching out to the government, as I always do, but it has to come forward with announcements. Can we expect the government to announce measures in the coming days? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Our commitment to farmers in supply-managed sectorsmeaning, egg, poultry and dairy farmersis as strong as it always was. I repeat, our commitment is clear. Dairy producers received their first payment at the end of last year or the beginning of this year. Support for poultry and egg farmers is in the form of investment programs, which aligns well with the recovery. At this time, we are focusing on emergency programs to help farmers hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. When it comes to the dairy sector, I hope I can count on your support. As you know, legislative changes are needed to grant the Canadian Dairy Commission's request and increase its borrowing limit by $200million so it can buy more butter and cheese. The Chair: Our next question will go to Mr. Lake. Hon. Mike Lake (EdmontonWetaskiwin, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we're all inundated, as we've heard during this entire question period, with Canadians'concerns about the economic restrictions and the social restrictions that they're under. Over the last couple of months, the WHO has given one very consistent message in terms of coming out of those economic and social restrictions. On March 16, Dr. Tedros said in his briefing, We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test. On March 25,44 days ago, he said, Aggressive measures to find, isolate, test, treat and trace are not only the best and fastest way out of extreme social and economic restrictionstheyre also the best way to prevent them. Does the minister agree with the WHO that relentless testing and tracing are critical to a successful economic and social relaunch strategy in Canada? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thanks to the member for the very astute observation and question. Absolutely, we agree that testing and contact tracing will form an important part of our response to living with COVID. We've been investing heavily in ensuring that we have the lab capacity, the collaboration across provinces and territories, and the variety of testing options to help us increase our capacity to test. We are aiming right now for a high volume of tests, but I will also say that in Canada we have one of the highest testing rates in the world. Although we're doing well, I can assure him that I am with him and I believe we need to do more. Hon. Mike Lake: I have some really quick questions for follow-up. First, what is Canada's current testing capability? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as I mentioned to his colleagues yesterday, we have currently the capacity to do approximately 60,000 tests per day across the country. Hon. Mike Lake: How many tests were conducted each day on average in Canada last week? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, it's hard for me to get that exact number, but I will get back to him with the exact number. Hon. Mike Lake: I'll save you the time. The exact number was 28,851, on average, every day last week. That's a gap of 30,000 from what your stated testing capability is. I'll give another quote from Dr. Tam, back on April 22,15 days ago. She said, As a first tranche, roughly close to 60,000 is where the provinces can potentially expand to as a target already. Does the minister happen to know, ballpark, what the average number of daily tests in Canada has been since that statement? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Your estimate was slightly higher than what my estimate was going to be, so that's a great piece of news. Listen, I will just say that I think if the premise here is that we could be doing more testing. I would agree, but I will also say that the provinces and territories are working incredibly hard on testing strategies that meet their own specific needs. I'm happy to have a conversation with the member later about that testing strategy. Dr. Tam works with all the chief public health officers across the country to ensure that their testing strategy is going to be applicable and appropriate for their particular jurisdictions. We, as the federal government, provide the capacity for them to conduct those tests. Hon. Mike Lake: Following up on that, is there a jurisdiction in Canada where relentless testing is not the appropriate strategy as provinces consider relaunching? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Each province and territory has its own outbreak and its own epidemic. For example, in British Columbia, where there are relatively fewer cases in general and less disease activity, they may have a different testing strategy than a province like Ontario, which is currently struggling with more outbreaks. Hon. Mike Lake: Given your comment that our current testing capability is 60,000, and acknowledging that only at one point in the entire history of our COVID response, over several months, has our weekly average been over 30,000it was about 31,000 for one day on a rolling basisMinister, are you satisfied with our current testing amounts right now, given that we're testing 50% of what the public health officer advises would be best? Hon. Patty Hajdu: I'm so amazed by the work the provinces and territories have done in a very short time to increase their capacity. We are supporting them with the tools that they need to get more testing done, but also to have other components in place that will allow them to do the rapid tracing of positive cases. I think it's very important to remember that testing strategies will be different across the provinces, based on the outbreak disease epidemiology. Having said that, I know that we can all do better, and I'm certain that my counterparts feel the same. The Chair: I'm going to have to cut the minister off at that one. I want to thank everyone for the session today, I think it went rather well. I'm very proud of you and proud of ourselves for what we managed to accomplish. The committee stands adjourned until Tuesday, May 12, at noon.

Mr. Taylor Bachrach introduced that municipalities were unable to run deficits and so they were facing the reality of cutbacks and serious cuts to the services that Canadians depend on. Currently, The Federation of Canadian Municipalities and mayors across Canada have called for emergency financial relief for the municipal sector. Since they were very vital to the recovery of the cities under the Covid-19 situation, the government was working with the provinces and the cities, to ensure that it was able to support this order of government that could deliver the vast majority of services to Canadians with very little financial means.

tr-sq-629

tr-sq-629_0

What happened to a public sector worker in Canada? The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.) ): We'll call this meeting to order. Welcome to the fifth meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. Pursuant to the order passed on Monday, April20, the committee is meeting today to consider ministerial announcements, to allow members of the committee to present petitions, and to question ministers, including the Prime Minister, about the COVID-19 pandemic. Tomorrow, May8, Dr. AndreaMcCrady, Dominion Carillonneur, will give a special recital to mark the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day. Victory in Europe Day, VE Day, commemorates the formal acceptance of Germany's surrender by allied forces at the end of the Second World War. While the pandemic prevents us from gathering to celebrate in person, tomorrow at noon the voice of our nation will ring out in remembrance of this milestone in our history. Today's meeting is taking place by video conference. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. Just so you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entire committee. I would like to remind members that, as in the House of Commons or committee, they should not take photos of their colleagues or film the proceedings. In order to facilitate the work of the interpreters and to allow the meeting to proceed smoothly, I would ask you to follow some instructions. The video conference will be interpreted as in normal meetings of committees and in the House. In the lower part of your screen, you can choose the language: floor, English or French. Please wait until I call on you by name before you begin to speak. When you are ready to speak, click on the microphone icon to activate your microphone, or hold the space bar down while you are speaking. If you release the bar, your microphone will revert to mute, just like a walkie-talkie. Honourable members, I would like to remind you that if you want to speak English, you should be on the English channel. If you want to speak French, you should be on the French channel. Should you wish to alternate between the two languages, you should change the channel to the language that you are speaking each time you switch languages. Please direct your remarks through the chair. Should you need to request the floor outside of your designated speaking time, you should activate your mike and state that you have a point of order. If a member of the committee wishes to intervene on a point of order raised by another person, you should use the raised hand function to indicate to the chair that you wish to speak. To do this, click on the participant button at the bottom of your screen. When the list appears, you will see the raised hand option beside your name. Speak slowly and clearly at all times. When you are not speaking, leave your microphone on mute. It is highly recommended that you use a headset with a microphone. You have to remember to switch languages. Should any technical challenges arise, for example, in relation to interpretation, please advise the chair immediately by raising a point of order, and the technical team will work on resolving them. Please note that we may need to suspend during these times in order to correct a problem. I want to remind the honourable members to mute their microphones when they are not speaking. If you get accidentally disconnected, please try to rejoin the meeting with the information you used to join initially. If you are unable to rejoin, please contact our technical support team. Before we get started, please note that in the top right-hand corner of your screen is a button that you can use to change views. Speaker view allows you to focus on the person currently speaking; gallery view allows you to see a larger number of participants. You can click through the multiple pages in the gallery view to see who is on and how many more participants there are. I understand there are no ministerial announcements today. We will now proceed to presenting petitions for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during the meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. In addition, to ensure a petition is considered properly presented, the certificate of the petition and each page of the petition for a petition certified in a previous Parliament should be mailed to the committee no later than 6 p. m. the day before. Now we'll go to presenting petitions. Mr. Genuis. Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Mr. Chair, five years ago when Parliament passed Bill C-14, then justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said that it represented a finely tuned balance between access and safeguards. It also included a five-year review. Petitioners on the first petition I'm presenting are very concerned to see Bill C-7 before Parliament, which removes safeguards ahead of that five-year review. Petitioners specifically mention their concerns about the removal of the mandatory 10-day reflection period, which can already be waived in certain circumstances. They are concerned about reducing the number of witnesses required to oversee it and ensure that a request has been properly made. I commend that petition to the consideration of the House. The second and final petition that I will be presenting today is with respect to Senate Bill S-204. This would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ from a person who did not consent. This responds specifically to concerns about organ harvesting in the People's Republic of China involving Falun Gong practitioners and increasing concerns that this is being or about to be applied to Uighurs as well. Canada can and should take action on this. Petitioners are noting that in the previous Parliament there were bills on this, Bill C-350 and Bill S-240. Now, in this Parliament there is a bill, Bill S-204, and the petitioners hope that this 43rd Parliament will be the one that gets it passed. The Chair: We will go to Ms. May. Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's an honour. This is my first occasion to present a petition in our virtual format of the COVID-19 committee. Thank you to you and your staff, Mr. Chair, for developing a system that allows us to present petitions electronically. The petition I am presenting today, which was previously approved, is from a number of constituents who are concerned that we pursue the Paris Agreement to hold the global average temperature increase to no more than 1. 5C. The Paris Agreement itself embeds in it the concept of Just Transition with a capital J and a capital T, the concept of just transition ensuring fairness and support for all workers in the fossil fuel sector. The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to move forward with an act to ensure just transition and to ensure adequate funding so that workers and communities dependent on the fossil fuel sector receive meaningful support to ensure security in their lives in the transition to more sustainable energy use. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Chair: Those are all the petitions for today. I want to thank the honourable members for their usual collaboration and now we'll go on to Mr. James Bezan (SelkirkInterlakeEastman, CPC): On a point of order, Mr. Chair, on Tuesday, at our COVID-19 committee of the whole meeting, I was asking a question which started at 12: 56: 06 and was cut off at 1: 00: 32, so I still have 34 seconds of time remaining in my question time of five minutes. You said it could be no more than five minutes but that I had up to five minutes. Thirty-four seconds leaves a lot of time to have a quick question and a quick response. If you believe that my time was unjustly cut off and that it was unfair treatment of the official opposition when we were raising our points of order, I would ask that the 34 seconds be tacked on to the opening round for the opposition and credited to Rosemarie Falk, who will be leading off for the Conservatives. The Chair: Normally what happens is the chair uses judgment, and with 35 seconds, there isn't enough time obviously for a full question or answer, most of the time. I'll take it under advisement. I can't allot it. I want everyone to know that I do have a timer next to me and I am timing the questions, and I will be treating the answers the same way. If it's a 25-second question, it will be a 25-second answer. Thank you for bringing that up. I believe that issue has been remedied. We've taken a little bit of the chair's ability to give judgment on it, but it will be from now on. Thank you. Mr. James Bezan: Mr. Chair, 34 seconds is a considerable amount of time to do a short question and a short answer. The Chair: I appreciate the advice. Thank you, Mr. Bezan. We'll now proceed to the questioning of ministers. I would like to remind the honourable members that no member will be recognized for more than five minutes at a time and that members may split their time with one or more members by so indicating to the chair. Ministers responding to the questions should do so by simply turning on their microphone and speaking. Our first questioner is Ms. Falk. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk (BattlefordsLloydminster, CPC): Mr. Chair, yesterday, Elizabeth May and the leader of the separatists declared oil to be dead. It's certainly not dead, but it's dying under the Trudeau government. Will the Prime Minister stand up for Canada's energy workers, or does he agree with the fringe left and those who want to destroy our country? Ms. Elizabeth May: I have a point of order. The Chair: Go ahead, Ms. May. Ms. Elizabeth May: Mr. Chair, I believe that the language that the honourable member just used is unparliamentary Mr. Garnett Genuis: That's not a point of order. Ms. Elizabeth May: We can have differences of opinion, but it is absolutely Some hon. members: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: unacceptable and violates my privileges to An hon member: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: No, it's not debate. I would ask the chair to rule on that, not the member from the Conservative Party. It is unacceptable to assert that anyone who wants to make a point about our economy is trying to destroy the country. This allegation is a violation of my privilege. An hon. member: She was also named by the The Chair: Order. I didn't recognize anyone. I don't know who is speaking, so I'll just start talking myself. I want to remind honourable members to have respect in their questions and in their answers. When you refer to someone, please refer to them respectfully. This is a committee of the House, and I would expect no less of the honourable members. We'll go to the right honourable Prime Minister. You have 16 seconds. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. As I pointed out this morning in my press conference, we cannot move forward on a transformation of our energy sector without supporting the workers in that energy sector. We need their innovation and we need their hard work if we are going to lower our emissions, if we are going to reach our The Chair: We'll go to Ms. Falk again. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, it has been 43 days since the finance minister promised Canada's energy sector liquidity through the Business Development Bank of Canada. For 43 days the finance minister has failed to deliver on that promise. These delays cost jobs and they are costing us Canadian businesses. If the government doesn't step up to support our energy sector, they are in effect doubling down on their support for foreign, unethically sourced oil. Mr. Chair, when will the credit options be available to Canada's small and medium energy firms? The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that we do have interpreters who are listening and translating. In consideration to them, please speak at a reasonable pace so that they can understand and then translate. The right honourable Prime Minister. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, our priority through this pandemic and this crisis has been to support workers across the country. We have sent billions of dollars to workers right across the country, including Alberta, Saskatchewan, B. C. , and Newfoundland and Labrador in the energy sector for them to be able to support their families through this difficult time. We are also working on sectoral supports right across the country. Those will be announced in due course. Our focus from the get-go has been The Chair: We'll move to Ms. Falk. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, another group that has been ignored by the Liberals is our farmers. The announcements to date fall well short of what is needed to maintain a steady supply of affordable and healthy food. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture has asked the government for a $2. 6-billion emergency fund. Instead of responding to specific COVID-19 challenges, our farmers are facing the Liberals'reannounced $125 million that was already budgeted in the AgriRecovery program. Will the Prime Minister finally step up and take our food supply chain seriously, or is agriculture just an afterthought for him? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: On the contrary, Mr. Chair, we take agriculture and our agricultural sector extremely seriously, which is why we announced hundreds of millions of dollars a couple of days ago to respond to pressing needs. We will continue to make investments to ensure both the safety of workers in our agricultural sector and the safety of our communities, as well as the continued flow of high-quality Canadian food onto our tables right across the country. Supporting the people who produce our food is a priority for this government and will continue to be. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Well, Mr. Chair, recycled program announcements do not respond to the immediate needs facing our farmers. This is absolutely unacceptable. Our farmers are faced with rising operational costs, a disrupted service industry, labour shortages and a reduced capacity at processing plants. The government has a responsibility to take domestic food security seriously. When will the Prime Minister deliver adequate support to address the critical changes facing our ag industry? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I would suggest respectfully that the honourable member take a look once again at the announcement we made, which actually highlights significant new investments to support our agricultural industry. I certainly agree that there is more to do. Every step of the way in this unprecedented situation, we've been moving forward on doing more, on adjusting and on investing more. We need to support our agricultural sector and the people who work so hard to put food on Canadians'tables right across the country and we will continue to. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, Canadians expect to find healthy and affordable food at their grocery stores, but if the government does not take action now, that's not a given. Our farmers are trying to keep Canadians fed while keeping their heads above water. The Liberal government's own failed federal carbon tax is weighing them down. It is an enormous hit to their bottom line, and the recent carbon tax hike is taking even more money out of the pockets of farmers at a time when they can afford it the least. Will the Prime Minister exempt all farm operations from the carbon tax and reimburse the money that they have already taken from them? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, it's a shame to hear the member opposite accidentallyunintentionally, I'm certainmislead the House and Canadians. The price on pollution actually puts more money into Canadians'pockets, and that includes farm families. People who pay the cost of the price on pollution on average receive more money back. This is the way of creating a better future for our kids and grandkids, which I know people in communities right across the country, including our farm communities, want to see happen. We are moving forward in a responsible way to put a price on pollution and put more money in average Canadians'pockets. The Chair: We now continue with Mrs. Gill. Mrs. Gill, you have the floor. Mrs. Marilne Gill (Manicouagan, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. As you know, all sectors of the economy are fragile at the moment, specifically the fisheries. I am thinking about the lobster fishery in the Magdalen Islands, the crab fishery on the Cte-Nord or those fishing for herring in the south of the Gasp. Because imports have ceased, because the domestic market is weak and in decline because of the interruption of the tourism and restaurant industries, the fishing industry and its fishers must be supported. I would like to know what the government has done to support our fishers since the crisis began. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Our fishers do exceptional work that is extremely important in feeding Canadians and in contributing to our economic success through their exports around the world. This crisis has struck them very hard. That is why we have established measures in the tens of millions of dollars to support our processors. We have also announced help for the fishers. We know that these are difficult and unprecedented times, and we are going to Mrs. Marilne Gill: My thanks to the Prime Minister. I am actually talking about help for the fishers. I know about the processing industry and the $62. 5million to be used essentially for freezing products, but I am talking about the fishers themselves. Given the economic situation, most of our fishers are getting ready to leave. First, there are health risks. We know very well that it is impossible for them to observe all the social distancing measures. They have to incur additional expenses in order to conduct their normal fishing activities. In addition, they feel that they will be losing money, because of the drop in the price of their resource. They are just as essential as farmers, but they are going to have to work at a loss and they are not going to have workers to assist them. Workers in the seasonal industry do not know what tomorrow will bring. They do not even know whether they will be able to put food on the table next year. Are you going to do anything else, in addition to the assistance of $62. 5million? Time is of the essence. Our fishers have lacked certainty for weeks and they are very concerned. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Yes, indeed, we are going to do other things. Other investments will be made in various sectors in order to support Canadians. We recognize the challenges that fishers must face in terms of social distancing and of work that is often seasonal. We are going to continue working with the industry, with the fishers, and with the coastal communities in order to ensure that people have confidence in their abilities and in their future. In times of crisis, it is important for the government to be there to support people, and that is exactly what we are going to continue to do. This is an unprecedented crisis, but we can see once more that Canadians are there for each other. Our government will continue to be there for the fishers and the fishing industry. Mrs. Marilne Gill: I would have preferred us to be there from the start. Clearly, this is a difficult crisis. But, given the cyclical nature of the industry, some sectors have had to postpone for several weeks the preparations they need for fishing activities. The current program could be modified in a number of ways, to accommodate the cycle, the dates, and the size of the companies. They would really like to take advantage of the $40,000loan, but they cannot because of their payroll. Given the dates, they are also ineligible for the 75%salary subsidy. I can already suggest a number of solutions to the government and to the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, that would bring help to those businesses very quickly. The fishers carry on, because it is a duty for them, because they want to help us and to be part of the effort at this time of crisis. At the same time, they have no guarantee that they will be supported. I would really like to hear a guarantee that they will be supported, that they will be able to put food on the table this year, and that they will be able to support the communities that often depend on the fishing industry, a major industry in those communities. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Minister Jordan has been working with the fishers, the fishing industry and the communities affected by the crisis since the crisis began. We are assessing a number of solutions. We have proposed various solutions to support the communities, the workers and the families. This is an unprecedented situation. From the outset, our priority has been to support the millions of Canadians from coast to coast who have lost their jobs. We have been able to do so, but we are going to continue to work for those who must now face difficulties. We are going to be there for each other. That is what people are expecting from our government and from other Canadians. The Chair: Before we move to the next question, I would like to remind members of the committee to speak slowly, and to address their remarks to the chair and not directly to each other. Thank you very much. We will now go to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach (SkeenaBulkley Valley, NDP): Mr. Chair, municipalities across Canada are facing a financial crisis. They've seen revenues plummet, and at the same time the cost of delivering municipal services has risen. As the Prime Minister knows, municipalities are unable to run deficits and so they are facing the reality of cutbacks and serious cuts to the services that Canadians depend on. We know that municipalities are vital during this time to provide services to Canadians. They're going to be even more important during the recovery, especially when it comes to delivering on the infrastructure programs before us. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities and mayors across Canada have called for emergency financial relief for the municipal sector. My question for the Prime Minister is, when can they expect federal financial support to arrive? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, no government in Canada's history has done more to work with our municipalities, with our cities, with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to respond to the challenges they're facing and to partner with them. Things from infrastructure to investments have made a huge difference right across the country in the quality of life of Canadians in towns, large and small, from coast to coast to coast. As I'm sure the member well knows, our Constitution requires that most of the funding for municipalities flow through the provinces. We are working with the provinces, as we continue to work with the cities, to ensure that we're able to support this order of government that delivers the vast majority of services to Canadians with very little financial means. We know how difficult it is for our cities. We will continue The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, it would seem that the federal government has the fiscal capacity and the responsibility to help municipalities weather this crisis. Transit systems have been hit particularly hard and have seen the bulk of the layoffs in the municipal sector. These transit services carry essential workers to work, whether they are health care workers, grocery store workers, janitors or others. The risk is that we will see higher fares to deal with this financial crisis. We will see service cutbacks precisely at a time when we want to be expanding transit and improving transit in our communities. Does the Prime Minister acknowledge that the federal government needs to step in to safeguard and protect Canada's transit services? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, this federal government recognizes how important it is to support all Canadians, which is why we put forward unprecedented measures to help millions upon millions of Canadians with the CERB and with the wage subsidy. We will continue to work with the provinces, which have jurisdiction over the municipalities. I'll be having a conversation with all other first ministers tonight to talk about a broad range of issues. I can highlight that the issue of transit funding has come up. We have continued to engage with them, but again, it is important to respect the Constitution and understand that funding for municipalities and cities does go through the provinces. The federal government is happy to be there to support, but it must be The Chair: We will go to Mr. Bachrach again. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I am wondering how the Prime Minister could explain to a bus driver in Vancouver who has been laid off that as a public sector worker, she can't access the federal wage subsidy, while an equivalent worker in the airline industry gets to keep her job with the federal help of that program. Could the Prime Minister explain how that is fair? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I'm happy to explain to the member and to all Canadians that our Constitution creates federal areas of jurisdiction and provincial areas of jurisdiction. The airline industry, like banking, like telecommunications, is a federal area of jurisdiction that we have been able to move forward on. More than that, we brought the Canada emergency response benefit and the wage subsidy to all industries across this country, because we knew that as the federal government, it was something that we needed to step up on The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I'd like to shift gears a little bit. Faced with minimal health care capacity, remote indigenous communities in my riding are taking matters into their own hands. The Nuxalk have put up a checkpoint on Highway 20 to protect community members and prevent non-essential travel. In particular, it is to protect the three remaining fluent speakers of the Nuxalk language, these cherished elders in their community. The Haida on Haida Gwaii have set up a similar checkpoint, as have communities throughout British Columbia, yet federal support for indigenous communities amounts to only $39 million for all of the indigenous communities in B. C. Does the Prime Minister not agree that more support is warranted to help indigenous communities in my riding and across the country? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, we made funds available to Canadians right across the country, particularly people in indigenous remote or northern communities who we knew would be facing more difficult challenges because of the existing vulnerabilities in their health care system and socio-economic circumstances. We have made unprecedented investments and we will continue to make the necessary investments, because we need to make sure that indigenous Canadians, and indeed all Canadians, have the supports they need to make it through this crisis. The Chair: We will continue with Mr. Berthold. Mr. Berthold, you have the floor. Mr. Luc Berthold (MganticL'rable, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I am going to keep talking about the area of jurisdiction that the Prime Minister likes to talk about, except that I want to point out the incompetence of the Liberals in keeping their commitments on infrastructure projects. My question is very simple. As the provinces gradually restart their economies, can the Prime Minister tell us how many projects that the provinces have submitted are waiting for approval from his government? Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, I hope that the length of the pause will not be taken out of my time. The Chair: No, I stopped the clock for your time. Ms. McKenna, you have the floor. Hon. Catherine McKenna (Minister of Infrastructure and Communities): I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, I was on mute. I'm very pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. I have spoken with all of my provincial and territorial counterparts over the last couple of weeks. Work on our historic infrastructure program is progressing well. My department has worked very hard to approve projects, and we will continue to do so. It is very important to build projects that will create good jobs The Chair: We are returning to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: We still haven't had a response. How many projects are currently awaiting government approval? I know that the minister has been meeting virtually with the provinces over the last few days. However, there are still hundreds of projects waiting for approval from the Liberal government. Rather than wait for the right political opportunity to approve these files, will the minister commit today to respecting the provinces and approving by next week all the projects that are sitting on her desk? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I'm pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. We are approving projects. If the hon. member speaks to the provinces and territories, he will see how well we are working together. We will announce the approval of projects because it's very important for our economy, our communities and creating good jobs. Mr. Luc Berthold: Does the minister understand that she hasn't told us how many projects are still pending? The construction season is very short. Approval of a project in July means that work can't begin until next year, which won't help revive our economy. Hon. Catherine McKenna: I want to make it clear that we have approved hundreds of projects in the last few weeks. We will work with the provinces, territories, municipalities and indigenous communities to implement these projects. These projects are important for the economy and the environment, as well as for jobs The Chair: We return now to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, while the minister is calling for a green recovery of the country's economy, public transit is at risk. Physical distancing measures will cause public transit use to drop for several months. The Union des municipalits du Qubec estimates that the monthly losses are between $75million and $100million. Other countries have included public transit in pandemic relief programs. Why isn't Canada? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, we recognize the importance of public transit for our economy, since some essential workers use public transit. We are working very closely with our counterparts and are listening to the municipalities. As the Prime Minister said, it's the provinces that must help because the money The Chair: We return now to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, once again, what we're hearing is that the government is passing the buck to the provinces. Unfortunately, the minister was unable to answer a single question about the number of infrastructure projects still on the federal government's desk, which is very important. Several large municipalities are waiting for the approval of projects. Moreover, public transit systems are facing an extremely serious financial crisis. Ridership in most systems is down 85%to90%. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is asking for help for small communities, as well as large municipalities. Why is the federal government ignoring the municipalities in the Canadian Federation of Municipalities at this time? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I can reassure the hon. member that we are working very closely with the municipalities. We are listening to the municipalities to find out what their issues are and how we can support them. Of course, we need the help of the provinces and territories. In terms of the number of projects that we've approved, I would be happy to inform the hon. member of the exact number of all the approved projects that my department has been working very hard on over the past few months to approve projects to go forward. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, do I have any time left? The Chair: No, your time is up. We'll now go on to Mr. Fast. Hon. Ed Fast (Abbotsford, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. This question is directed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. On March 28, the minister personally tweeted out a thank you to the People's Republic of China for donating PPE to Canada. This tweet happened within three hours of China's announcement of that gift. As it turned out, much of the PPE was defective and could not be used. More recently, Taiwan donated half a million surgical masks to Canada, yet here we are, two weeks later, and the minister has yet to personally thank Taiwan for its generosity. Will the minister now thank this free and democratic country for its generous gift to Canadians? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne (Minister of Foreign Affairs): Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank my colleague for the question. Indeed, we are very grateful to every nation for helping Canada. This is a global pandemic that knows no borders. We have been expressing our thanks to many nations that have contributed. We will continue to do so. It is important in a time of pandemic, Mr. Chair, that we not play politics and that humanity comes together. I can say, after my COVID foreign ministers call, that the world community has come together to make sure that supply chains will remain intact and that we will have transit hubs and air bridges. We will continue to work with every nation when it comes to health. This is a public good. We want to work together with everyone. The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Fast now. Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, I didn't hear a thank you there, so I'm going to try again. On May 4, the Government of Taiwan delivered 25,000 surgical masks to the Government of British Columbia. On hand were B. C. Minister of Citizens'Services Anne Kang and Minister of State for Child Care Katrina Chen, who, as ministers, officially thanked the Government of Taiwan for its donation. Again, will the minister now do the right thing and, on behalf of Canadians, recognize the generosity of Taiwan and thank its government for that timely donation? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, as I said to you before, Canada is grateful to all who have given supplies to Canada. This is a common endeavour. We are thankful. We are grateful to every nation and we will continue to be. As I said, when it comes to global health, when it comes to helping each other, I think it is a duty for all to come together. We are grateful and thankful for all those who have agreed to help Canada and Canadians from coast to coast to coast in times of need. I've repeated that and have said many times in many forums that we are grateful and thankful to all of those who are helping Canada. Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, again there was no specific thank you to Taiwan. The Government of Taiwan has been the world leader in successfully fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. We have a lot to learn from them and their response. Sadly, the People's Republic of China continues to oppose Taiwan's membership in the World Health Organization. Will the minister now do the right thing and assure Canadians that he will fully support efforts to grant Taiwan membership in the World Health Organization? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the member. As a former trade minister, he's very well aware of Canada's one China policy. That said, we support Taiwan to continue meaningful participation in international multilateral forums, particularly when it comes to health. This is a global good, and we want to support every nation. We recognize that Taiwan and others have been doing very well in fighting this pandemic. We also believe that Taiwan's role as an observer in the World Health Assembly meeting is of interest to the international health community and we have been supportive of that. Hon. Ed Fast: Mr. Chair, I'm going to pivot to repatriation flights. The minister has publicly said that over 20,000 stranded Canadians have been repatriated from abroad. Can he tell us exactly how many Canadians remain abroad who have expressed a desire to be repatriated? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Yes, Mr. Chair, I am very happy to update members. As of today, we have repatriated more than 20,000 Canadians on 232 flights from 87 countries. I would say that this is team Canada, and it knows no parties. Many members have written to me to make sure that we take care. It's not an exact science. We have, as I said, repatriated thousands and thousands. We continue, because we know there are still pockets of Canadian travellers who are stranded abroad. As the Prime Minister and I have said from the beginning, we will make our best effort to repatriate everyone who wants to come back home during the crisis. The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Moore now. Hon. Rob Moore (Fundy Royal, CPC): Mr. Chair, Canadians need to have faith in their justice system, even in a time of crisis. My office has received correspondence from Canadians concerned that trial delays due to COVID-19 may result in criminals walking free. As this government has been working overtime to criminalize law-abiding citizens with new and useless gun laws, will the Minister of Justice ensure that real criminals will not walk free as a result of delays in the justice system? Hon. David Lametti (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada): Mr. Chair, I thank the honourable member for his question. We have been working with my provincial counterparts across Canada, as well as with the various federal courts and also, through my provincial counterparts, with the superior courts and courts of appeal across Canada. Each particular jurisdiction has taken measures to ensure that basic essential services within the court system are maintained, through a variety of means, and we believe that we will be able to solve these various challenges. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, the regional relief and recovery fund was announced weeks ago as a way to help small and medium-sized businesses in rural communities, like those in my riding. In Atlantic Canada, these funds were to be distributed to the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. This is yet another announcement with no details from this Liberal government. Can the minister clarify whether we are days away or weeks away from this support flowing to the businesses that need it so desperately? Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): Mr. Chair, I had the chance to talk with many of the chambers of commerce and business owners throughout Atlantic Canada, and we hear their anxiety. That's why ACOA's doing great work on the ground to make sure we can help them through this very difficult period. The member is right. We have increased the budget of ACOAgood newsand I'll be coming up with the details very soon. It will be a pleasure to collaborate with him to make sure that we can help many businesses and business owners across the Atlantic region. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, my office has heard from many small business owners who have reached out to me. I know many have reached out to many of my colleagues and probably to all of us here today. They are frustrated by the eligibility requirements for some of the federal programs. In particular, they are unable to access the emergency business account, because they do not have a payroll. This could be the hair salon in my riding that subcontracts out its chairs. There are hundreds and thousands of small businesses in this very situation, vital small businesses in our communities, but they do not meet this requirement. These businesses, many of them, are weeks away from shutting down permanently. What does the Minister of Finance have to say to these small businesses that are suffering right now? Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Mr. Chair, I want to thank my honourable colleague for that really important question. I want all the businesses that he is talking about and all of them throughout the country to know that we continue to work very hard to make sure they're supported through this difficult period. More work needs to be done, and we will continue to do that work. We know that businesses are being supported through getting access to the wage subsidy to keep their employees together, and they're getting help, whether it's with rent or to defray costs by deferring GST and HST or customs duty payments. We're going to continue to work with all our businesses across the country. The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Moore for a brief question. You have less than 20 seconds, please. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, it's a very specific issue. There are small businesses, thousands of them, that do not have a payroll. Some have a personal account that they've dealt with over the years rather than a business account, and that makes them ineligible. These businesses need help right now. Hon. Mary Ng: I agree with the honourable member. Those businesses absolutely need support from us. We are going to keep working to ensure they are supported. The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Cumming next. Mr. James Cumming (Edmonton Centre, CPC): Mr. Chair, small businesses are concerned about their ability to survive, and no amount of deferrals, loans or subsidies can substitute for their need to be open and servicing their customers. Can the government confirm that a sectoral risk analysis has taken place to assist the provinces in reopening the economy? Hon. Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry): Mr. Chair, I can assure the member that we've been very clear in terms of our strategy around reopening the economy. We need to make sure that we follow the advice of the experts and the health authorities to do so in a manner that does not compromise the health and well-being of Canadians. We of course will have a sectoral lens, and as you can see by some of the initiatives and the support packages we've put forward The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Cumming now. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, thousands of business owners make a living and utilize dividends as their salary. They also use independent contractors. Can the government confirm that the programs currently in place will be expanded to these hard-working Canadians? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to assure the honourable member that we continue to work with all of our small businesses and I want to thank him for raising this very important issue. I want to assure our Canadian small businesses that we are going to continue to do this work to make sure they are supported. Mr. James Cumming: Can the minister give me a date when she will be able to announce to these businesses that they will be eligible? Hon. Mary Ng: I want to assure our Canadian small businesses of their importance and of the importance of their contributions to all of our communities. I want them to know that we continue to listen and that we will ensure that they are supported and continue to be supported during this difficult time. Mr. James Cumming: Minister, they need more than assurance. Can you give me a date when I can tell these thousands of businesses they will be supported if they pay dividends or if they use contractors within their businesses? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, these businesses are absolutely important and are getting support through a range of means. We will continue to work with these businesses to make sure they are supported through this difficult period. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, I spoke to a Second Cup owner whose landlord is not offering any kind of rent relief. The landlord says that he doesn't have the 25% needed to be eligible for the program because he's already paying for common area costs and deferrals on utilities, which he will have to pay on his mortgage. Will the government reform the rent relief program to focus on tenants and not just the landlords? Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr. Chair, I want to let the member know that we are working to make sure that the details of the emergency program for rent are out there so that both tenants and landlords can understand the situation. We're seeing a significant number of both landlords and tenants coming forward to register for this program, and we are convinced that it will be in the best interests of landlords to move forward and give tenants this relief. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, we've been hearing, however, from small business owners that their landlords don't find the government's rent relief program appealing enough. Can the government confirm, given the program's low eligibility rate, that the program will be expanded and be more efficient in helping tenants? Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we recognize that it's critically important that all of the details of this program be out there for landlords and tenants to understand. Those details are being worked on right now. This is a program that we've put out within the last week, and we are confident that it's in the best interests of tenants and landlords. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, during these trying times for small businesses, small businesses need all the help they can get. One easy way to do that would be to expand the Canada summer jobs program to businesses with over 50 employees. Will the government consider doing so to allow students to gain that very valuable work experience over the coming months? Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Mr. Chair, we are very excited about the uptake of the Canada summer jobs program this year. The second uptake provided employers across the country with the ability to add their needs for students to the mix. I'm looking forward to announcing a possible expansion of this program in the coming days. The Chair: The next question session will go to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall (SimcoeGrey, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. During this pandemic, the government has consistently called for a team Canada, non-partisan approach, and I was glad to hear that said a little earlier today. In fact, the public has called for that approach as well. However, at the same time, the current government has used a parliamentary back door to launch a poorly thought out gun ban. We have a government that didn't win the popular vote, and I'm just wondering how I explain to my residents, because I'm getting so many calls, that this is not a bloated response because, quite frankly, it is. Hon. Bill Blair (Scarborough Southwest, Lib.): First of all, Mr. Chair, I think the honourable member can explain to his constituents that the forming of regulations through order in council is actually the process prescribed in law in Canada under section 117. 15 of the Criminal Code. I would also invite the member to advise his constituents that way back in 1991, when there were some Conservatives who called themselves Progressive, the Mulroney government brought forward, in Bill C-17, the authority under that section for an order in council to prescribe specific makes, models and variants of military firearms as prohibited or restricted. The Harper government used the same tool The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall: I'm not sure, but I'm hoping, that I'll get an honest answer on this question from the minister, who has everything from rocket launchers to basically toy guns on the ban list. When will we get the cost of this buyback program? The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to please be careful in their language when they are referring to others. I won't comment on this one particularly, but I want all of you to be very, very careful when referring to other members. The honourable minister. Hon. Bill Blair: It's a good opportunity, Mr. Chair, to respond to some of the obfuscations and deceptions that have been put out there. We're not banning any toys and we're not banning shotguns. That's all misinformation that's being put out. I think it's very clear, and I invite the member to look at the list of weapons that are The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Thank you. What will be the cost of the buyback program, please? Hon. Bill Blair: Actually, I'm very much looking forward to bringing forward legislation as soon as the House resumes. We will have a vigorous debate in Parliament about the form a buyback will take and we will bring forward a budget at that time. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Will those with illegal weapons be eligible for the buyback program? Hon. Bill Blair: If people are illegally in possession of the weapons and they're committing a crime, they will be dealt with for the crimes they commit. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Okay. I'm going to switch it over. Canadians in my riding who suffer from cystic fibrosis are among the most vulnerable to COVID-19 infection. While these Canadians with existing lung conditions are incredibly worried about a virus that attacks the ability to breathe, the good news is that there are life-saving medicines for those with CF. The problem is with the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board and its restrictive guidelines. I am wondering if and when the government will correct these guidelines and give access to life-saving medicines for our most vulnerable. Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Mr. Chair, as you know, the government has been very committed to improving access and affordability for prescription medications for all Canadians. The PMPRB regulatory amendments will help Canadians be able to afford their prescriptions, and Canada will continue to be an important market for new medicines. In fact, many countries with much lower medicine prices gained access to new medicines in the same time frame as Canada frame, or even faster, so we are excited to do this work. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Mr. Chair, our seniors are being particularly hard hit right now during this pandemic, yet seniors have not been given any direct support. It's one of the number one calls I'm getting in my office. Funding to charities like the United Way is being labelled as support for seniors, but most won't see any of this support. Seniors in my riding have asked for an increase in their CPP and OAS, and to be able to make untaxed bulk withdrawals from their RRSPs while they still have some value. Can the minister confirm when these real and direct supports for seniors will be forthcoming? Hon. Deb Schulte (Minister of Seniors): I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. He mentioned. I'm not quite sure what's happening with my machine. I apologize. The Chair: You might want to try your space bar and keep it down while you're speaking. That might solve the problem. Hon. Deb Schulte: Okay, I'll try that. Thank you very much. I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. We have introduced a supplementary GST payment for low- and modest-income seniors. We've reduced the minimum RRIF withdrawal by 25%, and we've made the CERB available to working seniors who have lost their jobs due to the COVID pandemic. We know there's more work to do, and we'll have more to say in the future. The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that if there are issues, we are taking note of them, and we'll hopefully resolve them by the next meeting. We are getting much better, and we're all new at this. Thank you for your patience. We'll now go to Ms. Gaudreau. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau (LaurentidesLabelle, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My first question is for the Prime Minister. We've heard a lot about contact tracing apps. Several provinces have already made announcements on this, and others want to follow suit. Today, I'd like to know where the government stands on this. We've been talking about a national strategy for some time. Where are we now? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Obviously, contact tracing is an important part of managing any outbreak. In fact, we have been looking at a number of ways to support increased contact tracing across the country, including working with provinces and territories to boost their capacity through human resources and volunteer organizations. We are working very closely with them to make sure we have the capacity. The member is right that many other countries have used digital contact tracing apps. Anything we put forward as a digital tool to assist with contact tracing would be thoroughly considerate of Canadians'privacy rights. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Let me clarify my question a little. Yes, we are talking about public health, and we are currently experiencing a crisis. But you know as well as I do that the Privacy Commissioner has been calling us to task for a very long time now, because there is also a crisis of confidence. You know as well as I do that for 90%of Canadians, the misuse of their personal data is a cause for concern, whether it be for profiling or business development purposes. This is an issue that concerns all Canadians. The commissioner is indeed calling for a focus on reform of the Privacy Act. I'd like to know whether this commitment will be implemented quickly so that legislation can be passed on this issue, in this case the Privacy Act. Hon. Navdeep Bains: Particular attention must be paid to transparency, privacy and ethical concerns. Naturally, Canadians are concerned about how their data is used. New technologies are subject to the Privacy Act. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: We're talking about public health. The provinces are currently in the process of legislating. We're talking about what is going on in Quebec, among other places, and I would like to make sure that the federal government commits to respecting the proposals regarding geolocation and contact tracing possibilities, with full respect for the right to privacy. Can we commit to respecting the provinces? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have worked very closely with provinces and territories for a long time before the outbreak, but certainly ever since the outbreak. We respect the rights of jurisdictional authorities to use tools that have been properly vetted through their own provincial and territorial legislation. Nothing we would ever do at the federal level would put Canadians'privacy in jeopardy. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Concerning privacy, there are 30million Quebeckers and Canadians who have had their personal data leaked. Why is it that our laws don't allow us to apply financial penalties so that we can then go further? The very basis is to be concerned about our fundamental rights. The commissioner has been making this request for several years now. As the critic for access to information and privacy, I'd like a commitment that the federal government will deal not with what the provinces are doing, but with the Privacy Act. The Chair: Your time is up, but I'll give the floor to the minister for 30seconds. Hon. Navdeep Bains: Thank you for the question. Our government will ensure the privacy of Canadians is respected, support responsible innovation and take reasonable steps to strengthen enforcement powers. That's why we created a digital charter. We are strengthening Canada's privacy laws in response to the digital age. The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Baker. Mr. Yvan Baker (Etobicoke Centre, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll be sharing my time with the member for Malpeque. Mr. Chair, my question is for the Minister of Seniors. Minister, in my riding of Etobicoke Centre, we are mourning the loss of 40 residents to COVID-19 at the Eatonville long-term care centre. Over 143 residents and 88 staff members have now tested positive for the virus. This tragedy is not only taking place in Etobicoke Centre but across Canada. Of all Canadians who have died from COVID-19,79% were living in long-term care homes. That's over 2,000 seniors. This is a catastrophe, and it's frankly unacceptable. Our seniors and their families deserve better. I understand that long-term care homes fall within the jurisdiction of provincial governments in Canada, but this is a crisis. What is the federal government doing right now to help protect our seniors who are living in long-term care homes from COVID-19? What will we do to reform our long-term care homes in the future to ensure that our seniors in Etobicoke Centre and across Canada get the care they deserve? Hon. Deb Schulte: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to my colleague from Etobicoke Centre for his very thoughtful question. We are deeply concerned by the outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care facilities, and our thoughts are with those who have lost a loved one. It's a very difficult time. As my colleague mentioned, while these facilities are regulated by provinces and territories, we have been focused on protecting the health and safety of long-term care residents and staff while working with our partners in a team Canada approach. We've released guidelines to prevent and control COVID-19 infections. We're working with the provinces and territories to cost-share a temporary salary top-up for long-term care workers. We are working through investing $2 billion to secure personal protective equipment for the health of workers, including those in the long-term care homes, and we've deployed the Canadian Armed Forces to assist 25 long-term care homes in Quebec and Ontario. We all have a role to play to stop the spread of COVID-19 and to protect our seniors and caregivers. The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Easter. Hon. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. At the finance committee, we've heard a lot of concerns from all sectors of the economy as a result of COVID-19 and we've been presented with quite a number of possible solutions as well, several of which the government has acted upon. My question is on the support offered to the agri-food sector announced on Tuesday. It is very welcome support, but I sincerely believe the farm sector will be taking the Prime Minister up on the suggestion that $250 million should be seen as an initial investment. Potatoes are the number one commodity in Prince Edward Island. However, as a result of reduced processor contracts for next year, plus cancelled seed contracts, millions of dollars of seed and process potatoes have no home. To make matters worse, farmers have high fixed costs that they now have to spread over fewer acres. How does the minister see Tuesday's announcement addressing potato farmers'concerns? Second, in 2013, long-term financial safety nets were gutted by the Harper government. Will the minister be coming forward with improved business risk management programs as a result? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): Mr. Chair, I want to thank Mr. Easter, the member for the riding of Malpeque on Prince Edward Island. It's a beautiful rural riding with lots of agricultural production. I want to recognize the hard work of farmers throughout the crisis. On Tuesday, I was proud to announce one more step for supporting our producers and processors. We know the importance of our potato farmers, and that's why we are launching a first-ever surplus food purchase program, a $50-million fund designed to help redistribute existing inventories, such as potatoes, to local food organizations. On the financial safety net that we have in place for our farmers, called the business risk management program, we announced up to $125 million in funding through AgriRecovery and made changes to AgriStability that will help producers quickly. I will continue to discuss with my provincial counterparts toenhance and improve the BRM programs. In the meantime, I want to reiterate that BRM programs, including AgriInvest, are there to help farmers in difficult times. The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Johns now. Mr. Gord Johns (CourtenayAlberni, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, small businesses across Canada closed their doors to stop the spread and for public health. Now they're currently hanging off the edge of a cliff waiting for financial help. Robyn, who has owned Arbutus Health in Tofino for over 13 years, can't apply for the Canada emergency business account loan, simply because she doesn't have a payroll of over $20,000. All of her practitioners are paid contractors, so she is ineligible. With no business income and without emergency financing, it is virtually impossible for her to pay her bills or come up with the 25% needed for the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program. The government promised to be flexible and willing to adjust its COVID response rollout so that nobody falls through the cracks, but Robyn, like tens of thousands of proprietors who are the economic job creators of our communities, urgently needs the government's help now. Will the government amend its programs to help more business owners so that people like Robyn don't lose their businesses? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for his really good question. I know he and I have talked about this, and I appreciate the input and the feedback that he is providing from business directly. I want to assure Robyn and her businesses, and many businesses across the country, that we are absolutely listening, and we will continue to make sure we are supporting those businesses during this period. We know that many businesses are being helped through the Canada emergency business account. There are well over 550,000 businesses that are getting support through this emergency business account. We also know that more has to be done, and we will continue to work with you and businesses across the country so that we can indeed give them that necessary support to weather this difficult period of COVID-19. Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, that's not going to help Robyn feel comfort. I was talking to Heather last night, who also owns a business in Tofino, Basic Goodness Pizzeria, with her partner Marco. Like many proprietors of family businesses who aren't on payroll, they don't qualify for the business loans. They don't qualify for the wage subsidy because they're a seasonal business. Now with the new rollout of the rent support, they're not sure if their landlord is willing to play ball and even apply. That's three separate programs that leave them out. Heather was in tears last night as she told me that they have done nothing wrong to deserve being excluded from these emergency programs. I agree. Will the government fix the rent support program so that tenants can apply, instead of leaving it up to landlords, and so businesses can get the help they desperately need? Hon. Mona Fortier (OttawaVanier, Lib.): Mr. Chair, we've been working on this program since the beginning. We've been working on offering a response for small businesses and charities and non-profit organizations, and we are continuing to listen on the ground to how we can better assist the businesses that fall through the cracks. We will continue to do that as we go along in this emergency situation. Thank you very much to the honourable member for sharing the realities of his constituents. Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, when the government rolled out its commercial rent support program, why didn't it negotiate an eviction moratorium with the provinces, as Australia and other countries did, to protect business owners? Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as we know, Canadians are taking action and fighting against COVID-19. We know that many small businesses are worried about being able to pay rent. We've recognized it and we've been working with the provinces and territories to implement the Canada emergency commercial rent The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Johns. Mr. Gord Johns: To qualify for the Canada emergency wage subsidy, a 30% drop in revenue has to be shown. Anyone who's owned a business knows that even with this program, it's going to be hard to survive. Why is the government using a 70% measurement drop to qualify for the rent support program, but a 30% drop for the wage subsidy? Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, Mr. Chair, thank you to the honourable member for sharing his views on this program. We've been working with provinces and territories to provide forgivable loans to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rents for their tenants by 75%. We're hoping that tenants and landlords will be working together so we can support businesses during this very difficult crisis. The Chair: Before we move on to the next question, Mr. Berthold, did you have a question or a point of order? Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, I have a point of order. I checked the clock from the first round of five minutes, and as you may recall, it took a very long time for me to get an answer from the government. I went back and forth with MinisterMcKenna for four minutes and 14seconds. The Chair: Just a moment. The interpretation isn't coming through. It's working now. Go ahead, Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: I'll start over. During my first turn, it took 50seconds before a government minister deigned to answer my questions. After checking my time, I realized that the discussion between Ms. McKenna and I went on for four minutes and 14seconds, so I wasn't able to ask the minister one final question, a very important one. I would ask you to take that into account and allow me to ask MinisterMcKenna one last question, please. The Chair: The person chairing the meeting uses their judgment and does their best to keep an eye on what's going on. They try to be as fair as possible. I'll try to do a better job. I think it's more or less equal for all the members, but I apologize if the honourable member feels that he was denied a few seconds. Our next question goes to Mr. Doherty. Mr. Todd Doherty (CaribooPrince George, CPC): Mr. Chair, the Canada-U. S. border agreement is set to expire on May 20. Will the two governments renew the current agreement, or will it be modified? Hon. Bill Blair: The decision to close the border was made in Canada by Canadians in the best interest of Canadians. We're continuing to monitor the situation carefully. Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government be in a position to inform Canadians of any changes to the agreement? Hon. Bill Blair: I'm pleased to advise the member that we're continuing to monitor the situation, but I'm strongly of the opinion that the circumstances on both sides of our border do not indicate that this is the right time to make a change in the restrictions. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the government confirm whether there are any discussions about reopening the border to certain modes of transportation and restricting others? The Chair: Before I go to the minister, I want to remind the honourable members that we do have translators, and they are trying to translate. With respect to them, I know we're trying to get as many questions in as possible, but they do have to translate them, so please be considerate of our interpreters. The honourable minister has the floor. Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Let me please inform the honourable member that we are, of course, aware that the current agreement expires. I had a long conversation yesterday with the Prime Minister Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government announce a relief package for Canada's aviation industry? Hon. Navdeep Bains: We are engaged with the industry, and we are working with them on a solution, Mr. Chair. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, will this relief package include funding for airline ticket refunds similar to what other countries around the world have done? Yes or no? Hon. Navdeep Bains: It's early to say anything at this moment. We're taking a sectoral approach. This is about making sure that we restart the economy and have a strong recovery. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the Minister of Transport confirm that temperature screening is taking place at Canadian airports. Yes or no? Hon. Marc Garneau (Minister of Transport): Mr. Chair, I can confirm that Air Canada has now adopted a policy of checking temperatures for passengers boarding Air Canada flights. Mr. Todd Doherty: At which airports is that, and when did this practice start? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the announcement was made recently by Air Canada. It will start shortly and will apply to all places and destinations where Air Canada flies. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, this is for the Minister of Transport. Last week I asked the Minister of Labour if they were aware of a letter written on April 6 by CUPE to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Minister, were you aware of that letter? The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly. Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I didn't understand the reference to a letter from CUPE. Could my colleague please clarify? Mr. Todd Doherty: On April 6, CUPE wrote a letter to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Is the minister aware of that letter? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, could my colleague clarify what CUPE is referring to? Mr. Todd Doherty: CUPE is the labour organization that represents thousands of flight attendants across our country. Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I do understand. Yes, I will confirm that CUPE, which represents the flight attendants, did write to us. Before that I had conversations with CUPE with respect to flight attendants and the use of personal protective equipment. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the minister confirm whether or not they have provided PPE to the flight attendants and/or training for front-line staff for airlines and airports? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the airlines are providing PPE to flight attendants and flight crews. This has become a policy to ensure the safety not only of passengers on board but also of the flight attendants and flight crew. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, a business owner from Quesnel wrote to my office recently. He stated that he couldn't give his small business tenants a break on rent because the government is penalizing him for paying off his mortgage. When will the government change the CECRA rules to help more businesses? Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as you know, we laid out the CECRA program just last week, and we are encouraging landlords to take that opportunity to support the renters. We will continue to look at how we can provide some relief to small businesses with rents. Mr. Todd Doherty: With all due respect, Mr. Chair, any landlord who does not have a mortgage on their business is ineligible for CECRA. Is the minister aware of this, and are they trying to revise the CECRA program? Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with provinces and territories to present that program. Of course, we will continue to monitor how this program works for landlords and tenants. We are asking, actually encouraging, landlords to do their part and help tenants, like the one you mentioned, go through this. The Chair: We'll go to the next questioner. Go ahead, Ms. Dancho. Ms. Raquel Dancho (KildonanSt. Paul, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Small businesses in Manitoba employ 73% of Manitobans. That's over 286,000 Manitobans. I've been speaking with many small business owners in my riding. It's been heartbreaking, frankly, to hear that everything they've built and sacrificed for is in serious jeopardy, and through no fault of their own. Your government has created programs that are supposed to help them, but many legitimate businesses aren't able to apply. That could mean bankruptcy and cost thousands of Manitobans jobs. This is wrong. I'm hoping to hear specifics, not just nice words, on what you're going to do to help them. There are three issues regarding access to the $40,000 CEBA loan. First, businesses that recently incorporatedfor example, in late 2019are unable to apply their entire 2019 payroll. As a result, many are falling short of the $20,000 payroll threshold required to qualify for this loan. Second, many businesses contract their employees rather than have them on payroll. They also are unable to qualify for this loan. Third, many businesses use personal rather than business banking accounts. They aren't able to qualify for this loan either. What is your government going to do about these three scenarios? The Chair: I just want to remind honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly to the minister. As well, please take into consideration the interpreters, who have to listen and translate, so that we can have this conversation. Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for that question. Right from the very beginning, we've always said that we will listen and that we will work to make sure that measures go out to help our Canadian small businesses. She's absolutely right: 98% of all our businesses in this country are small businesses, so they absolutely contribute enormously to our communities and are job creators. That is why we have put out significant measures. For the Canada emergency business account, over 550,000 small businesses have been approved and are getting that support. I absolutely acknowledge that there is more work to do. I can assure the honourable member that we will continue to do this work so that businesses, all businesses, are supported, whether it is helping keep your employees together, helping with rent support, helping to keep your business's expenses low, or of course helping with the capital that is needed so that you can pay your operating expenses and your bills through this difficult time. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, I didn't hear any answers from the minister's remarks, unfortunately. Moving on, there are two issues regarding the 50% commercial rent assistance subsidy, where landlords pay 25%, the government pays 50%, and the tenant is responsible for 25%. First, many of the small landlords aren't able to take a 25% hit to their income, and are unable to provide the subsidy to their tenants. Second, with the 70% decline in revenue threshold for small businesses to even be eligible for the rent assist, many restaurants are at 65% or 67% decline. They desperately need this subsidy but aren't able to qualify. This is not about problems with the program details. What is the government planning to do to streamline this program for small businesses that can't access but desperately need the rent subsidy? Hon. Mlanie Joly: Mr. Chair, as the Minister of Official Languages, I just want to raise the fact that interpretation is very complicated right now. In order to make sure that we can continue to uphold bilingualism within the House, I would love it if my colleagues could take down the pace a bit. That would help the interpreters a whole lot. They are working very hard and trying to keep up. The Chair: That's a reasonable request. I just want to remind everyone again that when you're asking a question, make sure you are doing it at a pace at which you're considering the people who are interpreting Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, this is how fast I speak when we're in the House of Commons. It's just how I talk. The Chair: I understand. I have a lot of friends who speak very quickly. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Right. I understand. Perhaps we could get back to my question about the rent subsidy. The Chair: We stopped the time. You're not losing any time on this one. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Okay. I will try to speak more slowly. The Chair: I appreciate it. Thank you. The interpreters appreciate it. Now we'll go to the minister, please. Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with the provinces and territories to provide this forgivable loan to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rent of their tenants by 75%. We will continue to monitor how this program is delivered, as we announced it last week. It will be offered pretty soon. It will be very important that we understand what happens across the country, and we will monitor and adapt the program as we Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, it has been in the media quite a bit that this rent subsidy is not helping many, many, many small business owners. It's falling short of everything that was announced, so I think it needs to be taken a bit more seriously than that. There are two issues regarding the 75% wage subsidy. First, employers who pay themselves and their employees dividends rather than wages are unable to qualify. Second, there is also a 30% threshold revenue decline needed in order to apply. Many of the businesses in my riding are at 27% or 29%. They desperately need these funds but are unable to qualify. What is the government planning to do for these small businesses? Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, thank you to the hon. member for sharing the realities she's hearing from small business owners. We are providing help and support for businesses through these very difficult times. The wage subsidy has been taken up and is working for many businesses. We know that some still fall through the cracks and we will look at how we can continue to support businesses across the country. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends (BrossardSaint-Lambert, Lib.) ): We are now going to Mr. Kevin Waugh. Mr. Kevin Waugh (SaskatoonGrasswood, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. Three weeks ago, on April 17, the Minister of Canadian Heritage announced funding of $500 million to assist Canada's arts, sports and cultural sectors. We are still waiting to hear who is eligible and when they can expect to receive this funding. Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Canadian Heritage): Madam Chair, we will be releasing the details of that announcement, and how the money is going to be spent, in the coming days. Mr. Kevin Waugh: We all know that many media organizations, large and small, in Canada are struggling right now. Allegations have arisen that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CBC, is currently engaging in predatory behaviour and taking advantage of the current situation to harm its competitors using rate cuts. We've seen this from the province of Quebec. Many journalists have talked about this. What is the government going to do to address these allegations against the CBC? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have not been informed of these allegations. We will look into this, and we will get back to the hon. colleague if we do find any valuable information. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Local community and ethnic media outlets and papers have strong ties to their communities that often go much deeper than the major media outlets. Is the government currently using any local or ethnic media outlets to provide crucial coronavirus information through advertising? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, I totally agree with my colleague. We need to get the information to Canadians on COVID-19, which is why we have started an ad-buy campaign of $30 million, which is being distributed in more than 900 local, regional and national newspapers across the country and 500 radio and TV stations in 12 different languages, including Farsi, Mandarin, Spanish, Italian and many more. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Mr. Minister, I talked to the Winnipeg Free Press yesterday. It has received two ads from an ad agency in connection with the $30 million the government is doling out to help media outlets. They had one ad on March 27. The second ad was on April 11. That is two ads in the Winnipeg Free Press in the last eight weeks. Is this the kind of money you're attempting to dole out to help media: two ads in eight weeks? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have been doing a number of things for our media in Canada over the last few months and will continue to do so. On top of that $30 million ad-buy campaign, we have been investing $50 million in local journalism. Just this year, it means that 200 journalists will be hired in areas across the country where journalism is more poorly defined. The federal government has paid part I licence fees of our broadcasters to the CRTC. That means $30 million is staying in the pockets of our broadcasters. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Madam Chair, last week, as the minister would know, 15 community newspapers, including eight in Manitoba and seven in the province of Ontario, closed their doors for good. Is the government currently planning any further measures aimed at assisting community or ethnic media organizations? We understand that many more will close their doors within the next 30 to 60 days. Hon. Steven Guilbeault: We are planning a number of other measures, some of which will be included in the $500 million. I will be announcing the details of that in the coming days. Of the $595 million that the media will receive, we have a tax credit that has now entered into force, and the cheques should be in the mail by the end of the summer. So there are a number of things we've done and a number of things we will be doing in the coming months as well. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Waugh, you may have a short question. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Well, finally, you have the five members associated with that committee to dole out the $595 million. They haven't even met yet. When will they meet? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: I would like to remind my hon. colleague that in order for us to provide tax breaks for the 2019 period, media outlets had to file their tax returns so we could go ahead. This will now be able to proceed, Madam Chair. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We now move on to Mr. Godin. Mr. Godin, you may go ahead. Mr. Jol Godin (PortneufJacques-Cartier, CPC): Thank you, MadamChair. This being the first time I've had the floor during a virtual sitting of Parliament, I'd like to take this opportunity to greet my fellow members, all 259participants. I hope they are taking care of themselves. I'd like to talk about the Prime Minister's appearance on the show Tout le monde en parle. This is what he had to say about his economic recovery plan: We are going to remain focused on the economy as a wholeinnovationresearch and science, the green economy and a fairer economyThere are things we are all reflecting on right now that reflection is going to continue. That was a weak answer. It didn't inspire much confidence. Can the government assure Canadians that it is being proactive and working on a plan to get the economy moving again? It must act now. Things are starting to reopen gradually. Is the government going to take concrete action to revive the economy? Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Yes, absolutely. Our government is wholly committed to restarting the economy, and we are working closely with the provinces to do just that. Last week, our government, together with the provincial and territorial premiers, released the principles that will guide efforts to restore economic activity across the country. That is key. The discussion between the Prime Minister and the premiers is continuing today. Mr. Jol Godin: MadamChair, before we go any further, since it took a while for the minister, or the government, to answer the question, can I have that time back to ask questions? The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I stopped the clock, Mr. Godin. Mr. Jol Godin: Thank you. The Prime Minister's answer during his appearance on Tout le monde en parle didn't inspire much confidence and doesn't line up with the Deputy Prime Minister's comments. How can the government be proud of announcing $252million in assistance for the agri-food sector, when that is less than 1% of all the program funding the government has committed to help Canadians get through the COVID-19 crisis? Clearly, the government doesn't see the food supply chain as a priority and has no regard for farmers and pork and beef producers. Does the government realize that eating is vital to Canadians? When is the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food going to adjust the program and show respect for Canadian farmers? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: I have the utmost respect for farmers. We are going step by step. We've already confirmed various supports for the agricultural sector. This week, we focused on beef and pork producers and processors, as well as sectors with product surpluses that can be redirected to food banks. I can assure my fellow member that this is an additional step and that more supports are on the way in the weeks ahead. Bear in mind that a number of programs are already available to farmers. Mr. Jol Godin: I'd like to switch topics now. PortneufJacques-Cartier is home to a company that is already licensed by Health Canada and that, for 20years, has been manufacturing medical equipment including masks, face shields and thermometers. This is equipment our health workers need. The company has a licence from the federal government. In mid-March, Health Canada reached out to the company to find out how much equipment it could manufacture to help fight COVID-19. The company confirmed that it could immediately start producing 200,000masks a week, ramping up to a million masks over the next few weeks. Forty-five days later, it is still waiting on its first order from the Canadian government. We are managing a crisis with a limited supply of medical equipment. Can the health minister tell us why, 45days later, this company licensed by Health Canada hasn't received an order? Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Thank you for the question. Industry and suppliers have enthusiastically answered our call to equip Canada with products and goods during the crisis. Many of those suppliers have already received contracts. We have reached out to all the others and will negotiate contracts as needed. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I would now like to invite hon. member Jenica Atwin to speak. Mrs. Jenica Atwin (Fredericton, GP): Thank you, Madam Chair. Seniors living alone are most at risk of economic insecurity, particularly single senior women, as gender inequality in the job market has translated all too often into inadequate retirement income. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a poverty reduction plan that addresses the unique challenges faced by older women? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to assure the member that we are quite aware that this pandemic has typically affected single seniors, and many of those, given that they live longer, are single senior women. I want to assure her that we are working on this issue, and we have provided some supports already through measures such as the GST supplementary payment. That is on average almost $400 for single seniors. There's more work to do. We know that, so stay tuned. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, older women represent a high proportion of residents in long-term care facilities. Having spent their lives caring for parents, children and often their partners, they find themselves needing care in nursing homes. Multiple outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care homes in Canada have highlighted systemic gaps that senior and elderly women may face in such facilities, as well as the working conditions of the female-dominated ranks of nurses and personal support workers. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a federal strategy for long-term care homes that recognizes quality of life for residents and working conditions for the employees, ideally one that goes hand in hand with a poverty reduction plan and enhanced home and community care investments across the country? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I do want to thank the hon. member for her question. It's an important one. We are obviously deeply saddened by the outbreaks that have been going on in long-term care facilities and those who have lost their lives. We do recognize that the administration of long-term care and palliative care is the responsibility of provinces and territories; however, we have been taking a team Canada approach, and as you already know, we've been doing tremendous work with them to try to ensure that those who live in those facilities can be well cared for and safe. We are doing that with guidelines The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms. Atwin has the floor. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, from May 4 to May 10, we are observing Mental Health Week. We know that our essential workers right now are experiencing unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety, on top of putting their own physical safety and health on the line. Most of these workers work in precarious jobs with no access to paid sick leave or vacation, and without any benefits to access mental health services. Apart from the very welcome investments in online resources, can the minister explain how the government will support these workers now and once the crisis is behind us? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, thank you very much to the member for the question. I'm so glad that she's raising the issue of mental health and in particular how poor mental health is oftentimes connected to our socio-economic status. I appreciate the nuance in that question. She's right. We do have new resources that are available to all Canadians free of charge through the Wellness Together portal, but there is more to do. I think the announcement of top-up wages, for example, which the Prime Minister spoke about today, is another example of how we're taking the health and wellness of all low-income Canadians very seriously. We know that mental health is not divorced from socio-economic status, and I look forward to working with her more on other measures that we can take together. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, we're all very aware of the importance of temporary foreign workers and their role in ensuring our food sovereignty across this country. The pandemic has highlighted how we depend on their work. How are we protecting them? Madam Chair, will the government take action to strengthen legislation and ensure Canadians have access to the food they need while the workers who help bring it to our tables have safe working conditions, regardless of where they are working in this country? Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Thank you, Madam Chair. We are very concerned, as are countries around the world, that we support and create the environment for the health and safety of our temporary foreign workers and we value their contribution to our food supply chain here in Canada. We have issued guidelines to employers and are working very closely with local public health authorities in the provinces and territories to make sure workers are protected, that physical distancing and other recommendations are adhered to and that there are severe consequences if employers don't take care of their workers. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We are now going to Mr. MacGregor. Mr. Alistair MacGregor (CowichanMalahatLangford, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. My first question is this: Will the Liberal government prevent federal bailout funds from going to companies that use tax havens and avoid paying their fair share here in Canada, yes or no? Hon. Diane Lebouthillier (Minister of National Revenue): We are working to make sure that anyone who tries to circumvent the rules faces serious consequences. We are asking businesses to designate a representative to attest their claims. Any employer receiving the subsidy who is deemed ineligible will have to repay the full amount. Anyone who abuses the program could face fines of up to 225% of the subsidy amount as well as five years in prison. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, I didn't really hear a yes to that question, so I'll repeat it. Does the government really think it's appropriate for tax-avoiding corporations to receive funding provided for by taxpayers? Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: We will keep going after companies that engage in tax evasion. I want to be clear. We will target those who are responsible, not innocent workers. An employee is an employee, regardless of who they work for. The wage subsidy program does not hand a blank cheque over to employers. It is meant to help Canadians pay their bills, keep their jobs and get through the crisis. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, the agriculture funding announced by the government earlier this week amounts to less than 10% of what the Canadian Federation of Agriculture estimates will be required to help farmers weather this crisis. Why has the Minister of Agriculture shortchanged our farmers? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, this is one more step. This was one more step. We have already committed significant support to our farmers through different programs, and we will do more. I have to remind my colleague that we have put in $5 billion through FCC, $50 million for the temporary foreign workers, two times $50 million for pork and beef producers this week, and $77 million for food processing. This is only the beginning, and we should not forget that the business risk management programs are still there to offer support. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Yes, Madam Chair, but we're nearly two months into this pandemic and this announcement only came this week. Farmers need certainty. When can farmers expect further updates on funding, and how much will the government be providing? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, we are working closely with the farmers and their representatives to identify where the gaps are, but once again, we have made improvements to the AgriStability program. They can get, depending on the province, either 50% or 75% in advance payments, and they can also, right now, access their AgriInvest program. There is more than $2 billion ready to access today, if they have The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. MacGregor. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, federal disability recipients and seniors on fixed incomes have been hardest hit by cost of living increases from COVID-19. If we acknowledge that $2,000 per month is the minimum needed to get through this time, why are they being asked to survive on far less? When can they expect assistance, and how much will they receive? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to make sure people realize that we have provided some assistance through the GST supplementary benefit. We are also providing support to those who are still working, and we have done that by allowing them to access the CERB. There is more work to be done, so you'll be hearing more in the near future. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, as I think we've heard through today's question period, there are countless example of this government designing programs to exclude many small businesses that desperately need help. Whether it's the payroll requirements or other eligibility, we still, to this day, almost two months into the pandemic, have too many small businesses falling through the cracks. Madam Chair, why has the government taken this approach and when can we finally expect fixes to the whole system? Hon. Mary Ng: Madam Chair, right from the get-go, we have been committed to making sure that Canadians are helped through this crisis, and that small businesses get the support that they need, so that we are saving businesses and jobs in this country. That is what we have done with many of our programs. You're seeing that we are also listening, so that we can modify them as we need. I want to assure the member that the work is not done. We continue to do this. The Chair: Thank you. It is now over to Mr. Perron. Mr. Perron, you may go ahead. Mr. Yves Perron (BerthierMaskinong, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question will come as no surprise, since it has to do with agriculture. I hear the questions my fellow members are asking, and to be frank, I don't find the answers satisfactory. It is well and good to talk about existing programs, but they aren't working, so enough with that refrain. That's what people are telling us. It's not just members of the opposition saying it. This morning, both farmers and processors came together for a press conference at the Union des producteurs agricoles's head office in Longueuil. Six stakeholders from different sectors sounded the alarm. Can the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food therefore tell us when she will announce significant supports for the industry? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We have already announced significant amounts of support, and more is on the way. I'd like to correct my fellow member. It's not that the programs aren't working; it's that they aren't generous enough in farmers'eyes. That's why I'm working with my provincial counterparts to make improvements to programming, including AgriStability. Here's an example. After using the online AgriStability benefit estimator, a pork producer found out that he would get $11 per head, as they say in the industry. Pork producers are calling for $20 per head, so it's a good start, even though it's not enough and it isn't what they are asking for. We want to keep working together, but farmers have to access the money available to them through AgriStability. Mr. Yves Perron: Now it's my turn to correct the minister. Even before the crisis, we were hearing from people in the industry that the programs were neither suitable nor sufficient. We are in a crisis, and this is an exceptional situation. In the case of mad cow disease, farmers received direct assistance. That's the kind of assistance we are calling for. We don't want to hear about growing levels of debt. Of course, this is a first step, but farms are already deep in debt. A few days ago, the government announced $50million in funding for pork producers, even though they are asking for $20per hog for 27million hogs. The government's support covers just 2. 5million hogs. When I call the measure insufficient, I mean it is grossly insufficient. It's high time the government put forth more support. It has to stop saying that it's working hard and examining the situation. The government has to listen to the people in the industry. Again, this morning, they had some interesting proposals. When is the government going to announce a whole lot more in funding support? What's been announced so far is only 10% of what farmers are asking for. Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We are going step by step. The programs are already in place. We are trying to make them better, and we are committed to doing that. These programs are cost-shared with the provinces. However, I would point out to the member that, when it comes to AgriRecovery, we made an exception to the rule. We are moving forward in every province to help pork and beef producers. That's two funding envelopes of $50million each to help cover the additional costs from the decrease in plant processing capacity. That's new money that was not yet available, money we introduced this week. As the Prime Minister said, we are going to do more, and we are moving forward step by step. Mr. Yves Perron: What we concluded in committee this week is that the $125million is not new money. It was already earmarked for the programs. The government can't say that programs already exist and, at the same time, claim that they are new programs. Something doesn't add up there. What's more, there are different ways to make money available. I'd like to talk compensation. Everyone knows that the Canada-U. S. -Mexico Agreement came into force a month earlier than planned, despite the promises that had been made. That resulted in additional losses, once again. An easy way to make money available without committing new spending is to provide compensation and announce programs for supply-managed sectors that got nothing. It seems to me that a time of crisis is a time for the government to practise some judo and announce measures. I am reaching out to the government, as I always do, but it has to come forward with announcements. Can we expect the government to announce measures in the coming days? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Our commitment to farmers in supply-managed sectorsmeaning, egg, poultry and dairy farmersis as strong as it always was. I repeat, our commitment is clear. Dairy producers received their first payment at the end of last year or the beginning of this year. Support for poultry and egg farmers is in the form of investment programs, which aligns well with the recovery. At this time, we are focusing on emergency programs to help farmers hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. When it comes to the dairy sector, I hope I can count on your support. As you know, legislative changes are needed to grant the Canadian Dairy Commission's request and increase its borrowing limit by $200million so it can buy more butter and cheese. The Chair: Our next question will go to Mr. Lake. Hon. Mike Lake (EdmontonWetaskiwin, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we're all inundated, as we've heard during this entire question period, with Canadians'concerns about the economic restrictions and the social restrictions that they're under. Over the last couple of months, the WHO has given one very consistent message in terms of coming out of those economic and social restrictions. On March 16, Dr. Tedros said in his briefing, We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test. On March 25,44 days ago, he said, Aggressive measures to find, isolate, test, treat and trace are not only the best and fastest way out of extreme social and economic restrictionstheyre also the best way to prevent them. Does the minister agree with the WHO that relentless testing and tracing are critical to a successful economic and social relaunch strategy in Canada? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thanks to the member for the very astute observation and question. Absolutely, we agree that testing and contact tracing will form an important part of our response to living with COVID. We've been investing heavily in ensuring that we have the lab capacity, the collaboration across provinces and territories, and the variety of testing options to help us increase our capacity to test. We are aiming right now for a high volume of tests, but I will also say that in Canada we have one of the highest testing rates in the world. Although we're doing well, I can assure him that I am with him and I believe we need to do more. Hon. Mike Lake: I have some really quick questions for follow-up. First, what is Canada's current testing capability? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as I mentioned to his colleagues yesterday, we have currently the capacity to do approximately 60,000 tests per day across the country. Hon. Mike Lake: How many tests were conducted each day on average in Canada last week? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, it's hard for me to get that exact number, but I will get back to him with the exact number. Hon. Mike Lake: I'll save you the time. The exact number was 28,851, on average, every day last week. That's a gap of 30,000 from what your stated testing capability is. I'll give another quote from Dr. Tam, back on April 22,15 days ago. She said, As a first tranche, roughly close to 60,000 is where the provinces can potentially expand to as a target already. Does the minister happen to know, ballpark, what the average number of daily tests in Canada has been since that statement? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Your estimate was slightly higher than what my estimate was going to be, so that's a great piece of news. Listen, I will just say that I think if the premise here is that we could be doing more testing. I would agree, but I will also say that the provinces and territories are working incredibly hard on testing strategies that meet their own specific needs. I'm happy to have a conversation with the member later about that testing strategy. Dr. Tam works with all the chief public health officers across the country to ensure that their testing strategy is going to be applicable and appropriate for their particular jurisdictions. We, as the federal government, provide the capacity for them to conduct those tests. Hon. Mike Lake: Following up on that, is there a jurisdiction in Canada where relentless testing is not the appropriate strategy as provinces consider relaunching? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Each province and territory has its own outbreak and its own epidemic. For example, in British Columbia, where there are relatively fewer cases in general and less disease activity, they may have a different testing strategy than a province like Ontario, which is currently struggling with more outbreaks. Hon. Mike Lake: Given your comment that our current testing capability is 60,000, and acknowledging that only at one point in the entire history of our COVID response, over several months, has our weekly average been over 30,000it was about 31,000 for one day on a rolling basisMinister, are you satisfied with our current testing amounts right now, given that we're testing 50% of what the public health officer advises would be best? Hon. Patty Hajdu: I'm so amazed by the work the provinces and territories have done in a very short time to increase their capacity. We are supporting them with the tools that they need to get more testing done, but also to have other components in place that will allow them to do the rapid tracing of positive cases. I think it's very important to remember that testing strategies will be different across the provinces, based on the outbreak disease epidemiology. Having said that, I know that we can all do better, and I'm certain that my counterparts feel the same. The Chair: I'm going to have to cut the minister off at that one. I want to thank everyone for the session today, I think it went rather well. I'm very proud of you and proud of ourselves for what we managed to accomplish. The committee stands adjourned until Tuesday, May 12, at noon.

The Prime Minister was challenged that a bus driver in Vancouver who had been laid off as a public sector worker, could not access the federal wage subsidy while the opposite result happened to another worker in the airline industry. The Prime Minister explained that the airline industry, like banking, like telecommunications, was a federal area of jurisdiction which could receive the promote wage subsidy. However, under the current situation, the federal government was working hard to ensure equal distribution of the whole nation.

tr-sq-630

tr-sq-630_0

How many projects that the provinces had submitted were waiting for approval from the government? The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.) ): We'll call this meeting to order. Welcome to the fifth meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. Pursuant to the order passed on Monday, April20, the committee is meeting today to consider ministerial announcements, to allow members of the committee to present petitions, and to question ministers, including the Prime Minister, about the COVID-19 pandemic. Tomorrow, May8, Dr. AndreaMcCrady, Dominion Carillonneur, will give a special recital to mark the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day. Victory in Europe Day, VE Day, commemorates the formal acceptance of Germany's surrender by allied forces at the end of the Second World War. While the pandemic prevents us from gathering to celebrate in person, tomorrow at noon the voice of our nation will ring out in remembrance of this milestone in our history. Today's meeting is taking place by video conference. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. Just so you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entire committee. I would like to remind members that, as in the House of Commons or committee, they should not take photos of their colleagues or film the proceedings. In order to facilitate the work of the interpreters and to allow the meeting to proceed smoothly, I would ask you to follow some instructions. The video conference will be interpreted as in normal meetings of committees and in the House. In the lower part of your screen, you can choose the language: floor, English or French. Please wait until I call on you by name before you begin to speak. When you are ready to speak, click on the microphone icon to activate your microphone, or hold the space bar down while you are speaking. If you release the bar, your microphone will revert to mute, just like a walkie-talkie. Honourable members, I would like to remind you that if you want to speak English, you should be on the English channel. If you want to speak French, you should be on the French channel. Should you wish to alternate between the two languages, you should change the channel to the language that you are speaking each time you switch languages. Please direct your remarks through the chair. Should you need to request the floor outside of your designated speaking time, you should activate your mike and state that you have a point of order. If a member of the committee wishes to intervene on a point of order raised by another person, you should use the raised hand function to indicate to the chair that you wish to speak. To do this, click on the participant button at the bottom of your screen. When the list appears, you will see the raised hand option beside your name. Speak slowly and clearly at all times. When you are not speaking, leave your microphone on mute. It is highly recommended that you use a headset with a microphone. You have to remember to switch languages. Should any technical challenges arise, for example, in relation to interpretation, please advise the chair immediately by raising a point of order, and the technical team will work on resolving them. Please note that we may need to suspend during these times in order to correct a problem. I want to remind the honourable members to mute their microphones when they are not speaking. If you get accidentally disconnected, please try to rejoin the meeting with the information you used to join initially. If you are unable to rejoin, please contact our technical support team. Before we get started, please note that in the top right-hand corner of your screen is a button that you can use to change views. Speaker view allows you to focus on the person currently speaking; gallery view allows you to see a larger number of participants. You can click through the multiple pages in the gallery view to see who is on and how many more participants there are. I understand there are no ministerial announcements today. We will now proceed to presenting petitions for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during the meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. In addition, to ensure a petition is considered properly presented, the certificate of the petition and each page of the petition for a petition certified in a previous Parliament should be mailed to the committee no later than 6 p. m. the day before. Now we'll go to presenting petitions. Mr. Genuis. Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Mr. Chair, five years ago when Parliament passed Bill C-14, then justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said that it represented a finely tuned balance between access and safeguards. It also included a five-year review. Petitioners on the first petition I'm presenting are very concerned to see Bill C-7 before Parliament, which removes safeguards ahead of that five-year review. Petitioners specifically mention their concerns about the removal of the mandatory 10-day reflection period, which can already be waived in certain circumstances. They are concerned about reducing the number of witnesses required to oversee it and ensure that a request has been properly made. I commend that petition to the consideration of the House. The second and final petition that I will be presenting today is with respect to Senate Bill S-204. This would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ from a person who did not consent. This responds specifically to concerns about organ harvesting in the People's Republic of China involving Falun Gong practitioners and increasing concerns that this is being or about to be applied to Uighurs as well. Canada can and should take action on this. Petitioners are noting that in the previous Parliament there were bills on this, Bill C-350 and Bill S-240. Now, in this Parliament there is a bill, Bill S-204, and the petitioners hope that this 43rd Parliament will be the one that gets it passed. The Chair: We will go to Ms. May. Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's an honour. This is my first occasion to present a petition in our virtual format of the COVID-19 committee. Thank you to you and your staff, Mr. Chair, for developing a system that allows us to present petitions electronically. The petition I am presenting today, which was previously approved, is from a number of constituents who are concerned that we pursue the Paris Agreement to hold the global average temperature increase to no more than 1. 5C. The Paris Agreement itself embeds in it the concept of Just Transition with a capital J and a capital T, the concept of just transition ensuring fairness and support for all workers in the fossil fuel sector. The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to move forward with an act to ensure just transition and to ensure adequate funding so that workers and communities dependent on the fossil fuel sector receive meaningful support to ensure security in their lives in the transition to more sustainable energy use. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Chair: Those are all the petitions for today. I want to thank the honourable members for their usual collaboration and now we'll go on to Mr. James Bezan (SelkirkInterlakeEastman, CPC): On a point of order, Mr. Chair, on Tuesday, at our COVID-19 committee of the whole meeting, I was asking a question which started at 12: 56: 06 and was cut off at 1: 00: 32, so I still have 34 seconds of time remaining in my question time of five minutes. You said it could be no more than five minutes but that I had up to five minutes. Thirty-four seconds leaves a lot of time to have a quick question and a quick response. If you believe that my time was unjustly cut off and that it was unfair treatment of the official opposition when we were raising our points of order, I would ask that the 34 seconds be tacked on to the opening round for the opposition and credited to Rosemarie Falk, who will be leading off for the Conservatives. The Chair: Normally what happens is the chair uses judgment, and with 35 seconds, there isn't enough time obviously for a full question or answer, most of the time. I'll take it under advisement. I can't allot it. I want everyone to know that I do have a timer next to me and I am timing the questions, and I will be treating the answers the same way. If it's a 25-second question, it will be a 25-second answer. Thank you for bringing that up. I believe that issue has been remedied. We've taken a little bit of the chair's ability to give judgment on it, but it will be from now on. Thank you. Mr. James Bezan: Mr. Chair, 34 seconds is a considerable amount of time to do a short question and a short answer. The Chair: I appreciate the advice. Thank you, Mr. Bezan. We'll now proceed to the questioning of ministers. I would like to remind the honourable members that no member will be recognized for more than five minutes at a time and that members may split their time with one or more members by so indicating to the chair. Ministers responding to the questions should do so by simply turning on their microphone and speaking. Our first questioner is Ms. Falk. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk (BattlefordsLloydminster, CPC): Mr. Chair, yesterday, Elizabeth May and the leader of the separatists declared oil to be dead. It's certainly not dead, but it's dying under the Trudeau government. Will the Prime Minister stand up for Canada's energy workers, or does he agree with the fringe left and those who want to destroy our country? Ms. Elizabeth May: I have a point of order. The Chair: Go ahead, Ms. May. Ms. Elizabeth May: Mr. Chair, I believe that the language that the honourable member just used is unparliamentary Mr. Garnett Genuis: That's not a point of order. Ms. Elizabeth May: We can have differences of opinion, but it is absolutely Some hon. members: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: unacceptable and violates my privileges to An hon member: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: No, it's not debate. I would ask the chair to rule on that, not the member from the Conservative Party. It is unacceptable to assert that anyone who wants to make a point about our economy is trying to destroy the country. This allegation is a violation of my privilege. An hon. member: She was also named by the The Chair: Order. I didn't recognize anyone. I don't know who is speaking, so I'll just start talking myself. I want to remind honourable members to have respect in their questions and in their answers. When you refer to someone, please refer to them respectfully. This is a committee of the House, and I would expect no less of the honourable members. We'll go to the right honourable Prime Minister. You have 16 seconds. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. As I pointed out this morning in my press conference, we cannot move forward on a transformation of our energy sector without supporting the workers in that energy sector. We need their innovation and we need their hard work if we are going to lower our emissions, if we are going to reach our The Chair: We'll go to Ms. Falk again. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, it has been 43 days since the finance minister promised Canada's energy sector liquidity through the Business Development Bank of Canada. For 43 days the finance minister has failed to deliver on that promise. These delays cost jobs and they are costing us Canadian businesses. If the government doesn't step up to support our energy sector, they are in effect doubling down on their support for foreign, unethically sourced oil. Mr. Chair, when will the credit options be available to Canada's small and medium energy firms? The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that we do have interpreters who are listening and translating. In consideration to them, please speak at a reasonable pace so that they can understand and then translate. The right honourable Prime Minister. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, our priority through this pandemic and this crisis has been to support workers across the country. We have sent billions of dollars to workers right across the country, including Alberta, Saskatchewan, B. C. , and Newfoundland and Labrador in the energy sector for them to be able to support their families through this difficult time. We are also working on sectoral supports right across the country. Those will be announced in due course. Our focus from the get-go has been The Chair: We'll move to Ms. Falk. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, another group that has been ignored by the Liberals is our farmers. The announcements to date fall well short of what is needed to maintain a steady supply of affordable and healthy food. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture has asked the government for a $2. 6-billion emergency fund. Instead of responding to specific COVID-19 challenges, our farmers are facing the Liberals'reannounced $125 million that was already budgeted in the AgriRecovery program. Will the Prime Minister finally step up and take our food supply chain seriously, or is agriculture just an afterthought for him? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: On the contrary, Mr. Chair, we take agriculture and our agricultural sector extremely seriously, which is why we announced hundreds of millions of dollars a couple of days ago to respond to pressing needs. We will continue to make investments to ensure both the safety of workers in our agricultural sector and the safety of our communities, as well as the continued flow of high-quality Canadian food onto our tables right across the country. Supporting the people who produce our food is a priority for this government and will continue to be. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Well, Mr. Chair, recycled program announcements do not respond to the immediate needs facing our farmers. This is absolutely unacceptable. Our farmers are faced with rising operational costs, a disrupted service industry, labour shortages and a reduced capacity at processing plants. The government has a responsibility to take domestic food security seriously. When will the Prime Minister deliver adequate support to address the critical changes facing our ag industry? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I would suggest respectfully that the honourable member take a look once again at the announcement we made, which actually highlights significant new investments to support our agricultural industry. I certainly agree that there is more to do. Every step of the way in this unprecedented situation, we've been moving forward on doing more, on adjusting and on investing more. We need to support our agricultural sector and the people who work so hard to put food on Canadians'tables right across the country and we will continue to. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, Canadians expect to find healthy and affordable food at their grocery stores, but if the government does not take action now, that's not a given. Our farmers are trying to keep Canadians fed while keeping their heads above water. The Liberal government's own failed federal carbon tax is weighing them down. It is an enormous hit to their bottom line, and the recent carbon tax hike is taking even more money out of the pockets of farmers at a time when they can afford it the least. Will the Prime Minister exempt all farm operations from the carbon tax and reimburse the money that they have already taken from them? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, it's a shame to hear the member opposite accidentallyunintentionally, I'm certainmislead the House and Canadians. The price on pollution actually puts more money into Canadians'pockets, and that includes farm families. People who pay the cost of the price on pollution on average receive more money back. This is the way of creating a better future for our kids and grandkids, which I know people in communities right across the country, including our farm communities, want to see happen. We are moving forward in a responsible way to put a price on pollution and put more money in average Canadians'pockets. The Chair: We now continue with Mrs. Gill. Mrs. Gill, you have the floor. Mrs. Marilne Gill (Manicouagan, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. As you know, all sectors of the economy are fragile at the moment, specifically the fisheries. I am thinking about the lobster fishery in the Magdalen Islands, the crab fishery on the Cte-Nord or those fishing for herring in the south of the Gasp. Because imports have ceased, because the domestic market is weak and in decline because of the interruption of the tourism and restaurant industries, the fishing industry and its fishers must be supported. I would like to know what the government has done to support our fishers since the crisis began. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Our fishers do exceptional work that is extremely important in feeding Canadians and in contributing to our economic success through their exports around the world. This crisis has struck them very hard. That is why we have established measures in the tens of millions of dollars to support our processors. We have also announced help for the fishers. We know that these are difficult and unprecedented times, and we are going to Mrs. Marilne Gill: My thanks to the Prime Minister. I am actually talking about help for the fishers. I know about the processing industry and the $62. 5million to be used essentially for freezing products, but I am talking about the fishers themselves. Given the economic situation, most of our fishers are getting ready to leave. First, there are health risks. We know very well that it is impossible for them to observe all the social distancing measures. They have to incur additional expenses in order to conduct their normal fishing activities. In addition, they feel that they will be losing money, because of the drop in the price of their resource. They are just as essential as farmers, but they are going to have to work at a loss and they are not going to have workers to assist them. Workers in the seasonal industry do not know what tomorrow will bring. They do not even know whether they will be able to put food on the table next year. Are you going to do anything else, in addition to the assistance of $62. 5million? Time is of the essence. Our fishers have lacked certainty for weeks and they are very concerned. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Yes, indeed, we are going to do other things. Other investments will be made in various sectors in order to support Canadians. We recognize the challenges that fishers must face in terms of social distancing and of work that is often seasonal. We are going to continue working with the industry, with the fishers, and with the coastal communities in order to ensure that people have confidence in their abilities and in their future. In times of crisis, it is important for the government to be there to support people, and that is exactly what we are going to continue to do. This is an unprecedented crisis, but we can see once more that Canadians are there for each other. Our government will continue to be there for the fishers and the fishing industry. Mrs. Marilne Gill: I would have preferred us to be there from the start. Clearly, this is a difficult crisis. But, given the cyclical nature of the industry, some sectors have had to postpone for several weeks the preparations they need for fishing activities. The current program could be modified in a number of ways, to accommodate the cycle, the dates, and the size of the companies. They would really like to take advantage of the $40,000loan, but they cannot because of their payroll. Given the dates, they are also ineligible for the 75%salary subsidy. I can already suggest a number of solutions to the government and to the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, that would bring help to those businesses very quickly. The fishers carry on, because it is a duty for them, because they want to help us and to be part of the effort at this time of crisis. At the same time, they have no guarantee that they will be supported. I would really like to hear a guarantee that they will be supported, that they will be able to put food on the table this year, and that they will be able to support the communities that often depend on the fishing industry, a major industry in those communities. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Minister Jordan has been working with the fishers, the fishing industry and the communities affected by the crisis since the crisis began. We are assessing a number of solutions. We have proposed various solutions to support the communities, the workers and the families. This is an unprecedented situation. From the outset, our priority has been to support the millions of Canadians from coast to coast who have lost their jobs. We have been able to do so, but we are going to continue to work for those who must now face difficulties. We are going to be there for each other. That is what people are expecting from our government and from other Canadians. The Chair: Before we move to the next question, I would like to remind members of the committee to speak slowly, and to address their remarks to the chair and not directly to each other. Thank you very much. We will now go to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach (SkeenaBulkley Valley, NDP): Mr. Chair, municipalities across Canada are facing a financial crisis. They've seen revenues plummet, and at the same time the cost of delivering municipal services has risen. As the Prime Minister knows, municipalities are unable to run deficits and so they are facing the reality of cutbacks and serious cuts to the services that Canadians depend on. We know that municipalities are vital during this time to provide services to Canadians. They're going to be even more important during the recovery, especially when it comes to delivering on the infrastructure programs before us. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities and mayors across Canada have called for emergency financial relief for the municipal sector. My question for the Prime Minister is, when can they expect federal financial support to arrive? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, no government in Canada's history has done more to work with our municipalities, with our cities, with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to respond to the challenges they're facing and to partner with them. Things from infrastructure to investments have made a huge difference right across the country in the quality of life of Canadians in towns, large and small, from coast to coast to coast. As I'm sure the member well knows, our Constitution requires that most of the funding for municipalities flow through the provinces. We are working with the provinces, as we continue to work with the cities, to ensure that we're able to support this order of government that delivers the vast majority of services to Canadians with very little financial means. We know how difficult it is for our cities. We will continue The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, it would seem that the federal government has the fiscal capacity and the responsibility to help municipalities weather this crisis. Transit systems have been hit particularly hard and have seen the bulk of the layoffs in the municipal sector. These transit services carry essential workers to work, whether they are health care workers, grocery store workers, janitors or others. The risk is that we will see higher fares to deal with this financial crisis. We will see service cutbacks precisely at a time when we want to be expanding transit and improving transit in our communities. Does the Prime Minister acknowledge that the federal government needs to step in to safeguard and protect Canada's transit services? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, this federal government recognizes how important it is to support all Canadians, which is why we put forward unprecedented measures to help millions upon millions of Canadians with the CERB and with the wage subsidy. We will continue to work with the provinces, which have jurisdiction over the municipalities. I'll be having a conversation with all other first ministers tonight to talk about a broad range of issues. I can highlight that the issue of transit funding has come up. We have continued to engage with them, but again, it is important to respect the Constitution and understand that funding for municipalities and cities does go through the provinces. The federal government is happy to be there to support, but it must be The Chair: We will go to Mr. Bachrach again. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I am wondering how the Prime Minister could explain to a bus driver in Vancouver who has been laid off that as a public sector worker, she can't access the federal wage subsidy, while an equivalent worker in the airline industry gets to keep her job with the federal help of that program. Could the Prime Minister explain how that is fair? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I'm happy to explain to the member and to all Canadians that our Constitution creates federal areas of jurisdiction and provincial areas of jurisdiction. The airline industry, like banking, like telecommunications, is a federal area of jurisdiction that we have been able to move forward on. More than that, we brought the Canada emergency response benefit and the wage subsidy to all industries across this country, because we knew that as the federal government, it was something that we needed to step up on The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I'd like to shift gears a little bit. Faced with minimal health care capacity, remote indigenous communities in my riding are taking matters into their own hands. The Nuxalk have put up a checkpoint on Highway 20 to protect community members and prevent non-essential travel. In particular, it is to protect the three remaining fluent speakers of the Nuxalk language, these cherished elders in their community. The Haida on Haida Gwaii have set up a similar checkpoint, as have communities throughout British Columbia, yet federal support for indigenous communities amounts to only $39 million for all of the indigenous communities in B. C. Does the Prime Minister not agree that more support is warranted to help indigenous communities in my riding and across the country? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, we made funds available to Canadians right across the country, particularly people in indigenous remote or northern communities who we knew would be facing more difficult challenges because of the existing vulnerabilities in their health care system and socio-economic circumstances. We have made unprecedented investments and we will continue to make the necessary investments, because we need to make sure that indigenous Canadians, and indeed all Canadians, have the supports they need to make it through this crisis. The Chair: We will continue with Mr. Berthold. Mr. Berthold, you have the floor. Mr. Luc Berthold (MganticL'rable, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I am going to keep talking about the area of jurisdiction that the Prime Minister likes to talk about, except that I want to point out the incompetence of the Liberals in keeping their commitments on infrastructure projects. My question is very simple. As the provinces gradually restart their economies, can the Prime Minister tell us how many projects that the provinces have submitted are waiting for approval from his government? Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, I hope that the length of the pause will not be taken out of my time. The Chair: No, I stopped the clock for your time. Ms. McKenna, you have the floor. Hon. Catherine McKenna (Minister of Infrastructure and Communities): I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, I was on mute. I'm very pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. I have spoken with all of my provincial and territorial counterparts over the last couple of weeks. Work on our historic infrastructure program is progressing well. My department has worked very hard to approve projects, and we will continue to do so. It is very important to build projects that will create good jobs The Chair: We are returning to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: We still haven't had a response. How many projects are currently awaiting government approval? I know that the minister has been meeting virtually with the provinces over the last few days. However, there are still hundreds of projects waiting for approval from the Liberal government. Rather than wait for the right political opportunity to approve these files, will the minister commit today to respecting the provinces and approving by next week all the projects that are sitting on her desk? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I'm pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. We are approving projects. If the hon. member speaks to the provinces and territories, he will see how well we are working together. We will announce the approval of projects because it's very important for our economy, our communities and creating good jobs. Mr. Luc Berthold: Does the minister understand that she hasn't told us how many projects are still pending? The construction season is very short. Approval of a project in July means that work can't begin until next year, which won't help revive our economy. Hon. Catherine McKenna: I want to make it clear that we have approved hundreds of projects in the last few weeks. We will work with the provinces, territories, municipalities and indigenous communities to implement these projects. These projects are important for the economy and the environment, as well as for jobs The Chair: We return now to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, while the minister is calling for a green recovery of the country's economy, public transit is at risk. Physical distancing measures will cause public transit use to drop for several months. The Union des municipalits du Qubec estimates that the monthly losses are between $75million and $100million. Other countries have included public transit in pandemic relief programs. Why isn't Canada? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, we recognize the importance of public transit for our economy, since some essential workers use public transit. We are working very closely with our counterparts and are listening to the municipalities. As the Prime Minister said, it's the provinces that must help because the money The Chair: We return now to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, once again, what we're hearing is that the government is passing the buck to the provinces. Unfortunately, the minister was unable to answer a single question about the number of infrastructure projects still on the federal government's desk, which is very important. Several large municipalities are waiting for the approval of projects. Moreover, public transit systems are facing an extremely serious financial crisis. Ridership in most systems is down 85%to90%. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is asking for help for small communities, as well as large municipalities. Why is the federal government ignoring the municipalities in the Canadian Federation of Municipalities at this time? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I can reassure the hon. member that we are working very closely with the municipalities. We are listening to the municipalities to find out what their issues are and how we can support them. Of course, we need the help of the provinces and territories. In terms of the number of projects that we've approved, I would be happy to inform the hon. member of the exact number of all the approved projects that my department has been working very hard on over the past few months to approve projects to go forward. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, do I have any time left? The Chair: No, your time is up. We'll now go on to Mr. Fast. Hon. Ed Fast (Abbotsford, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. This question is directed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. On March 28, the minister personally tweeted out a thank you to the People's Republic of China for donating PPE to Canada. This tweet happened within three hours of China's announcement of that gift. As it turned out, much of the PPE was defective and could not be used. More recently, Taiwan donated half a million surgical masks to Canada, yet here we are, two weeks later, and the minister has yet to personally thank Taiwan for its generosity. Will the minister now thank this free and democratic country for its generous gift to Canadians? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne (Minister of Foreign Affairs): Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank my colleague for the question. Indeed, we are very grateful to every nation for helping Canada. This is a global pandemic that knows no borders. We have been expressing our thanks to many nations that have contributed. We will continue to do so. It is important in a time of pandemic, Mr. Chair, that we not play politics and that humanity comes together. I can say, after my COVID foreign ministers call, that the world community has come together to make sure that supply chains will remain intact and that we will have transit hubs and air bridges. We will continue to work with every nation when it comes to health. This is a public good. We want to work together with everyone. The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Fast now. Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, I didn't hear a thank you there, so I'm going to try again. On May 4, the Government of Taiwan delivered 25,000 surgical masks to the Government of British Columbia. On hand were B. C. Minister of Citizens'Services Anne Kang and Minister of State for Child Care Katrina Chen, who, as ministers, officially thanked the Government of Taiwan for its donation. Again, will the minister now do the right thing and, on behalf of Canadians, recognize the generosity of Taiwan and thank its government for that timely donation? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, as I said to you before, Canada is grateful to all who have given supplies to Canada. This is a common endeavour. We are thankful. We are grateful to every nation and we will continue to be. As I said, when it comes to global health, when it comes to helping each other, I think it is a duty for all to come together. We are grateful and thankful for all those who have agreed to help Canada and Canadians from coast to coast to coast in times of need. I've repeated that and have said many times in many forums that we are grateful and thankful to all of those who are helping Canada. Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, again there was no specific thank you to Taiwan. The Government of Taiwan has been the world leader in successfully fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. We have a lot to learn from them and their response. Sadly, the People's Republic of China continues to oppose Taiwan's membership in the World Health Organization. Will the minister now do the right thing and assure Canadians that he will fully support efforts to grant Taiwan membership in the World Health Organization? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the member. As a former trade minister, he's very well aware of Canada's one China policy. That said, we support Taiwan to continue meaningful participation in international multilateral forums, particularly when it comes to health. This is a global good, and we want to support every nation. We recognize that Taiwan and others have been doing very well in fighting this pandemic. We also believe that Taiwan's role as an observer in the World Health Assembly meeting is of interest to the international health community and we have been supportive of that. Hon. Ed Fast: Mr. Chair, I'm going to pivot to repatriation flights. The minister has publicly said that over 20,000 stranded Canadians have been repatriated from abroad. Can he tell us exactly how many Canadians remain abroad who have expressed a desire to be repatriated? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Yes, Mr. Chair, I am very happy to update members. As of today, we have repatriated more than 20,000 Canadians on 232 flights from 87 countries. I would say that this is team Canada, and it knows no parties. Many members have written to me to make sure that we take care. It's not an exact science. We have, as I said, repatriated thousands and thousands. We continue, because we know there are still pockets of Canadian travellers who are stranded abroad. As the Prime Minister and I have said from the beginning, we will make our best effort to repatriate everyone who wants to come back home during the crisis. The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Moore now. Hon. Rob Moore (Fundy Royal, CPC): Mr. Chair, Canadians need to have faith in their justice system, even in a time of crisis. My office has received correspondence from Canadians concerned that trial delays due to COVID-19 may result in criminals walking free. As this government has been working overtime to criminalize law-abiding citizens with new and useless gun laws, will the Minister of Justice ensure that real criminals will not walk free as a result of delays in the justice system? Hon. David Lametti (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada): Mr. Chair, I thank the honourable member for his question. We have been working with my provincial counterparts across Canada, as well as with the various federal courts and also, through my provincial counterparts, with the superior courts and courts of appeal across Canada. Each particular jurisdiction has taken measures to ensure that basic essential services within the court system are maintained, through a variety of means, and we believe that we will be able to solve these various challenges. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, the regional relief and recovery fund was announced weeks ago as a way to help small and medium-sized businesses in rural communities, like those in my riding. In Atlantic Canada, these funds were to be distributed to the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. This is yet another announcement with no details from this Liberal government. Can the minister clarify whether we are days away or weeks away from this support flowing to the businesses that need it so desperately? Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): Mr. Chair, I had the chance to talk with many of the chambers of commerce and business owners throughout Atlantic Canada, and we hear their anxiety. That's why ACOA's doing great work on the ground to make sure we can help them through this very difficult period. The member is right. We have increased the budget of ACOAgood newsand I'll be coming up with the details very soon. It will be a pleasure to collaborate with him to make sure that we can help many businesses and business owners across the Atlantic region. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, my office has heard from many small business owners who have reached out to me. I know many have reached out to many of my colleagues and probably to all of us here today. They are frustrated by the eligibility requirements for some of the federal programs. In particular, they are unable to access the emergency business account, because they do not have a payroll. This could be the hair salon in my riding that subcontracts out its chairs. There are hundreds and thousands of small businesses in this very situation, vital small businesses in our communities, but they do not meet this requirement. These businesses, many of them, are weeks away from shutting down permanently. What does the Minister of Finance have to say to these small businesses that are suffering right now? Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Mr. Chair, I want to thank my honourable colleague for that really important question. I want all the businesses that he is talking about and all of them throughout the country to know that we continue to work very hard to make sure they're supported through this difficult period. More work needs to be done, and we will continue to do that work. We know that businesses are being supported through getting access to the wage subsidy to keep their employees together, and they're getting help, whether it's with rent or to defray costs by deferring GST and HST or customs duty payments. We're going to continue to work with all our businesses across the country. The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Moore for a brief question. You have less than 20 seconds, please. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, it's a very specific issue. There are small businesses, thousands of them, that do not have a payroll. Some have a personal account that they've dealt with over the years rather than a business account, and that makes them ineligible. These businesses need help right now. Hon. Mary Ng: I agree with the honourable member. Those businesses absolutely need support from us. We are going to keep working to ensure they are supported. The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Cumming next. Mr. James Cumming (Edmonton Centre, CPC): Mr. Chair, small businesses are concerned about their ability to survive, and no amount of deferrals, loans or subsidies can substitute for their need to be open and servicing their customers. Can the government confirm that a sectoral risk analysis has taken place to assist the provinces in reopening the economy? Hon. Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry): Mr. Chair, I can assure the member that we've been very clear in terms of our strategy around reopening the economy. We need to make sure that we follow the advice of the experts and the health authorities to do so in a manner that does not compromise the health and well-being of Canadians. We of course will have a sectoral lens, and as you can see by some of the initiatives and the support packages we've put forward The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Cumming now. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, thousands of business owners make a living and utilize dividends as their salary. They also use independent contractors. Can the government confirm that the programs currently in place will be expanded to these hard-working Canadians? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to assure the honourable member that we continue to work with all of our small businesses and I want to thank him for raising this very important issue. I want to assure our Canadian small businesses that we are going to continue to do this work to make sure they are supported. Mr. James Cumming: Can the minister give me a date when she will be able to announce to these businesses that they will be eligible? Hon. Mary Ng: I want to assure our Canadian small businesses of their importance and of the importance of their contributions to all of our communities. I want them to know that we continue to listen and that we will ensure that they are supported and continue to be supported during this difficult time. Mr. James Cumming: Minister, they need more than assurance. Can you give me a date when I can tell these thousands of businesses they will be supported if they pay dividends or if they use contractors within their businesses? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, these businesses are absolutely important and are getting support through a range of means. We will continue to work with these businesses to make sure they are supported through this difficult period. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, I spoke to a Second Cup owner whose landlord is not offering any kind of rent relief. The landlord says that he doesn't have the 25% needed to be eligible for the program because he's already paying for common area costs and deferrals on utilities, which he will have to pay on his mortgage. Will the government reform the rent relief program to focus on tenants and not just the landlords? Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr. Chair, I want to let the member know that we are working to make sure that the details of the emergency program for rent are out there so that both tenants and landlords can understand the situation. We're seeing a significant number of both landlords and tenants coming forward to register for this program, and we are convinced that it will be in the best interests of landlords to move forward and give tenants this relief. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, we've been hearing, however, from small business owners that their landlords don't find the government's rent relief program appealing enough. Can the government confirm, given the program's low eligibility rate, that the program will be expanded and be more efficient in helping tenants? Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we recognize that it's critically important that all of the details of this program be out there for landlords and tenants to understand. Those details are being worked on right now. This is a program that we've put out within the last week, and we are confident that it's in the best interests of tenants and landlords. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, during these trying times for small businesses, small businesses need all the help they can get. One easy way to do that would be to expand the Canada summer jobs program to businesses with over 50 employees. Will the government consider doing so to allow students to gain that very valuable work experience over the coming months? Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Mr. Chair, we are very excited about the uptake of the Canada summer jobs program this year. The second uptake provided employers across the country with the ability to add their needs for students to the mix. I'm looking forward to announcing a possible expansion of this program in the coming days. The Chair: The next question session will go to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall (SimcoeGrey, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. During this pandemic, the government has consistently called for a team Canada, non-partisan approach, and I was glad to hear that said a little earlier today. In fact, the public has called for that approach as well. However, at the same time, the current government has used a parliamentary back door to launch a poorly thought out gun ban. We have a government that didn't win the popular vote, and I'm just wondering how I explain to my residents, because I'm getting so many calls, that this is not a bloated response because, quite frankly, it is. Hon. Bill Blair (Scarborough Southwest, Lib.): First of all, Mr. Chair, I think the honourable member can explain to his constituents that the forming of regulations through order in council is actually the process prescribed in law in Canada under section 117. 15 of the Criminal Code. I would also invite the member to advise his constituents that way back in 1991, when there were some Conservatives who called themselves Progressive, the Mulroney government brought forward, in Bill C-17, the authority under that section for an order in council to prescribe specific makes, models and variants of military firearms as prohibited or restricted. The Harper government used the same tool The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall: I'm not sure, but I'm hoping, that I'll get an honest answer on this question from the minister, who has everything from rocket launchers to basically toy guns on the ban list. When will we get the cost of this buyback program? The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to please be careful in their language when they are referring to others. I won't comment on this one particularly, but I want all of you to be very, very careful when referring to other members. The honourable minister. Hon. Bill Blair: It's a good opportunity, Mr. Chair, to respond to some of the obfuscations and deceptions that have been put out there. We're not banning any toys and we're not banning shotguns. That's all misinformation that's being put out. I think it's very clear, and I invite the member to look at the list of weapons that are The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Thank you. What will be the cost of the buyback program, please? Hon. Bill Blair: Actually, I'm very much looking forward to bringing forward legislation as soon as the House resumes. We will have a vigorous debate in Parliament about the form a buyback will take and we will bring forward a budget at that time. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Will those with illegal weapons be eligible for the buyback program? Hon. Bill Blair: If people are illegally in possession of the weapons and they're committing a crime, they will be dealt with for the crimes they commit. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Okay. I'm going to switch it over. Canadians in my riding who suffer from cystic fibrosis are among the most vulnerable to COVID-19 infection. While these Canadians with existing lung conditions are incredibly worried about a virus that attacks the ability to breathe, the good news is that there are life-saving medicines for those with CF. The problem is with the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board and its restrictive guidelines. I am wondering if and when the government will correct these guidelines and give access to life-saving medicines for our most vulnerable. Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Mr. Chair, as you know, the government has been very committed to improving access and affordability for prescription medications for all Canadians. The PMPRB regulatory amendments will help Canadians be able to afford their prescriptions, and Canada will continue to be an important market for new medicines. In fact, many countries with much lower medicine prices gained access to new medicines in the same time frame as Canada frame, or even faster, so we are excited to do this work. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Mr. Chair, our seniors are being particularly hard hit right now during this pandemic, yet seniors have not been given any direct support. It's one of the number one calls I'm getting in my office. Funding to charities like the United Way is being labelled as support for seniors, but most won't see any of this support. Seniors in my riding have asked for an increase in their CPP and OAS, and to be able to make untaxed bulk withdrawals from their RRSPs while they still have some value. Can the minister confirm when these real and direct supports for seniors will be forthcoming? Hon. Deb Schulte (Minister of Seniors): I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. He mentioned. I'm not quite sure what's happening with my machine. I apologize. The Chair: You might want to try your space bar and keep it down while you're speaking. That might solve the problem. Hon. Deb Schulte: Okay, I'll try that. Thank you very much. I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. We have introduced a supplementary GST payment for low- and modest-income seniors. We've reduced the minimum RRIF withdrawal by 25%, and we've made the CERB available to working seniors who have lost their jobs due to the COVID pandemic. We know there's more work to do, and we'll have more to say in the future. The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that if there are issues, we are taking note of them, and we'll hopefully resolve them by the next meeting. We are getting much better, and we're all new at this. Thank you for your patience. We'll now go to Ms. Gaudreau. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau (LaurentidesLabelle, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My first question is for the Prime Minister. We've heard a lot about contact tracing apps. Several provinces have already made announcements on this, and others want to follow suit. Today, I'd like to know where the government stands on this. We've been talking about a national strategy for some time. Where are we now? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Obviously, contact tracing is an important part of managing any outbreak. In fact, we have been looking at a number of ways to support increased contact tracing across the country, including working with provinces and territories to boost their capacity through human resources and volunteer organizations. We are working very closely with them to make sure we have the capacity. The member is right that many other countries have used digital contact tracing apps. Anything we put forward as a digital tool to assist with contact tracing would be thoroughly considerate of Canadians'privacy rights. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Let me clarify my question a little. Yes, we are talking about public health, and we are currently experiencing a crisis. But you know as well as I do that the Privacy Commissioner has been calling us to task for a very long time now, because there is also a crisis of confidence. You know as well as I do that for 90%of Canadians, the misuse of their personal data is a cause for concern, whether it be for profiling or business development purposes. This is an issue that concerns all Canadians. The commissioner is indeed calling for a focus on reform of the Privacy Act. I'd like to know whether this commitment will be implemented quickly so that legislation can be passed on this issue, in this case the Privacy Act. Hon. Navdeep Bains: Particular attention must be paid to transparency, privacy and ethical concerns. Naturally, Canadians are concerned about how their data is used. New technologies are subject to the Privacy Act. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: We're talking about public health. The provinces are currently in the process of legislating. We're talking about what is going on in Quebec, among other places, and I would like to make sure that the federal government commits to respecting the proposals regarding geolocation and contact tracing possibilities, with full respect for the right to privacy. Can we commit to respecting the provinces? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have worked very closely with provinces and territories for a long time before the outbreak, but certainly ever since the outbreak. We respect the rights of jurisdictional authorities to use tools that have been properly vetted through their own provincial and territorial legislation. Nothing we would ever do at the federal level would put Canadians'privacy in jeopardy. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Concerning privacy, there are 30million Quebeckers and Canadians who have had their personal data leaked. Why is it that our laws don't allow us to apply financial penalties so that we can then go further? The very basis is to be concerned about our fundamental rights. The commissioner has been making this request for several years now. As the critic for access to information and privacy, I'd like a commitment that the federal government will deal not with what the provinces are doing, but with the Privacy Act. The Chair: Your time is up, but I'll give the floor to the minister for 30seconds. Hon. Navdeep Bains: Thank you for the question. Our government will ensure the privacy of Canadians is respected, support responsible innovation and take reasonable steps to strengthen enforcement powers. That's why we created a digital charter. We are strengthening Canada's privacy laws in response to the digital age. The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Baker. Mr. Yvan Baker (Etobicoke Centre, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll be sharing my time with the member for Malpeque. Mr. Chair, my question is for the Minister of Seniors. Minister, in my riding of Etobicoke Centre, we are mourning the loss of 40 residents to COVID-19 at the Eatonville long-term care centre. Over 143 residents and 88 staff members have now tested positive for the virus. This tragedy is not only taking place in Etobicoke Centre but across Canada. Of all Canadians who have died from COVID-19,79% were living in long-term care homes. That's over 2,000 seniors. This is a catastrophe, and it's frankly unacceptable. Our seniors and their families deserve better. I understand that long-term care homes fall within the jurisdiction of provincial governments in Canada, but this is a crisis. What is the federal government doing right now to help protect our seniors who are living in long-term care homes from COVID-19? What will we do to reform our long-term care homes in the future to ensure that our seniors in Etobicoke Centre and across Canada get the care they deserve? Hon. Deb Schulte: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to my colleague from Etobicoke Centre for his very thoughtful question. We are deeply concerned by the outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care facilities, and our thoughts are with those who have lost a loved one. It's a very difficult time. As my colleague mentioned, while these facilities are regulated by provinces and territories, we have been focused on protecting the health and safety of long-term care residents and staff while working with our partners in a team Canada approach. We've released guidelines to prevent and control COVID-19 infections. We're working with the provinces and territories to cost-share a temporary salary top-up for long-term care workers. We are working through investing $2 billion to secure personal protective equipment for the health of workers, including those in the long-term care homes, and we've deployed the Canadian Armed Forces to assist 25 long-term care homes in Quebec and Ontario. We all have a role to play to stop the spread of COVID-19 and to protect our seniors and caregivers. The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Easter. Hon. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. At the finance committee, we've heard a lot of concerns from all sectors of the economy as a result of COVID-19 and we've been presented with quite a number of possible solutions as well, several of which the government has acted upon. My question is on the support offered to the agri-food sector announced on Tuesday. It is very welcome support, but I sincerely believe the farm sector will be taking the Prime Minister up on the suggestion that $250 million should be seen as an initial investment. Potatoes are the number one commodity in Prince Edward Island. However, as a result of reduced processor contracts for next year, plus cancelled seed contracts, millions of dollars of seed and process potatoes have no home. To make matters worse, farmers have high fixed costs that they now have to spread over fewer acres. How does the minister see Tuesday's announcement addressing potato farmers'concerns? Second, in 2013, long-term financial safety nets were gutted by the Harper government. Will the minister be coming forward with improved business risk management programs as a result? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): Mr. Chair, I want to thank Mr. Easter, the member for the riding of Malpeque on Prince Edward Island. It's a beautiful rural riding with lots of agricultural production. I want to recognize the hard work of farmers throughout the crisis. On Tuesday, I was proud to announce one more step for supporting our producers and processors. We know the importance of our potato farmers, and that's why we are launching a first-ever surplus food purchase program, a $50-million fund designed to help redistribute existing inventories, such as potatoes, to local food organizations. On the financial safety net that we have in place for our farmers, called the business risk management program, we announced up to $125 million in funding through AgriRecovery and made changes to AgriStability that will help producers quickly. I will continue to discuss with my provincial counterparts toenhance and improve the BRM programs. In the meantime, I want to reiterate that BRM programs, including AgriInvest, are there to help farmers in difficult times. The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Johns now. Mr. Gord Johns (CourtenayAlberni, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, small businesses across Canada closed their doors to stop the spread and for public health. Now they're currently hanging off the edge of a cliff waiting for financial help. Robyn, who has owned Arbutus Health in Tofino for over 13 years, can't apply for the Canada emergency business account loan, simply because she doesn't have a payroll of over $20,000. All of her practitioners are paid contractors, so she is ineligible. With no business income and without emergency financing, it is virtually impossible for her to pay her bills or come up with the 25% needed for the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program. The government promised to be flexible and willing to adjust its COVID response rollout so that nobody falls through the cracks, but Robyn, like tens of thousands of proprietors who are the economic job creators of our communities, urgently needs the government's help now. Will the government amend its programs to help more business owners so that people like Robyn don't lose their businesses? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for his really good question. I know he and I have talked about this, and I appreciate the input and the feedback that he is providing from business directly. I want to assure Robyn and her businesses, and many businesses across the country, that we are absolutely listening, and we will continue to make sure we are supporting those businesses during this period. We know that many businesses are being helped through the Canada emergency business account. There are well over 550,000 businesses that are getting support through this emergency business account. We also know that more has to be done, and we will continue to work with you and businesses across the country so that we can indeed give them that necessary support to weather this difficult period of COVID-19. Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, that's not going to help Robyn feel comfort. I was talking to Heather last night, who also owns a business in Tofino, Basic Goodness Pizzeria, with her partner Marco. Like many proprietors of family businesses who aren't on payroll, they don't qualify for the business loans. They don't qualify for the wage subsidy because they're a seasonal business. Now with the new rollout of the rent support, they're not sure if their landlord is willing to play ball and even apply. That's three separate programs that leave them out. Heather was in tears last night as she told me that they have done nothing wrong to deserve being excluded from these emergency programs. I agree. Will the government fix the rent support program so that tenants can apply, instead of leaving it up to landlords, and so businesses can get the help they desperately need? Hon. Mona Fortier (OttawaVanier, Lib.): Mr. Chair, we've been working on this program since the beginning. We've been working on offering a response for small businesses and charities and non-profit organizations, and we are continuing to listen on the ground to how we can better assist the businesses that fall through the cracks. We will continue to do that as we go along in this emergency situation. Thank you very much to the honourable member for sharing the realities of his constituents. Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, when the government rolled out its commercial rent support program, why didn't it negotiate an eviction moratorium with the provinces, as Australia and other countries did, to protect business owners? Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as we know, Canadians are taking action and fighting against COVID-19. We know that many small businesses are worried about being able to pay rent. We've recognized it and we've been working with the provinces and territories to implement the Canada emergency commercial rent The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Johns. Mr. Gord Johns: To qualify for the Canada emergency wage subsidy, a 30% drop in revenue has to be shown. Anyone who's owned a business knows that even with this program, it's going to be hard to survive. Why is the government using a 70% measurement drop to qualify for the rent support program, but a 30% drop for the wage subsidy? Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, Mr. Chair, thank you to the honourable member for sharing his views on this program. We've been working with provinces and territories to provide forgivable loans to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rents for their tenants by 75%. We're hoping that tenants and landlords will be working together so we can support businesses during this very difficult crisis. The Chair: Before we move on to the next question, Mr. Berthold, did you have a question or a point of order? Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, I have a point of order. I checked the clock from the first round of five minutes, and as you may recall, it took a very long time for me to get an answer from the government. I went back and forth with MinisterMcKenna for four minutes and 14seconds. The Chair: Just a moment. The interpretation isn't coming through. It's working now. Go ahead, Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: I'll start over. During my first turn, it took 50seconds before a government minister deigned to answer my questions. After checking my time, I realized that the discussion between Ms. McKenna and I went on for four minutes and 14seconds, so I wasn't able to ask the minister one final question, a very important one. I would ask you to take that into account and allow me to ask MinisterMcKenna one last question, please. The Chair: The person chairing the meeting uses their judgment and does their best to keep an eye on what's going on. They try to be as fair as possible. I'll try to do a better job. I think it's more or less equal for all the members, but I apologize if the honourable member feels that he was denied a few seconds. Our next question goes to Mr. Doherty. Mr. Todd Doherty (CaribooPrince George, CPC): Mr. Chair, the Canada-U. S. border agreement is set to expire on May 20. Will the two governments renew the current agreement, or will it be modified? Hon. Bill Blair: The decision to close the border was made in Canada by Canadians in the best interest of Canadians. We're continuing to monitor the situation carefully. Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government be in a position to inform Canadians of any changes to the agreement? Hon. Bill Blair: I'm pleased to advise the member that we're continuing to monitor the situation, but I'm strongly of the opinion that the circumstances on both sides of our border do not indicate that this is the right time to make a change in the restrictions. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the government confirm whether there are any discussions about reopening the border to certain modes of transportation and restricting others? The Chair: Before I go to the minister, I want to remind the honourable members that we do have translators, and they are trying to translate. With respect to them, I know we're trying to get as many questions in as possible, but they do have to translate them, so please be considerate of our interpreters. The honourable minister has the floor. Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Let me please inform the honourable member that we are, of course, aware that the current agreement expires. I had a long conversation yesterday with the Prime Minister Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government announce a relief package for Canada's aviation industry? Hon. Navdeep Bains: We are engaged with the industry, and we are working with them on a solution, Mr. Chair. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, will this relief package include funding for airline ticket refunds similar to what other countries around the world have done? Yes or no? Hon. Navdeep Bains: It's early to say anything at this moment. We're taking a sectoral approach. This is about making sure that we restart the economy and have a strong recovery. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the Minister of Transport confirm that temperature screening is taking place at Canadian airports. Yes or no? Hon. Marc Garneau (Minister of Transport): Mr. Chair, I can confirm that Air Canada has now adopted a policy of checking temperatures for passengers boarding Air Canada flights. Mr. Todd Doherty: At which airports is that, and when did this practice start? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the announcement was made recently by Air Canada. It will start shortly and will apply to all places and destinations where Air Canada flies. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, this is for the Minister of Transport. Last week I asked the Minister of Labour if they were aware of a letter written on April 6 by CUPE to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Minister, were you aware of that letter? The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly. Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I didn't understand the reference to a letter from CUPE. Could my colleague please clarify? Mr. Todd Doherty: On April 6, CUPE wrote a letter to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Is the minister aware of that letter? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, could my colleague clarify what CUPE is referring to? Mr. Todd Doherty: CUPE is the labour organization that represents thousands of flight attendants across our country. Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I do understand. Yes, I will confirm that CUPE, which represents the flight attendants, did write to us. Before that I had conversations with CUPE with respect to flight attendants and the use of personal protective equipment. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the minister confirm whether or not they have provided PPE to the flight attendants and/or training for front-line staff for airlines and airports? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the airlines are providing PPE to flight attendants and flight crews. This has become a policy to ensure the safety not only of passengers on board but also of the flight attendants and flight crew. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, a business owner from Quesnel wrote to my office recently. He stated that he couldn't give his small business tenants a break on rent because the government is penalizing him for paying off his mortgage. When will the government change the CECRA rules to help more businesses? Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as you know, we laid out the CECRA program just last week, and we are encouraging landlords to take that opportunity to support the renters. We will continue to look at how we can provide some relief to small businesses with rents. Mr. Todd Doherty: With all due respect, Mr. Chair, any landlord who does not have a mortgage on their business is ineligible for CECRA. Is the minister aware of this, and are they trying to revise the CECRA program? Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with provinces and territories to present that program. Of course, we will continue to monitor how this program works for landlords and tenants. We are asking, actually encouraging, landlords to do their part and help tenants, like the one you mentioned, go through this. The Chair: We'll go to the next questioner. Go ahead, Ms. Dancho. Ms. Raquel Dancho (KildonanSt. Paul, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Small businesses in Manitoba employ 73% of Manitobans. That's over 286,000 Manitobans. I've been speaking with many small business owners in my riding. It's been heartbreaking, frankly, to hear that everything they've built and sacrificed for is in serious jeopardy, and through no fault of their own. Your government has created programs that are supposed to help them, but many legitimate businesses aren't able to apply. That could mean bankruptcy and cost thousands of Manitobans jobs. This is wrong. I'm hoping to hear specifics, not just nice words, on what you're going to do to help them. There are three issues regarding access to the $40,000 CEBA loan. First, businesses that recently incorporatedfor example, in late 2019are unable to apply their entire 2019 payroll. As a result, many are falling short of the $20,000 payroll threshold required to qualify for this loan. Second, many businesses contract their employees rather than have them on payroll. They also are unable to qualify for this loan. Third, many businesses use personal rather than business banking accounts. They aren't able to qualify for this loan either. What is your government going to do about these three scenarios? The Chair: I just want to remind honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly to the minister. As well, please take into consideration the interpreters, who have to listen and translate, so that we can have this conversation. Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for that question. Right from the very beginning, we've always said that we will listen and that we will work to make sure that measures go out to help our Canadian small businesses. She's absolutely right: 98% of all our businesses in this country are small businesses, so they absolutely contribute enormously to our communities and are job creators. That is why we have put out significant measures. For the Canada emergency business account, over 550,000 small businesses have been approved and are getting that support. I absolutely acknowledge that there is more work to do. I can assure the honourable member that we will continue to do this work so that businesses, all businesses, are supported, whether it is helping keep your employees together, helping with rent support, helping to keep your business's expenses low, or of course helping with the capital that is needed so that you can pay your operating expenses and your bills through this difficult time. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, I didn't hear any answers from the minister's remarks, unfortunately. Moving on, there are two issues regarding the 50% commercial rent assistance subsidy, where landlords pay 25%, the government pays 50%, and the tenant is responsible for 25%. First, many of the small landlords aren't able to take a 25% hit to their income, and are unable to provide the subsidy to their tenants. Second, with the 70% decline in revenue threshold for small businesses to even be eligible for the rent assist, many restaurants are at 65% or 67% decline. They desperately need this subsidy but aren't able to qualify. This is not about problems with the program details. What is the government planning to do to streamline this program for small businesses that can't access but desperately need the rent subsidy? Hon. Mlanie Joly: Mr. Chair, as the Minister of Official Languages, I just want to raise the fact that interpretation is very complicated right now. In order to make sure that we can continue to uphold bilingualism within the House, I would love it if my colleagues could take down the pace a bit. That would help the interpreters a whole lot. They are working very hard and trying to keep up. The Chair: That's a reasonable request. I just want to remind everyone again that when you're asking a question, make sure you are doing it at a pace at which you're considering the people who are interpreting Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, this is how fast I speak when we're in the House of Commons. It's just how I talk. The Chair: I understand. I have a lot of friends who speak very quickly. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Right. I understand. Perhaps we could get back to my question about the rent subsidy. The Chair: We stopped the time. You're not losing any time on this one. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Okay. I will try to speak more slowly. The Chair: I appreciate it. Thank you. The interpreters appreciate it. Now we'll go to the minister, please. Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with the provinces and territories to provide this forgivable loan to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rent of their tenants by 75%. We will continue to monitor how this program is delivered, as we announced it last week. It will be offered pretty soon. It will be very important that we understand what happens across the country, and we will monitor and adapt the program as we Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, it has been in the media quite a bit that this rent subsidy is not helping many, many, many small business owners. It's falling short of everything that was announced, so I think it needs to be taken a bit more seriously than that. There are two issues regarding the 75% wage subsidy. First, employers who pay themselves and their employees dividends rather than wages are unable to qualify. Second, there is also a 30% threshold revenue decline needed in order to apply. Many of the businesses in my riding are at 27% or 29%. They desperately need these funds but are unable to qualify. What is the government planning to do for these small businesses? Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, thank you to the hon. member for sharing the realities she's hearing from small business owners. We are providing help and support for businesses through these very difficult times. The wage subsidy has been taken up and is working for many businesses. We know that some still fall through the cracks and we will look at how we can continue to support businesses across the country. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends (BrossardSaint-Lambert, Lib.) ): We are now going to Mr. Kevin Waugh. Mr. Kevin Waugh (SaskatoonGrasswood, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. Three weeks ago, on April 17, the Minister of Canadian Heritage announced funding of $500 million to assist Canada's arts, sports and cultural sectors. We are still waiting to hear who is eligible and when they can expect to receive this funding. Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Canadian Heritage): Madam Chair, we will be releasing the details of that announcement, and how the money is going to be spent, in the coming days. Mr. Kevin Waugh: We all know that many media organizations, large and small, in Canada are struggling right now. Allegations have arisen that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CBC, is currently engaging in predatory behaviour and taking advantage of the current situation to harm its competitors using rate cuts. We've seen this from the province of Quebec. Many journalists have talked about this. What is the government going to do to address these allegations against the CBC? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have not been informed of these allegations. We will look into this, and we will get back to the hon. colleague if we do find any valuable information. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Local community and ethnic media outlets and papers have strong ties to their communities that often go much deeper than the major media outlets. Is the government currently using any local or ethnic media outlets to provide crucial coronavirus information through advertising? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, I totally agree with my colleague. We need to get the information to Canadians on COVID-19, which is why we have started an ad-buy campaign of $30 million, which is being distributed in more than 900 local, regional and national newspapers across the country and 500 radio and TV stations in 12 different languages, including Farsi, Mandarin, Spanish, Italian and many more. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Mr. Minister, I talked to the Winnipeg Free Press yesterday. It has received two ads from an ad agency in connection with the $30 million the government is doling out to help media outlets. They had one ad on March 27. The second ad was on April 11. That is two ads in the Winnipeg Free Press in the last eight weeks. Is this the kind of money you're attempting to dole out to help media: two ads in eight weeks? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have been doing a number of things for our media in Canada over the last few months and will continue to do so. On top of that $30 million ad-buy campaign, we have been investing $50 million in local journalism. Just this year, it means that 200 journalists will be hired in areas across the country where journalism is more poorly defined. The federal government has paid part I licence fees of our broadcasters to the CRTC. That means $30 million is staying in the pockets of our broadcasters. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Madam Chair, last week, as the minister would know, 15 community newspapers, including eight in Manitoba and seven in the province of Ontario, closed their doors for good. Is the government currently planning any further measures aimed at assisting community or ethnic media organizations? We understand that many more will close their doors within the next 30 to 60 days. Hon. Steven Guilbeault: We are planning a number of other measures, some of which will be included in the $500 million. I will be announcing the details of that in the coming days. Of the $595 million that the media will receive, we have a tax credit that has now entered into force, and the cheques should be in the mail by the end of the summer. So there are a number of things we've done and a number of things we will be doing in the coming months as well. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Waugh, you may have a short question. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Well, finally, you have the five members associated with that committee to dole out the $595 million. They haven't even met yet. When will they meet? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: I would like to remind my hon. colleague that in order for us to provide tax breaks for the 2019 period, media outlets had to file their tax returns so we could go ahead. This will now be able to proceed, Madam Chair. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We now move on to Mr. Godin. Mr. Godin, you may go ahead. Mr. Jol Godin (PortneufJacques-Cartier, CPC): Thank you, MadamChair. This being the first time I've had the floor during a virtual sitting of Parliament, I'd like to take this opportunity to greet my fellow members, all 259participants. I hope they are taking care of themselves. I'd like to talk about the Prime Minister's appearance on the show Tout le monde en parle. This is what he had to say about his economic recovery plan: We are going to remain focused on the economy as a wholeinnovationresearch and science, the green economy and a fairer economyThere are things we are all reflecting on right now that reflection is going to continue. That was a weak answer. It didn't inspire much confidence. Can the government assure Canadians that it is being proactive and working on a plan to get the economy moving again? It must act now. Things are starting to reopen gradually. Is the government going to take concrete action to revive the economy? Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Yes, absolutely. Our government is wholly committed to restarting the economy, and we are working closely with the provinces to do just that. Last week, our government, together with the provincial and territorial premiers, released the principles that will guide efforts to restore economic activity across the country. That is key. The discussion between the Prime Minister and the premiers is continuing today. Mr. Jol Godin: MadamChair, before we go any further, since it took a while for the minister, or the government, to answer the question, can I have that time back to ask questions? The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I stopped the clock, Mr. Godin. Mr. Jol Godin: Thank you. The Prime Minister's answer during his appearance on Tout le monde en parle didn't inspire much confidence and doesn't line up with the Deputy Prime Minister's comments. How can the government be proud of announcing $252million in assistance for the agri-food sector, when that is less than 1% of all the program funding the government has committed to help Canadians get through the COVID-19 crisis? Clearly, the government doesn't see the food supply chain as a priority and has no regard for farmers and pork and beef producers. Does the government realize that eating is vital to Canadians? When is the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food going to adjust the program and show respect for Canadian farmers? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: I have the utmost respect for farmers. We are going step by step. We've already confirmed various supports for the agricultural sector. This week, we focused on beef and pork producers and processors, as well as sectors with product surpluses that can be redirected to food banks. I can assure my fellow member that this is an additional step and that more supports are on the way in the weeks ahead. Bear in mind that a number of programs are already available to farmers. Mr. Jol Godin: I'd like to switch topics now. PortneufJacques-Cartier is home to a company that is already licensed by Health Canada and that, for 20years, has been manufacturing medical equipment including masks, face shields and thermometers. This is equipment our health workers need. The company has a licence from the federal government. In mid-March, Health Canada reached out to the company to find out how much equipment it could manufacture to help fight COVID-19. The company confirmed that it could immediately start producing 200,000masks a week, ramping up to a million masks over the next few weeks. Forty-five days later, it is still waiting on its first order from the Canadian government. We are managing a crisis with a limited supply of medical equipment. Can the health minister tell us why, 45days later, this company licensed by Health Canada hasn't received an order? Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Thank you for the question. Industry and suppliers have enthusiastically answered our call to equip Canada with products and goods during the crisis. Many of those suppliers have already received contracts. We have reached out to all the others and will negotiate contracts as needed. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I would now like to invite hon. member Jenica Atwin to speak. Mrs. Jenica Atwin (Fredericton, GP): Thank you, Madam Chair. Seniors living alone are most at risk of economic insecurity, particularly single senior women, as gender inequality in the job market has translated all too often into inadequate retirement income. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a poverty reduction plan that addresses the unique challenges faced by older women? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to assure the member that we are quite aware that this pandemic has typically affected single seniors, and many of those, given that they live longer, are single senior women. I want to assure her that we are working on this issue, and we have provided some supports already through measures such as the GST supplementary payment. That is on average almost $400 for single seniors. There's more work to do. We know that, so stay tuned. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, older women represent a high proportion of residents in long-term care facilities. Having spent their lives caring for parents, children and often their partners, they find themselves needing care in nursing homes. Multiple outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care homes in Canada have highlighted systemic gaps that senior and elderly women may face in such facilities, as well as the working conditions of the female-dominated ranks of nurses and personal support workers. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a federal strategy for long-term care homes that recognizes quality of life for residents and working conditions for the employees, ideally one that goes hand in hand with a poverty reduction plan and enhanced home and community care investments across the country? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I do want to thank the hon. member for her question. It's an important one. We are obviously deeply saddened by the outbreaks that have been going on in long-term care facilities and those who have lost their lives. We do recognize that the administration of long-term care and palliative care is the responsibility of provinces and territories; however, we have been taking a team Canada approach, and as you already know, we've been doing tremendous work with them to try to ensure that those who live in those facilities can be well cared for and safe. We are doing that with guidelines The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms. Atwin has the floor. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, from May 4 to May 10, we are observing Mental Health Week. We know that our essential workers right now are experiencing unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety, on top of putting their own physical safety and health on the line. Most of these workers work in precarious jobs with no access to paid sick leave or vacation, and without any benefits to access mental health services. Apart from the very welcome investments in online resources, can the minister explain how the government will support these workers now and once the crisis is behind us? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, thank you very much to the member for the question. I'm so glad that she's raising the issue of mental health and in particular how poor mental health is oftentimes connected to our socio-economic status. I appreciate the nuance in that question. She's right. We do have new resources that are available to all Canadians free of charge through the Wellness Together portal, but there is more to do. I think the announcement of top-up wages, for example, which the Prime Minister spoke about today, is another example of how we're taking the health and wellness of all low-income Canadians very seriously. We know that mental health is not divorced from socio-economic status, and I look forward to working with her more on other measures that we can take together. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, we're all very aware of the importance of temporary foreign workers and their role in ensuring our food sovereignty across this country. The pandemic has highlighted how we depend on their work. How are we protecting them? Madam Chair, will the government take action to strengthen legislation and ensure Canadians have access to the food they need while the workers who help bring it to our tables have safe working conditions, regardless of where they are working in this country? Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Thank you, Madam Chair. We are very concerned, as are countries around the world, that we support and create the environment for the health and safety of our temporary foreign workers and we value their contribution to our food supply chain here in Canada. We have issued guidelines to employers and are working very closely with local public health authorities in the provinces and territories to make sure workers are protected, that physical distancing and other recommendations are adhered to and that there are severe consequences if employers don't take care of their workers. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We are now going to Mr. MacGregor. Mr. Alistair MacGregor (CowichanMalahatLangford, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. My first question is this: Will the Liberal government prevent federal bailout funds from going to companies that use tax havens and avoid paying their fair share here in Canada, yes or no? Hon. Diane Lebouthillier (Minister of National Revenue): We are working to make sure that anyone who tries to circumvent the rules faces serious consequences. We are asking businesses to designate a representative to attest their claims. Any employer receiving the subsidy who is deemed ineligible will have to repay the full amount. Anyone who abuses the program could face fines of up to 225% of the subsidy amount as well as five years in prison. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, I didn't really hear a yes to that question, so I'll repeat it. Does the government really think it's appropriate for tax-avoiding corporations to receive funding provided for by taxpayers? Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: We will keep going after companies that engage in tax evasion. I want to be clear. We will target those who are responsible, not innocent workers. An employee is an employee, regardless of who they work for. The wage subsidy program does not hand a blank cheque over to employers. It is meant to help Canadians pay their bills, keep their jobs and get through the crisis. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, the agriculture funding announced by the government earlier this week amounts to less than 10% of what the Canadian Federation of Agriculture estimates will be required to help farmers weather this crisis. Why has the Minister of Agriculture shortchanged our farmers? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, this is one more step. This was one more step. We have already committed significant support to our farmers through different programs, and we will do more. I have to remind my colleague that we have put in $5 billion through FCC, $50 million for the temporary foreign workers, two times $50 million for pork and beef producers this week, and $77 million for food processing. This is only the beginning, and we should not forget that the business risk management programs are still there to offer support. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Yes, Madam Chair, but we're nearly two months into this pandemic and this announcement only came this week. Farmers need certainty. When can farmers expect further updates on funding, and how much will the government be providing? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, we are working closely with the farmers and their representatives to identify where the gaps are, but once again, we have made improvements to the AgriStability program. They can get, depending on the province, either 50% or 75% in advance payments, and they can also, right now, access their AgriInvest program. There is more than $2 billion ready to access today, if they have The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. MacGregor. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, federal disability recipients and seniors on fixed incomes have been hardest hit by cost of living increases from COVID-19. If we acknowledge that $2,000 per month is the minimum needed to get through this time, why are they being asked to survive on far less? When can they expect assistance, and how much will they receive? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to make sure people realize that we have provided some assistance through the GST supplementary benefit. We are also providing support to those who are still working, and we have done that by allowing them to access the CERB. There is more work to be done, so you'll be hearing more in the near future. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, as I think we've heard through today's question period, there are countless example of this government designing programs to exclude many small businesses that desperately need help. Whether it's the payroll requirements or other eligibility, we still, to this day, almost two months into the pandemic, have too many small businesses falling through the cracks. Madam Chair, why has the government taken this approach and when can we finally expect fixes to the whole system? Hon. Mary Ng: Madam Chair, right from the get-go, we have been committed to making sure that Canadians are helped through this crisis, and that small businesses get the support that they need, so that we are saving businesses and jobs in this country. That is what we have done with many of our programs. You're seeing that we are also listening, so that we can modify them as we need. I want to assure the member that the work is not done. We continue to do this. The Chair: Thank you. It is now over to Mr. Perron. Mr. Perron, you may go ahead. Mr. Yves Perron (BerthierMaskinong, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question will come as no surprise, since it has to do with agriculture. I hear the questions my fellow members are asking, and to be frank, I don't find the answers satisfactory. It is well and good to talk about existing programs, but they aren't working, so enough with that refrain. That's what people are telling us. It's not just members of the opposition saying it. This morning, both farmers and processors came together for a press conference at the Union des producteurs agricoles's head office in Longueuil. Six stakeholders from different sectors sounded the alarm. Can the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food therefore tell us when she will announce significant supports for the industry? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We have already announced significant amounts of support, and more is on the way. I'd like to correct my fellow member. It's not that the programs aren't working; it's that they aren't generous enough in farmers'eyes. That's why I'm working with my provincial counterparts to make improvements to programming, including AgriStability. Here's an example. After using the online AgriStability benefit estimator, a pork producer found out that he would get $11 per head, as they say in the industry. Pork producers are calling for $20 per head, so it's a good start, even though it's not enough and it isn't what they are asking for. We want to keep working together, but farmers have to access the money available to them through AgriStability. Mr. Yves Perron: Now it's my turn to correct the minister. Even before the crisis, we were hearing from people in the industry that the programs were neither suitable nor sufficient. We are in a crisis, and this is an exceptional situation. In the case of mad cow disease, farmers received direct assistance. That's the kind of assistance we are calling for. We don't want to hear about growing levels of debt. Of course, this is a first step, but farms are already deep in debt. A few days ago, the government announced $50million in funding for pork producers, even though they are asking for $20per hog for 27million hogs. The government's support covers just 2. 5million hogs. When I call the measure insufficient, I mean it is grossly insufficient. It's high time the government put forth more support. It has to stop saying that it's working hard and examining the situation. The government has to listen to the people in the industry. Again, this morning, they had some interesting proposals. When is the government going to announce a whole lot more in funding support? What's been announced so far is only 10% of what farmers are asking for. Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We are going step by step. The programs are already in place. We are trying to make them better, and we are committed to doing that. These programs are cost-shared with the provinces. However, I would point out to the member that, when it comes to AgriRecovery, we made an exception to the rule. We are moving forward in every province to help pork and beef producers. That's two funding envelopes of $50million each to help cover the additional costs from the decrease in plant processing capacity. That's new money that was not yet available, money we introduced this week. As the Prime Minister said, we are going to do more, and we are moving forward step by step. Mr. Yves Perron: What we concluded in committee this week is that the $125million is not new money. It was already earmarked for the programs. The government can't say that programs already exist and, at the same time, claim that they are new programs. Something doesn't add up there. What's more, there are different ways to make money available. I'd like to talk compensation. Everyone knows that the Canada-U. S. -Mexico Agreement came into force a month earlier than planned, despite the promises that had been made. That resulted in additional losses, once again. An easy way to make money available without committing new spending is to provide compensation and announce programs for supply-managed sectors that got nothing. It seems to me that a time of crisis is a time for the government to practise some judo and announce measures. I am reaching out to the government, as I always do, but it has to come forward with announcements. Can we expect the government to announce measures in the coming days? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Our commitment to farmers in supply-managed sectorsmeaning, egg, poultry and dairy farmersis as strong as it always was. I repeat, our commitment is clear. Dairy producers received their first payment at the end of last year or the beginning of this year. Support for poultry and egg farmers is in the form of investment programs, which aligns well with the recovery. At this time, we are focusing on emergency programs to help farmers hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. When it comes to the dairy sector, I hope I can count on your support. As you know, legislative changes are needed to grant the Canadian Dairy Commission's request and increase its borrowing limit by $200million so it can buy more butter and cheese. The Chair: Our next question will go to Mr. Lake. Hon. Mike Lake (EdmontonWetaskiwin, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we're all inundated, as we've heard during this entire question period, with Canadians'concerns about the economic restrictions and the social restrictions that they're under. Over the last couple of months, the WHO has given one very consistent message in terms of coming out of those economic and social restrictions. On March 16, Dr. Tedros said in his briefing, We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test. On March 25,44 days ago, he said, Aggressive measures to find, isolate, test, treat and trace are not only the best and fastest way out of extreme social and economic restrictionstheyre also the best way to prevent them. Does the minister agree with the WHO that relentless testing and tracing are critical to a successful economic and social relaunch strategy in Canada? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thanks to the member for the very astute observation and question. Absolutely, we agree that testing and contact tracing will form an important part of our response to living with COVID. We've been investing heavily in ensuring that we have the lab capacity, the collaboration across provinces and territories, and the variety of testing options to help us increase our capacity to test. We are aiming right now for a high volume of tests, but I will also say that in Canada we have one of the highest testing rates in the world. Although we're doing well, I can assure him that I am with him and I believe we need to do more. Hon. Mike Lake: I have some really quick questions for follow-up. First, what is Canada's current testing capability? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as I mentioned to his colleagues yesterday, we have currently the capacity to do approximately 60,000 tests per day across the country. Hon. Mike Lake: How many tests were conducted each day on average in Canada last week? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, it's hard for me to get that exact number, but I will get back to him with the exact number. Hon. Mike Lake: I'll save you the time. The exact number was 28,851, on average, every day last week. That's a gap of 30,000 from what your stated testing capability is. I'll give another quote from Dr. Tam, back on April 22,15 days ago. She said, As a first tranche, roughly close to 60,000 is where the provinces can potentially expand to as a target already. Does the minister happen to know, ballpark, what the average number of daily tests in Canada has been since that statement? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Your estimate was slightly higher than what my estimate was going to be, so that's a great piece of news. Listen, I will just say that I think if the premise here is that we could be doing more testing. I would agree, but I will also say that the provinces and territories are working incredibly hard on testing strategies that meet their own specific needs. I'm happy to have a conversation with the member later about that testing strategy. Dr. Tam works with all the chief public health officers across the country to ensure that their testing strategy is going to be applicable and appropriate for their particular jurisdictions. We, as the federal government, provide the capacity for them to conduct those tests. Hon. Mike Lake: Following up on that, is there a jurisdiction in Canada where relentless testing is not the appropriate strategy as provinces consider relaunching? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Each province and territory has its own outbreak and its own epidemic. For example, in British Columbia, where there are relatively fewer cases in general and less disease activity, they may have a different testing strategy than a province like Ontario, which is currently struggling with more outbreaks. Hon. Mike Lake: Given your comment that our current testing capability is 60,000, and acknowledging that only at one point in the entire history of our COVID response, over several months, has our weekly average been over 30,000it was about 31,000 for one day on a rolling basisMinister, are you satisfied with our current testing amounts right now, given that we're testing 50% of what the public health officer advises would be best? Hon. Patty Hajdu: I'm so amazed by the work the provinces and territories have done in a very short time to increase their capacity. We are supporting them with the tools that they need to get more testing done, but also to have other components in place that will allow them to do the rapid tracing of positive cases. I think it's very important to remember that testing strategies will be different across the provinces, based on the outbreak disease epidemiology. Having said that, I know that we can all do better, and I'm certain that my counterparts feel the same. The Chair: I'm going to have to cut the minister off at that one. I want to thank everyone for the session today, I think it went rather well. I'm very proud of you and proud of ourselves for what we managed to accomplish. The committee stands adjourned until Tuesday, May 12, at noon.

Hon. Catherine McKenna restated the answer several times that under the Covid-19 situation, although the government was trying hard to cope with different issues while handling the projects at the same time, things took time to finish the process. Moreover, Hon. Catherine McKenna assured the committee that the government was taking every method of solving the problem. However, this answer was challenged by Mr. Luc Berthold who insisted the ministry had not given an exact number.

tr-sq-631

tr-sq-631_0

Will the Minister of Foreign Affairs thank Taiwan officially for the donation? The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.) ): We'll call this meeting to order. Welcome to the fifth meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. Pursuant to the order passed on Monday, April20, the committee is meeting today to consider ministerial announcements, to allow members of the committee to present petitions, and to question ministers, including the Prime Minister, about the COVID-19 pandemic. Tomorrow, May8, Dr. AndreaMcCrady, Dominion Carillonneur, will give a special recital to mark the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day. Victory in Europe Day, VE Day, commemorates the formal acceptance of Germany's surrender by allied forces at the end of the Second World War. While the pandemic prevents us from gathering to celebrate in person, tomorrow at noon the voice of our nation will ring out in remembrance of this milestone in our history. Today's meeting is taking place by video conference. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. Just so you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entire committee. I would like to remind members that, as in the House of Commons or committee, they should not take photos of their colleagues or film the proceedings. In order to facilitate the work of the interpreters and to allow the meeting to proceed smoothly, I would ask you to follow some instructions. The video conference will be interpreted as in normal meetings of committees and in the House. In the lower part of your screen, you can choose the language: floor, English or French. Please wait until I call on you by name before you begin to speak. When you are ready to speak, click on the microphone icon to activate your microphone, or hold the space bar down while you are speaking. If you release the bar, your microphone will revert to mute, just like a walkie-talkie. Honourable members, I would like to remind you that if you want to speak English, you should be on the English channel. If you want to speak French, you should be on the French channel. Should you wish to alternate between the two languages, you should change the channel to the language that you are speaking each time you switch languages. Please direct your remarks through the chair. Should you need to request the floor outside of your designated speaking time, you should activate your mike and state that you have a point of order. If a member of the committee wishes to intervene on a point of order raised by another person, you should use the raised hand function to indicate to the chair that you wish to speak. To do this, click on the participant button at the bottom of your screen. When the list appears, you will see the raised hand option beside your name. Speak slowly and clearly at all times. When you are not speaking, leave your microphone on mute. It is highly recommended that you use a headset with a microphone. You have to remember to switch languages. Should any technical challenges arise, for example, in relation to interpretation, please advise the chair immediately by raising a point of order, and the technical team will work on resolving them. Please note that we may need to suspend during these times in order to correct a problem. I want to remind the honourable members to mute their microphones when they are not speaking. If you get accidentally disconnected, please try to rejoin the meeting with the information you used to join initially. If you are unable to rejoin, please contact our technical support team. Before we get started, please note that in the top right-hand corner of your screen is a button that you can use to change views. Speaker view allows you to focus on the person currently speaking; gallery view allows you to see a larger number of participants. You can click through the multiple pages in the gallery view to see who is on and how many more participants there are. I understand there are no ministerial announcements today. We will now proceed to presenting petitions for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during the meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. In addition, to ensure a petition is considered properly presented, the certificate of the petition and each page of the petition for a petition certified in a previous Parliament should be mailed to the committee no later than 6 p. m. the day before. Now we'll go to presenting petitions. Mr. Genuis. Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Mr. Chair, five years ago when Parliament passed Bill C-14, then justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said that it represented a finely tuned balance between access and safeguards. It also included a five-year review. Petitioners on the first petition I'm presenting are very concerned to see Bill C-7 before Parliament, which removes safeguards ahead of that five-year review. Petitioners specifically mention their concerns about the removal of the mandatory 10-day reflection period, which can already be waived in certain circumstances. They are concerned about reducing the number of witnesses required to oversee it and ensure that a request has been properly made. I commend that petition to the consideration of the House. The second and final petition that I will be presenting today is with respect to Senate Bill S-204. This would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ from a person who did not consent. This responds specifically to concerns about organ harvesting in the People's Republic of China involving Falun Gong practitioners and increasing concerns that this is being or about to be applied to Uighurs as well. Canada can and should take action on this. Petitioners are noting that in the previous Parliament there were bills on this, Bill C-350 and Bill S-240. Now, in this Parliament there is a bill, Bill S-204, and the petitioners hope that this 43rd Parliament will be the one that gets it passed. The Chair: We will go to Ms. May. Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's an honour. This is my first occasion to present a petition in our virtual format of the COVID-19 committee. Thank you to you and your staff, Mr. Chair, for developing a system that allows us to present petitions electronically. The petition I am presenting today, which was previously approved, is from a number of constituents who are concerned that we pursue the Paris Agreement to hold the global average temperature increase to no more than 1. 5C. The Paris Agreement itself embeds in it the concept of Just Transition with a capital J and a capital T, the concept of just transition ensuring fairness and support for all workers in the fossil fuel sector. The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to move forward with an act to ensure just transition and to ensure adequate funding so that workers and communities dependent on the fossil fuel sector receive meaningful support to ensure security in their lives in the transition to more sustainable energy use. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Chair: Those are all the petitions for today. I want to thank the honourable members for their usual collaboration and now we'll go on to Mr. James Bezan (SelkirkInterlakeEastman, CPC): On a point of order, Mr. Chair, on Tuesday, at our COVID-19 committee of the whole meeting, I was asking a question which started at 12: 56: 06 and was cut off at 1: 00: 32, so I still have 34 seconds of time remaining in my question time of five minutes. You said it could be no more than five minutes but that I had up to five minutes. Thirty-four seconds leaves a lot of time to have a quick question and a quick response. If you believe that my time was unjustly cut off and that it was unfair treatment of the official opposition when we were raising our points of order, I would ask that the 34 seconds be tacked on to the opening round for the opposition and credited to Rosemarie Falk, who will be leading off for the Conservatives. The Chair: Normally what happens is the chair uses judgment, and with 35 seconds, there isn't enough time obviously for a full question or answer, most of the time. I'll take it under advisement. I can't allot it. I want everyone to know that I do have a timer next to me and I am timing the questions, and I will be treating the answers the same way. If it's a 25-second question, it will be a 25-second answer. Thank you for bringing that up. I believe that issue has been remedied. We've taken a little bit of the chair's ability to give judgment on it, but it will be from now on. Thank you. Mr. James Bezan: Mr. Chair, 34 seconds is a considerable amount of time to do a short question and a short answer. The Chair: I appreciate the advice. Thank you, Mr. Bezan. We'll now proceed to the questioning of ministers. I would like to remind the honourable members that no member will be recognized for more than five minutes at a time and that members may split their time with one or more members by so indicating to the chair. Ministers responding to the questions should do so by simply turning on their microphone and speaking. Our first questioner is Ms. Falk. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk (BattlefordsLloydminster, CPC): Mr. Chair, yesterday, Elizabeth May and the leader of the separatists declared oil to be dead. It's certainly not dead, but it's dying under the Trudeau government. Will the Prime Minister stand up for Canada's energy workers, or does he agree with the fringe left and those who want to destroy our country? Ms. Elizabeth May: I have a point of order. The Chair: Go ahead, Ms. May. Ms. Elizabeth May: Mr. Chair, I believe that the language that the honourable member just used is unparliamentary Mr. Garnett Genuis: That's not a point of order. Ms. Elizabeth May: We can have differences of opinion, but it is absolutely Some hon. members: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: unacceptable and violates my privileges to An hon member: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: No, it's not debate. I would ask the chair to rule on that, not the member from the Conservative Party. It is unacceptable to assert that anyone who wants to make a point about our economy is trying to destroy the country. This allegation is a violation of my privilege. An hon. member: She was also named by the The Chair: Order. I didn't recognize anyone. I don't know who is speaking, so I'll just start talking myself. I want to remind honourable members to have respect in their questions and in their answers. When you refer to someone, please refer to them respectfully. This is a committee of the House, and I would expect no less of the honourable members. We'll go to the right honourable Prime Minister. You have 16 seconds. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. As I pointed out this morning in my press conference, we cannot move forward on a transformation of our energy sector without supporting the workers in that energy sector. We need their innovation and we need their hard work if we are going to lower our emissions, if we are going to reach our The Chair: We'll go to Ms. Falk again. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, it has been 43 days since the finance minister promised Canada's energy sector liquidity through the Business Development Bank of Canada. For 43 days the finance minister has failed to deliver on that promise. These delays cost jobs and they are costing us Canadian businesses. If the government doesn't step up to support our energy sector, they are in effect doubling down on their support for foreign, unethically sourced oil. Mr. Chair, when will the credit options be available to Canada's small and medium energy firms? The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that we do have interpreters who are listening and translating. In consideration to them, please speak at a reasonable pace so that they can understand and then translate. The right honourable Prime Minister. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, our priority through this pandemic and this crisis has been to support workers across the country. We have sent billions of dollars to workers right across the country, including Alberta, Saskatchewan, B. C. , and Newfoundland and Labrador in the energy sector for them to be able to support their families through this difficult time. We are also working on sectoral supports right across the country. Those will be announced in due course. Our focus from the get-go has been The Chair: We'll move to Ms. Falk. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, another group that has been ignored by the Liberals is our farmers. The announcements to date fall well short of what is needed to maintain a steady supply of affordable and healthy food. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture has asked the government for a $2. 6-billion emergency fund. Instead of responding to specific COVID-19 challenges, our farmers are facing the Liberals'reannounced $125 million that was already budgeted in the AgriRecovery program. Will the Prime Minister finally step up and take our food supply chain seriously, or is agriculture just an afterthought for him? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: On the contrary, Mr. Chair, we take agriculture and our agricultural sector extremely seriously, which is why we announced hundreds of millions of dollars a couple of days ago to respond to pressing needs. We will continue to make investments to ensure both the safety of workers in our agricultural sector and the safety of our communities, as well as the continued flow of high-quality Canadian food onto our tables right across the country. Supporting the people who produce our food is a priority for this government and will continue to be. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Well, Mr. Chair, recycled program announcements do not respond to the immediate needs facing our farmers. This is absolutely unacceptable. Our farmers are faced with rising operational costs, a disrupted service industry, labour shortages and a reduced capacity at processing plants. The government has a responsibility to take domestic food security seriously. When will the Prime Minister deliver adequate support to address the critical changes facing our ag industry? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I would suggest respectfully that the honourable member take a look once again at the announcement we made, which actually highlights significant new investments to support our agricultural industry. I certainly agree that there is more to do. Every step of the way in this unprecedented situation, we've been moving forward on doing more, on adjusting and on investing more. We need to support our agricultural sector and the people who work so hard to put food on Canadians'tables right across the country and we will continue to. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, Canadians expect to find healthy and affordable food at their grocery stores, but if the government does not take action now, that's not a given. Our farmers are trying to keep Canadians fed while keeping their heads above water. The Liberal government's own failed federal carbon tax is weighing them down. It is an enormous hit to their bottom line, and the recent carbon tax hike is taking even more money out of the pockets of farmers at a time when they can afford it the least. Will the Prime Minister exempt all farm operations from the carbon tax and reimburse the money that they have already taken from them? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, it's a shame to hear the member opposite accidentallyunintentionally, I'm certainmislead the House and Canadians. The price on pollution actually puts more money into Canadians'pockets, and that includes farm families. People who pay the cost of the price on pollution on average receive more money back. This is the way of creating a better future for our kids and grandkids, which I know people in communities right across the country, including our farm communities, want to see happen. We are moving forward in a responsible way to put a price on pollution and put more money in average Canadians'pockets. The Chair: We now continue with Mrs. Gill. Mrs. Gill, you have the floor. Mrs. Marilne Gill (Manicouagan, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. As you know, all sectors of the economy are fragile at the moment, specifically the fisheries. I am thinking about the lobster fishery in the Magdalen Islands, the crab fishery on the Cte-Nord or those fishing for herring in the south of the Gasp. Because imports have ceased, because the domestic market is weak and in decline because of the interruption of the tourism and restaurant industries, the fishing industry and its fishers must be supported. I would like to know what the government has done to support our fishers since the crisis began. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Our fishers do exceptional work that is extremely important in feeding Canadians and in contributing to our economic success through their exports around the world. This crisis has struck them very hard. That is why we have established measures in the tens of millions of dollars to support our processors. We have also announced help for the fishers. We know that these are difficult and unprecedented times, and we are going to Mrs. Marilne Gill: My thanks to the Prime Minister. I am actually talking about help for the fishers. I know about the processing industry and the $62. 5million to be used essentially for freezing products, but I am talking about the fishers themselves. Given the economic situation, most of our fishers are getting ready to leave. First, there are health risks. We know very well that it is impossible for them to observe all the social distancing measures. They have to incur additional expenses in order to conduct their normal fishing activities. In addition, they feel that they will be losing money, because of the drop in the price of their resource. They are just as essential as farmers, but they are going to have to work at a loss and they are not going to have workers to assist them. Workers in the seasonal industry do not know what tomorrow will bring. They do not even know whether they will be able to put food on the table next year. Are you going to do anything else, in addition to the assistance of $62. 5million? Time is of the essence. Our fishers have lacked certainty for weeks and they are very concerned. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Yes, indeed, we are going to do other things. Other investments will be made in various sectors in order to support Canadians. We recognize the challenges that fishers must face in terms of social distancing and of work that is often seasonal. We are going to continue working with the industry, with the fishers, and with the coastal communities in order to ensure that people have confidence in their abilities and in their future. In times of crisis, it is important for the government to be there to support people, and that is exactly what we are going to continue to do. This is an unprecedented crisis, but we can see once more that Canadians are there for each other. Our government will continue to be there for the fishers and the fishing industry. Mrs. Marilne Gill: I would have preferred us to be there from the start. Clearly, this is a difficult crisis. But, given the cyclical nature of the industry, some sectors have had to postpone for several weeks the preparations they need for fishing activities. The current program could be modified in a number of ways, to accommodate the cycle, the dates, and the size of the companies. They would really like to take advantage of the $40,000loan, but they cannot because of their payroll. Given the dates, they are also ineligible for the 75%salary subsidy. I can already suggest a number of solutions to the government and to the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, that would bring help to those businesses very quickly. The fishers carry on, because it is a duty for them, because they want to help us and to be part of the effort at this time of crisis. At the same time, they have no guarantee that they will be supported. I would really like to hear a guarantee that they will be supported, that they will be able to put food on the table this year, and that they will be able to support the communities that often depend on the fishing industry, a major industry in those communities. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Minister Jordan has been working with the fishers, the fishing industry and the communities affected by the crisis since the crisis began. We are assessing a number of solutions. We have proposed various solutions to support the communities, the workers and the families. This is an unprecedented situation. From the outset, our priority has been to support the millions of Canadians from coast to coast who have lost their jobs. We have been able to do so, but we are going to continue to work for those who must now face difficulties. We are going to be there for each other. That is what people are expecting from our government and from other Canadians. The Chair: Before we move to the next question, I would like to remind members of the committee to speak slowly, and to address their remarks to the chair and not directly to each other. Thank you very much. We will now go to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach (SkeenaBulkley Valley, NDP): Mr. Chair, municipalities across Canada are facing a financial crisis. They've seen revenues plummet, and at the same time the cost of delivering municipal services has risen. As the Prime Minister knows, municipalities are unable to run deficits and so they are facing the reality of cutbacks and serious cuts to the services that Canadians depend on. We know that municipalities are vital during this time to provide services to Canadians. They're going to be even more important during the recovery, especially when it comes to delivering on the infrastructure programs before us. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities and mayors across Canada have called for emergency financial relief for the municipal sector. My question for the Prime Minister is, when can they expect federal financial support to arrive? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, no government in Canada's history has done more to work with our municipalities, with our cities, with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to respond to the challenges they're facing and to partner with them. Things from infrastructure to investments have made a huge difference right across the country in the quality of life of Canadians in towns, large and small, from coast to coast to coast. As I'm sure the member well knows, our Constitution requires that most of the funding for municipalities flow through the provinces. We are working with the provinces, as we continue to work with the cities, to ensure that we're able to support this order of government that delivers the vast majority of services to Canadians with very little financial means. We know how difficult it is for our cities. We will continue The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, it would seem that the federal government has the fiscal capacity and the responsibility to help municipalities weather this crisis. Transit systems have been hit particularly hard and have seen the bulk of the layoffs in the municipal sector. These transit services carry essential workers to work, whether they are health care workers, grocery store workers, janitors or others. The risk is that we will see higher fares to deal with this financial crisis. We will see service cutbacks precisely at a time when we want to be expanding transit and improving transit in our communities. Does the Prime Minister acknowledge that the federal government needs to step in to safeguard and protect Canada's transit services? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, this federal government recognizes how important it is to support all Canadians, which is why we put forward unprecedented measures to help millions upon millions of Canadians with the CERB and with the wage subsidy. We will continue to work with the provinces, which have jurisdiction over the municipalities. I'll be having a conversation with all other first ministers tonight to talk about a broad range of issues. I can highlight that the issue of transit funding has come up. We have continued to engage with them, but again, it is important to respect the Constitution and understand that funding for municipalities and cities does go through the provinces. The federal government is happy to be there to support, but it must be The Chair: We will go to Mr. Bachrach again. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I am wondering how the Prime Minister could explain to a bus driver in Vancouver who has been laid off that as a public sector worker, she can't access the federal wage subsidy, while an equivalent worker in the airline industry gets to keep her job with the federal help of that program. Could the Prime Minister explain how that is fair? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I'm happy to explain to the member and to all Canadians that our Constitution creates federal areas of jurisdiction and provincial areas of jurisdiction. The airline industry, like banking, like telecommunications, is a federal area of jurisdiction that we have been able to move forward on. More than that, we brought the Canada emergency response benefit and the wage subsidy to all industries across this country, because we knew that as the federal government, it was something that we needed to step up on The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I'd like to shift gears a little bit. Faced with minimal health care capacity, remote indigenous communities in my riding are taking matters into their own hands. The Nuxalk have put up a checkpoint on Highway 20 to protect community members and prevent non-essential travel. In particular, it is to protect the three remaining fluent speakers of the Nuxalk language, these cherished elders in their community. The Haida on Haida Gwaii have set up a similar checkpoint, as have communities throughout British Columbia, yet federal support for indigenous communities amounts to only $39 million for all of the indigenous communities in B. C. Does the Prime Minister not agree that more support is warranted to help indigenous communities in my riding and across the country? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, we made funds available to Canadians right across the country, particularly people in indigenous remote or northern communities who we knew would be facing more difficult challenges because of the existing vulnerabilities in their health care system and socio-economic circumstances. We have made unprecedented investments and we will continue to make the necessary investments, because we need to make sure that indigenous Canadians, and indeed all Canadians, have the supports they need to make it through this crisis. The Chair: We will continue with Mr. Berthold. Mr. Berthold, you have the floor. Mr. Luc Berthold (MganticL'rable, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I am going to keep talking about the area of jurisdiction that the Prime Minister likes to talk about, except that I want to point out the incompetence of the Liberals in keeping their commitments on infrastructure projects. My question is very simple. As the provinces gradually restart their economies, can the Prime Minister tell us how many projects that the provinces have submitted are waiting for approval from his government? Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, I hope that the length of the pause will not be taken out of my time. The Chair: No, I stopped the clock for your time. Ms. McKenna, you have the floor. Hon. Catherine McKenna (Minister of Infrastructure and Communities): I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, I was on mute. I'm very pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. I have spoken with all of my provincial and territorial counterparts over the last couple of weeks. Work on our historic infrastructure program is progressing well. My department has worked very hard to approve projects, and we will continue to do so. It is very important to build projects that will create good jobs The Chair: We are returning to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: We still haven't had a response. How many projects are currently awaiting government approval? I know that the minister has been meeting virtually with the provinces over the last few days. However, there are still hundreds of projects waiting for approval from the Liberal government. Rather than wait for the right political opportunity to approve these files, will the minister commit today to respecting the provinces and approving by next week all the projects that are sitting on her desk? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I'm pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. We are approving projects. If the hon. member speaks to the provinces and territories, he will see how well we are working together. We will announce the approval of projects because it's very important for our economy, our communities and creating good jobs. Mr. Luc Berthold: Does the minister understand that she hasn't told us how many projects are still pending? The construction season is very short. Approval of a project in July means that work can't begin until next year, which won't help revive our economy. Hon. Catherine McKenna: I want to make it clear that we have approved hundreds of projects in the last few weeks. We will work with the provinces, territories, municipalities and indigenous communities to implement these projects. These projects are important for the economy and the environment, as well as for jobs The Chair: We return now to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, while the minister is calling for a green recovery of the country's economy, public transit is at risk. Physical distancing measures will cause public transit use to drop for several months. The Union des municipalits du Qubec estimates that the monthly losses are between $75million and $100million. Other countries have included public transit in pandemic relief programs. Why isn't Canada? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, we recognize the importance of public transit for our economy, since some essential workers use public transit. We are working very closely with our counterparts and are listening to the municipalities. As the Prime Minister said, it's the provinces that must help because the money The Chair: We return now to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, once again, what we're hearing is that the government is passing the buck to the provinces. Unfortunately, the minister was unable to answer a single question about the number of infrastructure projects still on the federal government's desk, which is very important. Several large municipalities are waiting for the approval of projects. Moreover, public transit systems are facing an extremely serious financial crisis. Ridership in most systems is down 85%to90%. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is asking for help for small communities, as well as large municipalities. Why is the federal government ignoring the municipalities in the Canadian Federation of Municipalities at this time? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I can reassure the hon. member that we are working very closely with the municipalities. We are listening to the municipalities to find out what their issues are and how we can support them. Of course, we need the help of the provinces and territories. In terms of the number of projects that we've approved, I would be happy to inform the hon. member of the exact number of all the approved projects that my department has been working very hard on over the past few months to approve projects to go forward. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, do I have any time left? The Chair: No, your time is up. We'll now go on to Mr. Fast. Hon. Ed Fast (Abbotsford, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. This question is directed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. On March 28, the minister personally tweeted out a thank you to the People's Republic of China for donating PPE to Canada. This tweet happened within three hours of China's announcement of that gift. As it turned out, much of the PPE was defective and could not be used. More recently, Taiwan donated half a million surgical masks to Canada, yet here we are, two weeks later, and the minister has yet to personally thank Taiwan for its generosity. Will the minister now thank this free and democratic country for its generous gift to Canadians? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne (Minister of Foreign Affairs): Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank my colleague for the question. Indeed, we are very grateful to every nation for helping Canada. This is a global pandemic that knows no borders. We have been expressing our thanks to many nations that have contributed. We will continue to do so. It is important in a time of pandemic, Mr. Chair, that we not play politics and that humanity comes together. I can say, after my COVID foreign ministers call, that the world community has come together to make sure that supply chains will remain intact and that we will have transit hubs and air bridges. We will continue to work with every nation when it comes to health. This is a public good. We want to work together with everyone. The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Fast now. Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, I didn't hear a thank you there, so I'm going to try again. On May 4, the Government of Taiwan delivered 25,000 surgical masks to the Government of British Columbia. On hand were B. C. Minister of Citizens'Services Anne Kang and Minister of State for Child Care Katrina Chen, who, as ministers, officially thanked the Government of Taiwan for its donation. Again, will the minister now do the right thing and, on behalf of Canadians, recognize the generosity of Taiwan and thank its government for that timely donation? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, as I said to you before, Canada is grateful to all who have given supplies to Canada. This is a common endeavour. We are thankful. We are grateful to every nation and we will continue to be. As I said, when it comes to global health, when it comes to helping each other, I think it is a duty for all to come together. We are grateful and thankful for all those who have agreed to help Canada and Canadians from coast to coast to coast in times of need. I've repeated that and have said many times in many forums that we are grateful and thankful to all of those who are helping Canada. Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, again there was no specific thank you to Taiwan. The Government of Taiwan has been the world leader in successfully fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. We have a lot to learn from them and their response. Sadly, the People's Republic of China continues to oppose Taiwan's membership in the World Health Organization. Will the minister now do the right thing and assure Canadians that he will fully support efforts to grant Taiwan membership in the World Health Organization? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the member. As a former trade minister, he's very well aware of Canada's one China policy. That said, we support Taiwan to continue meaningful participation in international multilateral forums, particularly when it comes to health. This is a global good, and we want to support every nation. We recognize that Taiwan and others have been doing very well in fighting this pandemic. We also believe that Taiwan's role as an observer in the World Health Assembly meeting is of interest to the international health community and we have been supportive of that. Hon. Ed Fast: Mr. Chair, I'm going to pivot to repatriation flights. The minister has publicly said that over 20,000 stranded Canadians have been repatriated from abroad. Can he tell us exactly how many Canadians remain abroad who have expressed a desire to be repatriated? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Yes, Mr. Chair, I am very happy to update members. As of today, we have repatriated more than 20,000 Canadians on 232 flights from 87 countries. I would say that this is team Canada, and it knows no parties. Many members have written to me to make sure that we take care. It's not an exact science. We have, as I said, repatriated thousands and thousands. We continue, because we know there are still pockets of Canadian travellers who are stranded abroad. As the Prime Minister and I have said from the beginning, we will make our best effort to repatriate everyone who wants to come back home during the crisis. The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Moore now. Hon. Rob Moore (Fundy Royal, CPC): Mr. Chair, Canadians need to have faith in their justice system, even in a time of crisis. My office has received correspondence from Canadians concerned that trial delays due to COVID-19 may result in criminals walking free. As this government has been working overtime to criminalize law-abiding citizens with new and useless gun laws, will the Minister of Justice ensure that real criminals will not walk free as a result of delays in the justice system? Hon. David Lametti (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada): Mr. Chair, I thank the honourable member for his question. We have been working with my provincial counterparts across Canada, as well as with the various federal courts and also, through my provincial counterparts, with the superior courts and courts of appeal across Canada. Each particular jurisdiction has taken measures to ensure that basic essential services within the court system are maintained, through a variety of means, and we believe that we will be able to solve these various challenges. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, the regional relief and recovery fund was announced weeks ago as a way to help small and medium-sized businesses in rural communities, like those in my riding. In Atlantic Canada, these funds were to be distributed to the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. This is yet another announcement with no details from this Liberal government. Can the minister clarify whether we are days away or weeks away from this support flowing to the businesses that need it so desperately? Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): Mr. Chair, I had the chance to talk with many of the chambers of commerce and business owners throughout Atlantic Canada, and we hear their anxiety. That's why ACOA's doing great work on the ground to make sure we can help them through this very difficult period. The member is right. We have increased the budget of ACOAgood newsand I'll be coming up with the details very soon. It will be a pleasure to collaborate with him to make sure that we can help many businesses and business owners across the Atlantic region. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, my office has heard from many small business owners who have reached out to me. I know many have reached out to many of my colleagues and probably to all of us here today. They are frustrated by the eligibility requirements for some of the federal programs. In particular, they are unable to access the emergency business account, because they do not have a payroll. This could be the hair salon in my riding that subcontracts out its chairs. There are hundreds and thousands of small businesses in this very situation, vital small businesses in our communities, but they do not meet this requirement. These businesses, many of them, are weeks away from shutting down permanently. What does the Minister of Finance have to say to these small businesses that are suffering right now? Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Mr. Chair, I want to thank my honourable colleague for that really important question. I want all the businesses that he is talking about and all of them throughout the country to know that we continue to work very hard to make sure they're supported through this difficult period. More work needs to be done, and we will continue to do that work. We know that businesses are being supported through getting access to the wage subsidy to keep their employees together, and they're getting help, whether it's with rent or to defray costs by deferring GST and HST or customs duty payments. We're going to continue to work with all our businesses across the country. The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Moore for a brief question. You have less than 20 seconds, please. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, it's a very specific issue. There are small businesses, thousands of them, that do not have a payroll. Some have a personal account that they've dealt with over the years rather than a business account, and that makes them ineligible. These businesses need help right now. Hon. Mary Ng: I agree with the honourable member. Those businesses absolutely need support from us. We are going to keep working to ensure they are supported. The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Cumming next. Mr. James Cumming (Edmonton Centre, CPC): Mr. Chair, small businesses are concerned about their ability to survive, and no amount of deferrals, loans or subsidies can substitute for their need to be open and servicing their customers. Can the government confirm that a sectoral risk analysis has taken place to assist the provinces in reopening the economy? Hon. Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry): Mr. Chair, I can assure the member that we've been very clear in terms of our strategy around reopening the economy. We need to make sure that we follow the advice of the experts and the health authorities to do so in a manner that does not compromise the health and well-being of Canadians. We of course will have a sectoral lens, and as you can see by some of the initiatives and the support packages we've put forward The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Cumming now. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, thousands of business owners make a living and utilize dividends as their salary. They also use independent contractors. Can the government confirm that the programs currently in place will be expanded to these hard-working Canadians? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to assure the honourable member that we continue to work with all of our small businesses and I want to thank him for raising this very important issue. I want to assure our Canadian small businesses that we are going to continue to do this work to make sure they are supported. Mr. James Cumming: Can the minister give me a date when she will be able to announce to these businesses that they will be eligible? Hon. Mary Ng: I want to assure our Canadian small businesses of their importance and of the importance of their contributions to all of our communities. I want them to know that we continue to listen and that we will ensure that they are supported and continue to be supported during this difficult time. Mr. James Cumming: Minister, they need more than assurance. Can you give me a date when I can tell these thousands of businesses they will be supported if they pay dividends or if they use contractors within their businesses? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, these businesses are absolutely important and are getting support through a range of means. We will continue to work with these businesses to make sure they are supported through this difficult period. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, I spoke to a Second Cup owner whose landlord is not offering any kind of rent relief. The landlord says that he doesn't have the 25% needed to be eligible for the program because he's already paying for common area costs and deferrals on utilities, which he will have to pay on his mortgage. Will the government reform the rent relief program to focus on tenants and not just the landlords? Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr. Chair, I want to let the member know that we are working to make sure that the details of the emergency program for rent are out there so that both tenants and landlords can understand the situation. We're seeing a significant number of both landlords and tenants coming forward to register for this program, and we are convinced that it will be in the best interests of landlords to move forward and give tenants this relief. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, we've been hearing, however, from small business owners that their landlords don't find the government's rent relief program appealing enough. Can the government confirm, given the program's low eligibility rate, that the program will be expanded and be more efficient in helping tenants? Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we recognize that it's critically important that all of the details of this program be out there for landlords and tenants to understand. Those details are being worked on right now. This is a program that we've put out within the last week, and we are confident that it's in the best interests of tenants and landlords. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, during these trying times for small businesses, small businesses need all the help they can get. One easy way to do that would be to expand the Canada summer jobs program to businesses with over 50 employees. Will the government consider doing so to allow students to gain that very valuable work experience over the coming months? Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Mr. Chair, we are very excited about the uptake of the Canada summer jobs program this year. The second uptake provided employers across the country with the ability to add their needs for students to the mix. I'm looking forward to announcing a possible expansion of this program in the coming days. The Chair: The next question session will go to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall (SimcoeGrey, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. During this pandemic, the government has consistently called for a team Canada, non-partisan approach, and I was glad to hear that said a little earlier today. In fact, the public has called for that approach as well. However, at the same time, the current government has used a parliamentary back door to launch a poorly thought out gun ban. We have a government that didn't win the popular vote, and I'm just wondering how I explain to my residents, because I'm getting so many calls, that this is not a bloated response because, quite frankly, it is. Hon. Bill Blair (Scarborough Southwest, Lib.): First of all, Mr. Chair, I think the honourable member can explain to his constituents that the forming of regulations through order in council is actually the process prescribed in law in Canada under section 117. 15 of the Criminal Code. I would also invite the member to advise his constituents that way back in 1991, when there were some Conservatives who called themselves Progressive, the Mulroney government brought forward, in Bill C-17, the authority under that section for an order in council to prescribe specific makes, models and variants of military firearms as prohibited or restricted. The Harper government used the same tool The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall: I'm not sure, but I'm hoping, that I'll get an honest answer on this question from the minister, who has everything from rocket launchers to basically toy guns on the ban list. When will we get the cost of this buyback program? The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to please be careful in their language when they are referring to others. I won't comment on this one particularly, but I want all of you to be very, very careful when referring to other members. The honourable minister. Hon. Bill Blair: It's a good opportunity, Mr. Chair, to respond to some of the obfuscations and deceptions that have been put out there. We're not banning any toys and we're not banning shotguns. That's all misinformation that's being put out. I think it's very clear, and I invite the member to look at the list of weapons that are The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Thank you. What will be the cost of the buyback program, please? Hon. Bill Blair: Actually, I'm very much looking forward to bringing forward legislation as soon as the House resumes. We will have a vigorous debate in Parliament about the form a buyback will take and we will bring forward a budget at that time. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Will those with illegal weapons be eligible for the buyback program? Hon. Bill Blair: If people are illegally in possession of the weapons and they're committing a crime, they will be dealt with for the crimes they commit. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Okay. I'm going to switch it over. Canadians in my riding who suffer from cystic fibrosis are among the most vulnerable to COVID-19 infection. While these Canadians with existing lung conditions are incredibly worried about a virus that attacks the ability to breathe, the good news is that there are life-saving medicines for those with CF. The problem is with the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board and its restrictive guidelines. I am wondering if and when the government will correct these guidelines and give access to life-saving medicines for our most vulnerable. Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Mr. Chair, as you know, the government has been very committed to improving access and affordability for prescription medications for all Canadians. The PMPRB regulatory amendments will help Canadians be able to afford their prescriptions, and Canada will continue to be an important market for new medicines. In fact, many countries with much lower medicine prices gained access to new medicines in the same time frame as Canada frame, or even faster, so we are excited to do this work. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Mr. Chair, our seniors are being particularly hard hit right now during this pandemic, yet seniors have not been given any direct support. It's one of the number one calls I'm getting in my office. Funding to charities like the United Way is being labelled as support for seniors, but most won't see any of this support. Seniors in my riding have asked for an increase in their CPP and OAS, and to be able to make untaxed bulk withdrawals from their RRSPs while they still have some value. Can the minister confirm when these real and direct supports for seniors will be forthcoming? Hon. Deb Schulte (Minister of Seniors): I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. He mentioned. I'm not quite sure what's happening with my machine. I apologize. The Chair: You might want to try your space bar and keep it down while you're speaking. That might solve the problem. Hon. Deb Schulte: Okay, I'll try that. Thank you very much. I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. We have introduced a supplementary GST payment for low- and modest-income seniors. We've reduced the minimum RRIF withdrawal by 25%, and we've made the CERB available to working seniors who have lost their jobs due to the COVID pandemic. We know there's more work to do, and we'll have more to say in the future. The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that if there are issues, we are taking note of them, and we'll hopefully resolve them by the next meeting. We are getting much better, and we're all new at this. Thank you for your patience. We'll now go to Ms. Gaudreau. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau (LaurentidesLabelle, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My first question is for the Prime Minister. We've heard a lot about contact tracing apps. Several provinces have already made announcements on this, and others want to follow suit. Today, I'd like to know where the government stands on this. We've been talking about a national strategy for some time. Where are we now? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Obviously, contact tracing is an important part of managing any outbreak. In fact, we have been looking at a number of ways to support increased contact tracing across the country, including working with provinces and territories to boost their capacity through human resources and volunteer organizations. We are working very closely with them to make sure we have the capacity. The member is right that many other countries have used digital contact tracing apps. Anything we put forward as a digital tool to assist with contact tracing would be thoroughly considerate of Canadians'privacy rights. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Let me clarify my question a little. Yes, we are talking about public health, and we are currently experiencing a crisis. But you know as well as I do that the Privacy Commissioner has been calling us to task for a very long time now, because there is also a crisis of confidence. You know as well as I do that for 90%of Canadians, the misuse of their personal data is a cause for concern, whether it be for profiling or business development purposes. This is an issue that concerns all Canadians. The commissioner is indeed calling for a focus on reform of the Privacy Act. I'd like to know whether this commitment will be implemented quickly so that legislation can be passed on this issue, in this case the Privacy Act. Hon. Navdeep Bains: Particular attention must be paid to transparency, privacy and ethical concerns. Naturally, Canadians are concerned about how their data is used. New technologies are subject to the Privacy Act. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: We're talking about public health. The provinces are currently in the process of legislating. We're talking about what is going on in Quebec, among other places, and I would like to make sure that the federal government commits to respecting the proposals regarding geolocation and contact tracing possibilities, with full respect for the right to privacy. Can we commit to respecting the provinces? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have worked very closely with provinces and territories for a long time before the outbreak, but certainly ever since the outbreak. We respect the rights of jurisdictional authorities to use tools that have been properly vetted through their own provincial and territorial legislation. Nothing we would ever do at the federal level would put Canadians'privacy in jeopardy. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Concerning privacy, there are 30million Quebeckers and Canadians who have had their personal data leaked. Why is it that our laws don't allow us to apply financial penalties so that we can then go further? The very basis is to be concerned about our fundamental rights. The commissioner has been making this request for several years now. As the critic for access to information and privacy, I'd like a commitment that the federal government will deal not with what the provinces are doing, but with the Privacy Act. The Chair: Your time is up, but I'll give the floor to the minister for 30seconds. Hon. Navdeep Bains: Thank you for the question. Our government will ensure the privacy of Canadians is respected, support responsible innovation and take reasonable steps to strengthen enforcement powers. That's why we created a digital charter. We are strengthening Canada's privacy laws in response to the digital age. The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Baker. Mr. Yvan Baker (Etobicoke Centre, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll be sharing my time with the member for Malpeque. Mr. Chair, my question is for the Minister of Seniors. Minister, in my riding of Etobicoke Centre, we are mourning the loss of 40 residents to COVID-19 at the Eatonville long-term care centre. Over 143 residents and 88 staff members have now tested positive for the virus. This tragedy is not only taking place in Etobicoke Centre but across Canada. Of all Canadians who have died from COVID-19,79% were living in long-term care homes. That's over 2,000 seniors. This is a catastrophe, and it's frankly unacceptable. Our seniors and their families deserve better. I understand that long-term care homes fall within the jurisdiction of provincial governments in Canada, but this is a crisis. What is the federal government doing right now to help protect our seniors who are living in long-term care homes from COVID-19? What will we do to reform our long-term care homes in the future to ensure that our seniors in Etobicoke Centre and across Canada get the care they deserve? Hon. Deb Schulte: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to my colleague from Etobicoke Centre for his very thoughtful question. We are deeply concerned by the outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care facilities, and our thoughts are with those who have lost a loved one. It's a very difficult time. As my colleague mentioned, while these facilities are regulated by provinces and territories, we have been focused on protecting the health and safety of long-term care residents and staff while working with our partners in a team Canada approach. We've released guidelines to prevent and control COVID-19 infections. We're working with the provinces and territories to cost-share a temporary salary top-up for long-term care workers. We are working through investing $2 billion to secure personal protective equipment for the health of workers, including those in the long-term care homes, and we've deployed the Canadian Armed Forces to assist 25 long-term care homes in Quebec and Ontario. We all have a role to play to stop the spread of COVID-19 and to protect our seniors and caregivers. The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Easter. Hon. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. At the finance committee, we've heard a lot of concerns from all sectors of the economy as a result of COVID-19 and we've been presented with quite a number of possible solutions as well, several of which the government has acted upon. My question is on the support offered to the agri-food sector announced on Tuesday. It is very welcome support, but I sincerely believe the farm sector will be taking the Prime Minister up on the suggestion that $250 million should be seen as an initial investment. Potatoes are the number one commodity in Prince Edward Island. However, as a result of reduced processor contracts for next year, plus cancelled seed contracts, millions of dollars of seed and process potatoes have no home. To make matters worse, farmers have high fixed costs that they now have to spread over fewer acres. How does the minister see Tuesday's announcement addressing potato farmers'concerns? Second, in 2013, long-term financial safety nets were gutted by the Harper government. Will the minister be coming forward with improved business risk management programs as a result? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): Mr. Chair, I want to thank Mr. Easter, the member for the riding of Malpeque on Prince Edward Island. It's a beautiful rural riding with lots of agricultural production. I want to recognize the hard work of farmers throughout the crisis. On Tuesday, I was proud to announce one more step for supporting our producers and processors. We know the importance of our potato farmers, and that's why we are launching a first-ever surplus food purchase program, a $50-million fund designed to help redistribute existing inventories, such as potatoes, to local food organizations. On the financial safety net that we have in place for our farmers, called the business risk management program, we announced up to $125 million in funding through AgriRecovery and made changes to AgriStability that will help producers quickly. I will continue to discuss with my provincial counterparts toenhance and improve the BRM programs. In the meantime, I want to reiterate that BRM programs, including AgriInvest, are there to help farmers in difficult times. The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Johns now. Mr. Gord Johns (CourtenayAlberni, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, small businesses across Canada closed their doors to stop the spread and for public health. Now they're currently hanging off the edge of a cliff waiting for financial help. Robyn, who has owned Arbutus Health in Tofino for over 13 years, can't apply for the Canada emergency business account loan, simply because she doesn't have a payroll of over $20,000. All of her practitioners are paid contractors, so she is ineligible. With no business income and without emergency financing, it is virtually impossible for her to pay her bills or come up with the 25% needed for the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program. The government promised to be flexible and willing to adjust its COVID response rollout so that nobody falls through the cracks, but Robyn, like tens of thousands of proprietors who are the economic job creators of our communities, urgently needs the government's help now. Will the government amend its programs to help more business owners so that people like Robyn don't lose their businesses? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for his really good question. I know he and I have talked about this, and I appreciate the input and the feedback that he is providing from business directly. I want to assure Robyn and her businesses, and many businesses across the country, that we are absolutely listening, and we will continue to make sure we are supporting those businesses during this period. We know that many businesses are being helped through the Canada emergency business account. There are well over 550,000 businesses that are getting support through this emergency business account. We also know that more has to be done, and we will continue to work with you and businesses across the country so that we can indeed give them that necessary support to weather this difficult period of COVID-19. Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, that's not going to help Robyn feel comfort. I was talking to Heather last night, who also owns a business in Tofino, Basic Goodness Pizzeria, with her partner Marco. Like many proprietors of family businesses who aren't on payroll, they don't qualify for the business loans. They don't qualify for the wage subsidy because they're a seasonal business. Now with the new rollout of the rent support, they're not sure if their landlord is willing to play ball and even apply. That's three separate programs that leave them out. Heather was in tears last night as she told me that they have done nothing wrong to deserve being excluded from these emergency programs. I agree. Will the government fix the rent support program so that tenants can apply, instead of leaving it up to landlords, and so businesses can get the help they desperately need? Hon. Mona Fortier (OttawaVanier, Lib.): Mr. Chair, we've been working on this program since the beginning. We've been working on offering a response for small businesses and charities and non-profit organizations, and we are continuing to listen on the ground to how we can better assist the businesses that fall through the cracks. We will continue to do that as we go along in this emergency situation. Thank you very much to the honourable member for sharing the realities of his constituents. Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, when the government rolled out its commercial rent support program, why didn't it negotiate an eviction moratorium with the provinces, as Australia and other countries did, to protect business owners? Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as we know, Canadians are taking action and fighting against COVID-19. We know that many small businesses are worried about being able to pay rent. We've recognized it and we've been working with the provinces and territories to implement the Canada emergency commercial rent The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Johns. Mr. Gord Johns: To qualify for the Canada emergency wage subsidy, a 30% drop in revenue has to be shown. Anyone who's owned a business knows that even with this program, it's going to be hard to survive. Why is the government using a 70% measurement drop to qualify for the rent support program, but a 30% drop for the wage subsidy? Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, Mr. Chair, thank you to the honourable member for sharing his views on this program. We've been working with provinces and territories to provide forgivable loans to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rents for their tenants by 75%. We're hoping that tenants and landlords will be working together so we can support businesses during this very difficult crisis. The Chair: Before we move on to the next question, Mr. Berthold, did you have a question or a point of order? Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, I have a point of order. I checked the clock from the first round of five minutes, and as you may recall, it took a very long time for me to get an answer from the government. I went back and forth with MinisterMcKenna for four minutes and 14seconds. The Chair: Just a moment. The interpretation isn't coming through. It's working now. Go ahead, Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: I'll start over. During my first turn, it took 50seconds before a government minister deigned to answer my questions. After checking my time, I realized that the discussion between Ms. McKenna and I went on for four minutes and 14seconds, so I wasn't able to ask the minister one final question, a very important one. I would ask you to take that into account and allow me to ask MinisterMcKenna one last question, please. The Chair: The person chairing the meeting uses their judgment and does their best to keep an eye on what's going on. They try to be as fair as possible. I'll try to do a better job. I think it's more or less equal for all the members, but I apologize if the honourable member feels that he was denied a few seconds. Our next question goes to Mr. Doherty. Mr. Todd Doherty (CaribooPrince George, CPC): Mr. Chair, the Canada-U. S. border agreement is set to expire on May 20. Will the two governments renew the current agreement, or will it be modified? Hon. Bill Blair: The decision to close the border was made in Canada by Canadians in the best interest of Canadians. We're continuing to monitor the situation carefully. Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government be in a position to inform Canadians of any changes to the agreement? Hon. Bill Blair: I'm pleased to advise the member that we're continuing to monitor the situation, but I'm strongly of the opinion that the circumstances on both sides of our border do not indicate that this is the right time to make a change in the restrictions. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the government confirm whether there are any discussions about reopening the border to certain modes of transportation and restricting others? The Chair: Before I go to the minister, I want to remind the honourable members that we do have translators, and they are trying to translate. With respect to them, I know we're trying to get as many questions in as possible, but they do have to translate them, so please be considerate of our interpreters. The honourable minister has the floor. Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Let me please inform the honourable member that we are, of course, aware that the current agreement expires. I had a long conversation yesterday with the Prime Minister Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government announce a relief package for Canada's aviation industry? Hon. Navdeep Bains: We are engaged with the industry, and we are working with them on a solution, Mr. Chair. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, will this relief package include funding for airline ticket refunds similar to what other countries around the world have done? Yes or no? Hon. Navdeep Bains: It's early to say anything at this moment. We're taking a sectoral approach. This is about making sure that we restart the economy and have a strong recovery. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the Minister of Transport confirm that temperature screening is taking place at Canadian airports. Yes or no? Hon. Marc Garneau (Minister of Transport): Mr. Chair, I can confirm that Air Canada has now adopted a policy of checking temperatures for passengers boarding Air Canada flights. Mr. Todd Doherty: At which airports is that, and when did this practice start? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the announcement was made recently by Air Canada. It will start shortly and will apply to all places and destinations where Air Canada flies. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, this is for the Minister of Transport. Last week I asked the Minister of Labour if they were aware of a letter written on April 6 by CUPE to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Minister, were you aware of that letter? The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly. Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I didn't understand the reference to a letter from CUPE. Could my colleague please clarify? Mr. Todd Doherty: On April 6, CUPE wrote a letter to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Is the minister aware of that letter? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, could my colleague clarify what CUPE is referring to? Mr. Todd Doherty: CUPE is the labour organization that represents thousands of flight attendants across our country. Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I do understand. Yes, I will confirm that CUPE, which represents the flight attendants, did write to us. Before that I had conversations with CUPE with respect to flight attendants and the use of personal protective equipment. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the minister confirm whether or not they have provided PPE to the flight attendants and/or training for front-line staff for airlines and airports? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the airlines are providing PPE to flight attendants and flight crews. This has become a policy to ensure the safety not only of passengers on board but also of the flight attendants and flight crew. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, a business owner from Quesnel wrote to my office recently. He stated that he couldn't give his small business tenants a break on rent because the government is penalizing him for paying off his mortgage. When will the government change the CECRA rules to help more businesses? Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as you know, we laid out the CECRA program just last week, and we are encouraging landlords to take that opportunity to support the renters. We will continue to look at how we can provide some relief to small businesses with rents. Mr. Todd Doherty: With all due respect, Mr. Chair, any landlord who does not have a mortgage on their business is ineligible for CECRA. Is the minister aware of this, and are they trying to revise the CECRA program? Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with provinces and territories to present that program. Of course, we will continue to monitor how this program works for landlords and tenants. We are asking, actually encouraging, landlords to do their part and help tenants, like the one you mentioned, go through this. The Chair: We'll go to the next questioner. Go ahead, Ms. Dancho. Ms. Raquel Dancho (KildonanSt. Paul, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Small businesses in Manitoba employ 73% of Manitobans. That's over 286,000 Manitobans. I've been speaking with many small business owners in my riding. It's been heartbreaking, frankly, to hear that everything they've built and sacrificed for is in serious jeopardy, and through no fault of their own. Your government has created programs that are supposed to help them, but many legitimate businesses aren't able to apply. That could mean bankruptcy and cost thousands of Manitobans jobs. This is wrong. I'm hoping to hear specifics, not just nice words, on what you're going to do to help them. There are three issues regarding access to the $40,000 CEBA loan. First, businesses that recently incorporatedfor example, in late 2019are unable to apply their entire 2019 payroll. As a result, many are falling short of the $20,000 payroll threshold required to qualify for this loan. Second, many businesses contract their employees rather than have them on payroll. They also are unable to qualify for this loan. Third, many businesses use personal rather than business banking accounts. They aren't able to qualify for this loan either. What is your government going to do about these three scenarios? The Chair: I just want to remind honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly to the minister. As well, please take into consideration the interpreters, who have to listen and translate, so that we can have this conversation. Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for that question. Right from the very beginning, we've always said that we will listen and that we will work to make sure that measures go out to help our Canadian small businesses. She's absolutely right: 98% of all our businesses in this country are small businesses, so they absolutely contribute enormously to our communities and are job creators. That is why we have put out significant measures. For the Canada emergency business account, over 550,000 small businesses have been approved and are getting that support. I absolutely acknowledge that there is more work to do. I can assure the honourable member that we will continue to do this work so that businesses, all businesses, are supported, whether it is helping keep your employees together, helping with rent support, helping to keep your business's expenses low, or of course helping with the capital that is needed so that you can pay your operating expenses and your bills through this difficult time. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, I didn't hear any answers from the minister's remarks, unfortunately. Moving on, there are two issues regarding the 50% commercial rent assistance subsidy, where landlords pay 25%, the government pays 50%, and the tenant is responsible for 25%. First, many of the small landlords aren't able to take a 25% hit to their income, and are unable to provide the subsidy to their tenants. Second, with the 70% decline in revenue threshold for small businesses to even be eligible for the rent assist, many restaurants are at 65% or 67% decline. They desperately need this subsidy but aren't able to qualify. This is not about problems with the program details. What is the government planning to do to streamline this program for small businesses that can't access but desperately need the rent subsidy? Hon. Mlanie Joly: Mr. Chair, as the Minister of Official Languages, I just want to raise the fact that interpretation is very complicated right now. In order to make sure that we can continue to uphold bilingualism within the House, I would love it if my colleagues could take down the pace a bit. That would help the interpreters a whole lot. They are working very hard and trying to keep up. The Chair: That's a reasonable request. I just want to remind everyone again that when you're asking a question, make sure you are doing it at a pace at which you're considering the people who are interpreting Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, this is how fast I speak when we're in the House of Commons. It's just how I talk. The Chair: I understand. I have a lot of friends who speak very quickly. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Right. I understand. Perhaps we could get back to my question about the rent subsidy. The Chair: We stopped the time. You're not losing any time on this one. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Okay. I will try to speak more slowly. The Chair: I appreciate it. Thank you. The interpreters appreciate it. Now we'll go to the minister, please. Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with the provinces and territories to provide this forgivable loan to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rent of their tenants by 75%. We will continue to monitor how this program is delivered, as we announced it last week. It will be offered pretty soon. It will be very important that we understand what happens across the country, and we will monitor and adapt the program as we Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, it has been in the media quite a bit that this rent subsidy is not helping many, many, many small business owners. It's falling short of everything that was announced, so I think it needs to be taken a bit more seriously than that. There are two issues regarding the 75% wage subsidy. First, employers who pay themselves and their employees dividends rather than wages are unable to qualify. Second, there is also a 30% threshold revenue decline needed in order to apply. Many of the businesses in my riding are at 27% or 29%. They desperately need these funds but are unable to qualify. What is the government planning to do for these small businesses? Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, thank you to the hon. member for sharing the realities she's hearing from small business owners. We are providing help and support for businesses through these very difficult times. The wage subsidy has been taken up and is working for many businesses. We know that some still fall through the cracks and we will look at how we can continue to support businesses across the country. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends (BrossardSaint-Lambert, Lib.) ): We are now going to Mr. Kevin Waugh. Mr. Kevin Waugh (SaskatoonGrasswood, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. Three weeks ago, on April 17, the Minister of Canadian Heritage announced funding of $500 million to assist Canada's arts, sports and cultural sectors. We are still waiting to hear who is eligible and when they can expect to receive this funding. Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Canadian Heritage): Madam Chair, we will be releasing the details of that announcement, and how the money is going to be spent, in the coming days. Mr. Kevin Waugh: We all know that many media organizations, large and small, in Canada are struggling right now. Allegations have arisen that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CBC, is currently engaging in predatory behaviour and taking advantage of the current situation to harm its competitors using rate cuts. We've seen this from the province of Quebec. Many journalists have talked about this. What is the government going to do to address these allegations against the CBC? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have not been informed of these allegations. We will look into this, and we will get back to the hon. colleague if we do find any valuable information. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Local community and ethnic media outlets and papers have strong ties to their communities that often go much deeper than the major media outlets. Is the government currently using any local or ethnic media outlets to provide crucial coronavirus information through advertising? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, I totally agree with my colleague. We need to get the information to Canadians on COVID-19, which is why we have started an ad-buy campaign of $30 million, which is being distributed in more than 900 local, regional and national newspapers across the country and 500 radio and TV stations in 12 different languages, including Farsi, Mandarin, Spanish, Italian and many more. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Mr. Minister, I talked to the Winnipeg Free Press yesterday. It has received two ads from an ad agency in connection with the $30 million the government is doling out to help media outlets. They had one ad on March 27. The second ad was on April 11. That is two ads in the Winnipeg Free Press in the last eight weeks. Is this the kind of money you're attempting to dole out to help media: two ads in eight weeks? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have been doing a number of things for our media in Canada over the last few months and will continue to do so. On top of that $30 million ad-buy campaign, we have been investing $50 million in local journalism. Just this year, it means that 200 journalists will be hired in areas across the country where journalism is more poorly defined. The federal government has paid part I licence fees of our broadcasters to the CRTC. That means $30 million is staying in the pockets of our broadcasters. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Madam Chair, last week, as the minister would know, 15 community newspapers, including eight in Manitoba and seven in the province of Ontario, closed their doors for good. Is the government currently planning any further measures aimed at assisting community or ethnic media organizations? We understand that many more will close their doors within the next 30 to 60 days. Hon. Steven Guilbeault: We are planning a number of other measures, some of which will be included in the $500 million. I will be announcing the details of that in the coming days. Of the $595 million that the media will receive, we have a tax credit that has now entered into force, and the cheques should be in the mail by the end of the summer. So there are a number of things we've done and a number of things we will be doing in the coming months as well. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Waugh, you may have a short question. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Well, finally, you have the five members associated with that committee to dole out the $595 million. They haven't even met yet. When will they meet? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: I would like to remind my hon. colleague that in order for us to provide tax breaks for the 2019 period, media outlets had to file their tax returns so we could go ahead. This will now be able to proceed, Madam Chair. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We now move on to Mr. Godin. Mr. Godin, you may go ahead. Mr. Jol Godin (PortneufJacques-Cartier, CPC): Thank you, MadamChair. This being the first time I've had the floor during a virtual sitting of Parliament, I'd like to take this opportunity to greet my fellow members, all 259participants. I hope they are taking care of themselves. I'd like to talk about the Prime Minister's appearance on the show Tout le monde en parle. This is what he had to say about his economic recovery plan: We are going to remain focused on the economy as a wholeinnovationresearch and science, the green economy and a fairer economyThere are things we are all reflecting on right now that reflection is going to continue. That was a weak answer. It didn't inspire much confidence. Can the government assure Canadians that it is being proactive and working on a plan to get the economy moving again? It must act now. Things are starting to reopen gradually. Is the government going to take concrete action to revive the economy? Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Yes, absolutely. Our government is wholly committed to restarting the economy, and we are working closely with the provinces to do just that. Last week, our government, together with the provincial and territorial premiers, released the principles that will guide efforts to restore economic activity across the country. That is key. The discussion between the Prime Minister and the premiers is continuing today. Mr. Jol Godin: MadamChair, before we go any further, since it took a while for the minister, or the government, to answer the question, can I have that time back to ask questions? The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I stopped the clock, Mr. Godin. Mr. Jol Godin: Thank you. The Prime Minister's answer during his appearance on Tout le monde en parle didn't inspire much confidence and doesn't line up with the Deputy Prime Minister's comments. How can the government be proud of announcing $252million in assistance for the agri-food sector, when that is less than 1% of all the program funding the government has committed to help Canadians get through the COVID-19 crisis? Clearly, the government doesn't see the food supply chain as a priority and has no regard for farmers and pork and beef producers. Does the government realize that eating is vital to Canadians? When is the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food going to adjust the program and show respect for Canadian farmers? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: I have the utmost respect for farmers. We are going step by step. We've already confirmed various supports for the agricultural sector. This week, we focused on beef and pork producers and processors, as well as sectors with product surpluses that can be redirected to food banks. I can assure my fellow member that this is an additional step and that more supports are on the way in the weeks ahead. Bear in mind that a number of programs are already available to farmers. Mr. Jol Godin: I'd like to switch topics now. PortneufJacques-Cartier is home to a company that is already licensed by Health Canada and that, for 20years, has been manufacturing medical equipment including masks, face shields and thermometers. This is equipment our health workers need. The company has a licence from the federal government. In mid-March, Health Canada reached out to the company to find out how much equipment it could manufacture to help fight COVID-19. The company confirmed that it could immediately start producing 200,000masks a week, ramping up to a million masks over the next few weeks. Forty-five days later, it is still waiting on its first order from the Canadian government. We are managing a crisis with a limited supply of medical equipment. Can the health minister tell us why, 45days later, this company licensed by Health Canada hasn't received an order? Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Thank you for the question. Industry and suppliers have enthusiastically answered our call to equip Canada with products and goods during the crisis. Many of those suppliers have already received contracts. We have reached out to all the others and will negotiate contracts as needed. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I would now like to invite hon. member Jenica Atwin to speak. Mrs. Jenica Atwin (Fredericton, GP): Thank you, Madam Chair. Seniors living alone are most at risk of economic insecurity, particularly single senior women, as gender inequality in the job market has translated all too often into inadequate retirement income. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a poverty reduction plan that addresses the unique challenges faced by older women? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to assure the member that we are quite aware that this pandemic has typically affected single seniors, and many of those, given that they live longer, are single senior women. I want to assure her that we are working on this issue, and we have provided some supports already through measures such as the GST supplementary payment. That is on average almost $400 for single seniors. There's more work to do. We know that, so stay tuned. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, older women represent a high proportion of residents in long-term care facilities. Having spent their lives caring for parents, children and often their partners, they find themselves needing care in nursing homes. Multiple outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care homes in Canada have highlighted systemic gaps that senior and elderly women may face in such facilities, as well as the working conditions of the female-dominated ranks of nurses and personal support workers. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a federal strategy for long-term care homes that recognizes quality of life for residents and working conditions for the employees, ideally one that goes hand in hand with a poverty reduction plan and enhanced home and community care investments across the country? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I do want to thank the hon. member for her question. It's an important one. We are obviously deeply saddened by the outbreaks that have been going on in long-term care facilities and those who have lost their lives. We do recognize that the administration of long-term care and palliative care is the responsibility of provinces and territories; however, we have been taking a team Canada approach, and as you already know, we've been doing tremendous work with them to try to ensure that those who live in those facilities can be well cared for and safe. We are doing that with guidelines The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms. Atwin has the floor. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, from May 4 to May 10, we are observing Mental Health Week. We know that our essential workers right now are experiencing unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety, on top of putting their own physical safety and health on the line. Most of these workers work in precarious jobs with no access to paid sick leave or vacation, and without any benefits to access mental health services. Apart from the very welcome investments in online resources, can the minister explain how the government will support these workers now and once the crisis is behind us? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, thank you very much to the member for the question. I'm so glad that she's raising the issue of mental health and in particular how poor mental health is oftentimes connected to our socio-economic status. I appreciate the nuance in that question. She's right. We do have new resources that are available to all Canadians free of charge through the Wellness Together portal, but there is more to do. I think the announcement of top-up wages, for example, which the Prime Minister spoke about today, is another example of how we're taking the health and wellness of all low-income Canadians very seriously. We know that mental health is not divorced from socio-economic status, and I look forward to working with her more on other measures that we can take together. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, we're all very aware of the importance of temporary foreign workers and their role in ensuring our food sovereignty across this country. The pandemic has highlighted how we depend on their work. How are we protecting them? Madam Chair, will the government take action to strengthen legislation and ensure Canadians have access to the food they need while the workers who help bring it to our tables have safe working conditions, regardless of where they are working in this country? Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Thank you, Madam Chair. We are very concerned, as are countries around the world, that we support and create the environment for the health and safety of our temporary foreign workers and we value their contribution to our food supply chain here in Canada. We have issued guidelines to employers and are working very closely with local public health authorities in the provinces and territories to make sure workers are protected, that physical distancing and other recommendations are adhered to and that there are severe consequences if employers don't take care of their workers. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We are now going to Mr. MacGregor. Mr. Alistair MacGregor (CowichanMalahatLangford, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. My first question is this: Will the Liberal government prevent federal bailout funds from going to companies that use tax havens and avoid paying their fair share here in Canada, yes or no? Hon. Diane Lebouthillier (Minister of National Revenue): We are working to make sure that anyone who tries to circumvent the rules faces serious consequences. We are asking businesses to designate a representative to attest their claims. Any employer receiving the subsidy who is deemed ineligible will have to repay the full amount. Anyone who abuses the program could face fines of up to 225% of the subsidy amount as well as five years in prison. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, I didn't really hear a yes to that question, so I'll repeat it. Does the government really think it's appropriate for tax-avoiding corporations to receive funding provided for by taxpayers? Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: We will keep going after companies that engage in tax evasion. I want to be clear. We will target those who are responsible, not innocent workers. An employee is an employee, regardless of who they work for. The wage subsidy program does not hand a blank cheque over to employers. It is meant to help Canadians pay their bills, keep their jobs and get through the crisis. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, the agriculture funding announced by the government earlier this week amounts to less than 10% of what the Canadian Federation of Agriculture estimates will be required to help farmers weather this crisis. Why has the Minister of Agriculture shortchanged our farmers? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, this is one more step. This was one more step. We have already committed significant support to our farmers through different programs, and we will do more. I have to remind my colleague that we have put in $5 billion through FCC, $50 million for the temporary foreign workers, two times $50 million for pork and beef producers this week, and $77 million for food processing. This is only the beginning, and we should not forget that the business risk management programs are still there to offer support. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Yes, Madam Chair, but we're nearly two months into this pandemic and this announcement only came this week. Farmers need certainty. When can farmers expect further updates on funding, and how much will the government be providing? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, we are working closely with the farmers and their representatives to identify where the gaps are, but once again, we have made improvements to the AgriStability program. They can get, depending on the province, either 50% or 75% in advance payments, and they can also, right now, access their AgriInvest program. There is more than $2 billion ready to access today, if they have The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. MacGregor. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, federal disability recipients and seniors on fixed incomes have been hardest hit by cost of living increases from COVID-19. If we acknowledge that $2,000 per month is the minimum needed to get through this time, why are they being asked to survive on far less? When can they expect assistance, and how much will they receive? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to make sure people realize that we have provided some assistance through the GST supplementary benefit. We are also providing support to those who are still working, and we have done that by allowing them to access the CERB. There is more work to be done, so you'll be hearing more in the near future. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, as I think we've heard through today's question period, there are countless example of this government designing programs to exclude many small businesses that desperately need help. Whether it's the payroll requirements or other eligibility, we still, to this day, almost two months into the pandemic, have too many small businesses falling through the cracks. Madam Chair, why has the government taken this approach and when can we finally expect fixes to the whole system? Hon. Mary Ng: Madam Chair, right from the get-go, we have been committed to making sure that Canadians are helped through this crisis, and that small businesses get the support that they need, so that we are saving businesses and jobs in this country. That is what we have done with many of our programs. You're seeing that we are also listening, so that we can modify them as we need. I want to assure the member that the work is not done. We continue to do this. The Chair: Thank you. It is now over to Mr. Perron. Mr. Perron, you may go ahead. Mr. Yves Perron (BerthierMaskinong, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question will come as no surprise, since it has to do with agriculture. I hear the questions my fellow members are asking, and to be frank, I don't find the answers satisfactory. It is well and good to talk about existing programs, but they aren't working, so enough with that refrain. That's what people are telling us. It's not just members of the opposition saying it. This morning, both farmers and processors came together for a press conference at the Union des producteurs agricoles's head office in Longueuil. Six stakeholders from different sectors sounded the alarm. Can the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food therefore tell us when she will announce significant supports for the industry? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We have already announced significant amounts of support, and more is on the way. I'd like to correct my fellow member. It's not that the programs aren't working; it's that they aren't generous enough in farmers'eyes. That's why I'm working with my provincial counterparts to make improvements to programming, including AgriStability. Here's an example. After using the online AgriStability benefit estimator, a pork producer found out that he would get $11 per head, as they say in the industry. Pork producers are calling for $20 per head, so it's a good start, even though it's not enough and it isn't what they are asking for. We want to keep working together, but farmers have to access the money available to them through AgriStability. Mr. Yves Perron: Now it's my turn to correct the minister. Even before the crisis, we were hearing from people in the industry that the programs were neither suitable nor sufficient. We are in a crisis, and this is an exceptional situation. In the case of mad cow disease, farmers received direct assistance. That's the kind of assistance we are calling for. We don't want to hear about growing levels of debt. Of course, this is a first step, but farms are already deep in debt. A few days ago, the government announced $50million in funding for pork producers, even though they are asking for $20per hog for 27million hogs. The government's support covers just 2. 5million hogs. When I call the measure insufficient, I mean it is grossly insufficient. It's high time the government put forth more support. It has to stop saying that it's working hard and examining the situation. The government has to listen to the people in the industry. Again, this morning, they had some interesting proposals. When is the government going to announce a whole lot more in funding support? What's been announced so far is only 10% of what farmers are asking for. Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We are going step by step. The programs are already in place. We are trying to make them better, and we are committed to doing that. These programs are cost-shared with the provinces. However, I would point out to the member that, when it comes to AgriRecovery, we made an exception to the rule. We are moving forward in every province to help pork and beef producers. That's two funding envelopes of $50million each to help cover the additional costs from the decrease in plant processing capacity. That's new money that was not yet available, money we introduced this week. As the Prime Minister said, we are going to do more, and we are moving forward step by step. Mr. Yves Perron: What we concluded in committee this week is that the $125million is not new money. It was already earmarked for the programs. The government can't say that programs already exist and, at the same time, claim that they are new programs. Something doesn't add up there. What's more, there are different ways to make money available. I'd like to talk compensation. Everyone knows that the Canada-U. S. -Mexico Agreement came into force a month earlier than planned, despite the promises that had been made. That resulted in additional losses, once again. An easy way to make money available without committing new spending is to provide compensation and announce programs for supply-managed sectors that got nothing. It seems to me that a time of crisis is a time for the government to practise some judo and announce measures. I am reaching out to the government, as I always do, but it has to come forward with announcements. Can we expect the government to announce measures in the coming days? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Our commitment to farmers in supply-managed sectorsmeaning, egg, poultry and dairy farmersis as strong as it always was. I repeat, our commitment is clear. Dairy producers received their first payment at the end of last year or the beginning of this year. Support for poultry and egg farmers is in the form of investment programs, which aligns well with the recovery. At this time, we are focusing on emergency programs to help farmers hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. When it comes to the dairy sector, I hope I can count on your support. As you know, legislative changes are needed to grant the Canadian Dairy Commission's request and increase its borrowing limit by $200million so it can buy more butter and cheese. The Chair: Our next question will go to Mr. Lake. Hon. Mike Lake (EdmontonWetaskiwin, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we're all inundated, as we've heard during this entire question period, with Canadians'concerns about the economic restrictions and the social restrictions that they're under. Over the last couple of months, the WHO has given one very consistent message in terms of coming out of those economic and social restrictions. On March 16, Dr. Tedros said in his briefing, We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test. On March 25,44 days ago, he said, Aggressive measures to find, isolate, test, treat and trace are not only the best and fastest way out of extreme social and economic restrictionstheyre also the best way to prevent them. Does the minister agree with the WHO that relentless testing and tracing are critical to a successful economic and social relaunch strategy in Canada? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thanks to the member for the very astute observation and question. Absolutely, we agree that testing and contact tracing will form an important part of our response to living with COVID. We've been investing heavily in ensuring that we have the lab capacity, the collaboration across provinces and territories, and the variety of testing options to help us increase our capacity to test. We are aiming right now for a high volume of tests, but I will also say that in Canada we have one of the highest testing rates in the world. Although we're doing well, I can assure him that I am with him and I believe we need to do more. Hon. Mike Lake: I have some really quick questions for follow-up. First, what is Canada's current testing capability? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as I mentioned to his colleagues yesterday, we have currently the capacity to do approximately 60,000 tests per day across the country. Hon. Mike Lake: How many tests were conducted each day on average in Canada last week? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, it's hard for me to get that exact number, but I will get back to him with the exact number. Hon. Mike Lake: I'll save you the time. The exact number was 28,851, on average, every day last week. That's a gap of 30,000 from what your stated testing capability is. I'll give another quote from Dr. Tam, back on April 22,15 days ago. She said, As a first tranche, roughly close to 60,000 is where the provinces can potentially expand to as a target already. Does the minister happen to know, ballpark, what the average number of daily tests in Canada has been since that statement? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Your estimate was slightly higher than what my estimate was going to be, so that's a great piece of news. Listen, I will just say that I think if the premise here is that we could be doing more testing. I would agree, but I will also say that the provinces and territories are working incredibly hard on testing strategies that meet their own specific needs. I'm happy to have a conversation with the member later about that testing strategy. Dr. Tam works with all the chief public health officers across the country to ensure that their testing strategy is going to be applicable and appropriate for their particular jurisdictions. We, as the federal government, provide the capacity for them to conduct those tests. Hon. Mike Lake: Following up on that, is there a jurisdiction in Canada where relentless testing is not the appropriate strategy as provinces consider relaunching? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Each province and territory has its own outbreak and its own epidemic. For example, in British Columbia, where there are relatively fewer cases in general and less disease activity, they may have a different testing strategy than a province like Ontario, which is currently struggling with more outbreaks. Hon. Mike Lake: Given your comment that our current testing capability is 60,000, and acknowledging that only at one point in the entire history of our COVID response, over several months, has our weekly average been over 30,000it was about 31,000 for one day on a rolling basisMinister, are you satisfied with our current testing amounts right now, given that we're testing 50% of what the public health officer advises would be best? Hon. Patty Hajdu: I'm so amazed by the work the provinces and territories have done in a very short time to increase their capacity. We are supporting them with the tools that they need to get more testing done, but also to have other components in place that will allow them to do the rapid tracing of positive cases. I think it's very important to remember that testing strategies will be different across the provinces, based on the outbreak disease epidemiology. Having said that, I know that we can all do better, and I'm certain that my counterparts feel the same. The Chair: I'm going to have to cut the minister off at that one. I want to thank everyone for the session today, I think it went rather well. I'm very proud of you and proud of ourselves for what we managed to accomplish. The committee stands adjourned until Tuesday, May 12, at noon.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs suggested the importance of One China agreement but also expressed great gratitudes towards all the donors across the world. The cooperation between every area in the world was welcomed and it would be glad to see global efforts to battle the Covid-19 virus.

tr-sq-632

tr-sq-632_0

How would the government grant medical assistance to the most vulnerable to COVID-19 infection? The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.) ): We'll call this meeting to order. Welcome to the fifth meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. Pursuant to the order passed on Monday, April20, the committee is meeting today to consider ministerial announcements, to allow members of the committee to present petitions, and to question ministers, including the Prime Minister, about the COVID-19 pandemic. Tomorrow, May8, Dr. AndreaMcCrady, Dominion Carillonneur, will give a special recital to mark the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day. Victory in Europe Day, VE Day, commemorates the formal acceptance of Germany's surrender by allied forces at the end of the Second World War. While the pandemic prevents us from gathering to celebrate in person, tomorrow at noon the voice of our nation will ring out in remembrance of this milestone in our history. Today's meeting is taking place by video conference. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. Just so you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entire committee. I would like to remind members that, as in the House of Commons or committee, they should not take photos of their colleagues or film the proceedings. In order to facilitate the work of the interpreters and to allow the meeting to proceed smoothly, I would ask you to follow some instructions. The video conference will be interpreted as in normal meetings of committees and in the House. In the lower part of your screen, you can choose the language: floor, English or French. Please wait until I call on you by name before you begin to speak. When you are ready to speak, click on the microphone icon to activate your microphone, or hold the space bar down while you are speaking. If you release the bar, your microphone will revert to mute, just like a walkie-talkie. Honourable members, I would like to remind you that if you want to speak English, you should be on the English channel. If you want to speak French, you should be on the French channel. Should you wish to alternate between the two languages, you should change the channel to the language that you are speaking each time you switch languages. Please direct your remarks through the chair. Should you need to request the floor outside of your designated speaking time, you should activate your mike and state that you have a point of order. If a member of the committee wishes to intervene on a point of order raised by another person, you should use the raised hand function to indicate to the chair that you wish to speak. To do this, click on the participant button at the bottom of your screen. When the list appears, you will see the raised hand option beside your name. Speak slowly and clearly at all times. When you are not speaking, leave your microphone on mute. It is highly recommended that you use a headset with a microphone. You have to remember to switch languages. Should any technical challenges arise, for example, in relation to interpretation, please advise the chair immediately by raising a point of order, and the technical team will work on resolving them. Please note that we may need to suspend during these times in order to correct a problem. I want to remind the honourable members to mute their microphones when they are not speaking. If you get accidentally disconnected, please try to rejoin the meeting with the information you used to join initially. If you are unable to rejoin, please contact our technical support team. Before we get started, please note that in the top right-hand corner of your screen is a button that you can use to change views. Speaker view allows you to focus on the person currently speaking; gallery view allows you to see a larger number of participants. You can click through the multiple pages in the gallery view to see who is on and how many more participants there are. I understand there are no ministerial announcements today. We will now proceed to presenting petitions for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during the meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. In addition, to ensure a petition is considered properly presented, the certificate of the petition and each page of the petition for a petition certified in a previous Parliament should be mailed to the committee no later than 6 p. m. the day before. Now we'll go to presenting petitions. Mr. Genuis. Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Mr. Chair, five years ago when Parliament passed Bill C-14, then justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said that it represented a finely tuned balance between access and safeguards. It also included a five-year review. Petitioners on the first petition I'm presenting are very concerned to see Bill C-7 before Parliament, which removes safeguards ahead of that five-year review. Petitioners specifically mention their concerns about the removal of the mandatory 10-day reflection period, which can already be waived in certain circumstances. They are concerned about reducing the number of witnesses required to oversee it and ensure that a request has been properly made. I commend that petition to the consideration of the House. The second and final petition that I will be presenting today is with respect to Senate Bill S-204. This would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ from a person who did not consent. This responds specifically to concerns about organ harvesting in the People's Republic of China involving Falun Gong practitioners and increasing concerns that this is being or about to be applied to Uighurs as well. Canada can and should take action on this. Petitioners are noting that in the previous Parliament there were bills on this, Bill C-350 and Bill S-240. Now, in this Parliament there is a bill, Bill S-204, and the petitioners hope that this 43rd Parliament will be the one that gets it passed. The Chair: We will go to Ms. May. Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's an honour. This is my first occasion to present a petition in our virtual format of the COVID-19 committee. Thank you to you and your staff, Mr. Chair, for developing a system that allows us to present petitions electronically. The petition I am presenting today, which was previously approved, is from a number of constituents who are concerned that we pursue the Paris Agreement to hold the global average temperature increase to no more than 1. 5C. The Paris Agreement itself embeds in it the concept of Just Transition with a capital J and a capital T, the concept of just transition ensuring fairness and support for all workers in the fossil fuel sector. The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to move forward with an act to ensure just transition and to ensure adequate funding so that workers and communities dependent on the fossil fuel sector receive meaningful support to ensure security in their lives in the transition to more sustainable energy use. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Chair: Those are all the petitions for today. I want to thank the honourable members for their usual collaboration and now we'll go on to Mr. James Bezan (SelkirkInterlakeEastman, CPC): On a point of order, Mr. Chair, on Tuesday, at our COVID-19 committee of the whole meeting, I was asking a question which started at 12: 56: 06 and was cut off at 1: 00: 32, so I still have 34 seconds of time remaining in my question time of five minutes. You said it could be no more than five minutes but that I had up to five minutes. Thirty-four seconds leaves a lot of time to have a quick question and a quick response. If you believe that my time was unjustly cut off and that it was unfair treatment of the official opposition when we were raising our points of order, I would ask that the 34 seconds be tacked on to the opening round for the opposition and credited to Rosemarie Falk, who will be leading off for the Conservatives. The Chair: Normally what happens is the chair uses judgment, and with 35 seconds, there isn't enough time obviously for a full question or answer, most of the time. I'll take it under advisement. I can't allot it. I want everyone to know that I do have a timer next to me and I am timing the questions, and I will be treating the answers the same way. If it's a 25-second question, it will be a 25-second answer. Thank you for bringing that up. I believe that issue has been remedied. We've taken a little bit of the chair's ability to give judgment on it, but it will be from now on. Thank you. Mr. James Bezan: Mr. Chair, 34 seconds is a considerable amount of time to do a short question and a short answer. The Chair: I appreciate the advice. Thank you, Mr. Bezan. We'll now proceed to the questioning of ministers. I would like to remind the honourable members that no member will be recognized for more than five minutes at a time and that members may split their time with one or more members by so indicating to the chair. Ministers responding to the questions should do so by simply turning on their microphone and speaking. Our first questioner is Ms. Falk. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk (BattlefordsLloydminster, CPC): Mr. Chair, yesterday, Elizabeth May and the leader of the separatists declared oil to be dead. It's certainly not dead, but it's dying under the Trudeau government. Will the Prime Minister stand up for Canada's energy workers, or does he agree with the fringe left and those who want to destroy our country? Ms. Elizabeth May: I have a point of order. The Chair: Go ahead, Ms. May. Ms. Elizabeth May: Mr. Chair, I believe that the language that the honourable member just used is unparliamentary Mr. Garnett Genuis: That's not a point of order. Ms. Elizabeth May: We can have differences of opinion, but it is absolutely Some hon. members: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: unacceptable and violates my privileges to An hon member: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: No, it's not debate. I would ask the chair to rule on that, not the member from the Conservative Party. It is unacceptable to assert that anyone who wants to make a point about our economy is trying to destroy the country. This allegation is a violation of my privilege. An hon. member: She was also named by the The Chair: Order. I didn't recognize anyone. I don't know who is speaking, so I'll just start talking myself. I want to remind honourable members to have respect in their questions and in their answers. When you refer to someone, please refer to them respectfully. This is a committee of the House, and I would expect no less of the honourable members. We'll go to the right honourable Prime Minister. You have 16 seconds. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. As I pointed out this morning in my press conference, we cannot move forward on a transformation of our energy sector without supporting the workers in that energy sector. We need their innovation and we need their hard work if we are going to lower our emissions, if we are going to reach our The Chair: We'll go to Ms. Falk again. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, it has been 43 days since the finance minister promised Canada's energy sector liquidity through the Business Development Bank of Canada. For 43 days the finance minister has failed to deliver on that promise. These delays cost jobs and they are costing us Canadian businesses. If the government doesn't step up to support our energy sector, they are in effect doubling down on their support for foreign, unethically sourced oil. Mr. Chair, when will the credit options be available to Canada's small and medium energy firms? The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that we do have interpreters who are listening and translating. In consideration to them, please speak at a reasonable pace so that they can understand and then translate. The right honourable Prime Minister. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, our priority through this pandemic and this crisis has been to support workers across the country. We have sent billions of dollars to workers right across the country, including Alberta, Saskatchewan, B. C. , and Newfoundland and Labrador in the energy sector for them to be able to support their families through this difficult time. We are also working on sectoral supports right across the country. Those will be announced in due course. Our focus from the get-go has been The Chair: We'll move to Ms. Falk. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, another group that has been ignored by the Liberals is our farmers. The announcements to date fall well short of what is needed to maintain a steady supply of affordable and healthy food. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture has asked the government for a $2. 6-billion emergency fund. Instead of responding to specific COVID-19 challenges, our farmers are facing the Liberals'reannounced $125 million that was already budgeted in the AgriRecovery program. Will the Prime Minister finally step up and take our food supply chain seriously, or is agriculture just an afterthought for him? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: On the contrary, Mr. Chair, we take agriculture and our agricultural sector extremely seriously, which is why we announced hundreds of millions of dollars a couple of days ago to respond to pressing needs. We will continue to make investments to ensure both the safety of workers in our agricultural sector and the safety of our communities, as well as the continued flow of high-quality Canadian food onto our tables right across the country. Supporting the people who produce our food is a priority for this government and will continue to be. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Well, Mr. Chair, recycled program announcements do not respond to the immediate needs facing our farmers. This is absolutely unacceptable. Our farmers are faced with rising operational costs, a disrupted service industry, labour shortages and a reduced capacity at processing plants. The government has a responsibility to take domestic food security seriously. When will the Prime Minister deliver adequate support to address the critical changes facing our ag industry? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I would suggest respectfully that the honourable member take a look once again at the announcement we made, which actually highlights significant new investments to support our agricultural industry. I certainly agree that there is more to do. Every step of the way in this unprecedented situation, we've been moving forward on doing more, on adjusting and on investing more. We need to support our agricultural sector and the people who work so hard to put food on Canadians'tables right across the country and we will continue to. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, Canadians expect to find healthy and affordable food at their grocery stores, but if the government does not take action now, that's not a given. Our farmers are trying to keep Canadians fed while keeping their heads above water. The Liberal government's own failed federal carbon tax is weighing them down. It is an enormous hit to their bottom line, and the recent carbon tax hike is taking even more money out of the pockets of farmers at a time when they can afford it the least. Will the Prime Minister exempt all farm operations from the carbon tax and reimburse the money that they have already taken from them? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, it's a shame to hear the member opposite accidentallyunintentionally, I'm certainmislead the House and Canadians. The price on pollution actually puts more money into Canadians'pockets, and that includes farm families. People who pay the cost of the price on pollution on average receive more money back. This is the way of creating a better future for our kids and grandkids, which I know people in communities right across the country, including our farm communities, want to see happen. We are moving forward in a responsible way to put a price on pollution and put more money in average Canadians'pockets. The Chair: We now continue with Mrs. Gill. Mrs. Gill, you have the floor. Mrs. Marilne Gill (Manicouagan, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. As you know, all sectors of the economy are fragile at the moment, specifically the fisheries. I am thinking about the lobster fishery in the Magdalen Islands, the crab fishery on the Cte-Nord or those fishing for herring in the south of the Gasp. Because imports have ceased, because the domestic market is weak and in decline because of the interruption of the tourism and restaurant industries, the fishing industry and its fishers must be supported. I would like to know what the government has done to support our fishers since the crisis began. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Our fishers do exceptional work that is extremely important in feeding Canadians and in contributing to our economic success through their exports around the world. This crisis has struck them very hard. That is why we have established measures in the tens of millions of dollars to support our processors. We have also announced help for the fishers. We know that these are difficult and unprecedented times, and we are going to Mrs. Marilne Gill: My thanks to the Prime Minister. I am actually talking about help for the fishers. I know about the processing industry and the $62. 5million to be used essentially for freezing products, but I am talking about the fishers themselves. Given the economic situation, most of our fishers are getting ready to leave. First, there are health risks. We know very well that it is impossible for them to observe all the social distancing measures. They have to incur additional expenses in order to conduct their normal fishing activities. In addition, they feel that they will be losing money, because of the drop in the price of their resource. They are just as essential as farmers, but they are going to have to work at a loss and they are not going to have workers to assist them. Workers in the seasonal industry do not know what tomorrow will bring. They do not even know whether they will be able to put food on the table next year. Are you going to do anything else, in addition to the assistance of $62. 5million? Time is of the essence. Our fishers have lacked certainty for weeks and they are very concerned. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Yes, indeed, we are going to do other things. Other investments will be made in various sectors in order to support Canadians. We recognize the challenges that fishers must face in terms of social distancing and of work that is often seasonal. We are going to continue working with the industry, with the fishers, and with the coastal communities in order to ensure that people have confidence in their abilities and in their future. In times of crisis, it is important for the government to be there to support people, and that is exactly what we are going to continue to do. This is an unprecedented crisis, but we can see once more that Canadians are there for each other. Our government will continue to be there for the fishers and the fishing industry. Mrs. Marilne Gill: I would have preferred us to be there from the start. Clearly, this is a difficult crisis. But, given the cyclical nature of the industry, some sectors have had to postpone for several weeks the preparations they need for fishing activities. The current program could be modified in a number of ways, to accommodate the cycle, the dates, and the size of the companies. They would really like to take advantage of the $40,000loan, but they cannot because of their payroll. Given the dates, they are also ineligible for the 75%salary subsidy. I can already suggest a number of solutions to the government and to the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, that would bring help to those businesses very quickly. The fishers carry on, because it is a duty for them, because they want to help us and to be part of the effort at this time of crisis. At the same time, they have no guarantee that they will be supported. I would really like to hear a guarantee that they will be supported, that they will be able to put food on the table this year, and that they will be able to support the communities that often depend on the fishing industry, a major industry in those communities. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Minister Jordan has been working with the fishers, the fishing industry and the communities affected by the crisis since the crisis began. We are assessing a number of solutions. We have proposed various solutions to support the communities, the workers and the families. This is an unprecedented situation. From the outset, our priority has been to support the millions of Canadians from coast to coast who have lost their jobs. We have been able to do so, but we are going to continue to work for those who must now face difficulties. We are going to be there for each other. That is what people are expecting from our government and from other Canadians. The Chair: Before we move to the next question, I would like to remind members of the committee to speak slowly, and to address their remarks to the chair and not directly to each other. Thank you very much. We will now go to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach (SkeenaBulkley Valley, NDP): Mr. Chair, municipalities across Canada are facing a financial crisis. They've seen revenues plummet, and at the same time the cost of delivering municipal services has risen. As the Prime Minister knows, municipalities are unable to run deficits and so they are facing the reality of cutbacks and serious cuts to the services that Canadians depend on. We know that municipalities are vital during this time to provide services to Canadians. They're going to be even more important during the recovery, especially when it comes to delivering on the infrastructure programs before us. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities and mayors across Canada have called for emergency financial relief for the municipal sector. My question for the Prime Minister is, when can they expect federal financial support to arrive? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, no government in Canada's history has done more to work with our municipalities, with our cities, with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to respond to the challenges they're facing and to partner with them. Things from infrastructure to investments have made a huge difference right across the country in the quality of life of Canadians in towns, large and small, from coast to coast to coast. As I'm sure the member well knows, our Constitution requires that most of the funding for municipalities flow through the provinces. We are working with the provinces, as we continue to work with the cities, to ensure that we're able to support this order of government that delivers the vast majority of services to Canadians with very little financial means. We know how difficult it is for our cities. We will continue The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, it would seem that the federal government has the fiscal capacity and the responsibility to help municipalities weather this crisis. Transit systems have been hit particularly hard and have seen the bulk of the layoffs in the municipal sector. These transit services carry essential workers to work, whether they are health care workers, grocery store workers, janitors or others. The risk is that we will see higher fares to deal with this financial crisis. We will see service cutbacks precisely at a time when we want to be expanding transit and improving transit in our communities. Does the Prime Minister acknowledge that the federal government needs to step in to safeguard and protect Canada's transit services? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, this federal government recognizes how important it is to support all Canadians, which is why we put forward unprecedented measures to help millions upon millions of Canadians with the CERB and with the wage subsidy. We will continue to work with the provinces, which have jurisdiction over the municipalities. I'll be having a conversation with all other first ministers tonight to talk about a broad range of issues. I can highlight that the issue of transit funding has come up. We have continued to engage with them, but again, it is important to respect the Constitution and understand that funding for municipalities and cities does go through the provinces. The federal government is happy to be there to support, but it must be The Chair: We will go to Mr. Bachrach again. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I am wondering how the Prime Minister could explain to a bus driver in Vancouver who has been laid off that as a public sector worker, she can't access the federal wage subsidy, while an equivalent worker in the airline industry gets to keep her job with the federal help of that program. Could the Prime Minister explain how that is fair? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I'm happy to explain to the member and to all Canadians that our Constitution creates federal areas of jurisdiction and provincial areas of jurisdiction. The airline industry, like banking, like telecommunications, is a federal area of jurisdiction that we have been able to move forward on. More than that, we brought the Canada emergency response benefit and the wage subsidy to all industries across this country, because we knew that as the federal government, it was something that we needed to step up on The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I'd like to shift gears a little bit. Faced with minimal health care capacity, remote indigenous communities in my riding are taking matters into their own hands. The Nuxalk have put up a checkpoint on Highway 20 to protect community members and prevent non-essential travel. In particular, it is to protect the three remaining fluent speakers of the Nuxalk language, these cherished elders in their community. The Haida on Haida Gwaii have set up a similar checkpoint, as have communities throughout British Columbia, yet federal support for indigenous communities amounts to only $39 million for all of the indigenous communities in B. C. Does the Prime Minister not agree that more support is warranted to help indigenous communities in my riding and across the country? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, we made funds available to Canadians right across the country, particularly people in indigenous remote or northern communities who we knew would be facing more difficult challenges because of the existing vulnerabilities in their health care system and socio-economic circumstances. We have made unprecedented investments and we will continue to make the necessary investments, because we need to make sure that indigenous Canadians, and indeed all Canadians, have the supports they need to make it through this crisis. The Chair: We will continue with Mr. Berthold. Mr. Berthold, you have the floor. Mr. Luc Berthold (MganticL'rable, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I am going to keep talking about the area of jurisdiction that the Prime Minister likes to talk about, except that I want to point out the incompetence of the Liberals in keeping their commitments on infrastructure projects. My question is very simple. As the provinces gradually restart their economies, can the Prime Minister tell us how many projects that the provinces have submitted are waiting for approval from his government? Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, I hope that the length of the pause will not be taken out of my time. The Chair: No, I stopped the clock for your time. Ms. McKenna, you have the floor. Hon. Catherine McKenna (Minister of Infrastructure and Communities): I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, I was on mute. I'm very pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. I have spoken with all of my provincial and territorial counterparts over the last couple of weeks. Work on our historic infrastructure program is progressing well. My department has worked very hard to approve projects, and we will continue to do so. It is very important to build projects that will create good jobs The Chair: We are returning to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: We still haven't had a response. How many projects are currently awaiting government approval? I know that the minister has been meeting virtually with the provinces over the last few days. However, there are still hundreds of projects waiting for approval from the Liberal government. Rather than wait for the right political opportunity to approve these files, will the minister commit today to respecting the provinces and approving by next week all the projects that are sitting on her desk? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I'm pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. We are approving projects. If the hon. member speaks to the provinces and territories, he will see how well we are working together. We will announce the approval of projects because it's very important for our economy, our communities and creating good jobs. Mr. Luc Berthold: Does the minister understand that she hasn't told us how many projects are still pending? The construction season is very short. Approval of a project in July means that work can't begin until next year, which won't help revive our economy. Hon. Catherine McKenna: I want to make it clear that we have approved hundreds of projects in the last few weeks. We will work with the provinces, territories, municipalities and indigenous communities to implement these projects. These projects are important for the economy and the environment, as well as for jobs The Chair: We return now to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, while the minister is calling for a green recovery of the country's economy, public transit is at risk. Physical distancing measures will cause public transit use to drop for several months. The Union des municipalits du Qubec estimates that the monthly losses are between $75million and $100million. Other countries have included public transit in pandemic relief programs. Why isn't Canada? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, we recognize the importance of public transit for our economy, since some essential workers use public transit. We are working very closely with our counterparts and are listening to the municipalities. As the Prime Minister said, it's the provinces that must help because the money The Chair: We return now to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, once again, what we're hearing is that the government is passing the buck to the provinces. Unfortunately, the minister was unable to answer a single question about the number of infrastructure projects still on the federal government's desk, which is very important. Several large municipalities are waiting for the approval of projects. Moreover, public transit systems are facing an extremely serious financial crisis. Ridership in most systems is down 85%to90%. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is asking for help for small communities, as well as large municipalities. Why is the federal government ignoring the municipalities in the Canadian Federation of Municipalities at this time? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I can reassure the hon. member that we are working very closely with the municipalities. We are listening to the municipalities to find out what their issues are and how we can support them. Of course, we need the help of the provinces and territories. In terms of the number of projects that we've approved, I would be happy to inform the hon. member of the exact number of all the approved projects that my department has been working very hard on over the past few months to approve projects to go forward. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, do I have any time left? The Chair: No, your time is up. We'll now go on to Mr. Fast. Hon. Ed Fast (Abbotsford, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. This question is directed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. On March 28, the minister personally tweeted out a thank you to the People's Republic of China for donating PPE to Canada. This tweet happened within three hours of China's announcement of that gift. As it turned out, much of the PPE was defective and could not be used. More recently, Taiwan donated half a million surgical masks to Canada, yet here we are, two weeks later, and the minister has yet to personally thank Taiwan for its generosity. Will the minister now thank this free and democratic country for its generous gift to Canadians? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne (Minister of Foreign Affairs): Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank my colleague for the question. Indeed, we are very grateful to every nation for helping Canada. This is a global pandemic that knows no borders. We have been expressing our thanks to many nations that have contributed. We will continue to do so. It is important in a time of pandemic, Mr. Chair, that we not play politics and that humanity comes together. I can say, after my COVID foreign ministers call, that the world community has come together to make sure that supply chains will remain intact and that we will have transit hubs and air bridges. We will continue to work with every nation when it comes to health. This is a public good. We want to work together with everyone. The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Fast now. Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, I didn't hear a thank you there, so I'm going to try again. On May 4, the Government of Taiwan delivered 25,000 surgical masks to the Government of British Columbia. On hand were B. C. Minister of Citizens'Services Anne Kang and Minister of State for Child Care Katrina Chen, who, as ministers, officially thanked the Government of Taiwan for its donation. Again, will the minister now do the right thing and, on behalf of Canadians, recognize the generosity of Taiwan and thank its government for that timely donation? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, as I said to you before, Canada is grateful to all who have given supplies to Canada. This is a common endeavour. We are thankful. We are grateful to every nation and we will continue to be. As I said, when it comes to global health, when it comes to helping each other, I think it is a duty for all to come together. We are grateful and thankful for all those who have agreed to help Canada and Canadians from coast to coast to coast in times of need. I've repeated that and have said many times in many forums that we are grateful and thankful to all of those who are helping Canada. Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, again there was no specific thank you to Taiwan. The Government of Taiwan has been the world leader in successfully fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. We have a lot to learn from them and their response. Sadly, the People's Republic of China continues to oppose Taiwan's membership in the World Health Organization. Will the minister now do the right thing and assure Canadians that he will fully support efforts to grant Taiwan membership in the World Health Organization? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the member. As a former trade minister, he's very well aware of Canada's one China policy. That said, we support Taiwan to continue meaningful participation in international multilateral forums, particularly when it comes to health. This is a global good, and we want to support every nation. We recognize that Taiwan and others have been doing very well in fighting this pandemic. We also believe that Taiwan's role as an observer in the World Health Assembly meeting is of interest to the international health community and we have been supportive of that. Hon. Ed Fast: Mr. Chair, I'm going to pivot to repatriation flights. The minister has publicly said that over 20,000 stranded Canadians have been repatriated from abroad. Can he tell us exactly how many Canadians remain abroad who have expressed a desire to be repatriated? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Yes, Mr. Chair, I am very happy to update members. As of today, we have repatriated more than 20,000 Canadians on 232 flights from 87 countries. I would say that this is team Canada, and it knows no parties. Many members have written to me to make sure that we take care. It's not an exact science. We have, as I said, repatriated thousands and thousands. We continue, because we know there are still pockets of Canadian travellers who are stranded abroad. As the Prime Minister and I have said from the beginning, we will make our best effort to repatriate everyone who wants to come back home during the crisis. The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Moore now. Hon. Rob Moore (Fundy Royal, CPC): Mr. Chair, Canadians need to have faith in their justice system, even in a time of crisis. My office has received correspondence from Canadians concerned that trial delays due to COVID-19 may result in criminals walking free. As this government has been working overtime to criminalize law-abiding citizens with new and useless gun laws, will the Minister of Justice ensure that real criminals will not walk free as a result of delays in the justice system? Hon. David Lametti (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada): Mr. Chair, I thank the honourable member for his question. We have been working with my provincial counterparts across Canada, as well as with the various federal courts and also, through my provincial counterparts, with the superior courts and courts of appeal across Canada. Each particular jurisdiction has taken measures to ensure that basic essential services within the court system are maintained, through a variety of means, and we believe that we will be able to solve these various challenges. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, the regional relief and recovery fund was announced weeks ago as a way to help small and medium-sized businesses in rural communities, like those in my riding. In Atlantic Canada, these funds were to be distributed to the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. This is yet another announcement with no details from this Liberal government. Can the minister clarify whether we are days away or weeks away from this support flowing to the businesses that need it so desperately? Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): Mr. Chair, I had the chance to talk with many of the chambers of commerce and business owners throughout Atlantic Canada, and we hear their anxiety. That's why ACOA's doing great work on the ground to make sure we can help them through this very difficult period. The member is right. We have increased the budget of ACOAgood newsand I'll be coming up with the details very soon. It will be a pleasure to collaborate with him to make sure that we can help many businesses and business owners across the Atlantic region. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, my office has heard from many small business owners who have reached out to me. I know many have reached out to many of my colleagues and probably to all of us here today. They are frustrated by the eligibility requirements for some of the federal programs. In particular, they are unable to access the emergency business account, because they do not have a payroll. This could be the hair salon in my riding that subcontracts out its chairs. There are hundreds and thousands of small businesses in this very situation, vital small businesses in our communities, but they do not meet this requirement. These businesses, many of them, are weeks away from shutting down permanently. What does the Minister of Finance have to say to these small businesses that are suffering right now? Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Mr. Chair, I want to thank my honourable colleague for that really important question. I want all the businesses that he is talking about and all of them throughout the country to know that we continue to work very hard to make sure they're supported through this difficult period. More work needs to be done, and we will continue to do that work. We know that businesses are being supported through getting access to the wage subsidy to keep their employees together, and they're getting help, whether it's with rent or to defray costs by deferring GST and HST or customs duty payments. We're going to continue to work with all our businesses across the country. The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Moore for a brief question. You have less than 20 seconds, please. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, it's a very specific issue. There are small businesses, thousands of them, that do not have a payroll. Some have a personal account that they've dealt with over the years rather than a business account, and that makes them ineligible. These businesses need help right now. Hon. Mary Ng: I agree with the honourable member. Those businesses absolutely need support from us. We are going to keep working to ensure they are supported. The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Cumming next. Mr. James Cumming (Edmonton Centre, CPC): Mr. Chair, small businesses are concerned about their ability to survive, and no amount of deferrals, loans or subsidies can substitute for their need to be open and servicing their customers. Can the government confirm that a sectoral risk analysis has taken place to assist the provinces in reopening the economy? Hon. Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry): Mr. Chair, I can assure the member that we've been very clear in terms of our strategy around reopening the economy. We need to make sure that we follow the advice of the experts and the health authorities to do so in a manner that does not compromise the health and well-being of Canadians. We of course will have a sectoral lens, and as you can see by some of the initiatives and the support packages we've put forward The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Cumming now. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, thousands of business owners make a living and utilize dividends as their salary. They also use independent contractors. Can the government confirm that the programs currently in place will be expanded to these hard-working Canadians? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to assure the honourable member that we continue to work with all of our small businesses and I want to thank him for raising this very important issue. I want to assure our Canadian small businesses that we are going to continue to do this work to make sure they are supported. Mr. James Cumming: Can the minister give me a date when she will be able to announce to these businesses that they will be eligible? Hon. Mary Ng: I want to assure our Canadian small businesses of their importance and of the importance of their contributions to all of our communities. I want them to know that we continue to listen and that we will ensure that they are supported and continue to be supported during this difficult time. Mr. James Cumming: Minister, they need more than assurance. Can you give me a date when I can tell these thousands of businesses they will be supported if they pay dividends or if they use contractors within their businesses? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, these businesses are absolutely important and are getting support through a range of means. We will continue to work with these businesses to make sure they are supported through this difficult period. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, I spoke to a Second Cup owner whose landlord is not offering any kind of rent relief. The landlord says that he doesn't have the 25% needed to be eligible for the program because he's already paying for common area costs and deferrals on utilities, which he will have to pay on his mortgage. Will the government reform the rent relief program to focus on tenants and not just the landlords? Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr. Chair, I want to let the member know that we are working to make sure that the details of the emergency program for rent are out there so that both tenants and landlords can understand the situation. We're seeing a significant number of both landlords and tenants coming forward to register for this program, and we are convinced that it will be in the best interests of landlords to move forward and give tenants this relief. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, we've been hearing, however, from small business owners that their landlords don't find the government's rent relief program appealing enough. Can the government confirm, given the program's low eligibility rate, that the program will be expanded and be more efficient in helping tenants? Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we recognize that it's critically important that all of the details of this program be out there for landlords and tenants to understand. Those details are being worked on right now. This is a program that we've put out within the last week, and we are confident that it's in the best interests of tenants and landlords. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, during these trying times for small businesses, small businesses need all the help they can get. One easy way to do that would be to expand the Canada summer jobs program to businesses with over 50 employees. Will the government consider doing so to allow students to gain that very valuable work experience over the coming months? Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Mr. Chair, we are very excited about the uptake of the Canada summer jobs program this year. The second uptake provided employers across the country with the ability to add their needs for students to the mix. I'm looking forward to announcing a possible expansion of this program in the coming days. The Chair: The next question session will go to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall (SimcoeGrey, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. During this pandemic, the government has consistently called for a team Canada, non-partisan approach, and I was glad to hear that said a little earlier today. In fact, the public has called for that approach as well. However, at the same time, the current government has used a parliamentary back door to launch a poorly thought out gun ban. We have a government that didn't win the popular vote, and I'm just wondering how I explain to my residents, because I'm getting so many calls, that this is not a bloated response because, quite frankly, it is. Hon. Bill Blair (Scarborough Southwest, Lib.): First of all, Mr. Chair, I think the honourable member can explain to his constituents that the forming of regulations through order in council is actually the process prescribed in law in Canada under section 117. 15 of the Criminal Code. I would also invite the member to advise his constituents that way back in 1991, when there were some Conservatives who called themselves Progressive, the Mulroney government brought forward, in Bill C-17, the authority under that section for an order in council to prescribe specific makes, models and variants of military firearms as prohibited or restricted. The Harper government used the same tool The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall: I'm not sure, but I'm hoping, that I'll get an honest answer on this question from the minister, who has everything from rocket launchers to basically toy guns on the ban list. When will we get the cost of this buyback program? The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to please be careful in their language when they are referring to others. I won't comment on this one particularly, but I want all of you to be very, very careful when referring to other members. The honourable minister. Hon. Bill Blair: It's a good opportunity, Mr. Chair, to respond to some of the obfuscations and deceptions that have been put out there. We're not banning any toys and we're not banning shotguns. That's all misinformation that's being put out. I think it's very clear, and I invite the member to look at the list of weapons that are The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Thank you. What will be the cost of the buyback program, please? Hon. Bill Blair: Actually, I'm very much looking forward to bringing forward legislation as soon as the House resumes. We will have a vigorous debate in Parliament about the form a buyback will take and we will bring forward a budget at that time. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Will those with illegal weapons be eligible for the buyback program? Hon. Bill Blair: If people are illegally in possession of the weapons and they're committing a crime, they will be dealt with for the crimes they commit. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Okay. I'm going to switch it over. Canadians in my riding who suffer from cystic fibrosis are among the most vulnerable to COVID-19 infection. While these Canadians with existing lung conditions are incredibly worried about a virus that attacks the ability to breathe, the good news is that there are life-saving medicines for those with CF. The problem is with the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board and its restrictive guidelines. I am wondering if and when the government will correct these guidelines and give access to life-saving medicines for our most vulnerable. Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Mr. Chair, as you know, the government has been very committed to improving access and affordability for prescription medications for all Canadians. The PMPRB regulatory amendments will help Canadians be able to afford their prescriptions, and Canada will continue to be an important market for new medicines. In fact, many countries with much lower medicine prices gained access to new medicines in the same time frame as Canada frame, or even faster, so we are excited to do this work. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Mr. Chair, our seniors are being particularly hard hit right now during this pandemic, yet seniors have not been given any direct support. It's one of the number one calls I'm getting in my office. Funding to charities like the United Way is being labelled as support for seniors, but most won't see any of this support. Seniors in my riding have asked for an increase in their CPP and OAS, and to be able to make untaxed bulk withdrawals from their RRSPs while they still have some value. Can the minister confirm when these real and direct supports for seniors will be forthcoming? Hon. Deb Schulte (Minister of Seniors): I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. He mentioned. I'm not quite sure what's happening with my machine. I apologize. The Chair: You might want to try your space bar and keep it down while you're speaking. That might solve the problem. Hon. Deb Schulte: Okay, I'll try that. Thank you very much. I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. We have introduced a supplementary GST payment for low- and modest-income seniors. We've reduced the minimum RRIF withdrawal by 25%, and we've made the CERB available to working seniors who have lost their jobs due to the COVID pandemic. We know there's more work to do, and we'll have more to say in the future. The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that if there are issues, we are taking note of them, and we'll hopefully resolve them by the next meeting. We are getting much better, and we're all new at this. Thank you for your patience. We'll now go to Ms. Gaudreau. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau (LaurentidesLabelle, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My first question is for the Prime Minister. We've heard a lot about contact tracing apps. Several provinces have already made announcements on this, and others want to follow suit. Today, I'd like to know where the government stands on this. We've been talking about a national strategy for some time. Where are we now? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Obviously, contact tracing is an important part of managing any outbreak. In fact, we have been looking at a number of ways to support increased contact tracing across the country, including working with provinces and territories to boost their capacity through human resources and volunteer organizations. We are working very closely with them to make sure we have the capacity. The member is right that many other countries have used digital contact tracing apps. Anything we put forward as a digital tool to assist with contact tracing would be thoroughly considerate of Canadians'privacy rights. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Let me clarify my question a little. Yes, we are talking about public health, and we are currently experiencing a crisis. But you know as well as I do that the Privacy Commissioner has been calling us to task for a very long time now, because there is also a crisis of confidence. You know as well as I do that for 90%of Canadians, the misuse of their personal data is a cause for concern, whether it be for profiling or business development purposes. This is an issue that concerns all Canadians. The commissioner is indeed calling for a focus on reform of the Privacy Act. I'd like to know whether this commitment will be implemented quickly so that legislation can be passed on this issue, in this case the Privacy Act. Hon. Navdeep Bains: Particular attention must be paid to transparency, privacy and ethical concerns. Naturally, Canadians are concerned about how their data is used. New technologies are subject to the Privacy Act. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: We're talking about public health. The provinces are currently in the process of legislating. We're talking about what is going on in Quebec, among other places, and I would like to make sure that the federal government commits to respecting the proposals regarding geolocation and contact tracing possibilities, with full respect for the right to privacy. Can we commit to respecting the provinces? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have worked very closely with provinces and territories for a long time before the outbreak, but certainly ever since the outbreak. We respect the rights of jurisdictional authorities to use tools that have been properly vetted through their own provincial and territorial legislation. Nothing we would ever do at the federal level would put Canadians'privacy in jeopardy. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Concerning privacy, there are 30million Quebeckers and Canadians who have had their personal data leaked. Why is it that our laws don't allow us to apply financial penalties so that we can then go further? The very basis is to be concerned about our fundamental rights. The commissioner has been making this request for several years now. As the critic for access to information and privacy, I'd like a commitment that the federal government will deal not with what the provinces are doing, but with the Privacy Act. The Chair: Your time is up, but I'll give the floor to the minister for 30seconds. Hon. Navdeep Bains: Thank you for the question. Our government will ensure the privacy of Canadians is respected, support responsible innovation and take reasonable steps to strengthen enforcement powers. That's why we created a digital charter. We are strengthening Canada's privacy laws in response to the digital age. The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Baker. Mr. Yvan Baker (Etobicoke Centre, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll be sharing my time with the member for Malpeque. Mr. Chair, my question is for the Minister of Seniors. Minister, in my riding of Etobicoke Centre, we are mourning the loss of 40 residents to COVID-19 at the Eatonville long-term care centre. Over 143 residents and 88 staff members have now tested positive for the virus. This tragedy is not only taking place in Etobicoke Centre but across Canada. Of all Canadians who have died from COVID-19,79% were living in long-term care homes. That's over 2,000 seniors. This is a catastrophe, and it's frankly unacceptable. Our seniors and their families deserve better. I understand that long-term care homes fall within the jurisdiction of provincial governments in Canada, but this is a crisis. What is the federal government doing right now to help protect our seniors who are living in long-term care homes from COVID-19? What will we do to reform our long-term care homes in the future to ensure that our seniors in Etobicoke Centre and across Canada get the care they deserve? Hon. Deb Schulte: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to my colleague from Etobicoke Centre for his very thoughtful question. We are deeply concerned by the outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care facilities, and our thoughts are with those who have lost a loved one. It's a very difficult time. As my colleague mentioned, while these facilities are regulated by provinces and territories, we have been focused on protecting the health and safety of long-term care residents and staff while working with our partners in a team Canada approach. We've released guidelines to prevent and control COVID-19 infections. We're working with the provinces and territories to cost-share a temporary salary top-up for long-term care workers. We are working through investing $2 billion to secure personal protective equipment for the health of workers, including those in the long-term care homes, and we've deployed the Canadian Armed Forces to assist 25 long-term care homes in Quebec and Ontario. We all have a role to play to stop the spread of COVID-19 and to protect our seniors and caregivers. The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Easter. Hon. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. At the finance committee, we've heard a lot of concerns from all sectors of the economy as a result of COVID-19 and we've been presented with quite a number of possible solutions as well, several of which the government has acted upon. My question is on the support offered to the agri-food sector announced on Tuesday. It is very welcome support, but I sincerely believe the farm sector will be taking the Prime Minister up on the suggestion that $250 million should be seen as an initial investment. Potatoes are the number one commodity in Prince Edward Island. However, as a result of reduced processor contracts for next year, plus cancelled seed contracts, millions of dollars of seed and process potatoes have no home. To make matters worse, farmers have high fixed costs that they now have to spread over fewer acres. How does the minister see Tuesday's announcement addressing potato farmers'concerns? Second, in 2013, long-term financial safety nets were gutted by the Harper government. Will the minister be coming forward with improved business risk management programs as a result? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): Mr. Chair, I want to thank Mr. Easter, the member for the riding of Malpeque on Prince Edward Island. It's a beautiful rural riding with lots of agricultural production. I want to recognize the hard work of farmers throughout the crisis. On Tuesday, I was proud to announce one more step for supporting our producers and processors. We know the importance of our potato farmers, and that's why we are launching a first-ever surplus food purchase program, a $50-million fund designed to help redistribute existing inventories, such as potatoes, to local food organizations. On the financial safety net that we have in place for our farmers, called the business risk management program, we announced up to $125 million in funding through AgriRecovery and made changes to AgriStability that will help producers quickly. I will continue to discuss with my provincial counterparts toenhance and improve the BRM programs. In the meantime, I want to reiterate that BRM programs, including AgriInvest, are there to help farmers in difficult times. The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Johns now. Mr. Gord Johns (CourtenayAlberni, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, small businesses across Canada closed their doors to stop the spread and for public health. Now they're currently hanging off the edge of a cliff waiting for financial help. Robyn, who has owned Arbutus Health in Tofino for over 13 years, can't apply for the Canada emergency business account loan, simply because she doesn't have a payroll of over $20,000. All of her practitioners are paid contractors, so she is ineligible. With no business income and without emergency financing, it is virtually impossible for her to pay her bills or come up with the 25% needed for the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program. The government promised to be flexible and willing to adjust its COVID response rollout so that nobody falls through the cracks, but Robyn, like tens of thousands of proprietors who are the economic job creators of our communities, urgently needs the government's help now. Will the government amend its programs to help more business owners so that people like Robyn don't lose their businesses? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for his really good question. I know he and I have talked about this, and I appreciate the input and the feedback that he is providing from business directly. I want to assure Robyn and her businesses, and many businesses across the country, that we are absolutely listening, and we will continue to make sure we are supporting those businesses during this period. We know that many businesses are being helped through the Canada emergency business account. There are well over 550,000 businesses that are getting support through this emergency business account. We also know that more has to be done, and we will continue to work with you and businesses across the country so that we can indeed give them that necessary support to weather this difficult period of COVID-19. Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, that's not going to help Robyn feel comfort. I was talking to Heather last night, who also owns a business in Tofino, Basic Goodness Pizzeria, with her partner Marco. Like many proprietors of family businesses who aren't on payroll, they don't qualify for the business loans. They don't qualify for the wage subsidy because they're a seasonal business. Now with the new rollout of the rent support, they're not sure if their landlord is willing to play ball and even apply. That's three separate programs that leave them out. Heather was in tears last night as she told me that they have done nothing wrong to deserve being excluded from these emergency programs. I agree. Will the government fix the rent support program so that tenants can apply, instead of leaving it up to landlords, and so businesses can get the help they desperately need? Hon. Mona Fortier (OttawaVanier, Lib.): Mr. Chair, we've been working on this program since the beginning. We've been working on offering a response for small businesses and charities and non-profit organizations, and we are continuing to listen on the ground to how we can better assist the businesses that fall through the cracks. We will continue to do that as we go along in this emergency situation. Thank you very much to the honourable member for sharing the realities of his constituents. Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, when the government rolled out its commercial rent support program, why didn't it negotiate an eviction moratorium with the provinces, as Australia and other countries did, to protect business owners? Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as we know, Canadians are taking action and fighting against COVID-19. We know that many small businesses are worried about being able to pay rent. We've recognized it and we've been working with the provinces and territories to implement the Canada emergency commercial rent The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Johns. Mr. Gord Johns: To qualify for the Canada emergency wage subsidy, a 30% drop in revenue has to be shown. Anyone who's owned a business knows that even with this program, it's going to be hard to survive. Why is the government using a 70% measurement drop to qualify for the rent support program, but a 30% drop for the wage subsidy? Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, Mr. Chair, thank you to the honourable member for sharing his views on this program. We've been working with provinces and territories to provide forgivable loans to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rents for their tenants by 75%. We're hoping that tenants and landlords will be working together so we can support businesses during this very difficult crisis. The Chair: Before we move on to the next question, Mr. Berthold, did you have a question or a point of order? Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, I have a point of order. I checked the clock from the first round of five minutes, and as you may recall, it took a very long time for me to get an answer from the government. I went back and forth with MinisterMcKenna for four minutes and 14seconds. The Chair: Just a moment. The interpretation isn't coming through. It's working now. Go ahead, Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: I'll start over. During my first turn, it took 50seconds before a government minister deigned to answer my questions. After checking my time, I realized that the discussion between Ms. McKenna and I went on for four minutes and 14seconds, so I wasn't able to ask the minister one final question, a very important one. I would ask you to take that into account and allow me to ask MinisterMcKenna one last question, please. The Chair: The person chairing the meeting uses their judgment and does their best to keep an eye on what's going on. They try to be as fair as possible. I'll try to do a better job. I think it's more or less equal for all the members, but I apologize if the honourable member feels that he was denied a few seconds. Our next question goes to Mr. Doherty. Mr. Todd Doherty (CaribooPrince George, CPC): Mr. Chair, the Canada-U. S. border agreement is set to expire on May 20. Will the two governments renew the current agreement, or will it be modified? Hon. Bill Blair: The decision to close the border was made in Canada by Canadians in the best interest of Canadians. We're continuing to monitor the situation carefully. Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government be in a position to inform Canadians of any changes to the agreement? Hon. Bill Blair: I'm pleased to advise the member that we're continuing to monitor the situation, but I'm strongly of the opinion that the circumstances on both sides of our border do not indicate that this is the right time to make a change in the restrictions. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the government confirm whether there are any discussions about reopening the border to certain modes of transportation and restricting others? The Chair: Before I go to the minister, I want to remind the honourable members that we do have translators, and they are trying to translate. With respect to them, I know we're trying to get as many questions in as possible, but they do have to translate them, so please be considerate of our interpreters. The honourable minister has the floor. Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Let me please inform the honourable member that we are, of course, aware that the current agreement expires. I had a long conversation yesterday with the Prime Minister Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government announce a relief package for Canada's aviation industry? Hon. Navdeep Bains: We are engaged with the industry, and we are working with them on a solution, Mr. Chair. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, will this relief package include funding for airline ticket refunds similar to what other countries around the world have done? Yes or no? Hon. Navdeep Bains: It's early to say anything at this moment. We're taking a sectoral approach. This is about making sure that we restart the economy and have a strong recovery. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the Minister of Transport confirm that temperature screening is taking place at Canadian airports. Yes or no? Hon. Marc Garneau (Minister of Transport): Mr. Chair, I can confirm that Air Canada has now adopted a policy of checking temperatures for passengers boarding Air Canada flights. Mr. Todd Doherty: At which airports is that, and when did this practice start? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the announcement was made recently by Air Canada. It will start shortly and will apply to all places and destinations where Air Canada flies. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, this is for the Minister of Transport. Last week I asked the Minister of Labour if they were aware of a letter written on April 6 by CUPE to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Minister, were you aware of that letter? The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly. Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I didn't understand the reference to a letter from CUPE. Could my colleague please clarify? Mr. Todd Doherty: On April 6, CUPE wrote a letter to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Is the minister aware of that letter? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, could my colleague clarify what CUPE is referring to? Mr. Todd Doherty: CUPE is the labour organization that represents thousands of flight attendants across our country. Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I do understand. Yes, I will confirm that CUPE, which represents the flight attendants, did write to us. Before that I had conversations with CUPE with respect to flight attendants and the use of personal protective equipment. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the minister confirm whether or not they have provided PPE to the flight attendants and/or training for front-line staff for airlines and airports? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the airlines are providing PPE to flight attendants and flight crews. This has become a policy to ensure the safety not only of passengers on board but also of the flight attendants and flight crew. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, a business owner from Quesnel wrote to my office recently. He stated that he couldn't give his small business tenants a break on rent because the government is penalizing him for paying off his mortgage. When will the government change the CECRA rules to help more businesses? Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as you know, we laid out the CECRA program just last week, and we are encouraging landlords to take that opportunity to support the renters. We will continue to look at how we can provide some relief to small businesses with rents. Mr. Todd Doherty: With all due respect, Mr. Chair, any landlord who does not have a mortgage on their business is ineligible for CECRA. Is the minister aware of this, and are they trying to revise the CECRA program? Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with provinces and territories to present that program. Of course, we will continue to monitor how this program works for landlords and tenants. We are asking, actually encouraging, landlords to do their part and help tenants, like the one you mentioned, go through this. The Chair: We'll go to the next questioner. Go ahead, Ms. Dancho. Ms. Raquel Dancho (KildonanSt. Paul, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Small businesses in Manitoba employ 73% of Manitobans. That's over 286,000 Manitobans. I've been speaking with many small business owners in my riding. It's been heartbreaking, frankly, to hear that everything they've built and sacrificed for is in serious jeopardy, and through no fault of their own. Your government has created programs that are supposed to help them, but many legitimate businesses aren't able to apply. That could mean bankruptcy and cost thousands of Manitobans jobs. This is wrong. I'm hoping to hear specifics, not just nice words, on what you're going to do to help them. There are three issues regarding access to the $40,000 CEBA loan. First, businesses that recently incorporatedfor example, in late 2019are unable to apply their entire 2019 payroll. As a result, many are falling short of the $20,000 payroll threshold required to qualify for this loan. Second, many businesses contract their employees rather than have them on payroll. They also are unable to qualify for this loan. Third, many businesses use personal rather than business banking accounts. They aren't able to qualify for this loan either. What is your government going to do about these three scenarios? The Chair: I just want to remind honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly to the minister. As well, please take into consideration the interpreters, who have to listen and translate, so that we can have this conversation. Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for that question. Right from the very beginning, we've always said that we will listen and that we will work to make sure that measures go out to help our Canadian small businesses. She's absolutely right: 98% of all our businesses in this country are small businesses, so they absolutely contribute enormously to our communities and are job creators. That is why we have put out significant measures. For the Canada emergency business account, over 550,000 small businesses have been approved and are getting that support. I absolutely acknowledge that there is more work to do. I can assure the honourable member that we will continue to do this work so that businesses, all businesses, are supported, whether it is helping keep your employees together, helping with rent support, helping to keep your business's expenses low, or of course helping with the capital that is needed so that you can pay your operating expenses and your bills through this difficult time. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, I didn't hear any answers from the minister's remarks, unfortunately. Moving on, there are two issues regarding the 50% commercial rent assistance subsidy, where landlords pay 25%, the government pays 50%, and the tenant is responsible for 25%. First, many of the small landlords aren't able to take a 25% hit to their income, and are unable to provide the subsidy to their tenants. Second, with the 70% decline in revenue threshold for small businesses to even be eligible for the rent assist, many restaurants are at 65% or 67% decline. They desperately need this subsidy but aren't able to qualify. This is not about problems with the program details. What is the government planning to do to streamline this program for small businesses that can't access but desperately need the rent subsidy? Hon. Mlanie Joly: Mr. Chair, as the Minister of Official Languages, I just want to raise the fact that interpretation is very complicated right now. In order to make sure that we can continue to uphold bilingualism within the House, I would love it if my colleagues could take down the pace a bit. That would help the interpreters a whole lot. They are working very hard and trying to keep up. The Chair: That's a reasonable request. I just want to remind everyone again that when you're asking a question, make sure you are doing it at a pace at which you're considering the people who are interpreting Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, this is how fast I speak when we're in the House of Commons. It's just how I talk. The Chair: I understand. I have a lot of friends who speak very quickly. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Right. I understand. Perhaps we could get back to my question about the rent subsidy. The Chair: We stopped the time. You're not losing any time on this one. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Okay. I will try to speak more slowly. The Chair: I appreciate it. Thank you. The interpreters appreciate it. Now we'll go to the minister, please. Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with the provinces and territories to provide this forgivable loan to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rent of their tenants by 75%. We will continue to monitor how this program is delivered, as we announced it last week. It will be offered pretty soon. It will be very important that we understand what happens across the country, and we will monitor and adapt the program as we Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, it has been in the media quite a bit that this rent subsidy is not helping many, many, many small business owners. It's falling short of everything that was announced, so I think it needs to be taken a bit more seriously than that. There are two issues regarding the 75% wage subsidy. First, employers who pay themselves and their employees dividends rather than wages are unable to qualify. Second, there is also a 30% threshold revenue decline needed in order to apply. Many of the businesses in my riding are at 27% or 29%. They desperately need these funds but are unable to qualify. What is the government planning to do for these small businesses? Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, thank you to the hon. member for sharing the realities she's hearing from small business owners. We are providing help and support for businesses through these very difficult times. The wage subsidy has been taken up and is working for many businesses. We know that some still fall through the cracks and we will look at how we can continue to support businesses across the country. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends (BrossardSaint-Lambert, Lib.) ): We are now going to Mr. Kevin Waugh. Mr. Kevin Waugh (SaskatoonGrasswood, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. Three weeks ago, on April 17, the Minister of Canadian Heritage announced funding of $500 million to assist Canada's arts, sports and cultural sectors. We are still waiting to hear who is eligible and when they can expect to receive this funding. Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Canadian Heritage): Madam Chair, we will be releasing the details of that announcement, and how the money is going to be spent, in the coming days. Mr. Kevin Waugh: We all know that many media organizations, large and small, in Canada are struggling right now. Allegations have arisen that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CBC, is currently engaging in predatory behaviour and taking advantage of the current situation to harm its competitors using rate cuts. We've seen this from the province of Quebec. Many journalists have talked about this. What is the government going to do to address these allegations against the CBC? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have not been informed of these allegations. We will look into this, and we will get back to the hon. colleague if we do find any valuable information. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Local community and ethnic media outlets and papers have strong ties to their communities that often go much deeper than the major media outlets. Is the government currently using any local or ethnic media outlets to provide crucial coronavirus information through advertising? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, I totally agree with my colleague. We need to get the information to Canadians on COVID-19, which is why we have started an ad-buy campaign of $30 million, which is being distributed in more than 900 local, regional and national newspapers across the country and 500 radio and TV stations in 12 different languages, including Farsi, Mandarin, Spanish, Italian and many more. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Mr. Minister, I talked to the Winnipeg Free Press yesterday. It has received two ads from an ad agency in connection with the $30 million the government is doling out to help media outlets. They had one ad on March 27. The second ad was on April 11. That is two ads in the Winnipeg Free Press in the last eight weeks. Is this the kind of money you're attempting to dole out to help media: two ads in eight weeks? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have been doing a number of things for our media in Canada over the last few months and will continue to do so. On top of that $30 million ad-buy campaign, we have been investing $50 million in local journalism. Just this year, it means that 200 journalists will be hired in areas across the country where journalism is more poorly defined. The federal government has paid part I licence fees of our broadcasters to the CRTC. That means $30 million is staying in the pockets of our broadcasters. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Madam Chair, last week, as the minister would know, 15 community newspapers, including eight in Manitoba and seven in the province of Ontario, closed their doors for good. Is the government currently planning any further measures aimed at assisting community or ethnic media organizations? We understand that many more will close their doors within the next 30 to 60 days. Hon. Steven Guilbeault: We are planning a number of other measures, some of which will be included in the $500 million. I will be announcing the details of that in the coming days. Of the $595 million that the media will receive, we have a tax credit that has now entered into force, and the cheques should be in the mail by the end of the summer. So there are a number of things we've done and a number of things we will be doing in the coming months as well. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Waugh, you may have a short question. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Well, finally, you have the five members associated with that committee to dole out the $595 million. They haven't even met yet. When will they meet? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: I would like to remind my hon. colleague that in order for us to provide tax breaks for the 2019 period, media outlets had to file their tax returns so we could go ahead. This will now be able to proceed, Madam Chair. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We now move on to Mr. Godin. Mr. Godin, you may go ahead. Mr. Jol Godin (PortneufJacques-Cartier, CPC): Thank you, MadamChair. This being the first time I've had the floor during a virtual sitting of Parliament, I'd like to take this opportunity to greet my fellow members, all 259participants. I hope they are taking care of themselves. I'd like to talk about the Prime Minister's appearance on the show Tout le monde en parle. This is what he had to say about his economic recovery plan: We are going to remain focused on the economy as a wholeinnovationresearch and science, the green economy and a fairer economyThere are things we are all reflecting on right now that reflection is going to continue. That was a weak answer. It didn't inspire much confidence. Can the government assure Canadians that it is being proactive and working on a plan to get the economy moving again? It must act now. Things are starting to reopen gradually. Is the government going to take concrete action to revive the economy? Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Yes, absolutely. Our government is wholly committed to restarting the economy, and we are working closely with the provinces to do just that. Last week, our government, together with the provincial and territorial premiers, released the principles that will guide efforts to restore economic activity across the country. That is key. The discussion between the Prime Minister and the premiers is continuing today. Mr. Jol Godin: MadamChair, before we go any further, since it took a while for the minister, or the government, to answer the question, can I have that time back to ask questions? The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I stopped the clock, Mr. Godin. Mr. Jol Godin: Thank you. The Prime Minister's answer during his appearance on Tout le monde en parle didn't inspire much confidence and doesn't line up with the Deputy Prime Minister's comments. How can the government be proud of announcing $252million in assistance for the agri-food sector, when that is less than 1% of all the program funding the government has committed to help Canadians get through the COVID-19 crisis? Clearly, the government doesn't see the food supply chain as a priority and has no regard for farmers and pork and beef producers. Does the government realize that eating is vital to Canadians? When is the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food going to adjust the program and show respect for Canadian farmers? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: I have the utmost respect for farmers. We are going step by step. We've already confirmed various supports for the agricultural sector. This week, we focused on beef and pork producers and processors, as well as sectors with product surpluses that can be redirected to food banks. I can assure my fellow member that this is an additional step and that more supports are on the way in the weeks ahead. Bear in mind that a number of programs are already available to farmers. Mr. Jol Godin: I'd like to switch topics now. PortneufJacques-Cartier is home to a company that is already licensed by Health Canada and that, for 20years, has been manufacturing medical equipment including masks, face shields and thermometers. This is equipment our health workers need. The company has a licence from the federal government. In mid-March, Health Canada reached out to the company to find out how much equipment it could manufacture to help fight COVID-19. The company confirmed that it could immediately start producing 200,000masks a week, ramping up to a million masks over the next few weeks. Forty-five days later, it is still waiting on its first order from the Canadian government. We are managing a crisis with a limited supply of medical equipment. Can the health minister tell us why, 45days later, this company licensed by Health Canada hasn't received an order? Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Thank you for the question. Industry and suppliers have enthusiastically answered our call to equip Canada with products and goods during the crisis. Many of those suppliers have already received contracts. We have reached out to all the others and will negotiate contracts as needed. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I would now like to invite hon. member Jenica Atwin to speak. Mrs. Jenica Atwin (Fredericton, GP): Thank you, Madam Chair. Seniors living alone are most at risk of economic insecurity, particularly single senior women, as gender inequality in the job market has translated all too often into inadequate retirement income. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a poverty reduction plan that addresses the unique challenges faced by older women? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to assure the member that we are quite aware that this pandemic has typically affected single seniors, and many of those, given that they live longer, are single senior women. I want to assure her that we are working on this issue, and we have provided some supports already through measures such as the GST supplementary payment. That is on average almost $400 for single seniors. There's more work to do. We know that, so stay tuned. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, older women represent a high proportion of residents in long-term care facilities. Having spent their lives caring for parents, children and often their partners, they find themselves needing care in nursing homes. Multiple outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care homes in Canada have highlighted systemic gaps that senior and elderly women may face in such facilities, as well as the working conditions of the female-dominated ranks of nurses and personal support workers. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a federal strategy for long-term care homes that recognizes quality of life for residents and working conditions for the employees, ideally one that goes hand in hand with a poverty reduction plan and enhanced home and community care investments across the country? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I do want to thank the hon. member for her question. It's an important one. We are obviously deeply saddened by the outbreaks that have been going on in long-term care facilities and those who have lost their lives. We do recognize that the administration of long-term care and palliative care is the responsibility of provinces and territories; however, we have been taking a team Canada approach, and as you already know, we've been doing tremendous work with them to try to ensure that those who live in those facilities can be well cared for and safe. We are doing that with guidelines The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms. Atwin has the floor. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, from May 4 to May 10, we are observing Mental Health Week. We know that our essential workers right now are experiencing unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety, on top of putting their own physical safety and health on the line. Most of these workers work in precarious jobs with no access to paid sick leave or vacation, and without any benefits to access mental health services. Apart from the very welcome investments in online resources, can the minister explain how the government will support these workers now and once the crisis is behind us? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, thank you very much to the member for the question. I'm so glad that she's raising the issue of mental health and in particular how poor mental health is oftentimes connected to our socio-economic status. I appreciate the nuance in that question. She's right. We do have new resources that are available to all Canadians free of charge through the Wellness Together portal, but there is more to do. I think the announcement of top-up wages, for example, which the Prime Minister spoke about today, is another example of how we're taking the health and wellness of all low-income Canadians very seriously. We know that mental health is not divorced from socio-economic status, and I look forward to working with her more on other measures that we can take together. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, we're all very aware of the importance of temporary foreign workers and their role in ensuring our food sovereignty across this country. The pandemic has highlighted how we depend on their work. How are we protecting them? Madam Chair, will the government take action to strengthen legislation and ensure Canadians have access to the food they need while the workers who help bring it to our tables have safe working conditions, regardless of where they are working in this country? Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Thank you, Madam Chair. We are very concerned, as are countries around the world, that we support and create the environment for the health and safety of our temporary foreign workers and we value their contribution to our food supply chain here in Canada. We have issued guidelines to employers and are working very closely with local public health authorities in the provinces and territories to make sure workers are protected, that physical distancing and other recommendations are adhered to and that there are severe consequences if employers don't take care of their workers. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We are now going to Mr. MacGregor. Mr. Alistair MacGregor (CowichanMalahatLangford, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. My first question is this: Will the Liberal government prevent federal bailout funds from going to companies that use tax havens and avoid paying their fair share here in Canada, yes or no? Hon. Diane Lebouthillier (Minister of National Revenue): We are working to make sure that anyone who tries to circumvent the rules faces serious consequences. We are asking businesses to designate a representative to attest their claims. Any employer receiving the subsidy who is deemed ineligible will have to repay the full amount. Anyone who abuses the program could face fines of up to 225% of the subsidy amount as well as five years in prison. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, I didn't really hear a yes to that question, so I'll repeat it. Does the government really think it's appropriate for tax-avoiding corporations to receive funding provided for by taxpayers? Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: We will keep going after companies that engage in tax evasion. I want to be clear. We will target those who are responsible, not innocent workers. An employee is an employee, regardless of who they work for. The wage subsidy program does not hand a blank cheque over to employers. It is meant to help Canadians pay their bills, keep their jobs and get through the crisis. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, the agriculture funding announced by the government earlier this week amounts to less than 10% of what the Canadian Federation of Agriculture estimates will be required to help farmers weather this crisis. Why has the Minister of Agriculture shortchanged our farmers? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, this is one more step. This was one more step. We have already committed significant support to our farmers through different programs, and we will do more. I have to remind my colleague that we have put in $5 billion through FCC, $50 million for the temporary foreign workers, two times $50 million for pork and beef producers this week, and $77 million for food processing. This is only the beginning, and we should not forget that the business risk management programs are still there to offer support. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Yes, Madam Chair, but we're nearly two months into this pandemic and this announcement only came this week. Farmers need certainty. When can farmers expect further updates on funding, and how much will the government be providing? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, we are working closely with the farmers and their representatives to identify where the gaps are, but once again, we have made improvements to the AgriStability program. They can get, depending on the province, either 50% or 75% in advance payments, and they can also, right now, access their AgriInvest program. There is more than $2 billion ready to access today, if they have The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. MacGregor. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, federal disability recipients and seniors on fixed incomes have been hardest hit by cost of living increases from COVID-19. If we acknowledge that $2,000 per month is the minimum needed to get through this time, why are they being asked to survive on far less? When can they expect assistance, and how much will they receive? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to make sure people realize that we have provided some assistance through the GST supplementary benefit. We are also providing support to those who are still working, and we have done that by allowing them to access the CERB. There is more work to be done, so you'll be hearing more in the near future. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, as I think we've heard through today's question period, there are countless example of this government designing programs to exclude many small businesses that desperately need help. Whether it's the payroll requirements or other eligibility, we still, to this day, almost two months into the pandemic, have too many small businesses falling through the cracks. Madam Chair, why has the government taken this approach and when can we finally expect fixes to the whole system? Hon. Mary Ng: Madam Chair, right from the get-go, we have been committed to making sure that Canadians are helped through this crisis, and that small businesses get the support that they need, so that we are saving businesses and jobs in this country. That is what we have done with many of our programs. You're seeing that we are also listening, so that we can modify them as we need. I want to assure the member that the work is not done. We continue to do this. The Chair: Thank you. It is now over to Mr. Perron. Mr. Perron, you may go ahead. Mr. Yves Perron (BerthierMaskinong, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question will come as no surprise, since it has to do with agriculture. I hear the questions my fellow members are asking, and to be frank, I don't find the answers satisfactory. It is well and good to talk about existing programs, but they aren't working, so enough with that refrain. That's what people are telling us. It's not just members of the opposition saying it. This morning, both farmers and processors came together for a press conference at the Union des producteurs agricoles's head office in Longueuil. Six stakeholders from different sectors sounded the alarm. Can the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food therefore tell us when she will announce significant supports for the industry? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We have already announced significant amounts of support, and more is on the way. I'd like to correct my fellow member. It's not that the programs aren't working; it's that they aren't generous enough in farmers'eyes. That's why I'm working with my provincial counterparts to make improvements to programming, including AgriStability. Here's an example. After using the online AgriStability benefit estimator, a pork producer found out that he would get $11 per head, as they say in the industry. Pork producers are calling for $20 per head, so it's a good start, even though it's not enough and it isn't what they are asking for. We want to keep working together, but farmers have to access the money available to them through AgriStability. Mr. Yves Perron: Now it's my turn to correct the minister. Even before the crisis, we were hearing from people in the industry that the programs were neither suitable nor sufficient. We are in a crisis, and this is an exceptional situation. In the case of mad cow disease, farmers received direct assistance. That's the kind of assistance we are calling for. We don't want to hear about growing levels of debt. Of course, this is a first step, but farms are already deep in debt. A few days ago, the government announced $50million in funding for pork producers, even though they are asking for $20per hog for 27million hogs. The government's support covers just 2. 5million hogs. When I call the measure insufficient, I mean it is grossly insufficient. It's high time the government put forth more support. It has to stop saying that it's working hard and examining the situation. The government has to listen to the people in the industry. Again, this morning, they had some interesting proposals. When is the government going to announce a whole lot more in funding support? What's been announced so far is only 10% of what farmers are asking for. Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We are going step by step. The programs are already in place. We are trying to make them better, and we are committed to doing that. These programs are cost-shared with the provinces. However, I would point out to the member that, when it comes to AgriRecovery, we made an exception to the rule. We are moving forward in every province to help pork and beef producers. That's two funding envelopes of $50million each to help cover the additional costs from the decrease in plant processing capacity. That's new money that was not yet available, money we introduced this week. As the Prime Minister said, we are going to do more, and we are moving forward step by step. Mr. Yves Perron: What we concluded in committee this week is that the $125million is not new money. It was already earmarked for the programs. The government can't say that programs already exist and, at the same time, claim that they are new programs. Something doesn't add up there. What's more, there are different ways to make money available. I'd like to talk compensation. Everyone knows that the Canada-U. S. -Mexico Agreement came into force a month earlier than planned, despite the promises that had been made. That resulted in additional losses, once again. An easy way to make money available without committing new spending is to provide compensation and announce programs for supply-managed sectors that got nothing. It seems to me that a time of crisis is a time for the government to practise some judo and announce measures. I am reaching out to the government, as I always do, but it has to come forward with announcements. Can we expect the government to announce measures in the coming days? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Our commitment to farmers in supply-managed sectorsmeaning, egg, poultry and dairy farmersis as strong as it always was. I repeat, our commitment is clear. Dairy producers received their first payment at the end of last year or the beginning of this year. Support for poultry and egg farmers is in the form of investment programs, which aligns well with the recovery. At this time, we are focusing on emergency programs to help farmers hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. When it comes to the dairy sector, I hope I can count on your support. As you know, legislative changes are needed to grant the Canadian Dairy Commission's request and increase its borrowing limit by $200million so it can buy more butter and cheese. The Chair: Our next question will go to Mr. Lake. Hon. Mike Lake (EdmontonWetaskiwin, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we're all inundated, as we've heard during this entire question period, with Canadians'concerns about the economic restrictions and the social restrictions that they're under. Over the last couple of months, the WHO has given one very consistent message in terms of coming out of those economic and social restrictions. On March 16, Dr. Tedros said in his briefing, We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test. On March 25,44 days ago, he said, Aggressive measures to find, isolate, test, treat and trace are not only the best and fastest way out of extreme social and economic restrictionstheyre also the best way to prevent them. Does the minister agree with the WHO that relentless testing and tracing are critical to a successful economic and social relaunch strategy in Canada? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thanks to the member for the very astute observation and question. Absolutely, we agree that testing and contact tracing will form an important part of our response to living with COVID. We've been investing heavily in ensuring that we have the lab capacity, the collaboration across provinces and territories, and the variety of testing options to help us increase our capacity to test. We are aiming right now for a high volume of tests, but I will also say that in Canada we have one of the highest testing rates in the world. Although we're doing well, I can assure him that I am with him and I believe we need to do more. Hon. Mike Lake: I have some really quick questions for follow-up. First, what is Canada's current testing capability? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as I mentioned to his colleagues yesterday, we have currently the capacity to do approximately 60,000 tests per day across the country. Hon. Mike Lake: How many tests were conducted each day on average in Canada last week? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, it's hard for me to get that exact number, but I will get back to him with the exact number. Hon. Mike Lake: I'll save you the time. The exact number was 28,851, on average, every day last week. That's a gap of 30,000 from what your stated testing capability is. I'll give another quote from Dr. Tam, back on April 22,15 days ago. She said, As a first tranche, roughly close to 60,000 is where the provinces can potentially expand to as a target already. Does the minister happen to know, ballpark, what the average number of daily tests in Canada has been since that statement? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Your estimate was slightly higher than what my estimate was going to be, so that's a great piece of news. Listen, I will just say that I think if the premise here is that we could be doing more testing. I would agree, but I will also say that the provinces and territories are working incredibly hard on testing strategies that meet their own specific needs. I'm happy to have a conversation with the member later about that testing strategy. Dr. Tam works with all the chief public health officers across the country to ensure that their testing strategy is going to be applicable and appropriate for their particular jurisdictions. We, as the federal government, provide the capacity for them to conduct those tests. Hon. Mike Lake: Following up on that, is there a jurisdiction in Canada where relentless testing is not the appropriate strategy as provinces consider relaunching? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Each province and territory has its own outbreak and its own epidemic. For example, in British Columbia, where there are relatively fewer cases in general and less disease activity, they may have a different testing strategy than a province like Ontario, which is currently struggling with more outbreaks. Hon. Mike Lake: Given your comment that our current testing capability is 60,000, and acknowledging that only at one point in the entire history of our COVID response, over several months, has our weekly average been over 30,000it was about 31,000 for one day on a rolling basisMinister, are you satisfied with our current testing amounts right now, given that we're testing 50% of what the public health officer advises would be best? Hon. Patty Hajdu: I'm so amazed by the work the provinces and territories have done in a very short time to increase their capacity. We are supporting them with the tools that they need to get more testing done, but also to have other components in place that will allow them to do the rapid tracing of positive cases. I think it's very important to remember that testing strategies will be different across the provinces, based on the outbreak disease epidemiology. Having said that, I know that we can all do better, and I'm certain that my counterparts feel the same. The Chair: I'm going to have to cut the minister off at that one. I want to thank everyone for the session today, I think it went rather well. I'm very proud of you and proud of ourselves for what we managed to accomplish. The committee stands adjourned until Tuesday, May 12, at noon.

Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health) introduced that the government had been very committed to improving access and affordability for prescription medications for all Canadians. The PMPRB regulatory amendments would help Canadians be able to afford their prescriptions, and Canada would continue to be an important market for new medicines. However, it was challenged that seniors were being particularly hard hit right now during this pandemic, yet seniors had not been given any direct support. As a promise, the government assured the committee that appropriate attention had been paid to the senior patients.

tr-sq-633

tr-sq-633_0

What did the meeting talk about the contact tracing apps? The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.) ): We'll call this meeting to order. Welcome to the fifth meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. Pursuant to the order passed on Monday, April20, the committee is meeting today to consider ministerial announcements, to allow members of the committee to present petitions, and to question ministers, including the Prime Minister, about the COVID-19 pandemic. Tomorrow, May8, Dr. AndreaMcCrady, Dominion Carillonneur, will give a special recital to mark the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day. Victory in Europe Day, VE Day, commemorates the formal acceptance of Germany's surrender by allied forces at the end of the Second World War. While the pandemic prevents us from gathering to celebrate in person, tomorrow at noon the voice of our nation will ring out in remembrance of this milestone in our history. Today's meeting is taking place by video conference. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. Just so you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entire committee. I would like to remind members that, as in the House of Commons or committee, they should not take photos of their colleagues or film the proceedings. In order to facilitate the work of the interpreters and to allow the meeting to proceed smoothly, I would ask you to follow some instructions. The video conference will be interpreted as in normal meetings of committees and in the House. In the lower part of your screen, you can choose the language: floor, English or French. Please wait until I call on you by name before you begin to speak. When you are ready to speak, click on the microphone icon to activate your microphone, or hold the space bar down while you are speaking. If you release the bar, your microphone will revert to mute, just like a walkie-talkie. Honourable members, I would like to remind you that if you want to speak English, you should be on the English channel. If you want to speak French, you should be on the French channel. Should you wish to alternate between the two languages, you should change the channel to the language that you are speaking each time you switch languages. Please direct your remarks through the chair. Should you need to request the floor outside of your designated speaking time, you should activate your mike and state that you have a point of order. If a member of the committee wishes to intervene on a point of order raised by another person, you should use the raised hand function to indicate to the chair that you wish to speak. To do this, click on the participant button at the bottom of your screen. When the list appears, you will see the raised hand option beside your name. Speak slowly and clearly at all times. When you are not speaking, leave your microphone on mute. It is highly recommended that you use a headset with a microphone. You have to remember to switch languages. Should any technical challenges arise, for example, in relation to interpretation, please advise the chair immediately by raising a point of order, and the technical team will work on resolving them. Please note that we may need to suspend during these times in order to correct a problem. I want to remind the honourable members to mute their microphones when they are not speaking. If you get accidentally disconnected, please try to rejoin the meeting with the information you used to join initially. If you are unable to rejoin, please contact our technical support team. Before we get started, please note that in the top right-hand corner of your screen is a button that you can use to change views. Speaker view allows you to focus on the person currently speaking; gallery view allows you to see a larger number of participants. You can click through the multiple pages in the gallery view to see who is on and how many more participants there are. I understand there are no ministerial announcements today. We will now proceed to presenting petitions for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during the meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. In addition, to ensure a petition is considered properly presented, the certificate of the petition and each page of the petition for a petition certified in a previous Parliament should be mailed to the committee no later than 6 p. m. the day before. Now we'll go to presenting petitions. Mr. Genuis. Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Mr. Chair, five years ago when Parliament passed Bill C-14, then justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said that it represented a finely tuned balance between access and safeguards. It also included a five-year review. Petitioners on the first petition I'm presenting are very concerned to see Bill C-7 before Parliament, which removes safeguards ahead of that five-year review. Petitioners specifically mention their concerns about the removal of the mandatory 10-day reflection period, which can already be waived in certain circumstances. They are concerned about reducing the number of witnesses required to oversee it and ensure that a request has been properly made. I commend that petition to the consideration of the House. The second and final petition that I will be presenting today is with respect to Senate Bill S-204. This would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ from a person who did not consent. This responds specifically to concerns about organ harvesting in the People's Republic of China involving Falun Gong practitioners and increasing concerns that this is being or about to be applied to Uighurs as well. Canada can and should take action on this. Petitioners are noting that in the previous Parliament there were bills on this, Bill C-350 and Bill S-240. Now, in this Parliament there is a bill, Bill S-204, and the petitioners hope that this 43rd Parliament will be the one that gets it passed. The Chair: We will go to Ms. May. Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's an honour. This is my first occasion to present a petition in our virtual format of the COVID-19 committee. Thank you to you and your staff, Mr. Chair, for developing a system that allows us to present petitions electronically. The petition I am presenting today, which was previously approved, is from a number of constituents who are concerned that we pursue the Paris Agreement to hold the global average temperature increase to no more than 1. 5C. The Paris Agreement itself embeds in it the concept of Just Transition with a capital J and a capital T, the concept of just transition ensuring fairness and support for all workers in the fossil fuel sector. The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to move forward with an act to ensure just transition and to ensure adequate funding so that workers and communities dependent on the fossil fuel sector receive meaningful support to ensure security in their lives in the transition to more sustainable energy use. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Chair: Those are all the petitions for today. I want to thank the honourable members for their usual collaboration and now we'll go on to Mr. James Bezan (SelkirkInterlakeEastman, CPC): On a point of order, Mr. Chair, on Tuesday, at our COVID-19 committee of the whole meeting, I was asking a question which started at 12: 56: 06 and was cut off at 1: 00: 32, so I still have 34 seconds of time remaining in my question time of five minutes. You said it could be no more than five minutes but that I had up to five minutes. Thirty-four seconds leaves a lot of time to have a quick question and a quick response. If you believe that my time was unjustly cut off and that it was unfair treatment of the official opposition when we were raising our points of order, I would ask that the 34 seconds be tacked on to the opening round for the opposition and credited to Rosemarie Falk, who will be leading off for the Conservatives. The Chair: Normally what happens is the chair uses judgment, and with 35 seconds, there isn't enough time obviously for a full question or answer, most of the time. I'll take it under advisement. I can't allot it. I want everyone to know that I do have a timer next to me and I am timing the questions, and I will be treating the answers the same way. If it's a 25-second question, it will be a 25-second answer. Thank you for bringing that up. I believe that issue has been remedied. We've taken a little bit of the chair's ability to give judgment on it, but it will be from now on. Thank you. Mr. James Bezan: Mr. Chair, 34 seconds is a considerable amount of time to do a short question and a short answer. The Chair: I appreciate the advice. Thank you, Mr. Bezan. We'll now proceed to the questioning of ministers. I would like to remind the honourable members that no member will be recognized for more than five minutes at a time and that members may split their time with one or more members by so indicating to the chair. Ministers responding to the questions should do so by simply turning on their microphone and speaking. Our first questioner is Ms. Falk. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk (BattlefordsLloydminster, CPC): Mr. Chair, yesterday, Elizabeth May and the leader of the separatists declared oil to be dead. It's certainly not dead, but it's dying under the Trudeau government. Will the Prime Minister stand up for Canada's energy workers, or does he agree with the fringe left and those who want to destroy our country? Ms. Elizabeth May: I have a point of order. The Chair: Go ahead, Ms. May. Ms. Elizabeth May: Mr. Chair, I believe that the language that the honourable member just used is unparliamentary Mr. Garnett Genuis: That's not a point of order. Ms. Elizabeth May: We can have differences of opinion, but it is absolutely Some hon. members: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: unacceptable and violates my privileges to An hon member: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: No, it's not debate. I would ask the chair to rule on that, not the member from the Conservative Party. It is unacceptable to assert that anyone who wants to make a point about our economy is trying to destroy the country. This allegation is a violation of my privilege. An hon. member: She was also named by the The Chair: Order. I didn't recognize anyone. I don't know who is speaking, so I'll just start talking myself. I want to remind honourable members to have respect in their questions and in their answers. When you refer to someone, please refer to them respectfully. This is a committee of the House, and I would expect no less of the honourable members. We'll go to the right honourable Prime Minister. You have 16 seconds. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. As I pointed out this morning in my press conference, we cannot move forward on a transformation of our energy sector without supporting the workers in that energy sector. We need their innovation and we need their hard work if we are going to lower our emissions, if we are going to reach our The Chair: We'll go to Ms. Falk again. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, it has been 43 days since the finance minister promised Canada's energy sector liquidity through the Business Development Bank of Canada. For 43 days the finance minister has failed to deliver on that promise. These delays cost jobs and they are costing us Canadian businesses. If the government doesn't step up to support our energy sector, they are in effect doubling down on their support for foreign, unethically sourced oil. Mr. Chair, when will the credit options be available to Canada's small and medium energy firms? The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that we do have interpreters who are listening and translating. In consideration to them, please speak at a reasonable pace so that they can understand and then translate. The right honourable Prime Minister. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, our priority through this pandemic and this crisis has been to support workers across the country. We have sent billions of dollars to workers right across the country, including Alberta, Saskatchewan, B. C. , and Newfoundland and Labrador in the energy sector for them to be able to support their families through this difficult time. We are also working on sectoral supports right across the country. Those will be announced in due course. Our focus from the get-go has been The Chair: We'll move to Ms. Falk. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, another group that has been ignored by the Liberals is our farmers. The announcements to date fall well short of what is needed to maintain a steady supply of affordable and healthy food. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture has asked the government for a $2. 6-billion emergency fund. Instead of responding to specific COVID-19 challenges, our farmers are facing the Liberals'reannounced $125 million that was already budgeted in the AgriRecovery program. Will the Prime Minister finally step up and take our food supply chain seriously, or is agriculture just an afterthought for him? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: On the contrary, Mr. Chair, we take agriculture and our agricultural sector extremely seriously, which is why we announced hundreds of millions of dollars a couple of days ago to respond to pressing needs. We will continue to make investments to ensure both the safety of workers in our agricultural sector and the safety of our communities, as well as the continued flow of high-quality Canadian food onto our tables right across the country. Supporting the people who produce our food is a priority for this government and will continue to be. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Well, Mr. Chair, recycled program announcements do not respond to the immediate needs facing our farmers. This is absolutely unacceptable. Our farmers are faced with rising operational costs, a disrupted service industry, labour shortages and a reduced capacity at processing plants. The government has a responsibility to take domestic food security seriously. When will the Prime Minister deliver adequate support to address the critical changes facing our ag industry? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I would suggest respectfully that the honourable member take a look once again at the announcement we made, which actually highlights significant new investments to support our agricultural industry. I certainly agree that there is more to do. Every step of the way in this unprecedented situation, we've been moving forward on doing more, on adjusting and on investing more. We need to support our agricultural sector and the people who work so hard to put food on Canadians'tables right across the country and we will continue to. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, Canadians expect to find healthy and affordable food at their grocery stores, but if the government does not take action now, that's not a given. Our farmers are trying to keep Canadians fed while keeping their heads above water. The Liberal government's own failed federal carbon tax is weighing them down. It is an enormous hit to their bottom line, and the recent carbon tax hike is taking even more money out of the pockets of farmers at a time when they can afford it the least. Will the Prime Minister exempt all farm operations from the carbon tax and reimburse the money that they have already taken from them? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, it's a shame to hear the member opposite accidentallyunintentionally, I'm certainmislead the House and Canadians. The price on pollution actually puts more money into Canadians'pockets, and that includes farm families. People who pay the cost of the price on pollution on average receive more money back. This is the way of creating a better future for our kids and grandkids, which I know people in communities right across the country, including our farm communities, want to see happen. We are moving forward in a responsible way to put a price on pollution and put more money in average Canadians'pockets. The Chair: We now continue with Mrs. Gill. Mrs. Gill, you have the floor. Mrs. Marilne Gill (Manicouagan, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. As you know, all sectors of the economy are fragile at the moment, specifically the fisheries. I am thinking about the lobster fishery in the Magdalen Islands, the crab fishery on the Cte-Nord or those fishing for herring in the south of the Gasp. Because imports have ceased, because the domestic market is weak and in decline because of the interruption of the tourism and restaurant industries, the fishing industry and its fishers must be supported. I would like to know what the government has done to support our fishers since the crisis began. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Our fishers do exceptional work that is extremely important in feeding Canadians and in contributing to our economic success through their exports around the world. This crisis has struck them very hard. That is why we have established measures in the tens of millions of dollars to support our processors. We have also announced help for the fishers. We know that these are difficult and unprecedented times, and we are going to Mrs. Marilne Gill: My thanks to the Prime Minister. I am actually talking about help for the fishers. I know about the processing industry and the $62. 5million to be used essentially for freezing products, but I am talking about the fishers themselves. Given the economic situation, most of our fishers are getting ready to leave. First, there are health risks. We know very well that it is impossible for them to observe all the social distancing measures. They have to incur additional expenses in order to conduct their normal fishing activities. In addition, they feel that they will be losing money, because of the drop in the price of their resource. They are just as essential as farmers, but they are going to have to work at a loss and they are not going to have workers to assist them. Workers in the seasonal industry do not know what tomorrow will bring. They do not even know whether they will be able to put food on the table next year. Are you going to do anything else, in addition to the assistance of $62. 5million? Time is of the essence. Our fishers have lacked certainty for weeks and they are very concerned. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Yes, indeed, we are going to do other things. Other investments will be made in various sectors in order to support Canadians. We recognize the challenges that fishers must face in terms of social distancing and of work that is often seasonal. We are going to continue working with the industry, with the fishers, and with the coastal communities in order to ensure that people have confidence in their abilities and in their future. In times of crisis, it is important for the government to be there to support people, and that is exactly what we are going to continue to do. This is an unprecedented crisis, but we can see once more that Canadians are there for each other. Our government will continue to be there for the fishers and the fishing industry. Mrs. Marilne Gill: I would have preferred us to be there from the start. Clearly, this is a difficult crisis. But, given the cyclical nature of the industry, some sectors have had to postpone for several weeks the preparations they need for fishing activities. The current program could be modified in a number of ways, to accommodate the cycle, the dates, and the size of the companies. They would really like to take advantage of the $40,000loan, but they cannot because of their payroll. Given the dates, they are also ineligible for the 75%salary subsidy. I can already suggest a number of solutions to the government and to the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, that would bring help to those businesses very quickly. The fishers carry on, because it is a duty for them, because they want to help us and to be part of the effort at this time of crisis. At the same time, they have no guarantee that they will be supported. I would really like to hear a guarantee that they will be supported, that they will be able to put food on the table this year, and that they will be able to support the communities that often depend on the fishing industry, a major industry in those communities. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Minister Jordan has been working with the fishers, the fishing industry and the communities affected by the crisis since the crisis began. We are assessing a number of solutions. We have proposed various solutions to support the communities, the workers and the families. This is an unprecedented situation. From the outset, our priority has been to support the millions of Canadians from coast to coast who have lost their jobs. We have been able to do so, but we are going to continue to work for those who must now face difficulties. We are going to be there for each other. That is what people are expecting from our government and from other Canadians. The Chair: Before we move to the next question, I would like to remind members of the committee to speak slowly, and to address their remarks to the chair and not directly to each other. Thank you very much. We will now go to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach (SkeenaBulkley Valley, NDP): Mr. Chair, municipalities across Canada are facing a financial crisis. They've seen revenues plummet, and at the same time the cost of delivering municipal services has risen. As the Prime Minister knows, municipalities are unable to run deficits and so they are facing the reality of cutbacks and serious cuts to the services that Canadians depend on. We know that municipalities are vital during this time to provide services to Canadians. They're going to be even more important during the recovery, especially when it comes to delivering on the infrastructure programs before us. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities and mayors across Canada have called for emergency financial relief for the municipal sector. My question for the Prime Minister is, when can they expect federal financial support to arrive? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, no government in Canada's history has done more to work with our municipalities, with our cities, with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to respond to the challenges they're facing and to partner with them. Things from infrastructure to investments have made a huge difference right across the country in the quality of life of Canadians in towns, large and small, from coast to coast to coast. As I'm sure the member well knows, our Constitution requires that most of the funding for municipalities flow through the provinces. We are working with the provinces, as we continue to work with the cities, to ensure that we're able to support this order of government that delivers the vast majority of services to Canadians with very little financial means. We know how difficult it is for our cities. We will continue The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, it would seem that the federal government has the fiscal capacity and the responsibility to help municipalities weather this crisis. Transit systems have been hit particularly hard and have seen the bulk of the layoffs in the municipal sector. These transit services carry essential workers to work, whether they are health care workers, grocery store workers, janitors or others. The risk is that we will see higher fares to deal with this financial crisis. We will see service cutbacks precisely at a time when we want to be expanding transit and improving transit in our communities. Does the Prime Minister acknowledge that the federal government needs to step in to safeguard and protect Canada's transit services? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, this federal government recognizes how important it is to support all Canadians, which is why we put forward unprecedented measures to help millions upon millions of Canadians with the CERB and with the wage subsidy. We will continue to work with the provinces, which have jurisdiction over the municipalities. I'll be having a conversation with all other first ministers tonight to talk about a broad range of issues. I can highlight that the issue of transit funding has come up. We have continued to engage with them, but again, it is important to respect the Constitution and understand that funding for municipalities and cities does go through the provinces. The federal government is happy to be there to support, but it must be The Chair: We will go to Mr. Bachrach again. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I am wondering how the Prime Minister could explain to a bus driver in Vancouver who has been laid off that as a public sector worker, she can't access the federal wage subsidy, while an equivalent worker in the airline industry gets to keep her job with the federal help of that program. Could the Prime Minister explain how that is fair? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I'm happy to explain to the member and to all Canadians that our Constitution creates federal areas of jurisdiction and provincial areas of jurisdiction. The airline industry, like banking, like telecommunications, is a federal area of jurisdiction that we have been able to move forward on. More than that, we brought the Canada emergency response benefit and the wage subsidy to all industries across this country, because we knew that as the federal government, it was something that we needed to step up on The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I'd like to shift gears a little bit. Faced with minimal health care capacity, remote indigenous communities in my riding are taking matters into their own hands. The Nuxalk have put up a checkpoint on Highway 20 to protect community members and prevent non-essential travel. In particular, it is to protect the three remaining fluent speakers of the Nuxalk language, these cherished elders in their community. The Haida on Haida Gwaii have set up a similar checkpoint, as have communities throughout British Columbia, yet federal support for indigenous communities amounts to only $39 million for all of the indigenous communities in B. C. Does the Prime Minister not agree that more support is warranted to help indigenous communities in my riding and across the country? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, we made funds available to Canadians right across the country, particularly people in indigenous remote or northern communities who we knew would be facing more difficult challenges because of the existing vulnerabilities in their health care system and socio-economic circumstances. We have made unprecedented investments and we will continue to make the necessary investments, because we need to make sure that indigenous Canadians, and indeed all Canadians, have the supports they need to make it through this crisis. The Chair: We will continue with Mr. Berthold. Mr. Berthold, you have the floor. Mr. Luc Berthold (MganticL'rable, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I am going to keep talking about the area of jurisdiction that the Prime Minister likes to talk about, except that I want to point out the incompetence of the Liberals in keeping their commitments on infrastructure projects. My question is very simple. As the provinces gradually restart their economies, can the Prime Minister tell us how many projects that the provinces have submitted are waiting for approval from his government? Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, I hope that the length of the pause will not be taken out of my time. The Chair: No, I stopped the clock for your time. Ms. McKenna, you have the floor. Hon. Catherine McKenna (Minister of Infrastructure and Communities): I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, I was on mute. I'm very pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. I have spoken with all of my provincial and territorial counterparts over the last couple of weeks. Work on our historic infrastructure program is progressing well. My department has worked very hard to approve projects, and we will continue to do so. It is very important to build projects that will create good jobs The Chair: We are returning to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: We still haven't had a response. How many projects are currently awaiting government approval? I know that the minister has been meeting virtually with the provinces over the last few days. However, there are still hundreds of projects waiting for approval from the Liberal government. Rather than wait for the right political opportunity to approve these files, will the minister commit today to respecting the provinces and approving by next week all the projects that are sitting on her desk? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I'm pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. We are approving projects. If the hon. member speaks to the provinces and territories, he will see how well we are working together. We will announce the approval of projects because it's very important for our economy, our communities and creating good jobs. Mr. Luc Berthold: Does the minister understand that she hasn't told us how many projects are still pending? The construction season is very short. Approval of a project in July means that work can't begin until next year, which won't help revive our economy. Hon. Catherine McKenna: I want to make it clear that we have approved hundreds of projects in the last few weeks. We will work with the provinces, territories, municipalities and indigenous communities to implement these projects. These projects are important for the economy and the environment, as well as for jobs The Chair: We return now to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, while the minister is calling for a green recovery of the country's economy, public transit is at risk. Physical distancing measures will cause public transit use to drop for several months. The Union des municipalits du Qubec estimates that the monthly losses are between $75million and $100million. Other countries have included public transit in pandemic relief programs. Why isn't Canada? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, we recognize the importance of public transit for our economy, since some essential workers use public transit. We are working very closely with our counterparts and are listening to the municipalities. As the Prime Minister said, it's the provinces that must help because the money The Chair: We return now to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, once again, what we're hearing is that the government is passing the buck to the provinces. Unfortunately, the minister was unable to answer a single question about the number of infrastructure projects still on the federal government's desk, which is very important. Several large municipalities are waiting for the approval of projects. Moreover, public transit systems are facing an extremely serious financial crisis. Ridership in most systems is down 85%to90%. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is asking for help for small communities, as well as large municipalities. Why is the federal government ignoring the municipalities in the Canadian Federation of Municipalities at this time? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I can reassure the hon. member that we are working very closely with the municipalities. We are listening to the municipalities to find out what their issues are and how we can support them. Of course, we need the help of the provinces and territories. In terms of the number of projects that we've approved, I would be happy to inform the hon. member of the exact number of all the approved projects that my department has been working very hard on over the past few months to approve projects to go forward. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, do I have any time left? The Chair: No, your time is up. We'll now go on to Mr. Fast. Hon. Ed Fast (Abbotsford, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. This question is directed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. On March 28, the minister personally tweeted out a thank you to the People's Republic of China for donating PPE to Canada. This tweet happened within three hours of China's announcement of that gift. As it turned out, much of the PPE was defective and could not be used. More recently, Taiwan donated half a million surgical masks to Canada, yet here we are, two weeks later, and the minister has yet to personally thank Taiwan for its generosity. Will the minister now thank this free and democratic country for its generous gift to Canadians? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne (Minister of Foreign Affairs): Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank my colleague for the question. Indeed, we are very grateful to every nation for helping Canada. This is a global pandemic that knows no borders. We have been expressing our thanks to many nations that have contributed. We will continue to do so. It is important in a time of pandemic, Mr. Chair, that we not play politics and that humanity comes together. I can say, after my COVID foreign ministers call, that the world community has come together to make sure that supply chains will remain intact and that we will have transit hubs and air bridges. We will continue to work with every nation when it comes to health. This is a public good. We want to work together with everyone. The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Fast now. Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, I didn't hear a thank you there, so I'm going to try again. On May 4, the Government of Taiwan delivered 25,000 surgical masks to the Government of British Columbia. On hand were B. C. Minister of Citizens'Services Anne Kang and Minister of State for Child Care Katrina Chen, who, as ministers, officially thanked the Government of Taiwan for its donation. Again, will the minister now do the right thing and, on behalf of Canadians, recognize the generosity of Taiwan and thank its government for that timely donation? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, as I said to you before, Canada is grateful to all who have given supplies to Canada. This is a common endeavour. We are thankful. We are grateful to every nation and we will continue to be. As I said, when it comes to global health, when it comes to helping each other, I think it is a duty for all to come together. We are grateful and thankful for all those who have agreed to help Canada and Canadians from coast to coast to coast in times of need. I've repeated that and have said many times in many forums that we are grateful and thankful to all of those who are helping Canada. Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, again there was no specific thank you to Taiwan. The Government of Taiwan has been the world leader in successfully fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. We have a lot to learn from them and their response. Sadly, the People's Republic of China continues to oppose Taiwan's membership in the World Health Organization. Will the minister now do the right thing and assure Canadians that he will fully support efforts to grant Taiwan membership in the World Health Organization? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the member. As a former trade minister, he's very well aware of Canada's one China policy. That said, we support Taiwan to continue meaningful participation in international multilateral forums, particularly when it comes to health. This is a global good, and we want to support every nation. We recognize that Taiwan and others have been doing very well in fighting this pandemic. We also believe that Taiwan's role as an observer in the World Health Assembly meeting is of interest to the international health community and we have been supportive of that. Hon. Ed Fast: Mr. Chair, I'm going to pivot to repatriation flights. The minister has publicly said that over 20,000 stranded Canadians have been repatriated from abroad. Can he tell us exactly how many Canadians remain abroad who have expressed a desire to be repatriated? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Yes, Mr. Chair, I am very happy to update members. As of today, we have repatriated more than 20,000 Canadians on 232 flights from 87 countries. I would say that this is team Canada, and it knows no parties. Many members have written to me to make sure that we take care. It's not an exact science. We have, as I said, repatriated thousands and thousands. We continue, because we know there are still pockets of Canadian travellers who are stranded abroad. As the Prime Minister and I have said from the beginning, we will make our best effort to repatriate everyone who wants to come back home during the crisis. The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Moore now. Hon. Rob Moore (Fundy Royal, CPC): Mr. Chair, Canadians need to have faith in their justice system, even in a time of crisis. My office has received correspondence from Canadians concerned that trial delays due to COVID-19 may result in criminals walking free. As this government has been working overtime to criminalize law-abiding citizens with new and useless gun laws, will the Minister of Justice ensure that real criminals will not walk free as a result of delays in the justice system? Hon. David Lametti (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada): Mr. Chair, I thank the honourable member for his question. We have been working with my provincial counterparts across Canada, as well as with the various federal courts and also, through my provincial counterparts, with the superior courts and courts of appeal across Canada. Each particular jurisdiction has taken measures to ensure that basic essential services within the court system are maintained, through a variety of means, and we believe that we will be able to solve these various challenges. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, the regional relief and recovery fund was announced weeks ago as a way to help small and medium-sized businesses in rural communities, like those in my riding. In Atlantic Canada, these funds were to be distributed to the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. This is yet another announcement with no details from this Liberal government. Can the minister clarify whether we are days away or weeks away from this support flowing to the businesses that need it so desperately? Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): Mr. Chair, I had the chance to talk with many of the chambers of commerce and business owners throughout Atlantic Canada, and we hear their anxiety. That's why ACOA's doing great work on the ground to make sure we can help them through this very difficult period. The member is right. We have increased the budget of ACOAgood newsand I'll be coming up with the details very soon. It will be a pleasure to collaborate with him to make sure that we can help many businesses and business owners across the Atlantic region. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, my office has heard from many small business owners who have reached out to me. I know many have reached out to many of my colleagues and probably to all of us here today. They are frustrated by the eligibility requirements for some of the federal programs. In particular, they are unable to access the emergency business account, because they do not have a payroll. This could be the hair salon in my riding that subcontracts out its chairs. There are hundreds and thousands of small businesses in this very situation, vital small businesses in our communities, but they do not meet this requirement. These businesses, many of them, are weeks away from shutting down permanently. What does the Minister of Finance have to say to these small businesses that are suffering right now? Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Mr. Chair, I want to thank my honourable colleague for that really important question. I want all the businesses that he is talking about and all of them throughout the country to know that we continue to work very hard to make sure they're supported through this difficult period. More work needs to be done, and we will continue to do that work. We know that businesses are being supported through getting access to the wage subsidy to keep their employees together, and they're getting help, whether it's with rent or to defray costs by deferring GST and HST or customs duty payments. We're going to continue to work with all our businesses across the country. The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Moore for a brief question. You have less than 20 seconds, please. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, it's a very specific issue. There are small businesses, thousands of them, that do not have a payroll. Some have a personal account that they've dealt with over the years rather than a business account, and that makes them ineligible. These businesses need help right now. Hon. Mary Ng: I agree with the honourable member. Those businesses absolutely need support from us. We are going to keep working to ensure they are supported. The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Cumming next. Mr. James Cumming (Edmonton Centre, CPC): Mr. Chair, small businesses are concerned about their ability to survive, and no amount of deferrals, loans or subsidies can substitute for their need to be open and servicing their customers. Can the government confirm that a sectoral risk analysis has taken place to assist the provinces in reopening the economy? Hon. Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry): Mr. Chair, I can assure the member that we've been very clear in terms of our strategy around reopening the economy. We need to make sure that we follow the advice of the experts and the health authorities to do so in a manner that does not compromise the health and well-being of Canadians. We of course will have a sectoral lens, and as you can see by some of the initiatives and the support packages we've put forward The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Cumming now. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, thousands of business owners make a living and utilize dividends as their salary. They also use independent contractors. Can the government confirm that the programs currently in place will be expanded to these hard-working Canadians? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to assure the honourable member that we continue to work with all of our small businesses and I want to thank him for raising this very important issue. I want to assure our Canadian small businesses that we are going to continue to do this work to make sure they are supported. Mr. James Cumming: Can the minister give me a date when she will be able to announce to these businesses that they will be eligible? Hon. Mary Ng: I want to assure our Canadian small businesses of their importance and of the importance of their contributions to all of our communities. I want them to know that we continue to listen and that we will ensure that they are supported and continue to be supported during this difficult time. Mr. James Cumming: Minister, they need more than assurance. Can you give me a date when I can tell these thousands of businesses they will be supported if they pay dividends or if they use contractors within their businesses? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, these businesses are absolutely important and are getting support through a range of means. We will continue to work with these businesses to make sure they are supported through this difficult period. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, I spoke to a Second Cup owner whose landlord is not offering any kind of rent relief. The landlord says that he doesn't have the 25% needed to be eligible for the program because he's already paying for common area costs and deferrals on utilities, which he will have to pay on his mortgage. Will the government reform the rent relief program to focus on tenants and not just the landlords? Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr. Chair, I want to let the member know that we are working to make sure that the details of the emergency program for rent are out there so that both tenants and landlords can understand the situation. We're seeing a significant number of both landlords and tenants coming forward to register for this program, and we are convinced that it will be in the best interests of landlords to move forward and give tenants this relief. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, we've been hearing, however, from small business owners that their landlords don't find the government's rent relief program appealing enough. Can the government confirm, given the program's low eligibility rate, that the program will be expanded and be more efficient in helping tenants? Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we recognize that it's critically important that all of the details of this program be out there for landlords and tenants to understand. Those details are being worked on right now. This is a program that we've put out within the last week, and we are confident that it's in the best interests of tenants and landlords. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, during these trying times for small businesses, small businesses need all the help they can get. One easy way to do that would be to expand the Canada summer jobs program to businesses with over 50 employees. Will the government consider doing so to allow students to gain that very valuable work experience over the coming months? Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Mr. Chair, we are very excited about the uptake of the Canada summer jobs program this year. The second uptake provided employers across the country with the ability to add their needs for students to the mix. I'm looking forward to announcing a possible expansion of this program in the coming days. The Chair: The next question session will go to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall (SimcoeGrey, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. During this pandemic, the government has consistently called for a team Canada, non-partisan approach, and I was glad to hear that said a little earlier today. In fact, the public has called for that approach as well. However, at the same time, the current government has used a parliamentary back door to launch a poorly thought out gun ban. We have a government that didn't win the popular vote, and I'm just wondering how I explain to my residents, because I'm getting so many calls, that this is not a bloated response because, quite frankly, it is. Hon. Bill Blair (Scarborough Southwest, Lib.): First of all, Mr. Chair, I think the honourable member can explain to his constituents that the forming of regulations through order in council is actually the process prescribed in law in Canada under section 117. 15 of the Criminal Code. I would also invite the member to advise his constituents that way back in 1991, when there were some Conservatives who called themselves Progressive, the Mulroney government brought forward, in Bill C-17, the authority under that section for an order in council to prescribe specific makes, models and variants of military firearms as prohibited or restricted. The Harper government used the same tool The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall: I'm not sure, but I'm hoping, that I'll get an honest answer on this question from the minister, who has everything from rocket launchers to basically toy guns on the ban list. When will we get the cost of this buyback program? The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to please be careful in their language when they are referring to others. I won't comment on this one particularly, but I want all of you to be very, very careful when referring to other members. The honourable minister. Hon. Bill Blair: It's a good opportunity, Mr. Chair, to respond to some of the obfuscations and deceptions that have been put out there. We're not banning any toys and we're not banning shotguns. That's all misinformation that's being put out. I think it's very clear, and I invite the member to look at the list of weapons that are The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Thank you. What will be the cost of the buyback program, please? Hon. Bill Blair: Actually, I'm very much looking forward to bringing forward legislation as soon as the House resumes. We will have a vigorous debate in Parliament about the form a buyback will take and we will bring forward a budget at that time. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Will those with illegal weapons be eligible for the buyback program? Hon. Bill Blair: If people are illegally in possession of the weapons and they're committing a crime, they will be dealt with for the crimes they commit. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Okay. I'm going to switch it over. Canadians in my riding who suffer from cystic fibrosis are among the most vulnerable to COVID-19 infection. While these Canadians with existing lung conditions are incredibly worried about a virus that attacks the ability to breathe, the good news is that there are life-saving medicines for those with CF. The problem is with the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board and its restrictive guidelines. I am wondering if and when the government will correct these guidelines and give access to life-saving medicines for our most vulnerable. Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Mr. Chair, as you know, the government has been very committed to improving access and affordability for prescription medications for all Canadians. The PMPRB regulatory amendments will help Canadians be able to afford their prescriptions, and Canada will continue to be an important market for new medicines. In fact, many countries with much lower medicine prices gained access to new medicines in the same time frame as Canada frame, or even faster, so we are excited to do this work. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Mr. Chair, our seniors are being particularly hard hit right now during this pandemic, yet seniors have not been given any direct support. It's one of the number one calls I'm getting in my office. Funding to charities like the United Way is being labelled as support for seniors, but most won't see any of this support. Seniors in my riding have asked for an increase in their CPP and OAS, and to be able to make untaxed bulk withdrawals from their RRSPs while they still have some value. Can the minister confirm when these real and direct supports for seniors will be forthcoming? Hon. Deb Schulte (Minister of Seniors): I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. He mentioned. I'm not quite sure what's happening with my machine. I apologize. The Chair: You might want to try your space bar and keep it down while you're speaking. That might solve the problem. Hon. Deb Schulte: Okay, I'll try that. Thank you very much. I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. We have introduced a supplementary GST payment for low- and modest-income seniors. We've reduced the minimum RRIF withdrawal by 25%, and we've made the CERB available to working seniors who have lost their jobs due to the COVID pandemic. We know there's more work to do, and we'll have more to say in the future. The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that if there are issues, we are taking note of them, and we'll hopefully resolve them by the next meeting. We are getting much better, and we're all new at this. Thank you for your patience. We'll now go to Ms. Gaudreau. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau (LaurentidesLabelle, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My first question is for the Prime Minister. We've heard a lot about contact tracing apps. Several provinces have already made announcements on this, and others want to follow suit. Today, I'd like to know where the government stands on this. We've been talking about a national strategy for some time. Where are we now? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Obviously, contact tracing is an important part of managing any outbreak. In fact, we have been looking at a number of ways to support increased contact tracing across the country, including working with provinces and territories to boost their capacity through human resources and volunteer organizations. We are working very closely with them to make sure we have the capacity. The member is right that many other countries have used digital contact tracing apps. Anything we put forward as a digital tool to assist with contact tracing would be thoroughly considerate of Canadians'privacy rights. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Let me clarify my question a little. Yes, we are talking about public health, and we are currently experiencing a crisis. But you know as well as I do that the Privacy Commissioner has been calling us to task for a very long time now, because there is also a crisis of confidence. You know as well as I do that for 90%of Canadians, the misuse of their personal data is a cause for concern, whether it be for profiling or business development purposes. This is an issue that concerns all Canadians. The commissioner is indeed calling for a focus on reform of the Privacy Act. I'd like to know whether this commitment will be implemented quickly so that legislation can be passed on this issue, in this case the Privacy Act. Hon. Navdeep Bains: Particular attention must be paid to transparency, privacy and ethical concerns. Naturally, Canadians are concerned about how their data is used. New technologies are subject to the Privacy Act. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: We're talking about public health. The provinces are currently in the process of legislating. We're talking about what is going on in Quebec, among other places, and I would like to make sure that the federal government commits to respecting the proposals regarding geolocation and contact tracing possibilities, with full respect for the right to privacy. Can we commit to respecting the provinces? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have worked very closely with provinces and territories for a long time before the outbreak, but certainly ever since the outbreak. We respect the rights of jurisdictional authorities to use tools that have been properly vetted through their own provincial and territorial legislation. Nothing we would ever do at the federal level would put Canadians'privacy in jeopardy. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Concerning privacy, there are 30million Quebeckers and Canadians who have had their personal data leaked. Why is it that our laws don't allow us to apply financial penalties so that we can then go further? The very basis is to be concerned about our fundamental rights. The commissioner has been making this request for several years now. As the critic for access to information and privacy, I'd like a commitment that the federal government will deal not with what the provinces are doing, but with the Privacy Act. The Chair: Your time is up, but I'll give the floor to the minister for 30seconds. Hon. Navdeep Bains: Thank you for the question. Our government will ensure the privacy of Canadians is respected, support responsible innovation and take reasonable steps to strengthen enforcement powers. That's why we created a digital charter. We are strengthening Canada's privacy laws in response to the digital age. The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Baker. Mr. Yvan Baker (Etobicoke Centre, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll be sharing my time with the member for Malpeque. Mr. Chair, my question is for the Minister of Seniors. Minister, in my riding of Etobicoke Centre, we are mourning the loss of 40 residents to COVID-19 at the Eatonville long-term care centre. Over 143 residents and 88 staff members have now tested positive for the virus. This tragedy is not only taking place in Etobicoke Centre but across Canada. Of all Canadians who have died from COVID-19,79% were living in long-term care homes. That's over 2,000 seniors. This is a catastrophe, and it's frankly unacceptable. Our seniors and their families deserve better. I understand that long-term care homes fall within the jurisdiction of provincial governments in Canada, but this is a crisis. What is the federal government doing right now to help protect our seniors who are living in long-term care homes from COVID-19? What will we do to reform our long-term care homes in the future to ensure that our seniors in Etobicoke Centre and across Canada get the care they deserve? Hon. Deb Schulte: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to my colleague from Etobicoke Centre for his very thoughtful question. We are deeply concerned by the outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care facilities, and our thoughts are with those who have lost a loved one. It's a very difficult time. As my colleague mentioned, while these facilities are regulated by provinces and territories, we have been focused on protecting the health and safety of long-term care residents and staff while working with our partners in a team Canada approach. We've released guidelines to prevent and control COVID-19 infections. We're working with the provinces and territories to cost-share a temporary salary top-up for long-term care workers. We are working through investing $2 billion to secure personal protective equipment for the health of workers, including those in the long-term care homes, and we've deployed the Canadian Armed Forces to assist 25 long-term care homes in Quebec and Ontario. We all have a role to play to stop the spread of COVID-19 and to protect our seniors and caregivers. The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Easter. Hon. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. At the finance committee, we've heard a lot of concerns from all sectors of the economy as a result of COVID-19 and we've been presented with quite a number of possible solutions as well, several of which the government has acted upon. My question is on the support offered to the agri-food sector announced on Tuesday. It is very welcome support, but I sincerely believe the farm sector will be taking the Prime Minister up on the suggestion that $250 million should be seen as an initial investment. Potatoes are the number one commodity in Prince Edward Island. However, as a result of reduced processor contracts for next year, plus cancelled seed contracts, millions of dollars of seed and process potatoes have no home. To make matters worse, farmers have high fixed costs that they now have to spread over fewer acres. How does the minister see Tuesday's announcement addressing potato farmers'concerns? Second, in 2013, long-term financial safety nets were gutted by the Harper government. Will the minister be coming forward with improved business risk management programs as a result? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): Mr. Chair, I want to thank Mr. Easter, the member for the riding of Malpeque on Prince Edward Island. It's a beautiful rural riding with lots of agricultural production. I want to recognize the hard work of farmers throughout the crisis. On Tuesday, I was proud to announce one more step for supporting our producers and processors. We know the importance of our potato farmers, and that's why we are launching a first-ever surplus food purchase program, a $50-million fund designed to help redistribute existing inventories, such as potatoes, to local food organizations. On the financial safety net that we have in place for our farmers, called the business risk management program, we announced up to $125 million in funding through AgriRecovery and made changes to AgriStability that will help producers quickly. I will continue to discuss with my provincial counterparts toenhance and improve the BRM programs. In the meantime, I want to reiterate that BRM programs, including AgriInvest, are there to help farmers in difficult times. The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Johns now. Mr. Gord Johns (CourtenayAlberni, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, small businesses across Canada closed their doors to stop the spread and for public health. Now they're currently hanging off the edge of a cliff waiting for financial help. Robyn, who has owned Arbutus Health in Tofino for over 13 years, can't apply for the Canada emergency business account loan, simply because she doesn't have a payroll of over $20,000. All of her practitioners are paid contractors, so she is ineligible. With no business income and without emergency financing, it is virtually impossible for her to pay her bills or come up with the 25% needed for the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program. The government promised to be flexible and willing to adjust its COVID response rollout so that nobody falls through the cracks, but Robyn, like tens of thousands of proprietors who are the economic job creators of our communities, urgently needs the government's help now. Will the government amend its programs to help more business owners so that people like Robyn don't lose their businesses? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for his really good question. I know he and I have talked about this, and I appreciate the input and the feedback that he is providing from business directly. I want to assure Robyn and her businesses, and many businesses across the country, that we are absolutely listening, and we will continue to make sure we are supporting those businesses during this period. We know that many businesses are being helped through the Canada emergency business account. There are well over 550,000 businesses that are getting support through this emergency business account. We also know that more has to be done, and we will continue to work with you and businesses across the country so that we can indeed give them that necessary support to weather this difficult period of COVID-19. Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, that's not going to help Robyn feel comfort. I was talking to Heather last night, who also owns a business in Tofino, Basic Goodness Pizzeria, with her partner Marco. Like many proprietors of family businesses who aren't on payroll, they don't qualify for the business loans. They don't qualify for the wage subsidy because they're a seasonal business. Now with the new rollout of the rent support, they're not sure if their landlord is willing to play ball and even apply. That's three separate programs that leave them out. Heather was in tears last night as she told me that they have done nothing wrong to deserve being excluded from these emergency programs. I agree. Will the government fix the rent support program so that tenants can apply, instead of leaving it up to landlords, and so businesses can get the help they desperately need? Hon. Mona Fortier (OttawaVanier, Lib.): Mr. Chair, we've been working on this program since the beginning. We've been working on offering a response for small businesses and charities and non-profit organizations, and we are continuing to listen on the ground to how we can better assist the businesses that fall through the cracks. We will continue to do that as we go along in this emergency situation. Thank you very much to the honourable member for sharing the realities of his constituents. Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, when the government rolled out its commercial rent support program, why didn't it negotiate an eviction moratorium with the provinces, as Australia and other countries did, to protect business owners? Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as we know, Canadians are taking action and fighting against COVID-19. We know that many small businesses are worried about being able to pay rent. We've recognized it and we've been working with the provinces and territories to implement the Canada emergency commercial rent The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Johns. Mr. Gord Johns: To qualify for the Canada emergency wage subsidy, a 30% drop in revenue has to be shown. Anyone who's owned a business knows that even with this program, it's going to be hard to survive. Why is the government using a 70% measurement drop to qualify for the rent support program, but a 30% drop for the wage subsidy? Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, Mr. Chair, thank you to the honourable member for sharing his views on this program. We've been working with provinces and territories to provide forgivable loans to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rents for their tenants by 75%. We're hoping that tenants and landlords will be working together so we can support businesses during this very difficult crisis. The Chair: Before we move on to the next question, Mr. Berthold, did you have a question or a point of order? Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, I have a point of order. I checked the clock from the first round of five minutes, and as you may recall, it took a very long time for me to get an answer from the government. I went back and forth with MinisterMcKenna for four minutes and 14seconds. The Chair: Just a moment. The interpretation isn't coming through. It's working now. Go ahead, Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: I'll start over. During my first turn, it took 50seconds before a government minister deigned to answer my questions. After checking my time, I realized that the discussion between Ms. McKenna and I went on for four minutes and 14seconds, so I wasn't able to ask the minister one final question, a very important one. I would ask you to take that into account and allow me to ask MinisterMcKenna one last question, please. The Chair: The person chairing the meeting uses their judgment and does their best to keep an eye on what's going on. They try to be as fair as possible. I'll try to do a better job. I think it's more or less equal for all the members, but I apologize if the honourable member feels that he was denied a few seconds. Our next question goes to Mr. Doherty. Mr. Todd Doherty (CaribooPrince George, CPC): Mr. Chair, the Canada-U. S. border agreement is set to expire on May 20. Will the two governments renew the current agreement, or will it be modified? Hon. Bill Blair: The decision to close the border was made in Canada by Canadians in the best interest of Canadians. We're continuing to monitor the situation carefully. Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government be in a position to inform Canadians of any changes to the agreement? Hon. Bill Blair: I'm pleased to advise the member that we're continuing to monitor the situation, but I'm strongly of the opinion that the circumstances on both sides of our border do not indicate that this is the right time to make a change in the restrictions. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the government confirm whether there are any discussions about reopening the border to certain modes of transportation and restricting others? The Chair: Before I go to the minister, I want to remind the honourable members that we do have translators, and they are trying to translate. With respect to them, I know we're trying to get as many questions in as possible, but they do have to translate them, so please be considerate of our interpreters. The honourable minister has the floor. Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Let me please inform the honourable member that we are, of course, aware that the current agreement expires. I had a long conversation yesterday with the Prime Minister Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government announce a relief package for Canada's aviation industry? Hon. Navdeep Bains: We are engaged with the industry, and we are working with them on a solution, Mr. Chair. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, will this relief package include funding for airline ticket refunds similar to what other countries around the world have done? Yes or no? Hon. Navdeep Bains: It's early to say anything at this moment. We're taking a sectoral approach. This is about making sure that we restart the economy and have a strong recovery. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the Minister of Transport confirm that temperature screening is taking place at Canadian airports. Yes or no? Hon. Marc Garneau (Minister of Transport): Mr. Chair, I can confirm that Air Canada has now adopted a policy of checking temperatures for passengers boarding Air Canada flights. Mr. Todd Doherty: At which airports is that, and when did this practice start? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the announcement was made recently by Air Canada. It will start shortly and will apply to all places and destinations where Air Canada flies. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, this is for the Minister of Transport. Last week I asked the Minister of Labour if they were aware of a letter written on April 6 by CUPE to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Minister, were you aware of that letter? The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly. Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I didn't understand the reference to a letter from CUPE. Could my colleague please clarify? Mr. Todd Doherty: On April 6, CUPE wrote a letter to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Is the minister aware of that letter? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, could my colleague clarify what CUPE is referring to? Mr. Todd Doherty: CUPE is the labour organization that represents thousands of flight attendants across our country. Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I do understand. Yes, I will confirm that CUPE, which represents the flight attendants, did write to us. Before that I had conversations with CUPE with respect to flight attendants and the use of personal protective equipment. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the minister confirm whether or not they have provided PPE to the flight attendants and/or training for front-line staff for airlines and airports? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the airlines are providing PPE to flight attendants and flight crews. This has become a policy to ensure the safety not only of passengers on board but also of the flight attendants and flight crew. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, a business owner from Quesnel wrote to my office recently. He stated that he couldn't give his small business tenants a break on rent because the government is penalizing him for paying off his mortgage. When will the government change the CECRA rules to help more businesses? Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as you know, we laid out the CECRA program just last week, and we are encouraging landlords to take that opportunity to support the renters. We will continue to look at how we can provide some relief to small businesses with rents. Mr. Todd Doherty: With all due respect, Mr. Chair, any landlord who does not have a mortgage on their business is ineligible for CECRA. Is the minister aware of this, and are they trying to revise the CECRA program? Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with provinces and territories to present that program. Of course, we will continue to monitor how this program works for landlords and tenants. We are asking, actually encouraging, landlords to do their part and help tenants, like the one you mentioned, go through this. The Chair: We'll go to the next questioner. Go ahead, Ms. Dancho. Ms. Raquel Dancho (KildonanSt. Paul, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Small businesses in Manitoba employ 73% of Manitobans. That's over 286,000 Manitobans. I've been speaking with many small business owners in my riding. It's been heartbreaking, frankly, to hear that everything they've built and sacrificed for is in serious jeopardy, and through no fault of their own. Your government has created programs that are supposed to help them, but many legitimate businesses aren't able to apply. That could mean bankruptcy and cost thousands of Manitobans jobs. This is wrong. I'm hoping to hear specifics, not just nice words, on what you're going to do to help them. There are three issues regarding access to the $40,000 CEBA loan. First, businesses that recently incorporatedfor example, in late 2019are unable to apply their entire 2019 payroll. As a result, many are falling short of the $20,000 payroll threshold required to qualify for this loan. Second, many businesses contract their employees rather than have them on payroll. They also are unable to qualify for this loan. Third, many businesses use personal rather than business banking accounts. They aren't able to qualify for this loan either. What is your government going to do about these three scenarios? The Chair: I just want to remind honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly to the minister. As well, please take into consideration the interpreters, who have to listen and translate, so that we can have this conversation. Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for that question. Right from the very beginning, we've always said that we will listen and that we will work to make sure that measures go out to help our Canadian small businesses. She's absolutely right: 98% of all our businesses in this country are small businesses, so they absolutely contribute enormously to our communities and are job creators. That is why we have put out significant measures. For the Canada emergency business account, over 550,000 small businesses have been approved and are getting that support. I absolutely acknowledge that there is more work to do. I can assure the honourable member that we will continue to do this work so that businesses, all businesses, are supported, whether it is helping keep your employees together, helping with rent support, helping to keep your business's expenses low, or of course helping with the capital that is needed so that you can pay your operating expenses and your bills through this difficult time. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, I didn't hear any answers from the minister's remarks, unfortunately. Moving on, there are two issues regarding the 50% commercial rent assistance subsidy, where landlords pay 25%, the government pays 50%, and the tenant is responsible for 25%. First, many of the small landlords aren't able to take a 25% hit to their income, and are unable to provide the subsidy to their tenants. Second, with the 70% decline in revenue threshold for small businesses to even be eligible for the rent assist, many restaurants are at 65% or 67% decline. They desperately need this subsidy but aren't able to qualify. This is not about problems with the program details. What is the government planning to do to streamline this program for small businesses that can't access but desperately need the rent subsidy? Hon. Mlanie Joly: Mr. Chair, as the Minister of Official Languages, I just want to raise the fact that interpretation is very complicated right now. In order to make sure that we can continue to uphold bilingualism within the House, I would love it if my colleagues could take down the pace a bit. That would help the interpreters a whole lot. They are working very hard and trying to keep up. The Chair: That's a reasonable request. I just want to remind everyone again that when you're asking a question, make sure you are doing it at a pace at which you're considering the people who are interpreting Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, this is how fast I speak when we're in the House of Commons. It's just how I talk. The Chair: I understand. I have a lot of friends who speak very quickly. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Right. I understand. Perhaps we could get back to my question about the rent subsidy. The Chair: We stopped the time. You're not losing any time on this one. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Okay. I will try to speak more slowly. The Chair: I appreciate it. Thank you. The interpreters appreciate it. Now we'll go to the minister, please. Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with the provinces and territories to provide this forgivable loan to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rent of their tenants by 75%. We will continue to monitor how this program is delivered, as we announced it last week. It will be offered pretty soon. It will be very important that we understand what happens across the country, and we will monitor and adapt the program as we Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, it has been in the media quite a bit that this rent subsidy is not helping many, many, many small business owners. It's falling short of everything that was announced, so I think it needs to be taken a bit more seriously than that. There are two issues regarding the 75% wage subsidy. First, employers who pay themselves and their employees dividends rather than wages are unable to qualify. Second, there is also a 30% threshold revenue decline needed in order to apply. Many of the businesses in my riding are at 27% or 29%. They desperately need these funds but are unable to qualify. What is the government planning to do for these small businesses? Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, thank you to the hon. member for sharing the realities she's hearing from small business owners. We are providing help and support for businesses through these very difficult times. The wage subsidy has been taken up and is working for many businesses. We know that some still fall through the cracks and we will look at how we can continue to support businesses across the country. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends (BrossardSaint-Lambert, Lib.) ): We are now going to Mr. Kevin Waugh. Mr. Kevin Waugh (SaskatoonGrasswood, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. Three weeks ago, on April 17, the Minister of Canadian Heritage announced funding of $500 million to assist Canada's arts, sports and cultural sectors. We are still waiting to hear who is eligible and when they can expect to receive this funding. Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Canadian Heritage): Madam Chair, we will be releasing the details of that announcement, and how the money is going to be spent, in the coming days. Mr. Kevin Waugh: We all know that many media organizations, large and small, in Canada are struggling right now. Allegations have arisen that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CBC, is currently engaging in predatory behaviour and taking advantage of the current situation to harm its competitors using rate cuts. We've seen this from the province of Quebec. Many journalists have talked about this. What is the government going to do to address these allegations against the CBC? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have not been informed of these allegations. We will look into this, and we will get back to the hon. colleague if we do find any valuable information. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Local community and ethnic media outlets and papers have strong ties to their communities that often go much deeper than the major media outlets. Is the government currently using any local or ethnic media outlets to provide crucial coronavirus information through advertising? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, I totally agree with my colleague. We need to get the information to Canadians on COVID-19, which is why we have started an ad-buy campaign of $30 million, which is being distributed in more than 900 local, regional and national newspapers across the country and 500 radio and TV stations in 12 different languages, including Farsi, Mandarin, Spanish, Italian and many more. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Mr. Minister, I talked to the Winnipeg Free Press yesterday. It has received two ads from an ad agency in connection with the $30 million the government is doling out to help media outlets. They had one ad on March 27. The second ad was on April 11. That is two ads in the Winnipeg Free Press in the last eight weeks. Is this the kind of money you're attempting to dole out to help media: two ads in eight weeks? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have been doing a number of things for our media in Canada over the last few months and will continue to do so. On top of that $30 million ad-buy campaign, we have been investing $50 million in local journalism. Just this year, it means that 200 journalists will be hired in areas across the country where journalism is more poorly defined. The federal government has paid part I licence fees of our broadcasters to the CRTC. That means $30 million is staying in the pockets of our broadcasters. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Madam Chair, last week, as the minister would know, 15 community newspapers, including eight in Manitoba and seven in the province of Ontario, closed their doors for good. Is the government currently planning any further measures aimed at assisting community or ethnic media organizations? We understand that many more will close their doors within the next 30 to 60 days. Hon. Steven Guilbeault: We are planning a number of other measures, some of which will be included in the $500 million. I will be announcing the details of that in the coming days. Of the $595 million that the media will receive, we have a tax credit that has now entered into force, and the cheques should be in the mail by the end of the summer. So there are a number of things we've done and a number of things we will be doing in the coming months as well. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Waugh, you may have a short question. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Well, finally, you have the five members associated with that committee to dole out the $595 million. They haven't even met yet. When will they meet? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: I would like to remind my hon. colleague that in order for us to provide tax breaks for the 2019 period, media outlets had to file their tax returns so we could go ahead. This will now be able to proceed, Madam Chair. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We now move on to Mr. Godin. Mr. Godin, you may go ahead. Mr. Jol Godin (PortneufJacques-Cartier, CPC): Thank you, MadamChair. This being the first time I've had the floor during a virtual sitting of Parliament, I'd like to take this opportunity to greet my fellow members, all 259participants. I hope they are taking care of themselves. I'd like to talk about the Prime Minister's appearance on the show Tout le monde en parle. This is what he had to say about his economic recovery plan: We are going to remain focused on the economy as a wholeinnovationresearch and science, the green economy and a fairer economyThere are things we are all reflecting on right now that reflection is going to continue. That was a weak answer. It didn't inspire much confidence. Can the government assure Canadians that it is being proactive and working on a plan to get the economy moving again? It must act now. Things are starting to reopen gradually. Is the government going to take concrete action to revive the economy? Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Yes, absolutely. Our government is wholly committed to restarting the economy, and we are working closely with the provinces to do just that. Last week, our government, together with the provincial and territorial premiers, released the principles that will guide efforts to restore economic activity across the country. That is key. The discussion between the Prime Minister and the premiers is continuing today. Mr. Jol Godin: MadamChair, before we go any further, since it took a while for the minister, or the government, to answer the question, can I have that time back to ask questions? The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I stopped the clock, Mr. Godin. Mr. Jol Godin: Thank you. The Prime Minister's answer during his appearance on Tout le monde en parle didn't inspire much confidence and doesn't line up with the Deputy Prime Minister's comments. How can the government be proud of announcing $252million in assistance for the agri-food sector, when that is less than 1% of all the program funding the government has committed to help Canadians get through the COVID-19 crisis? Clearly, the government doesn't see the food supply chain as a priority and has no regard for farmers and pork and beef producers. Does the government realize that eating is vital to Canadians? When is the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food going to adjust the program and show respect for Canadian farmers? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: I have the utmost respect for farmers. We are going step by step. We've already confirmed various supports for the agricultural sector. This week, we focused on beef and pork producers and processors, as well as sectors with product surpluses that can be redirected to food banks. I can assure my fellow member that this is an additional step and that more supports are on the way in the weeks ahead. Bear in mind that a number of programs are already available to farmers. Mr. Jol Godin: I'd like to switch topics now. PortneufJacques-Cartier is home to a company that is already licensed by Health Canada and that, for 20years, has been manufacturing medical equipment including masks, face shields and thermometers. This is equipment our health workers need. The company has a licence from the federal government. In mid-March, Health Canada reached out to the company to find out how much equipment it could manufacture to help fight COVID-19. The company confirmed that it could immediately start producing 200,000masks a week, ramping up to a million masks over the next few weeks. Forty-five days later, it is still waiting on its first order from the Canadian government. We are managing a crisis with a limited supply of medical equipment. Can the health minister tell us why, 45days later, this company licensed by Health Canada hasn't received an order? Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Thank you for the question. Industry and suppliers have enthusiastically answered our call to equip Canada with products and goods during the crisis. Many of those suppliers have already received contracts. We have reached out to all the others and will negotiate contracts as needed. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I would now like to invite hon. member Jenica Atwin to speak. Mrs. Jenica Atwin (Fredericton, GP): Thank you, Madam Chair. Seniors living alone are most at risk of economic insecurity, particularly single senior women, as gender inequality in the job market has translated all too often into inadequate retirement income. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a poverty reduction plan that addresses the unique challenges faced by older women? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to assure the member that we are quite aware that this pandemic has typically affected single seniors, and many of those, given that they live longer, are single senior women. I want to assure her that we are working on this issue, and we have provided some supports already through measures such as the GST supplementary payment. That is on average almost $400 for single seniors. There's more work to do. We know that, so stay tuned. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, older women represent a high proportion of residents in long-term care facilities. Having spent their lives caring for parents, children and often their partners, they find themselves needing care in nursing homes. Multiple outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care homes in Canada have highlighted systemic gaps that senior and elderly women may face in such facilities, as well as the working conditions of the female-dominated ranks of nurses and personal support workers. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a federal strategy for long-term care homes that recognizes quality of life for residents and working conditions for the employees, ideally one that goes hand in hand with a poverty reduction plan and enhanced home and community care investments across the country? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I do want to thank the hon. member for her question. It's an important one. We are obviously deeply saddened by the outbreaks that have been going on in long-term care facilities and those who have lost their lives. We do recognize that the administration of long-term care and palliative care is the responsibility of provinces and territories; however, we have been taking a team Canada approach, and as you already know, we've been doing tremendous work with them to try to ensure that those who live in those facilities can be well cared for and safe. We are doing that with guidelines The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms. Atwin has the floor. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, from May 4 to May 10, we are observing Mental Health Week. We know that our essential workers right now are experiencing unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety, on top of putting their own physical safety and health on the line. Most of these workers work in precarious jobs with no access to paid sick leave or vacation, and without any benefits to access mental health services. Apart from the very welcome investments in online resources, can the minister explain how the government will support these workers now and once the crisis is behind us? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, thank you very much to the member for the question. I'm so glad that she's raising the issue of mental health and in particular how poor mental health is oftentimes connected to our socio-economic status. I appreciate the nuance in that question. She's right. We do have new resources that are available to all Canadians free of charge through the Wellness Together portal, but there is more to do. I think the announcement of top-up wages, for example, which the Prime Minister spoke about today, is another example of how we're taking the health and wellness of all low-income Canadians very seriously. We know that mental health is not divorced from socio-economic status, and I look forward to working with her more on other measures that we can take together. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, we're all very aware of the importance of temporary foreign workers and their role in ensuring our food sovereignty across this country. The pandemic has highlighted how we depend on their work. How are we protecting them? Madam Chair, will the government take action to strengthen legislation and ensure Canadians have access to the food they need while the workers who help bring it to our tables have safe working conditions, regardless of where they are working in this country? Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Thank you, Madam Chair. We are very concerned, as are countries around the world, that we support and create the environment for the health and safety of our temporary foreign workers and we value their contribution to our food supply chain here in Canada. We have issued guidelines to employers and are working very closely with local public health authorities in the provinces and territories to make sure workers are protected, that physical distancing and other recommendations are adhered to and that there are severe consequences if employers don't take care of their workers. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We are now going to Mr. MacGregor. Mr. Alistair MacGregor (CowichanMalahatLangford, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. My first question is this: Will the Liberal government prevent federal bailout funds from going to companies that use tax havens and avoid paying their fair share here in Canada, yes or no? Hon. Diane Lebouthillier (Minister of National Revenue): We are working to make sure that anyone who tries to circumvent the rules faces serious consequences. We are asking businesses to designate a representative to attest their claims. Any employer receiving the subsidy who is deemed ineligible will have to repay the full amount. Anyone who abuses the program could face fines of up to 225% of the subsidy amount as well as five years in prison. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, I didn't really hear a yes to that question, so I'll repeat it. Does the government really think it's appropriate for tax-avoiding corporations to receive funding provided for by taxpayers? Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: We will keep going after companies that engage in tax evasion. I want to be clear. We will target those who are responsible, not innocent workers. An employee is an employee, regardless of who they work for. The wage subsidy program does not hand a blank cheque over to employers. It is meant to help Canadians pay their bills, keep their jobs and get through the crisis. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, the agriculture funding announced by the government earlier this week amounts to less than 10% of what the Canadian Federation of Agriculture estimates will be required to help farmers weather this crisis. Why has the Minister of Agriculture shortchanged our farmers? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, this is one more step. This was one more step. We have already committed significant support to our farmers through different programs, and we will do more. I have to remind my colleague that we have put in $5 billion through FCC, $50 million for the temporary foreign workers, two times $50 million for pork and beef producers this week, and $77 million for food processing. This is only the beginning, and we should not forget that the business risk management programs are still there to offer support. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Yes, Madam Chair, but we're nearly two months into this pandemic and this announcement only came this week. Farmers need certainty. When can farmers expect further updates on funding, and how much will the government be providing? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, we are working closely with the farmers and their representatives to identify where the gaps are, but once again, we have made improvements to the AgriStability program. They can get, depending on the province, either 50% or 75% in advance payments, and they can also, right now, access their AgriInvest program. There is more than $2 billion ready to access today, if they have The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. MacGregor. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, federal disability recipients and seniors on fixed incomes have been hardest hit by cost of living increases from COVID-19. If we acknowledge that $2,000 per month is the minimum needed to get through this time, why are they being asked to survive on far less? When can they expect assistance, and how much will they receive? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to make sure people realize that we have provided some assistance through the GST supplementary benefit. We are also providing support to those who are still working, and we have done that by allowing them to access the CERB. There is more work to be done, so you'll be hearing more in the near future. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, as I think we've heard through today's question period, there are countless example of this government designing programs to exclude many small businesses that desperately need help. Whether it's the payroll requirements or other eligibility, we still, to this day, almost two months into the pandemic, have too many small businesses falling through the cracks. Madam Chair, why has the government taken this approach and when can we finally expect fixes to the whole system? Hon. Mary Ng: Madam Chair, right from the get-go, we have been committed to making sure that Canadians are helped through this crisis, and that small businesses get the support that they need, so that we are saving businesses and jobs in this country. That is what we have done with many of our programs. You're seeing that we are also listening, so that we can modify them as we need. I want to assure the member that the work is not done. We continue to do this. The Chair: Thank you. It is now over to Mr. Perron. Mr. Perron, you may go ahead. Mr. Yves Perron (BerthierMaskinong, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question will come as no surprise, since it has to do with agriculture. I hear the questions my fellow members are asking, and to be frank, I don't find the answers satisfactory. It is well and good to talk about existing programs, but they aren't working, so enough with that refrain. That's what people are telling us. It's not just members of the opposition saying it. This morning, both farmers and processors came together for a press conference at the Union des producteurs agricoles's head office in Longueuil. Six stakeholders from different sectors sounded the alarm. Can the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food therefore tell us when she will announce significant supports for the industry? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We have already announced significant amounts of support, and more is on the way. I'd like to correct my fellow member. It's not that the programs aren't working; it's that they aren't generous enough in farmers'eyes. That's why I'm working with my provincial counterparts to make improvements to programming, including AgriStability. Here's an example. After using the online AgriStability benefit estimator, a pork producer found out that he would get $11 per head, as they say in the industry. Pork producers are calling for $20 per head, so it's a good start, even though it's not enough and it isn't what they are asking for. We want to keep working together, but farmers have to access the money available to them through AgriStability. Mr. Yves Perron: Now it's my turn to correct the minister. Even before the crisis, we were hearing from people in the industry that the programs were neither suitable nor sufficient. We are in a crisis, and this is an exceptional situation. In the case of mad cow disease, farmers received direct assistance. That's the kind of assistance we are calling for. We don't want to hear about growing levels of debt. Of course, this is a first step, but farms are already deep in debt. A few days ago, the government announced $50million in funding for pork producers, even though they are asking for $20per hog for 27million hogs. The government's support covers just 2. 5million hogs. When I call the measure insufficient, I mean it is grossly insufficient. It's high time the government put forth more support. It has to stop saying that it's working hard and examining the situation. The government has to listen to the people in the industry. Again, this morning, they had some interesting proposals. When is the government going to announce a whole lot more in funding support? What's been announced so far is only 10% of what farmers are asking for. Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We are going step by step. The programs are already in place. We are trying to make them better, and we are committed to doing that. These programs are cost-shared with the provinces. However, I would point out to the member that, when it comes to AgriRecovery, we made an exception to the rule. We are moving forward in every province to help pork and beef producers. That's two funding envelopes of $50million each to help cover the additional costs from the decrease in plant processing capacity. That's new money that was not yet available, money we introduced this week. As the Prime Minister said, we are going to do more, and we are moving forward step by step. Mr. Yves Perron: What we concluded in committee this week is that the $125million is not new money. It was already earmarked for the programs. The government can't say that programs already exist and, at the same time, claim that they are new programs. Something doesn't add up there. What's more, there are different ways to make money available. I'd like to talk compensation. Everyone knows that the Canada-U. S. -Mexico Agreement came into force a month earlier than planned, despite the promises that had been made. That resulted in additional losses, once again. An easy way to make money available without committing new spending is to provide compensation and announce programs for supply-managed sectors that got nothing. It seems to me that a time of crisis is a time for the government to practise some judo and announce measures. I am reaching out to the government, as I always do, but it has to come forward with announcements. Can we expect the government to announce measures in the coming days? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Our commitment to farmers in supply-managed sectorsmeaning, egg, poultry and dairy farmersis as strong as it always was. I repeat, our commitment is clear. Dairy producers received their first payment at the end of last year or the beginning of this year. Support for poultry and egg farmers is in the form of investment programs, which aligns well with the recovery. At this time, we are focusing on emergency programs to help farmers hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. When it comes to the dairy sector, I hope I can count on your support. As you know, legislative changes are needed to grant the Canadian Dairy Commission's request and increase its borrowing limit by $200million so it can buy more butter and cheese. The Chair: Our next question will go to Mr. Lake. Hon. Mike Lake (EdmontonWetaskiwin, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we're all inundated, as we've heard during this entire question period, with Canadians'concerns about the economic restrictions and the social restrictions that they're under. Over the last couple of months, the WHO has given one very consistent message in terms of coming out of those economic and social restrictions. On March 16, Dr. Tedros said in his briefing, We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test. On March 25,44 days ago, he said, Aggressive measures to find, isolate, test, treat and trace are not only the best and fastest way out of extreme social and economic restrictionstheyre also the best way to prevent them. Does the minister agree with the WHO that relentless testing and tracing are critical to a successful economic and social relaunch strategy in Canada? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thanks to the member for the very astute observation and question. Absolutely, we agree that testing and contact tracing will form an important part of our response to living with COVID. We've been investing heavily in ensuring that we have the lab capacity, the collaboration across provinces and territories, and the variety of testing options to help us increase our capacity to test. We are aiming right now for a high volume of tests, but I will also say that in Canada we have one of the highest testing rates in the world. Although we're doing well, I can assure him that I am with him and I believe we need to do more. Hon. Mike Lake: I have some really quick questions for follow-up. First, what is Canada's current testing capability? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as I mentioned to his colleagues yesterday, we have currently the capacity to do approximately 60,000 tests per day across the country. Hon. Mike Lake: How many tests were conducted each day on average in Canada last week? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, it's hard for me to get that exact number, but I will get back to him with the exact number. Hon. Mike Lake: I'll save you the time. The exact number was 28,851, on average, every day last week. That's a gap of 30,000 from what your stated testing capability is. I'll give another quote from Dr. Tam, back on April 22,15 days ago. She said, As a first tranche, roughly close to 60,000 is where the provinces can potentially expand to as a target already. Does the minister happen to know, ballpark, what the average number of daily tests in Canada has been since that statement? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Your estimate was slightly higher than what my estimate was going to be, so that's a great piece of news. Listen, I will just say that I think if the premise here is that we could be doing more testing. I would agree, but I will also say that the provinces and territories are working incredibly hard on testing strategies that meet their own specific needs. I'm happy to have a conversation with the member later about that testing strategy. Dr. Tam works with all the chief public health officers across the country to ensure that their testing strategy is going to be applicable and appropriate for their particular jurisdictions. We, as the federal government, provide the capacity for them to conduct those tests. Hon. Mike Lake: Following up on that, is there a jurisdiction in Canada where relentless testing is not the appropriate strategy as provinces consider relaunching? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Each province and territory has its own outbreak and its own epidemic. For example, in British Columbia, where there are relatively fewer cases in general and less disease activity, they may have a different testing strategy than a province like Ontario, which is currently struggling with more outbreaks. Hon. Mike Lake: Given your comment that our current testing capability is 60,000, and acknowledging that only at one point in the entire history of our COVID response, over several months, has our weekly average been over 30,000it was about 31,000 for one day on a rolling basisMinister, are you satisfied with our current testing amounts right now, given that we're testing 50% of what the public health officer advises would be best? Hon. Patty Hajdu: I'm so amazed by the work the provinces and territories have done in a very short time to increase their capacity. We are supporting them with the tools that they need to get more testing done, but also to have other components in place that will allow them to do the rapid tracing of positive cases. I think it's very important to remember that testing strategies will be different across the provinces, based on the outbreak disease epidemiology. Having said that, I know that we can all do better, and I'm certain that my counterparts feel the same. The Chair: I'm going to have to cut the minister off at that one. I want to thank everyone for the session today, I think it went rather well. I'm very proud of you and proud of ourselves for what we managed to accomplish. The committee stands adjourned until Tuesday, May 12, at noon.

Hon. Patty Hajdu introduced that contact tracing was an important part of managing any outbreak. In fact, the government had been looking at a number of ways to support increased contact tracing across the country, including working with provinces and territories to boost their capacity through human resources and volunteer organizations. However, it was challenged that the Privacy Commissioner had suggested if there was also a crisis of confidence. And it was assured that particular attention must be paid to transparency, privacy and ethical concerns to ensure privacy.

tr-sq-634

tr-sq-634_0

What did the meeting discuss about the support offered to the agri-food sector? The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.) ): We'll call this meeting to order. Welcome to the fifth meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. Pursuant to the order passed on Monday, April20, the committee is meeting today to consider ministerial announcements, to allow members of the committee to present petitions, and to question ministers, including the Prime Minister, about the COVID-19 pandemic. Tomorrow, May8, Dr. AndreaMcCrady, Dominion Carillonneur, will give a special recital to mark the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day. Victory in Europe Day, VE Day, commemorates the formal acceptance of Germany's surrender by allied forces at the end of the Second World War. While the pandemic prevents us from gathering to celebrate in person, tomorrow at noon the voice of our nation will ring out in remembrance of this milestone in our history. Today's meeting is taking place by video conference. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. Just so you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entire committee. I would like to remind members that, as in the House of Commons or committee, they should not take photos of their colleagues or film the proceedings. In order to facilitate the work of the interpreters and to allow the meeting to proceed smoothly, I would ask you to follow some instructions. The video conference will be interpreted as in normal meetings of committees and in the House. In the lower part of your screen, you can choose the language: floor, English or French. Please wait until I call on you by name before you begin to speak. When you are ready to speak, click on the microphone icon to activate your microphone, or hold the space bar down while you are speaking. If you release the bar, your microphone will revert to mute, just like a walkie-talkie. Honourable members, I would like to remind you that if you want to speak English, you should be on the English channel. If you want to speak French, you should be on the French channel. Should you wish to alternate between the two languages, you should change the channel to the language that you are speaking each time you switch languages. Please direct your remarks through the chair. Should you need to request the floor outside of your designated speaking time, you should activate your mike and state that you have a point of order. If a member of the committee wishes to intervene on a point of order raised by another person, you should use the raised hand function to indicate to the chair that you wish to speak. To do this, click on the participant button at the bottom of your screen. When the list appears, you will see the raised hand option beside your name. Speak slowly and clearly at all times. When you are not speaking, leave your microphone on mute. It is highly recommended that you use a headset with a microphone. You have to remember to switch languages. Should any technical challenges arise, for example, in relation to interpretation, please advise the chair immediately by raising a point of order, and the technical team will work on resolving them. Please note that we may need to suspend during these times in order to correct a problem. I want to remind the honourable members to mute their microphones when they are not speaking. If you get accidentally disconnected, please try to rejoin the meeting with the information you used to join initially. If you are unable to rejoin, please contact our technical support team. Before we get started, please note that in the top right-hand corner of your screen is a button that you can use to change views. Speaker view allows you to focus on the person currently speaking; gallery view allows you to see a larger number of participants. You can click through the multiple pages in the gallery view to see who is on and how many more participants there are. I understand there are no ministerial announcements today. We will now proceed to presenting petitions for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during the meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. In addition, to ensure a petition is considered properly presented, the certificate of the petition and each page of the petition for a petition certified in a previous Parliament should be mailed to the committee no later than 6 p. m. the day before. Now we'll go to presenting petitions. Mr. Genuis. Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Mr. Chair, five years ago when Parliament passed Bill C-14, then justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said that it represented a finely tuned balance between access and safeguards. It also included a five-year review. Petitioners on the first petition I'm presenting are very concerned to see Bill C-7 before Parliament, which removes safeguards ahead of that five-year review. Petitioners specifically mention their concerns about the removal of the mandatory 10-day reflection period, which can already be waived in certain circumstances. They are concerned about reducing the number of witnesses required to oversee it and ensure that a request has been properly made. I commend that petition to the consideration of the House. The second and final petition that I will be presenting today is with respect to Senate Bill S-204. This would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ from a person who did not consent. This responds specifically to concerns about organ harvesting in the People's Republic of China involving Falun Gong practitioners and increasing concerns that this is being or about to be applied to Uighurs as well. Canada can and should take action on this. Petitioners are noting that in the previous Parliament there were bills on this, Bill C-350 and Bill S-240. Now, in this Parliament there is a bill, Bill S-204, and the petitioners hope that this 43rd Parliament will be the one that gets it passed. The Chair: We will go to Ms. May. Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's an honour. This is my first occasion to present a petition in our virtual format of the COVID-19 committee. Thank you to you and your staff, Mr. Chair, for developing a system that allows us to present petitions electronically. The petition I am presenting today, which was previously approved, is from a number of constituents who are concerned that we pursue the Paris Agreement to hold the global average temperature increase to no more than 1. 5C. The Paris Agreement itself embeds in it the concept of Just Transition with a capital J and a capital T, the concept of just transition ensuring fairness and support for all workers in the fossil fuel sector. The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to move forward with an act to ensure just transition and to ensure adequate funding so that workers and communities dependent on the fossil fuel sector receive meaningful support to ensure security in their lives in the transition to more sustainable energy use. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Chair: Those are all the petitions for today. I want to thank the honourable members for their usual collaboration and now we'll go on to Mr. James Bezan (SelkirkInterlakeEastman, CPC): On a point of order, Mr. Chair, on Tuesday, at our COVID-19 committee of the whole meeting, I was asking a question which started at 12: 56: 06 and was cut off at 1: 00: 32, so I still have 34 seconds of time remaining in my question time of five minutes. You said it could be no more than five minutes but that I had up to five minutes. Thirty-four seconds leaves a lot of time to have a quick question and a quick response. If you believe that my time was unjustly cut off and that it was unfair treatment of the official opposition when we were raising our points of order, I would ask that the 34 seconds be tacked on to the opening round for the opposition and credited to Rosemarie Falk, who will be leading off for the Conservatives. The Chair: Normally what happens is the chair uses judgment, and with 35 seconds, there isn't enough time obviously for a full question or answer, most of the time. I'll take it under advisement. I can't allot it. I want everyone to know that I do have a timer next to me and I am timing the questions, and I will be treating the answers the same way. If it's a 25-second question, it will be a 25-second answer. Thank you for bringing that up. I believe that issue has been remedied. We've taken a little bit of the chair's ability to give judgment on it, but it will be from now on. Thank you. Mr. James Bezan: Mr. Chair, 34 seconds is a considerable amount of time to do a short question and a short answer. The Chair: I appreciate the advice. Thank you, Mr. Bezan. We'll now proceed to the questioning of ministers. I would like to remind the honourable members that no member will be recognized for more than five minutes at a time and that members may split their time with one or more members by so indicating to the chair. Ministers responding to the questions should do so by simply turning on their microphone and speaking. Our first questioner is Ms. Falk. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk (BattlefordsLloydminster, CPC): Mr. Chair, yesterday, Elizabeth May and the leader of the separatists declared oil to be dead. It's certainly not dead, but it's dying under the Trudeau government. Will the Prime Minister stand up for Canada's energy workers, or does he agree with the fringe left and those who want to destroy our country? Ms. Elizabeth May: I have a point of order. The Chair: Go ahead, Ms. May. Ms. Elizabeth May: Mr. Chair, I believe that the language that the honourable member just used is unparliamentary Mr. Garnett Genuis: That's not a point of order. Ms. Elizabeth May: We can have differences of opinion, but it is absolutely Some hon. members: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: unacceptable and violates my privileges to An hon member: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: No, it's not debate. I would ask the chair to rule on that, not the member from the Conservative Party. It is unacceptable to assert that anyone who wants to make a point about our economy is trying to destroy the country. This allegation is a violation of my privilege. An hon. member: She was also named by the The Chair: Order. I didn't recognize anyone. I don't know who is speaking, so I'll just start talking myself. I want to remind honourable members to have respect in their questions and in their answers. When you refer to someone, please refer to them respectfully. This is a committee of the House, and I would expect no less of the honourable members. We'll go to the right honourable Prime Minister. You have 16 seconds. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. As I pointed out this morning in my press conference, we cannot move forward on a transformation of our energy sector without supporting the workers in that energy sector. We need their innovation and we need their hard work if we are going to lower our emissions, if we are going to reach our The Chair: We'll go to Ms. Falk again. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, it has been 43 days since the finance minister promised Canada's energy sector liquidity through the Business Development Bank of Canada. For 43 days the finance minister has failed to deliver on that promise. These delays cost jobs and they are costing us Canadian businesses. If the government doesn't step up to support our energy sector, they are in effect doubling down on their support for foreign, unethically sourced oil. Mr. Chair, when will the credit options be available to Canada's small and medium energy firms? The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that we do have interpreters who are listening and translating. In consideration to them, please speak at a reasonable pace so that they can understand and then translate. The right honourable Prime Minister. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, our priority through this pandemic and this crisis has been to support workers across the country. We have sent billions of dollars to workers right across the country, including Alberta, Saskatchewan, B. C. , and Newfoundland and Labrador in the energy sector for them to be able to support their families through this difficult time. We are also working on sectoral supports right across the country. Those will be announced in due course. Our focus from the get-go has been The Chair: We'll move to Ms. Falk. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, another group that has been ignored by the Liberals is our farmers. The announcements to date fall well short of what is needed to maintain a steady supply of affordable and healthy food. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture has asked the government for a $2. 6-billion emergency fund. Instead of responding to specific COVID-19 challenges, our farmers are facing the Liberals'reannounced $125 million that was already budgeted in the AgriRecovery program. Will the Prime Minister finally step up and take our food supply chain seriously, or is agriculture just an afterthought for him? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: On the contrary, Mr. Chair, we take agriculture and our agricultural sector extremely seriously, which is why we announced hundreds of millions of dollars a couple of days ago to respond to pressing needs. We will continue to make investments to ensure both the safety of workers in our agricultural sector and the safety of our communities, as well as the continued flow of high-quality Canadian food onto our tables right across the country. Supporting the people who produce our food is a priority for this government and will continue to be. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Well, Mr. Chair, recycled program announcements do not respond to the immediate needs facing our farmers. This is absolutely unacceptable. Our farmers are faced with rising operational costs, a disrupted service industry, labour shortages and a reduced capacity at processing plants. The government has a responsibility to take domestic food security seriously. When will the Prime Minister deliver adequate support to address the critical changes facing our ag industry? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I would suggest respectfully that the honourable member take a look once again at the announcement we made, which actually highlights significant new investments to support our agricultural industry. I certainly agree that there is more to do. Every step of the way in this unprecedented situation, we've been moving forward on doing more, on adjusting and on investing more. We need to support our agricultural sector and the people who work so hard to put food on Canadians'tables right across the country and we will continue to. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, Canadians expect to find healthy and affordable food at their grocery stores, but if the government does not take action now, that's not a given. Our farmers are trying to keep Canadians fed while keeping their heads above water. The Liberal government's own failed federal carbon tax is weighing them down. It is an enormous hit to their bottom line, and the recent carbon tax hike is taking even more money out of the pockets of farmers at a time when they can afford it the least. Will the Prime Minister exempt all farm operations from the carbon tax and reimburse the money that they have already taken from them? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, it's a shame to hear the member opposite accidentallyunintentionally, I'm certainmislead the House and Canadians. The price on pollution actually puts more money into Canadians'pockets, and that includes farm families. People who pay the cost of the price on pollution on average receive more money back. This is the way of creating a better future for our kids and grandkids, which I know people in communities right across the country, including our farm communities, want to see happen. We are moving forward in a responsible way to put a price on pollution and put more money in average Canadians'pockets. The Chair: We now continue with Mrs. Gill. Mrs. Gill, you have the floor. Mrs. Marilne Gill (Manicouagan, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. As you know, all sectors of the economy are fragile at the moment, specifically the fisheries. I am thinking about the lobster fishery in the Magdalen Islands, the crab fishery on the Cte-Nord or those fishing for herring in the south of the Gasp. Because imports have ceased, because the domestic market is weak and in decline because of the interruption of the tourism and restaurant industries, the fishing industry and its fishers must be supported. I would like to know what the government has done to support our fishers since the crisis began. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Our fishers do exceptional work that is extremely important in feeding Canadians and in contributing to our economic success through their exports around the world. This crisis has struck them very hard. That is why we have established measures in the tens of millions of dollars to support our processors. We have also announced help for the fishers. We know that these are difficult and unprecedented times, and we are going to Mrs. Marilne Gill: My thanks to the Prime Minister. I am actually talking about help for the fishers. I know about the processing industry and the $62. 5million to be used essentially for freezing products, but I am talking about the fishers themselves. Given the economic situation, most of our fishers are getting ready to leave. First, there are health risks. We know very well that it is impossible for them to observe all the social distancing measures. They have to incur additional expenses in order to conduct their normal fishing activities. In addition, they feel that they will be losing money, because of the drop in the price of their resource. They are just as essential as farmers, but they are going to have to work at a loss and they are not going to have workers to assist them. Workers in the seasonal industry do not know what tomorrow will bring. They do not even know whether they will be able to put food on the table next year. Are you going to do anything else, in addition to the assistance of $62. 5million? Time is of the essence. Our fishers have lacked certainty for weeks and they are very concerned. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Yes, indeed, we are going to do other things. Other investments will be made in various sectors in order to support Canadians. We recognize the challenges that fishers must face in terms of social distancing and of work that is often seasonal. We are going to continue working with the industry, with the fishers, and with the coastal communities in order to ensure that people have confidence in their abilities and in their future. In times of crisis, it is important for the government to be there to support people, and that is exactly what we are going to continue to do. This is an unprecedented crisis, but we can see once more that Canadians are there for each other. Our government will continue to be there for the fishers and the fishing industry. Mrs. Marilne Gill: I would have preferred us to be there from the start. Clearly, this is a difficult crisis. But, given the cyclical nature of the industry, some sectors have had to postpone for several weeks the preparations they need for fishing activities. The current program could be modified in a number of ways, to accommodate the cycle, the dates, and the size of the companies. They would really like to take advantage of the $40,000loan, but they cannot because of their payroll. Given the dates, they are also ineligible for the 75%salary subsidy. I can already suggest a number of solutions to the government and to the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, that would bring help to those businesses very quickly. The fishers carry on, because it is a duty for them, because they want to help us and to be part of the effort at this time of crisis. At the same time, they have no guarantee that they will be supported. I would really like to hear a guarantee that they will be supported, that they will be able to put food on the table this year, and that they will be able to support the communities that often depend on the fishing industry, a major industry in those communities. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Minister Jordan has been working with the fishers, the fishing industry and the communities affected by the crisis since the crisis began. We are assessing a number of solutions. We have proposed various solutions to support the communities, the workers and the families. This is an unprecedented situation. From the outset, our priority has been to support the millions of Canadians from coast to coast who have lost their jobs. We have been able to do so, but we are going to continue to work for those who must now face difficulties. We are going to be there for each other. That is what people are expecting from our government and from other Canadians. The Chair: Before we move to the next question, I would like to remind members of the committee to speak slowly, and to address their remarks to the chair and not directly to each other. Thank you very much. We will now go to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach (SkeenaBulkley Valley, NDP): Mr. Chair, municipalities across Canada are facing a financial crisis. They've seen revenues plummet, and at the same time the cost of delivering municipal services has risen. As the Prime Minister knows, municipalities are unable to run deficits and so they are facing the reality of cutbacks and serious cuts to the services that Canadians depend on. We know that municipalities are vital during this time to provide services to Canadians. They're going to be even more important during the recovery, especially when it comes to delivering on the infrastructure programs before us. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities and mayors across Canada have called for emergency financial relief for the municipal sector. My question for the Prime Minister is, when can they expect federal financial support to arrive? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, no government in Canada's history has done more to work with our municipalities, with our cities, with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to respond to the challenges they're facing and to partner with them. Things from infrastructure to investments have made a huge difference right across the country in the quality of life of Canadians in towns, large and small, from coast to coast to coast. As I'm sure the member well knows, our Constitution requires that most of the funding for municipalities flow through the provinces. We are working with the provinces, as we continue to work with the cities, to ensure that we're able to support this order of government that delivers the vast majority of services to Canadians with very little financial means. We know how difficult it is for our cities. We will continue The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, it would seem that the federal government has the fiscal capacity and the responsibility to help municipalities weather this crisis. Transit systems have been hit particularly hard and have seen the bulk of the layoffs in the municipal sector. These transit services carry essential workers to work, whether they are health care workers, grocery store workers, janitors or others. The risk is that we will see higher fares to deal with this financial crisis. We will see service cutbacks precisely at a time when we want to be expanding transit and improving transit in our communities. Does the Prime Minister acknowledge that the federal government needs to step in to safeguard and protect Canada's transit services? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, this federal government recognizes how important it is to support all Canadians, which is why we put forward unprecedented measures to help millions upon millions of Canadians with the CERB and with the wage subsidy. We will continue to work with the provinces, which have jurisdiction over the municipalities. I'll be having a conversation with all other first ministers tonight to talk about a broad range of issues. I can highlight that the issue of transit funding has come up. We have continued to engage with them, but again, it is important to respect the Constitution and understand that funding for municipalities and cities does go through the provinces. The federal government is happy to be there to support, but it must be The Chair: We will go to Mr. Bachrach again. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I am wondering how the Prime Minister could explain to a bus driver in Vancouver who has been laid off that as a public sector worker, she can't access the federal wage subsidy, while an equivalent worker in the airline industry gets to keep her job with the federal help of that program. Could the Prime Minister explain how that is fair? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I'm happy to explain to the member and to all Canadians that our Constitution creates federal areas of jurisdiction and provincial areas of jurisdiction. The airline industry, like banking, like telecommunications, is a federal area of jurisdiction that we have been able to move forward on. More than that, we brought the Canada emergency response benefit and the wage subsidy to all industries across this country, because we knew that as the federal government, it was something that we needed to step up on The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I'd like to shift gears a little bit. Faced with minimal health care capacity, remote indigenous communities in my riding are taking matters into their own hands. The Nuxalk have put up a checkpoint on Highway 20 to protect community members and prevent non-essential travel. In particular, it is to protect the three remaining fluent speakers of the Nuxalk language, these cherished elders in their community. The Haida on Haida Gwaii have set up a similar checkpoint, as have communities throughout British Columbia, yet federal support for indigenous communities amounts to only $39 million for all of the indigenous communities in B. C. Does the Prime Minister not agree that more support is warranted to help indigenous communities in my riding and across the country? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, we made funds available to Canadians right across the country, particularly people in indigenous remote or northern communities who we knew would be facing more difficult challenges because of the existing vulnerabilities in their health care system and socio-economic circumstances. We have made unprecedented investments and we will continue to make the necessary investments, because we need to make sure that indigenous Canadians, and indeed all Canadians, have the supports they need to make it through this crisis. The Chair: We will continue with Mr. Berthold. Mr. Berthold, you have the floor. Mr. Luc Berthold (MganticL'rable, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I am going to keep talking about the area of jurisdiction that the Prime Minister likes to talk about, except that I want to point out the incompetence of the Liberals in keeping their commitments on infrastructure projects. My question is very simple. As the provinces gradually restart their economies, can the Prime Minister tell us how many projects that the provinces have submitted are waiting for approval from his government? Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, I hope that the length of the pause will not be taken out of my time. The Chair: No, I stopped the clock for your time. Ms. McKenna, you have the floor. Hon. Catherine McKenna (Minister of Infrastructure and Communities): I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, I was on mute. I'm very pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. I have spoken with all of my provincial and territorial counterparts over the last couple of weeks. Work on our historic infrastructure program is progressing well. My department has worked very hard to approve projects, and we will continue to do so. It is very important to build projects that will create good jobs The Chair: We are returning to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: We still haven't had a response. How many projects are currently awaiting government approval? I know that the minister has been meeting virtually with the provinces over the last few days. However, there are still hundreds of projects waiting for approval from the Liberal government. Rather than wait for the right political opportunity to approve these files, will the minister commit today to respecting the provinces and approving by next week all the projects that are sitting on her desk? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I'm pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. We are approving projects. If the hon. member speaks to the provinces and territories, he will see how well we are working together. We will announce the approval of projects because it's very important for our economy, our communities and creating good jobs. Mr. Luc Berthold: Does the minister understand that she hasn't told us how many projects are still pending? The construction season is very short. Approval of a project in July means that work can't begin until next year, which won't help revive our economy. Hon. Catherine McKenna: I want to make it clear that we have approved hundreds of projects in the last few weeks. We will work with the provinces, territories, municipalities and indigenous communities to implement these projects. These projects are important for the economy and the environment, as well as for jobs The Chair: We return now to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, while the minister is calling for a green recovery of the country's economy, public transit is at risk. Physical distancing measures will cause public transit use to drop for several months. The Union des municipalits du Qubec estimates that the monthly losses are between $75million and $100million. Other countries have included public transit in pandemic relief programs. Why isn't Canada? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, we recognize the importance of public transit for our economy, since some essential workers use public transit. We are working very closely with our counterparts and are listening to the municipalities. As the Prime Minister said, it's the provinces that must help because the money The Chair: We return now to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, once again, what we're hearing is that the government is passing the buck to the provinces. Unfortunately, the minister was unable to answer a single question about the number of infrastructure projects still on the federal government's desk, which is very important. Several large municipalities are waiting for the approval of projects. Moreover, public transit systems are facing an extremely serious financial crisis. Ridership in most systems is down 85%to90%. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is asking for help for small communities, as well as large municipalities. Why is the federal government ignoring the municipalities in the Canadian Federation of Municipalities at this time? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I can reassure the hon. member that we are working very closely with the municipalities. We are listening to the municipalities to find out what their issues are and how we can support them. Of course, we need the help of the provinces and territories. In terms of the number of projects that we've approved, I would be happy to inform the hon. member of the exact number of all the approved projects that my department has been working very hard on over the past few months to approve projects to go forward. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, do I have any time left? The Chair: No, your time is up. We'll now go on to Mr. Fast. Hon. Ed Fast (Abbotsford, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. This question is directed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. On March 28, the minister personally tweeted out a thank you to the People's Republic of China for donating PPE to Canada. This tweet happened within three hours of China's announcement of that gift. As it turned out, much of the PPE was defective and could not be used. More recently, Taiwan donated half a million surgical masks to Canada, yet here we are, two weeks later, and the minister has yet to personally thank Taiwan for its generosity. Will the minister now thank this free and democratic country for its generous gift to Canadians? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne (Minister of Foreign Affairs): Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank my colleague for the question. Indeed, we are very grateful to every nation for helping Canada. This is a global pandemic that knows no borders. We have been expressing our thanks to many nations that have contributed. We will continue to do so. It is important in a time of pandemic, Mr. Chair, that we not play politics and that humanity comes together. I can say, after my COVID foreign ministers call, that the world community has come together to make sure that supply chains will remain intact and that we will have transit hubs and air bridges. We will continue to work with every nation when it comes to health. This is a public good. We want to work together with everyone. The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Fast now. Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, I didn't hear a thank you there, so I'm going to try again. On May 4, the Government of Taiwan delivered 25,000 surgical masks to the Government of British Columbia. On hand were B. C. Minister of Citizens'Services Anne Kang and Minister of State for Child Care Katrina Chen, who, as ministers, officially thanked the Government of Taiwan for its donation. Again, will the minister now do the right thing and, on behalf of Canadians, recognize the generosity of Taiwan and thank its government for that timely donation? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, as I said to you before, Canada is grateful to all who have given supplies to Canada. This is a common endeavour. We are thankful. We are grateful to every nation and we will continue to be. As I said, when it comes to global health, when it comes to helping each other, I think it is a duty for all to come together. We are grateful and thankful for all those who have agreed to help Canada and Canadians from coast to coast to coast in times of need. I've repeated that and have said many times in many forums that we are grateful and thankful to all of those who are helping Canada. Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, again there was no specific thank you to Taiwan. The Government of Taiwan has been the world leader in successfully fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. We have a lot to learn from them and their response. Sadly, the People's Republic of China continues to oppose Taiwan's membership in the World Health Organization. Will the minister now do the right thing and assure Canadians that he will fully support efforts to grant Taiwan membership in the World Health Organization? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the member. As a former trade minister, he's very well aware of Canada's one China policy. That said, we support Taiwan to continue meaningful participation in international multilateral forums, particularly when it comes to health. This is a global good, and we want to support every nation. We recognize that Taiwan and others have been doing very well in fighting this pandemic. We also believe that Taiwan's role as an observer in the World Health Assembly meeting is of interest to the international health community and we have been supportive of that. Hon. Ed Fast: Mr. Chair, I'm going to pivot to repatriation flights. The minister has publicly said that over 20,000 stranded Canadians have been repatriated from abroad. Can he tell us exactly how many Canadians remain abroad who have expressed a desire to be repatriated? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Yes, Mr. Chair, I am very happy to update members. As of today, we have repatriated more than 20,000 Canadians on 232 flights from 87 countries. I would say that this is team Canada, and it knows no parties. Many members have written to me to make sure that we take care. It's not an exact science. We have, as I said, repatriated thousands and thousands. We continue, because we know there are still pockets of Canadian travellers who are stranded abroad. As the Prime Minister and I have said from the beginning, we will make our best effort to repatriate everyone who wants to come back home during the crisis. The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Moore now. Hon. Rob Moore (Fundy Royal, CPC): Mr. Chair, Canadians need to have faith in their justice system, even in a time of crisis. My office has received correspondence from Canadians concerned that trial delays due to COVID-19 may result in criminals walking free. As this government has been working overtime to criminalize law-abiding citizens with new and useless gun laws, will the Minister of Justice ensure that real criminals will not walk free as a result of delays in the justice system? Hon. David Lametti (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada): Mr. Chair, I thank the honourable member for his question. We have been working with my provincial counterparts across Canada, as well as with the various federal courts and also, through my provincial counterparts, with the superior courts and courts of appeal across Canada. Each particular jurisdiction has taken measures to ensure that basic essential services within the court system are maintained, through a variety of means, and we believe that we will be able to solve these various challenges. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, the regional relief and recovery fund was announced weeks ago as a way to help small and medium-sized businesses in rural communities, like those in my riding. In Atlantic Canada, these funds were to be distributed to the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. This is yet another announcement with no details from this Liberal government. Can the minister clarify whether we are days away or weeks away from this support flowing to the businesses that need it so desperately? Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): Mr. Chair, I had the chance to talk with many of the chambers of commerce and business owners throughout Atlantic Canada, and we hear their anxiety. That's why ACOA's doing great work on the ground to make sure we can help them through this very difficult period. The member is right. We have increased the budget of ACOAgood newsand I'll be coming up with the details very soon. It will be a pleasure to collaborate with him to make sure that we can help many businesses and business owners across the Atlantic region. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, my office has heard from many small business owners who have reached out to me. I know many have reached out to many of my colleagues and probably to all of us here today. They are frustrated by the eligibility requirements for some of the federal programs. In particular, they are unable to access the emergency business account, because they do not have a payroll. This could be the hair salon in my riding that subcontracts out its chairs. There are hundreds and thousands of small businesses in this very situation, vital small businesses in our communities, but they do not meet this requirement. These businesses, many of them, are weeks away from shutting down permanently. What does the Minister of Finance have to say to these small businesses that are suffering right now? Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Mr. Chair, I want to thank my honourable colleague for that really important question. I want all the businesses that he is talking about and all of them throughout the country to know that we continue to work very hard to make sure they're supported through this difficult period. More work needs to be done, and we will continue to do that work. We know that businesses are being supported through getting access to the wage subsidy to keep their employees together, and they're getting help, whether it's with rent or to defray costs by deferring GST and HST or customs duty payments. We're going to continue to work with all our businesses across the country. The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Moore for a brief question. You have less than 20 seconds, please. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, it's a very specific issue. There are small businesses, thousands of them, that do not have a payroll. Some have a personal account that they've dealt with over the years rather than a business account, and that makes them ineligible. These businesses need help right now. Hon. Mary Ng: I agree with the honourable member. Those businesses absolutely need support from us. We are going to keep working to ensure they are supported. The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Cumming next. Mr. James Cumming (Edmonton Centre, CPC): Mr. Chair, small businesses are concerned about their ability to survive, and no amount of deferrals, loans or subsidies can substitute for their need to be open and servicing their customers. Can the government confirm that a sectoral risk analysis has taken place to assist the provinces in reopening the economy? Hon. Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry): Mr. Chair, I can assure the member that we've been very clear in terms of our strategy around reopening the economy. We need to make sure that we follow the advice of the experts and the health authorities to do so in a manner that does not compromise the health and well-being of Canadians. We of course will have a sectoral lens, and as you can see by some of the initiatives and the support packages we've put forward The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Cumming now. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, thousands of business owners make a living and utilize dividends as their salary. They also use independent contractors. Can the government confirm that the programs currently in place will be expanded to these hard-working Canadians? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to assure the honourable member that we continue to work with all of our small businesses and I want to thank him for raising this very important issue. I want to assure our Canadian small businesses that we are going to continue to do this work to make sure they are supported. Mr. James Cumming: Can the minister give me a date when she will be able to announce to these businesses that they will be eligible? Hon. Mary Ng: I want to assure our Canadian small businesses of their importance and of the importance of their contributions to all of our communities. I want them to know that we continue to listen and that we will ensure that they are supported and continue to be supported during this difficult time. Mr. James Cumming: Minister, they need more than assurance. Can you give me a date when I can tell these thousands of businesses they will be supported if they pay dividends or if they use contractors within their businesses? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, these businesses are absolutely important and are getting support through a range of means. We will continue to work with these businesses to make sure they are supported through this difficult period. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, I spoke to a Second Cup owner whose landlord is not offering any kind of rent relief. The landlord says that he doesn't have the 25% needed to be eligible for the program because he's already paying for common area costs and deferrals on utilities, which he will have to pay on his mortgage. Will the government reform the rent relief program to focus on tenants and not just the landlords? Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr. Chair, I want to let the member know that we are working to make sure that the details of the emergency program for rent are out there so that both tenants and landlords can understand the situation. We're seeing a significant number of both landlords and tenants coming forward to register for this program, and we are convinced that it will be in the best interests of landlords to move forward and give tenants this relief. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, we've been hearing, however, from small business owners that their landlords don't find the government's rent relief program appealing enough. Can the government confirm, given the program's low eligibility rate, that the program will be expanded and be more efficient in helping tenants? Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we recognize that it's critically important that all of the details of this program be out there for landlords and tenants to understand. Those details are being worked on right now. This is a program that we've put out within the last week, and we are confident that it's in the best interests of tenants and landlords. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, during these trying times for small businesses, small businesses need all the help they can get. One easy way to do that would be to expand the Canada summer jobs program to businesses with over 50 employees. Will the government consider doing so to allow students to gain that very valuable work experience over the coming months? Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Mr. Chair, we are very excited about the uptake of the Canada summer jobs program this year. The second uptake provided employers across the country with the ability to add their needs for students to the mix. I'm looking forward to announcing a possible expansion of this program in the coming days. The Chair: The next question session will go to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall (SimcoeGrey, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. During this pandemic, the government has consistently called for a team Canada, non-partisan approach, and I was glad to hear that said a little earlier today. In fact, the public has called for that approach as well. However, at the same time, the current government has used a parliamentary back door to launch a poorly thought out gun ban. We have a government that didn't win the popular vote, and I'm just wondering how I explain to my residents, because I'm getting so many calls, that this is not a bloated response because, quite frankly, it is. Hon. Bill Blair (Scarborough Southwest, Lib.): First of all, Mr. Chair, I think the honourable member can explain to his constituents that the forming of regulations through order in council is actually the process prescribed in law in Canada under section 117. 15 of the Criminal Code. I would also invite the member to advise his constituents that way back in 1991, when there were some Conservatives who called themselves Progressive, the Mulroney government brought forward, in Bill C-17, the authority under that section for an order in council to prescribe specific makes, models and variants of military firearms as prohibited or restricted. The Harper government used the same tool The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall: I'm not sure, but I'm hoping, that I'll get an honest answer on this question from the minister, who has everything from rocket launchers to basically toy guns on the ban list. When will we get the cost of this buyback program? The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to please be careful in their language when they are referring to others. I won't comment on this one particularly, but I want all of you to be very, very careful when referring to other members. The honourable minister. Hon. Bill Blair: It's a good opportunity, Mr. Chair, to respond to some of the obfuscations and deceptions that have been put out there. We're not banning any toys and we're not banning shotguns. That's all misinformation that's being put out. I think it's very clear, and I invite the member to look at the list of weapons that are The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Thank you. What will be the cost of the buyback program, please? Hon. Bill Blair: Actually, I'm very much looking forward to bringing forward legislation as soon as the House resumes. We will have a vigorous debate in Parliament about the form a buyback will take and we will bring forward a budget at that time. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Will those with illegal weapons be eligible for the buyback program? Hon. Bill Blair: If people are illegally in possession of the weapons and they're committing a crime, they will be dealt with for the crimes they commit. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Okay. I'm going to switch it over. Canadians in my riding who suffer from cystic fibrosis are among the most vulnerable to COVID-19 infection. While these Canadians with existing lung conditions are incredibly worried about a virus that attacks the ability to breathe, the good news is that there are life-saving medicines for those with CF. The problem is with the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board and its restrictive guidelines. I am wondering if and when the government will correct these guidelines and give access to life-saving medicines for our most vulnerable. Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Mr. Chair, as you know, the government has been very committed to improving access and affordability for prescription medications for all Canadians. The PMPRB regulatory amendments will help Canadians be able to afford their prescriptions, and Canada will continue to be an important market for new medicines. In fact, many countries with much lower medicine prices gained access to new medicines in the same time frame as Canada frame, or even faster, so we are excited to do this work. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Mr. Chair, our seniors are being particularly hard hit right now during this pandemic, yet seniors have not been given any direct support. It's one of the number one calls I'm getting in my office. Funding to charities like the United Way is being labelled as support for seniors, but most won't see any of this support. Seniors in my riding have asked for an increase in their CPP and OAS, and to be able to make untaxed bulk withdrawals from their RRSPs while they still have some value. Can the minister confirm when these real and direct supports for seniors will be forthcoming? Hon. Deb Schulte (Minister of Seniors): I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. He mentioned. I'm not quite sure what's happening with my machine. I apologize. The Chair: You might want to try your space bar and keep it down while you're speaking. That might solve the problem. Hon. Deb Schulte: Okay, I'll try that. Thank you very much. I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. We have introduced a supplementary GST payment for low- and modest-income seniors. We've reduced the minimum RRIF withdrawal by 25%, and we've made the CERB available to working seniors who have lost their jobs due to the COVID pandemic. We know there's more work to do, and we'll have more to say in the future. The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that if there are issues, we are taking note of them, and we'll hopefully resolve them by the next meeting. We are getting much better, and we're all new at this. Thank you for your patience. We'll now go to Ms. Gaudreau. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau (LaurentidesLabelle, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My first question is for the Prime Minister. We've heard a lot about contact tracing apps. Several provinces have already made announcements on this, and others want to follow suit. Today, I'd like to know where the government stands on this. We've been talking about a national strategy for some time. Where are we now? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Obviously, contact tracing is an important part of managing any outbreak. In fact, we have been looking at a number of ways to support increased contact tracing across the country, including working with provinces and territories to boost their capacity through human resources and volunteer organizations. We are working very closely with them to make sure we have the capacity. The member is right that many other countries have used digital contact tracing apps. Anything we put forward as a digital tool to assist with contact tracing would be thoroughly considerate of Canadians'privacy rights. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Let me clarify my question a little. Yes, we are talking about public health, and we are currently experiencing a crisis. But you know as well as I do that the Privacy Commissioner has been calling us to task for a very long time now, because there is also a crisis of confidence. You know as well as I do that for 90%of Canadians, the misuse of their personal data is a cause for concern, whether it be for profiling or business development purposes. This is an issue that concerns all Canadians. The commissioner is indeed calling for a focus on reform of the Privacy Act. I'd like to know whether this commitment will be implemented quickly so that legislation can be passed on this issue, in this case the Privacy Act. Hon. Navdeep Bains: Particular attention must be paid to transparency, privacy and ethical concerns. Naturally, Canadians are concerned about how their data is used. New technologies are subject to the Privacy Act. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: We're talking about public health. The provinces are currently in the process of legislating. We're talking about what is going on in Quebec, among other places, and I would like to make sure that the federal government commits to respecting the proposals regarding geolocation and contact tracing possibilities, with full respect for the right to privacy. Can we commit to respecting the provinces? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have worked very closely with provinces and territories for a long time before the outbreak, but certainly ever since the outbreak. We respect the rights of jurisdictional authorities to use tools that have been properly vetted through their own provincial and territorial legislation. Nothing we would ever do at the federal level would put Canadians'privacy in jeopardy. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Concerning privacy, there are 30million Quebeckers and Canadians who have had their personal data leaked. Why is it that our laws don't allow us to apply financial penalties so that we can then go further? The very basis is to be concerned about our fundamental rights. The commissioner has been making this request for several years now. As the critic for access to information and privacy, I'd like a commitment that the federal government will deal not with what the provinces are doing, but with the Privacy Act. The Chair: Your time is up, but I'll give the floor to the minister for 30seconds. Hon. Navdeep Bains: Thank you for the question. Our government will ensure the privacy of Canadians is respected, support responsible innovation and take reasonable steps to strengthen enforcement powers. That's why we created a digital charter. We are strengthening Canada's privacy laws in response to the digital age. The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Baker. Mr. Yvan Baker (Etobicoke Centre, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll be sharing my time with the member for Malpeque. Mr. Chair, my question is for the Minister of Seniors. Minister, in my riding of Etobicoke Centre, we are mourning the loss of 40 residents to COVID-19 at the Eatonville long-term care centre. Over 143 residents and 88 staff members have now tested positive for the virus. This tragedy is not only taking place in Etobicoke Centre but across Canada. Of all Canadians who have died from COVID-19,79% were living in long-term care homes. That's over 2,000 seniors. This is a catastrophe, and it's frankly unacceptable. Our seniors and their families deserve better. I understand that long-term care homes fall within the jurisdiction of provincial governments in Canada, but this is a crisis. What is the federal government doing right now to help protect our seniors who are living in long-term care homes from COVID-19? What will we do to reform our long-term care homes in the future to ensure that our seniors in Etobicoke Centre and across Canada get the care they deserve? Hon. Deb Schulte: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to my colleague from Etobicoke Centre for his very thoughtful question. We are deeply concerned by the outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care facilities, and our thoughts are with those who have lost a loved one. It's a very difficult time. As my colleague mentioned, while these facilities are regulated by provinces and territories, we have been focused on protecting the health and safety of long-term care residents and staff while working with our partners in a team Canada approach. We've released guidelines to prevent and control COVID-19 infections. We're working with the provinces and territories to cost-share a temporary salary top-up for long-term care workers. We are working through investing $2 billion to secure personal protective equipment for the health of workers, including those in the long-term care homes, and we've deployed the Canadian Armed Forces to assist 25 long-term care homes in Quebec and Ontario. We all have a role to play to stop the spread of COVID-19 and to protect our seniors and caregivers. The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Easter. Hon. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. At the finance committee, we've heard a lot of concerns from all sectors of the economy as a result of COVID-19 and we've been presented with quite a number of possible solutions as well, several of which the government has acted upon. My question is on the support offered to the agri-food sector announced on Tuesday. It is very welcome support, but I sincerely believe the farm sector will be taking the Prime Minister up on the suggestion that $250 million should be seen as an initial investment. Potatoes are the number one commodity in Prince Edward Island. However, as a result of reduced processor contracts for next year, plus cancelled seed contracts, millions of dollars of seed and process potatoes have no home. To make matters worse, farmers have high fixed costs that they now have to spread over fewer acres. How does the minister see Tuesday's announcement addressing potato farmers'concerns? Second, in 2013, long-term financial safety nets were gutted by the Harper government. Will the minister be coming forward with improved business risk management programs as a result? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): Mr. Chair, I want to thank Mr. Easter, the member for the riding of Malpeque on Prince Edward Island. It's a beautiful rural riding with lots of agricultural production. I want to recognize the hard work of farmers throughout the crisis. On Tuesday, I was proud to announce one more step for supporting our producers and processors. We know the importance of our potato farmers, and that's why we are launching a first-ever surplus food purchase program, a $50-million fund designed to help redistribute existing inventories, such as potatoes, to local food organizations. On the financial safety net that we have in place for our farmers, called the business risk management program, we announced up to $125 million in funding through AgriRecovery and made changes to AgriStability that will help producers quickly. I will continue to discuss with my provincial counterparts toenhance and improve the BRM programs. In the meantime, I want to reiterate that BRM programs, including AgriInvest, are there to help farmers in difficult times. The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Johns now. Mr. Gord Johns (CourtenayAlberni, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, small businesses across Canada closed their doors to stop the spread and for public health. Now they're currently hanging off the edge of a cliff waiting for financial help. Robyn, who has owned Arbutus Health in Tofino for over 13 years, can't apply for the Canada emergency business account loan, simply because she doesn't have a payroll of over $20,000. All of her practitioners are paid contractors, so she is ineligible. With no business income and without emergency financing, it is virtually impossible for her to pay her bills or come up with the 25% needed for the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program. The government promised to be flexible and willing to adjust its COVID response rollout so that nobody falls through the cracks, but Robyn, like tens of thousands of proprietors who are the economic job creators of our communities, urgently needs the government's help now. Will the government amend its programs to help more business owners so that people like Robyn don't lose their businesses? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for his really good question. I know he and I have talked about this, and I appreciate the input and the feedback that he is providing from business directly. I want to assure Robyn and her businesses, and many businesses across the country, that we are absolutely listening, and we will continue to make sure we are supporting those businesses during this period. We know that many businesses are being helped through the Canada emergency business account. There are well over 550,000 businesses that are getting support through this emergency business account. We also know that more has to be done, and we will continue to work with you and businesses across the country so that we can indeed give them that necessary support to weather this difficult period of COVID-19. Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, that's not going to help Robyn feel comfort. I was talking to Heather last night, who also owns a business in Tofino, Basic Goodness Pizzeria, with her partner Marco. Like many proprietors of family businesses who aren't on payroll, they don't qualify for the business loans. They don't qualify for the wage subsidy because they're a seasonal business. Now with the new rollout of the rent support, they're not sure if their landlord is willing to play ball and even apply. That's three separate programs that leave them out. Heather was in tears last night as she told me that they have done nothing wrong to deserve being excluded from these emergency programs. I agree. Will the government fix the rent support program so that tenants can apply, instead of leaving it up to landlords, and so businesses can get the help they desperately need? Hon. Mona Fortier (OttawaVanier, Lib.): Mr. Chair, we've been working on this program since the beginning. We've been working on offering a response for small businesses and charities and non-profit organizations, and we are continuing to listen on the ground to how we can better assist the businesses that fall through the cracks. We will continue to do that as we go along in this emergency situation. Thank you very much to the honourable member for sharing the realities of his constituents. Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, when the government rolled out its commercial rent support program, why didn't it negotiate an eviction moratorium with the provinces, as Australia and other countries did, to protect business owners? Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as we know, Canadians are taking action and fighting against COVID-19. We know that many small businesses are worried about being able to pay rent. We've recognized it and we've been working with the provinces and territories to implement the Canada emergency commercial rent The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Johns. Mr. Gord Johns: To qualify for the Canada emergency wage subsidy, a 30% drop in revenue has to be shown. Anyone who's owned a business knows that even with this program, it's going to be hard to survive. Why is the government using a 70% measurement drop to qualify for the rent support program, but a 30% drop for the wage subsidy? Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, Mr. Chair, thank you to the honourable member for sharing his views on this program. We've been working with provinces and territories to provide forgivable loans to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rents for their tenants by 75%. We're hoping that tenants and landlords will be working together so we can support businesses during this very difficult crisis. The Chair: Before we move on to the next question, Mr. Berthold, did you have a question or a point of order? Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, I have a point of order. I checked the clock from the first round of five minutes, and as you may recall, it took a very long time for me to get an answer from the government. I went back and forth with MinisterMcKenna for four minutes and 14seconds. The Chair: Just a moment. The interpretation isn't coming through. It's working now. Go ahead, Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: I'll start over. During my first turn, it took 50seconds before a government minister deigned to answer my questions. After checking my time, I realized that the discussion between Ms. McKenna and I went on for four minutes and 14seconds, so I wasn't able to ask the minister one final question, a very important one. I would ask you to take that into account and allow me to ask MinisterMcKenna one last question, please. The Chair: The person chairing the meeting uses their judgment and does their best to keep an eye on what's going on. They try to be as fair as possible. I'll try to do a better job. I think it's more or less equal for all the members, but I apologize if the honourable member feels that he was denied a few seconds. Our next question goes to Mr. Doherty. Mr. Todd Doherty (CaribooPrince George, CPC): Mr. Chair, the Canada-U. S. border agreement is set to expire on May 20. Will the two governments renew the current agreement, or will it be modified? Hon. Bill Blair: The decision to close the border was made in Canada by Canadians in the best interest of Canadians. We're continuing to monitor the situation carefully. Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government be in a position to inform Canadians of any changes to the agreement? Hon. Bill Blair: I'm pleased to advise the member that we're continuing to monitor the situation, but I'm strongly of the opinion that the circumstances on both sides of our border do not indicate that this is the right time to make a change in the restrictions. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the government confirm whether there are any discussions about reopening the border to certain modes of transportation and restricting others? The Chair: Before I go to the minister, I want to remind the honourable members that we do have translators, and they are trying to translate. With respect to them, I know we're trying to get as many questions in as possible, but they do have to translate them, so please be considerate of our interpreters. The honourable minister has the floor. Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Let me please inform the honourable member that we are, of course, aware that the current agreement expires. I had a long conversation yesterday with the Prime Minister Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government announce a relief package for Canada's aviation industry? Hon. Navdeep Bains: We are engaged with the industry, and we are working with them on a solution, Mr. Chair. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, will this relief package include funding for airline ticket refunds similar to what other countries around the world have done? Yes or no? Hon. Navdeep Bains: It's early to say anything at this moment. We're taking a sectoral approach. This is about making sure that we restart the economy and have a strong recovery. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the Minister of Transport confirm that temperature screening is taking place at Canadian airports. Yes or no? Hon. Marc Garneau (Minister of Transport): Mr. Chair, I can confirm that Air Canada has now adopted a policy of checking temperatures for passengers boarding Air Canada flights. Mr. Todd Doherty: At which airports is that, and when did this practice start? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the announcement was made recently by Air Canada. It will start shortly and will apply to all places and destinations where Air Canada flies. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, this is for the Minister of Transport. Last week I asked the Minister of Labour if they were aware of a letter written on April 6 by CUPE to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Minister, were you aware of that letter? The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly. Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I didn't understand the reference to a letter from CUPE. Could my colleague please clarify? Mr. Todd Doherty: On April 6, CUPE wrote a letter to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Is the minister aware of that letter? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, could my colleague clarify what CUPE is referring to? Mr. Todd Doherty: CUPE is the labour organization that represents thousands of flight attendants across our country. Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I do understand. Yes, I will confirm that CUPE, which represents the flight attendants, did write to us. Before that I had conversations with CUPE with respect to flight attendants and the use of personal protective equipment. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the minister confirm whether or not they have provided PPE to the flight attendants and/or training for front-line staff for airlines and airports? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the airlines are providing PPE to flight attendants and flight crews. This has become a policy to ensure the safety not only of passengers on board but also of the flight attendants and flight crew. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, a business owner from Quesnel wrote to my office recently. He stated that he couldn't give his small business tenants a break on rent because the government is penalizing him for paying off his mortgage. When will the government change the CECRA rules to help more businesses? Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as you know, we laid out the CECRA program just last week, and we are encouraging landlords to take that opportunity to support the renters. We will continue to look at how we can provide some relief to small businesses with rents. Mr. Todd Doherty: With all due respect, Mr. Chair, any landlord who does not have a mortgage on their business is ineligible for CECRA. Is the minister aware of this, and are they trying to revise the CECRA program? Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with provinces and territories to present that program. Of course, we will continue to monitor how this program works for landlords and tenants. We are asking, actually encouraging, landlords to do their part and help tenants, like the one you mentioned, go through this. The Chair: We'll go to the next questioner. Go ahead, Ms. Dancho. Ms. Raquel Dancho (KildonanSt. Paul, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Small businesses in Manitoba employ 73% of Manitobans. That's over 286,000 Manitobans. I've been speaking with many small business owners in my riding. It's been heartbreaking, frankly, to hear that everything they've built and sacrificed for is in serious jeopardy, and through no fault of their own. Your government has created programs that are supposed to help them, but many legitimate businesses aren't able to apply. That could mean bankruptcy and cost thousands of Manitobans jobs. This is wrong. I'm hoping to hear specifics, not just nice words, on what you're going to do to help them. There are three issues regarding access to the $40,000 CEBA loan. First, businesses that recently incorporatedfor example, in late 2019are unable to apply their entire 2019 payroll. As a result, many are falling short of the $20,000 payroll threshold required to qualify for this loan. Second, many businesses contract their employees rather than have them on payroll. They also are unable to qualify for this loan. Third, many businesses use personal rather than business banking accounts. They aren't able to qualify for this loan either. What is your government going to do about these three scenarios? The Chair: I just want to remind honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly to the minister. As well, please take into consideration the interpreters, who have to listen and translate, so that we can have this conversation. Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for that question. Right from the very beginning, we've always said that we will listen and that we will work to make sure that measures go out to help our Canadian small businesses. She's absolutely right: 98% of all our businesses in this country are small businesses, so they absolutely contribute enormously to our communities and are job creators. That is why we have put out significant measures. For the Canada emergency business account, over 550,000 small businesses have been approved and are getting that support. I absolutely acknowledge that there is more work to do. I can assure the honourable member that we will continue to do this work so that businesses, all businesses, are supported, whether it is helping keep your employees together, helping with rent support, helping to keep your business's expenses low, or of course helping with the capital that is needed so that you can pay your operating expenses and your bills through this difficult time. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, I didn't hear any answers from the minister's remarks, unfortunately. Moving on, there are two issues regarding the 50% commercial rent assistance subsidy, where landlords pay 25%, the government pays 50%, and the tenant is responsible for 25%. First, many of the small landlords aren't able to take a 25% hit to their income, and are unable to provide the subsidy to their tenants. Second, with the 70% decline in revenue threshold for small businesses to even be eligible for the rent assist, many restaurants are at 65% or 67% decline. They desperately need this subsidy but aren't able to qualify. This is not about problems with the program details. What is the government planning to do to streamline this program for small businesses that can't access but desperately need the rent subsidy? Hon. Mlanie Joly: Mr. Chair, as the Minister of Official Languages, I just want to raise the fact that interpretation is very complicated right now. In order to make sure that we can continue to uphold bilingualism within the House, I would love it if my colleagues could take down the pace a bit. That would help the interpreters a whole lot. They are working very hard and trying to keep up. The Chair: That's a reasonable request. I just want to remind everyone again that when you're asking a question, make sure you are doing it at a pace at which you're considering the people who are interpreting Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, this is how fast I speak when we're in the House of Commons. It's just how I talk. The Chair: I understand. I have a lot of friends who speak very quickly. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Right. I understand. Perhaps we could get back to my question about the rent subsidy. The Chair: We stopped the time. You're not losing any time on this one. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Okay. I will try to speak more slowly. The Chair: I appreciate it. Thank you. The interpreters appreciate it. Now we'll go to the minister, please. Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with the provinces and territories to provide this forgivable loan to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rent of their tenants by 75%. We will continue to monitor how this program is delivered, as we announced it last week. It will be offered pretty soon. It will be very important that we understand what happens across the country, and we will monitor and adapt the program as we Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, it has been in the media quite a bit that this rent subsidy is not helping many, many, many small business owners. It's falling short of everything that was announced, so I think it needs to be taken a bit more seriously than that. There are two issues regarding the 75% wage subsidy. First, employers who pay themselves and their employees dividends rather than wages are unable to qualify. Second, there is also a 30% threshold revenue decline needed in order to apply. Many of the businesses in my riding are at 27% or 29%. They desperately need these funds but are unable to qualify. What is the government planning to do for these small businesses? Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, thank you to the hon. member for sharing the realities she's hearing from small business owners. We are providing help and support for businesses through these very difficult times. The wage subsidy has been taken up and is working for many businesses. We know that some still fall through the cracks and we will look at how we can continue to support businesses across the country. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends (BrossardSaint-Lambert, Lib.) ): We are now going to Mr. Kevin Waugh. Mr. Kevin Waugh (SaskatoonGrasswood, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. Three weeks ago, on April 17, the Minister of Canadian Heritage announced funding of $500 million to assist Canada's arts, sports and cultural sectors. We are still waiting to hear who is eligible and when they can expect to receive this funding. Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Canadian Heritage): Madam Chair, we will be releasing the details of that announcement, and how the money is going to be spent, in the coming days. Mr. Kevin Waugh: We all know that many media organizations, large and small, in Canada are struggling right now. Allegations have arisen that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CBC, is currently engaging in predatory behaviour and taking advantage of the current situation to harm its competitors using rate cuts. We've seen this from the province of Quebec. Many journalists have talked about this. What is the government going to do to address these allegations against the CBC? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have not been informed of these allegations. We will look into this, and we will get back to the hon. colleague if we do find any valuable information. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Local community and ethnic media outlets and papers have strong ties to their communities that often go much deeper than the major media outlets. Is the government currently using any local or ethnic media outlets to provide crucial coronavirus information through advertising? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, I totally agree with my colleague. We need to get the information to Canadians on COVID-19, which is why we have started an ad-buy campaign of $30 million, which is being distributed in more than 900 local, regional and national newspapers across the country and 500 radio and TV stations in 12 different languages, including Farsi, Mandarin, Spanish, Italian and many more. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Mr. Minister, I talked to the Winnipeg Free Press yesterday. It has received two ads from an ad agency in connection with the $30 million the government is doling out to help media outlets. They had one ad on March 27. The second ad was on April 11. That is two ads in the Winnipeg Free Press in the last eight weeks. Is this the kind of money you're attempting to dole out to help media: two ads in eight weeks? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have been doing a number of things for our media in Canada over the last few months and will continue to do so. On top of that $30 million ad-buy campaign, we have been investing $50 million in local journalism. Just this year, it means that 200 journalists will be hired in areas across the country where journalism is more poorly defined. The federal government has paid part I licence fees of our broadcasters to the CRTC. That means $30 million is staying in the pockets of our broadcasters. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Madam Chair, last week, as the minister would know, 15 community newspapers, including eight in Manitoba and seven in the province of Ontario, closed their doors for good. Is the government currently planning any further measures aimed at assisting community or ethnic media organizations? We understand that many more will close their doors within the next 30 to 60 days. Hon. Steven Guilbeault: We are planning a number of other measures, some of which will be included in the $500 million. I will be announcing the details of that in the coming days. Of the $595 million that the media will receive, we have a tax credit that has now entered into force, and the cheques should be in the mail by the end of the summer. So there are a number of things we've done and a number of things we will be doing in the coming months as well. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Waugh, you may have a short question. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Well, finally, you have the five members associated with that committee to dole out the $595 million. They haven't even met yet. When will they meet? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: I would like to remind my hon. colleague that in order for us to provide tax breaks for the 2019 period, media outlets had to file their tax returns so we could go ahead. This will now be able to proceed, Madam Chair. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We now move on to Mr. Godin. Mr. Godin, you may go ahead. Mr. Jol Godin (PortneufJacques-Cartier, CPC): Thank you, MadamChair. This being the first time I've had the floor during a virtual sitting of Parliament, I'd like to take this opportunity to greet my fellow members, all 259participants. I hope they are taking care of themselves. I'd like to talk about the Prime Minister's appearance on the show Tout le monde en parle. This is what he had to say about his economic recovery plan: We are going to remain focused on the economy as a wholeinnovationresearch and science, the green economy and a fairer economyThere are things we are all reflecting on right now that reflection is going to continue. That was a weak answer. It didn't inspire much confidence. Can the government assure Canadians that it is being proactive and working on a plan to get the economy moving again? It must act now. Things are starting to reopen gradually. Is the government going to take concrete action to revive the economy? Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Yes, absolutely. Our government is wholly committed to restarting the economy, and we are working closely with the provinces to do just that. Last week, our government, together with the provincial and territorial premiers, released the principles that will guide efforts to restore economic activity across the country. That is key. The discussion between the Prime Minister and the premiers is continuing today. Mr. Jol Godin: MadamChair, before we go any further, since it took a while for the minister, or the government, to answer the question, can I have that time back to ask questions? The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I stopped the clock, Mr. Godin. Mr. Jol Godin: Thank you. The Prime Minister's answer during his appearance on Tout le monde en parle didn't inspire much confidence and doesn't line up with the Deputy Prime Minister's comments. How can the government be proud of announcing $252million in assistance for the agri-food sector, when that is less than 1% of all the program funding the government has committed to help Canadians get through the COVID-19 crisis? Clearly, the government doesn't see the food supply chain as a priority and has no regard for farmers and pork and beef producers. Does the government realize that eating is vital to Canadians? When is the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food going to adjust the program and show respect for Canadian farmers? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: I have the utmost respect for farmers. We are going step by step. We've already confirmed various supports for the agricultural sector. This week, we focused on beef and pork producers and processors, as well as sectors with product surpluses that can be redirected to food banks. I can assure my fellow member that this is an additional step and that more supports are on the way in the weeks ahead. Bear in mind that a number of programs are already available to farmers. Mr. Jol Godin: I'd like to switch topics now. PortneufJacques-Cartier is home to a company that is already licensed by Health Canada and that, for 20years, has been manufacturing medical equipment including masks, face shields and thermometers. This is equipment our health workers need. The company has a licence from the federal government. In mid-March, Health Canada reached out to the company to find out how much equipment it could manufacture to help fight COVID-19. The company confirmed that it could immediately start producing 200,000masks a week, ramping up to a million masks over the next few weeks. Forty-five days later, it is still waiting on its first order from the Canadian government. We are managing a crisis with a limited supply of medical equipment. Can the health minister tell us why, 45days later, this company licensed by Health Canada hasn't received an order? Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Thank you for the question. Industry and suppliers have enthusiastically answered our call to equip Canada with products and goods during the crisis. Many of those suppliers have already received contracts. We have reached out to all the others and will negotiate contracts as needed. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I would now like to invite hon. member Jenica Atwin to speak. Mrs. Jenica Atwin (Fredericton, GP): Thank you, Madam Chair. Seniors living alone are most at risk of economic insecurity, particularly single senior women, as gender inequality in the job market has translated all too often into inadequate retirement income. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a poverty reduction plan that addresses the unique challenges faced by older women? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to assure the member that we are quite aware that this pandemic has typically affected single seniors, and many of those, given that they live longer, are single senior women. I want to assure her that we are working on this issue, and we have provided some supports already through measures such as the GST supplementary payment. That is on average almost $400 for single seniors. There's more work to do. We know that, so stay tuned. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, older women represent a high proportion of residents in long-term care facilities. Having spent their lives caring for parents, children and often their partners, they find themselves needing care in nursing homes. Multiple outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care homes in Canada have highlighted systemic gaps that senior and elderly women may face in such facilities, as well as the working conditions of the female-dominated ranks of nurses and personal support workers. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a federal strategy for long-term care homes that recognizes quality of life for residents and working conditions for the employees, ideally one that goes hand in hand with a poverty reduction plan and enhanced home and community care investments across the country? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I do want to thank the hon. member for her question. It's an important one. We are obviously deeply saddened by the outbreaks that have been going on in long-term care facilities and those who have lost their lives. We do recognize that the administration of long-term care and palliative care is the responsibility of provinces and territories; however, we have been taking a team Canada approach, and as you already know, we've been doing tremendous work with them to try to ensure that those who live in those facilities can be well cared for and safe. We are doing that with guidelines The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms. Atwin has the floor. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, from May 4 to May 10, we are observing Mental Health Week. We know that our essential workers right now are experiencing unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety, on top of putting their own physical safety and health on the line. Most of these workers work in precarious jobs with no access to paid sick leave or vacation, and without any benefits to access mental health services. Apart from the very welcome investments in online resources, can the minister explain how the government will support these workers now and once the crisis is behind us? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, thank you very much to the member for the question. I'm so glad that she's raising the issue of mental health and in particular how poor mental health is oftentimes connected to our socio-economic status. I appreciate the nuance in that question. She's right. We do have new resources that are available to all Canadians free of charge through the Wellness Together portal, but there is more to do. I think the announcement of top-up wages, for example, which the Prime Minister spoke about today, is another example of how we're taking the health and wellness of all low-income Canadians very seriously. We know that mental health is not divorced from socio-economic status, and I look forward to working with her more on other measures that we can take together. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, we're all very aware of the importance of temporary foreign workers and their role in ensuring our food sovereignty across this country. The pandemic has highlighted how we depend on their work. How are we protecting them? Madam Chair, will the government take action to strengthen legislation and ensure Canadians have access to the food they need while the workers who help bring it to our tables have safe working conditions, regardless of where they are working in this country? Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Thank you, Madam Chair. We are very concerned, as are countries around the world, that we support and create the environment for the health and safety of our temporary foreign workers and we value their contribution to our food supply chain here in Canada. We have issued guidelines to employers and are working very closely with local public health authorities in the provinces and territories to make sure workers are protected, that physical distancing and other recommendations are adhered to and that there are severe consequences if employers don't take care of their workers. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We are now going to Mr. MacGregor. Mr. Alistair MacGregor (CowichanMalahatLangford, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. My first question is this: Will the Liberal government prevent federal bailout funds from going to companies that use tax havens and avoid paying their fair share here in Canada, yes or no? Hon. Diane Lebouthillier (Minister of National Revenue): We are working to make sure that anyone who tries to circumvent the rules faces serious consequences. We are asking businesses to designate a representative to attest their claims. Any employer receiving the subsidy who is deemed ineligible will have to repay the full amount. Anyone who abuses the program could face fines of up to 225% of the subsidy amount as well as five years in prison. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, I didn't really hear a yes to that question, so I'll repeat it. Does the government really think it's appropriate for tax-avoiding corporations to receive funding provided for by taxpayers? Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: We will keep going after companies that engage in tax evasion. I want to be clear. We will target those who are responsible, not innocent workers. An employee is an employee, regardless of who they work for. The wage subsidy program does not hand a blank cheque over to employers. It is meant to help Canadians pay their bills, keep their jobs and get through the crisis. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, the agriculture funding announced by the government earlier this week amounts to less than 10% of what the Canadian Federation of Agriculture estimates will be required to help farmers weather this crisis. Why has the Minister of Agriculture shortchanged our farmers? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, this is one more step. This was one more step. We have already committed significant support to our farmers through different programs, and we will do more. I have to remind my colleague that we have put in $5 billion through FCC, $50 million for the temporary foreign workers, two times $50 million for pork and beef producers this week, and $77 million for food processing. This is only the beginning, and we should not forget that the business risk management programs are still there to offer support. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Yes, Madam Chair, but we're nearly two months into this pandemic and this announcement only came this week. Farmers need certainty. When can farmers expect further updates on funding, and how much will the government be providing? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, we are working closely with the farmers and their representatives to identify where the gaps are, but once again, we have made improvements to the AgriStability program. They can get, depending on the province, either 50% or 75% in advance payments, and they can also, right now, access their AgriInvest program. There is more than $2 billion ready to access today, if they have The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. MacGregor. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, federal disability recipients and seniors on fixed incomes have been hardest hit by cost of living increases from COVID-19. If we acknowledge that $2,000 per month is the minimum needed to get through this time, why are they being asked to survive on far less? When can they expect assistance, and how much will they receive? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to make sure people realize that we have provided some assistance through the GST supplementary benefit. We are also providing support to those who are still working, and we have done that by allowing them to access the CERB. There is more work to be done, so you'll be hearing more in the near future. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, as I think we've heard through today's question period, there are countless example of this government designing programs to exclude many small businesses that desperately need help. Whether it's the payroll requirements or other eligibility, we still, to this day, almost two months into the pandemic, have too many small businesses falling through the cracks. Madam Chair, why has the government taken this approach and when can we finally expect fixes to the whole system? Hon. Mary Ng: Madam Chair, right from the get-go, we have been committed to making sure that Canadians are helped through this crisis, and that small businesses get the support that they need, so that we are saving businesses and jobs in this country. That is what we have done with many of our programs. You're seeing that we are also listening, so that we can modify them as we need. I want to assure the member that the work is not done. We continue to do this. The Chair: Thank you. It is now over to Mr. Perron. Mr. Perron, you may go ahead. Mr. Yves Perron (BerthierMaskinong, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question will come as no surprise, since it has to do with agriculture. I hear the questions my fellow members are asking, and to be frank, I don't find the answers satisfactory. It is well and good to talk about existing programs, but they aren't working, so enough with that refrain. That's what people are telling us. It's not just members of the opposition saying it. This morning, both farmers and processors came together for a press conference at the Union des producteurs agricoles's head office in Longueuil. Six stakeholders from different sectors sounded the alarm. Can the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food therefore tell us when she will announce significant supports for the industry? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We have already announced significant amounts of support, and more is on the way. I'd like to correct my fellow member. It's not that the programs aren't working; it's that they aren't generous enough in farmers'eyes. That's why I'm working with my provincial counterparts to make improvements to programming, including AgriStability. Here's an example. After using the online AgriStability benefit estimator, a pork producer found out that he would get $11 per head, as they say in the industry. Pork producers are calling for $20 per head, so it's a good start, even though it's not enough and it isn't what they are asking for. We want to keep working together, but farmers have to access the money available to them through AgriStability. Mr. Yves Perron: Now it's my turn to correct the minister. Even before the crisis, we were hearing from people in the industry that the programs were neither suitable nor sufficient. We are in a crisis, and this is an exceptional situation. In the case of mad cow disease, farmers received direct assistance. That's the kind of assistance we are calling for. We don't want to hear about growing levels of debt. Of course, this is a first step, but farms are already deep in debt. A few days ago, the government announced $50million in funding for pork producers, even though they are asking for $20per hog for 27million hogs. The government's support covers just 2. 5million hogs. When I call the measure insufficient, I mean it is grossly insufficient. It's high time the government put forth more support. It has to stop saying that it's working hard and examining the situation. The government has to listen to the people in the industry. Again, this morning, they had some interesting proposals. When is the government going to announce a whole lot more in funding support? What's been announced so far is only 10% of what farmers are asking for. Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We are going step by step. The programs are already in place. We are trying to make them better, and we are committed to doing that. These programs are cost-shared with the provinces. However, I would point out to the member that, when it comes to AgriRecovery, we made an exception to the rule. We are moving forward in every province to help pork and beef producers. That's two funding envelopes of $50million each to help cover the additional costs from the decrease in plant processing capacity. That's new money that was not yet available, money we introduced this week. As the Prime Minister said, we are going to do more, and we are moving forward step by step. Mr. Yves Perron: What we concluded in committee this week is that the $125million is not new money. It was already earmarked for the programs. The government can't say that programs already exist and, at the same time, claim that they are new programs. Something doesn't add up there. What's more, there are different ways to make money available. I'd like to talk compensation. Everyone knows that the Canada-U. S. -Mexico Agreement came into force a month earlier than planned, despite the promises that had been made. That resulted in additional losses, once again. An easy way to make money available without committing new spending is to provide compensation and announce programs for supply-managed sectors that got nothing. It seems to me that a time of crisis is a time for the government to practise some judo and announce measures. I am reaching out to the government, as I always do, but it has to come forward with announcements. Can we expect the government to announce measures in the coming days? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Our commitment to farmers in supply-managed sectorsmeaning, egg, poultry and dairy farmersis as strong as it always was. I repeat, our commitment is clear. Dairy producers received their first payment at the end of last year or the beginning of this year. Support for poultry and egg farmers is in the form of investment programs, which aligns well with the recovery. At this time, we are focusing on emergency programs to help farmers hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. When it comes to the dairy sector, I hope I can count on your support. As you know, legislative changes are needed to grant the Canadian Dairy Commission's request and increase its borrowing limit by $200million so it can buy more butter and cheese. The Chair: Our next question will go to Mr. Lake. Hon. Mike Lake (EdmontonWetaskiwin, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we're all inundated, as we've heard during this entire question period, with Canadians'concerns about the economic restrictions and the social restrictions that they're under. Over the last couple of months, the WHO has given one very consistent message in terms of coming out of those economic and social restrictions. On March 16, Dr. Tedros said in his briefing, We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test. On March 25,44 days ago, he said, Aggressive measures to find, isolate, test, treat and trace are not only the best and fastest way out of extreme social and economic restrictionstheyre also the best way to prevent them. Does the minister agree with the WHO that relentless testing and tracing are critical to a successful economic and social relaunch strategy in Canada? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thanks to the member for the very astute observation and question. Absolutely, we agree that testing and contact tracing will form an important part of our response to living with COVID. We've been investing heavily in ensuring that we have the lab capacity, the collaboration across provinces and territories, and the variety of testing options to help us increase our capacity to test. We are aiming right now for a high volume of tests, but I will also say that in Canada we have one of the highest testing rates in the world. Although we're doing well, I can assure him that I am with him and I believe we need to do more. Hon. Mike Lake: I have some really quick questions for follow-up. First, what is Canada's current testing capability? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as I mentioned to his colleagues yesterday, we have currently the capacity to do approximately 60,000 tests per day across the country. Hon. Mike Lake: How many tests were conducted each day on average in Canada last week? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, it's hard for me to get that exact number, but I will get back to him with the exact number. Hon. Mike Lake: I'll save you the time. The exact number was 28,851, on average, every day last week. That's a gap of 30,000 from what your stated testing capability is. I'll give another quote from Dr. Tam, back on April 22,15 days ago. She said, As a first tranche, roughly close to 60,000 is where the provinces can potentially expand to as a target already. Does the minister happen to know, ballpark, what the average number of daily tests in Canada has been since that statement? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Your estimate was slightly higher than what my estimate was going to be, so that's a great piece of news. Listen, I will just say that I think if the premise here is that we could be doing more testing. I would agree, but I will also say that the provinces and territories are working incredibly hard on testing strategies that meet their own specific needs. I'm happy to have a conversation with the member later about that testing strategy. Dr. Tam works with all the chief public health officers across the country to ensure that their testing strategy is going to be applicable and appropriate for their particular jurisdictions. We, as the federal government, provide the capacity for them to conduct those tests. Hon. Mike Lake: Following up on that, is there a jurisdiction in Canada where relentless testing is not the appropriate strategy as provinces consider relaunching? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Each province and territory has its own outbreak and its own epidemic. For example, in British Columbia, where there are relatively fewer cases in general and less disease activity, they may have a different testing strategy than a province like Ontario, which is currently struggling with more outbreaks. Hon. Mike Lake: Given your comment that our current testing capability is 60,000, and acknowledging that only at one point in the entire history of our COVID response, over several months, has our weekly average been over 30,000it was about 31,000 for one day on a rolling basisMinister, are you satisfied with our current testing amounts right now, given that we're testing 50% of what the public health officer advises would be best? Hon. Patty Hajdu: I'm so amazed by the work the provinces and territories have done in a very short time to increase their capacity. We are supporting them with the tools that they need to get more testing done, but also to have other components in place that will allow them to do the rapid tracing of positive cases. I think it's very important to remember that testing strategies will be different across the provinces, based on the outbreak disease epidemiology. Having said that, I know that we can all do better, and I'm certain that my counterparts feel the same. The Chair: I'm going to have to cut the minister off at that one. I want to thank everyone for the session today, I think it went rather well. I'm very proud of you and proud of ourselves for what we managed to accomplish. The committee stands adjourned until Tuesday, May 12, at noon.

It was believed that the farm sector would be taking the Prime Minister up on the suggestion that $250 million should be seen as an initial investment. On the financial safety net that the government had in place for the farmers, called the business risk management program, which was announced up to $125 million in funding through AgriRecovery and made changes to AgriStability that would help producers quickly.

tr-sq-635

tr-sq-635_0

When would the government announce a relief package for Canada's aviation industry? The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.) ): We'll call this meeting to order. Welcome to the fifth meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. Pursuant to the order passed on Monday, April20, the committee is meeting today to consider ministerial announcements, to allow members of the committee to present petitions, and to question ministers, including the Prime Minister, about the COVID-19 pandemic. Tomorrow, May8, Dr. AndreaMcCrady, Dominion Carillonneur, will give a special recital to mark the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day. Victory in Europe Day, VE Day, commemorates the formal acceptance of Germany's surrender by allied forces at the end of the Second World War. While the pandemic prevents us from gathering to celebrate in person, tomorrow at noon the voice of our nation will ring out in remembrance of this milestone in our history. Today's meeting is taking place by video conference. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. Just so you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entire committee. I would like to remind members that, as in the House of Commons or committee, they should not take photos of their colleagues or film the proceedings. In order to facilitate the work of the interpreters and to allow the meeting to proceed smoothly, I would ask you to follow some instructions. The video conference will be interpreted as in normal meetings of committees and in the House. In the lower part of your screen, you can choose the language: floor, English or French. Please wait until I call on you by name before you begin to speak. When you are ready to speak, click on the microphone icon to activate your microphone, or hold the space bar down while you are speaking. If you release the bar, your microphone will revert to mute, just like a walkie-talkie. Honourable members, I would like to remind you that if you want to speak English, you should be on the English channel. If you want to speak French, you should be on the French channel. Should you wish to alternate between the two languages, you should change the channel to the language that you are speaking each time you switch languages. Please direct your remarks through the chair. Should you need to request the floor outside of your designated speaking time, you should activate your mike and state that you have a point of order. If a member of the committee wishes to intervene on a point of order raised by another person, you should use the raised hand function to indicate to the chair that you wish to speak. To do this, click on the participant button at the bottom of your screen. When the list appears, you will see the raised hand option beside your name. Speak slowly and clearly at all times. When you are not speaking, leave your microphone on mute. It is highly recommended that you use a headset with a microphone. You have to remember to switch languages. Should any technical challenges arise, for example, in relation to interpretation, please advise the chair immediately by raising a point of order, and the technical team will work on resolving them. Please note that we may need to suspend during these times in order to correct a problem. I want to remind the honourable members to mute their microphones when they are not speaking. If you get accidentally disconnected, please try to rejoin the meeting with the information you used to join initially. If you are unable to rejoin, please contact our technical support team. Before we get started, please note that in the top right-hand corner of your screen is a button that you can use to change views. Speaker view allows you to focus on the person currently speaking; gallery view allows you to see a larger number of participants. You can click through the multiple pages in the gallery view to see who is on and how many more participants there are. I understand there are no ministerial announcements today. We will now proceed to presenting petitions for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during the meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. In addition, to ensure a petition is considered properly presented, the certificate of the petition and each page of the petition for a petition certified in a previous Parliament should be mailed to the committee no later than 6 p. m. the day before. Now we'll go to presenting petitions. Mr. Genuis. Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Mr. Chair, five years ago when Parliament passed Bill C-14, then justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said that it represented a finely tuned balance between access and safeguards. It also included a five-year review. Petitioners on the first petition I'm presenting are very concerned to see Bill C-7 before Parliament, which removes safeguards ahead of that five-year review. Petitioners specifically mention their concerns about the removal of the mandatory 10-day reflection period, which can already be waived in certain circumstances. They are concerned about reducing the number of witnesses required to oversee it and ensure that a request has been properly made. I commend that petition to the consideration of the House. The second and final petition that I will be presenting today is with respect to Senate Bill S-204. This would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ from a person who did not consent. This responds specifically to concerns about organ harvesting in the People's Republic of China involving Falun Gong practitioners and increasing concerns that this is being or about to be applied to Uighurs as well. Canada can and should take action on this. Petitioners are noting that in the previous Parliament there were bills on this, Bill C-350 and Bill S-240. Now, in this Parliament there is a bill, Bill S-204, and the petitioners hope that this 43rd Parliament will be the one that gets it passed. The Chair: We will go to Ms. May. Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's an honour. This is my first occasion to present a petition in our virtual format of the COVID-19 committee. Thank you to you and your staff, Mr. Chair, for developing a system that allows us to present petitions electronically. The petition I am presenting today, which was previously approved, is from a number of constituents who are concerned that we pursue the Paris Agreement to hold the global average temperature increase to no more than 1. 5C. The Paris Agreement itself embeds in it the concept of Just Transition with a capital J and a capital T, the concept of just transition ensuring fairness and support for all workers in the fossil fuel sector. The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to move forward with an act to ensure just transition and to ensure adequate funding so that workers and communities dependent on the fossil fuel sector receive meaningful support to ensure security in their lives in the transition to more sustainable energy use. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Chair: Those are all the petitions for today. I want to thank the honourable members for their usual collaboration and now we'll go on to Mr. James Bezan (SelkirkInterlakeEastman, CPC): On a point of order, Mr. Chair, on Tuesday, at our COVID-19 committee of the whole meeting, I was asking a question which started at 12: 56: 06 and was cut off at 1: 00: 32, so I still have 34 seconds of time remaining in my question time of five minutes. You said it could be no more than five minutes but that I had up to five minutes. Thirty-four seconds leaves a lot of time to have a quick question and a quick response. If you believe that my time was unjustly cut off and that it was unfair treatment of the official opposition when we were raising our points of order, I would ask that the 34 seconds be tacked on to the opening round for the opposition and credited to Rosemarie Falk, who will be leading off for the Conservatives. The Chair: Normally what happens is the chair uses judgment, and with 35 seconds, there isn't enough time obviously for a full question or answer, most of the time. I'll take it under advisement. I can't allot it. I want everyone to know that I do have a timer next to me and I am timing the questions, and I will be treating the answers the same way. If it's a 25-second question, it will be a 25-second answer. Thank you for bringing that up. I believe that issue has been remedied. We've taken a little bit of the chair's ability to give judgment on it, but it will be from now on. Thank you. Mr. James Bezan: Mr. Chair, 34 seconds is a considerable amount of time to do a short question and a short answer. The Chair: I appreciate the advice. Thank you, Mr. Bezan. We'll now proceed to the questioning of ministers. I would like to remind the honourable members that no member will be recognized for more than five minutes at a time and that members may split their time with one or more members by so indicating to the chair. Ministers responding to the questions should do so by simply turning on their microphone and speaking. Our first questioner is Ms. Falk. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk (BattlefordsLloydminster, CPC): Mr. Chair, yesterday, Elizabeth May and the leader of the separatists declared oil to be dead. It's certainly not dead, but it's dying under the Trudeau government. Will the Prime Minister stand up for Canada's energy workers, or does he agree with the fringe left and those who want to destroy our country? Ms. Elizabeth May: I have a point of order. The Chair: Go ahead, Ms. May. Ms. Elizabeth May: Mr. Chair, I believe that the language that the honourable member just used is unparliamentary Mr. Garnett Genuis: That's not a point of order. Ms. Elizabeth May: We can have differences of opinion, but it is absolutely Some hon. members: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: unacceptable and violates my privileges to An hon member: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: No, it's not debate. I would ask the chair to rule on that, not the member from the Conservative Party. It is unacceptable to assert that anyone who wants to make a point about our economy is trying to destroy the country. This allegation is a violation of my privilege. An hon. member: She was also named by the The Chair: Order. I didn't recognize anyone. I don't know who is speaking, so I'll just start talking myself. I want to remind honourable members to have respect in their questions and in their answers. When you refer to someone, please refer to them respectfully. This is a committee of the House, and I would expect no less of the honourable members. We'll go to the right honourable Prime Minister. You have 16 seconds. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. As I pointed out this morning in my press conference, we cannot move forward on a transformation of our energy sector without supporting the workers in that energy sector. We need their innovation and we need their hard work if we are going to lower our emissions, if we are going to reach our The Chair: We'll go to Ms. Falk again. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, it has been 43 days since the finance minister promised Canada's energy sector liquidity through the Business Development Bank of Canada. For 43 days the finance minister has failed to deliver on that promise. These delays cost jobs and they are costing us Canadian businesses. If the government doesn't step up to support our energy sector, they are in effect doubling down on their support for foreign, unethically sourced oil. Mr. Chair, when will the credit options be available to Canada's small and medium energy firms? The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that we do have interpreters who are listening and translating. In consideration to them, please speak at a reasonable pace so that they can understand and then translate. The right honourable Prime Minister. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, our priority through this pandemic and this crisis has been to support workers across the country. We have sent billions of dollars to workers right across the country, including Alberta, Saskatchewan, B. C. , and Newfoundland and Labrador in the energy sector for them to be able to support their families through this difficult time. We are also working on sectoral supports right across the country. Those will be announced in due course. Our focus from the get-go has been The Chair: We'll move to Ms. Falk. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, another group that has been ignored by the Liberals is our farmers. The announcements to date fall well short of what is needed to maintain a steady supply of affordable and healthy food. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture has asked the government for a $2. 6-billion emergency fund. Instead of responding to specific COVID-19 challenges, our farmers are facing the Liberals'reannounced $125 million that was already budgeted in the AgriRecovery program. Will the Prime Minister finally step up and take our food supply chain seriously, or is agriculture just an afterthought for him? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: On the contrary, Mr. Chair, we take agriculture and our agricultural sector extremely seriously, which is why we announced hundreds of millions of dollars a couple of days ago to respond to pressing needs. We will continue to make investments to ensure both the safety of workers in our agricultural sector and the safety of our communities, as well as the continued flow of high-quality Canadian food onto our tables right across the country. Supporting the people who produce our food is a priority for this government and will continue to be. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Well, Mr. Chair, recycled program announcements do not respond to the immediate needs facing our farmers. This is absolutely unacceptable. Our farmers are faced with rising operational costs, a disrupted service industry, labour shortages and a reduced capacity at processing plants. The government has a responsibility to take domestic food security seriously. When will the Prime Minister deliver adequate support to address the critical changes facing our ag industry? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I would suggest respectfully that the honourable member take a look once again at the announcement we made, which actually highlights significant new investments to support our agricultural industry. I certainly agree that there is more to do. Every step of the way in this unprecedented situation, we've been moving forward on doing more, on adjusting and on investing more. We need to support our agricultural sector and the people who work so hard to put food on Canadians'tables right across the country and we will continue to. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, Canadians expect to find healthy and affordable food at their grocery stores, but if the government does not take action now, that's not a given. Our farmers are trying to keep Canadians fed while keeping their heads above water. The Liberal government's own failed federal carbon tax is weighing them down. It is an enormous hit to their bottom line, and the recent carbon tax hike is taking even more money out of the pockets of farmers at a time when they can afford it the least. Will the Prime Minister exempt all farm operations from the carbon tax and reimburse the money that they have already taken from them? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, it's a shame to hear the member opposite accidentallyunintentionally, I'm certainmislead the House and Canadians. The price on pollution actually puts more money into Canadians'pockets, and that includes farm families. People who pay the cost of the price on pollution on average receive more money back. This is the way of creating a better future for our kids and grandkids, which I know people in communities right across the country, including our farm communities, want to see happen. We are moving forward in a responsible way to put a price on pollution and put more money in average Canadians'pockets. The Chair: We now continue with Mrs. Gill. Mrs. Gill, you have the floor. Mrs. Marilne Gill (Manicouagan, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. As you know, all sectors of the economy are fragile at the moment, specifically the fisheries. I am thinking about the lobster fishery in the Magdalen Islands, the crab fishery on the Cte-Nord or those fishing for herring in the south of the Gasp. Because imports have ceased, because the domestic market is weak and in decline because of the interruption of the tourism and restaurant industries, the fishing industry and its fishers must be supported. I would like to know what the government has done to support our fishers since the crisis began. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Our fishers do exceptional work that is extremely important in feeding Canadians and in contributing to our economic success through their exports around the world. This crisis has struck them very hard. That is why we have established measures in the tens of millions of dollars to support our processors. We have also announced help for the fishers. We know that these are difficult and unprecedented times, and we are going to Mrs. Marilne Gill: My thanks to the Prime Minister. I am actually talking about help for the fishers. I know about the processing industry and the $62. 5million to be used essentially for freezing products, but I am talking about the fishers themselves. Given the economic situation, most of our fishers are getting ready to leave. First, there are health risks. We know very well that it is impossible for them to observe all the social distancing measures. They have to incur additional expenses in order to conduct their normal fishing activities. In addition, they feel that they will be losing money, because of the drop in the price of their resource. They are just as essential as farmers, but they are going to have to work at a loss and they are not going to have workers to assist them. Workers in the seasonal industry do not know what tomorrow will bring. They do not even know whether they will be able to put food on the table next year. Are you going to do anything else, in addition to the assistance of $62. 5million? Time is of the essence. Our fishers have lacked certainty for weeks and they are very concerned. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Yes, indeed, we are going to do other things. Other investments will be made in various sectors in order to support Canadians. We recognize the challenges that fishers must face in terms of social distancing and of work that is often seasonal. We are going to continue working with the industry, with the fishers, and with the coastal communities in order to ensure that people have confidence in their abilities and in their future. In times of crisis, it is important for the government to be there to support people, and that is exactly what we are going to continue to do. This is an unprecedented crisis, but we can see once more that Canadians are there for each other. Our government will continue to be there for the fishers and the fishing industry. Mrs. Marilne Gill: I would have preferred us to be there from the start. Clearly, this is a difficult crisis. But, given the cyclical nature of the industry, some sectors have had to postpone for several weeks the preparations they need for fishing activities. The current program could be modified in a number of ways, to accommodate the cycle, the dates, and the size of the companies. They would really like to take advantage of the $40,000loan, but they cannot because of their payroll. Given the dates, they are also ineligible for the 75%salary subsidy. I can already suggest a number of solutions to the government and to the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, that would bring help to those businesses very quickly. The fishers carry on, because it is a duty for them, because they want to help us and to be part of the effort at this time of crisis. At the same time, they have no guarantee that they will be supported. I would really like to hear a guarantee that they will be supported, that they will be able to put food on the table this year, and that they will be able to support the communities that often depend on the fishing industry, a major industry in those communities. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Minister Jordan has been working with the fishers, the fishing industry and the communities affected by the crisis since the crisis began. We are assessing a number of solutions. We have proposed various solutions to support the communities, the workers and the families. This is an unprecedented situation. From the outset, our priority has been to support the millions of Canadians from coast to coast who have lost their jobs. We have been able to do so, but we are going to continue to work for those who must now face difficulties. We are going to be there for each other. That is what people are expecting from our government and from other Canadians. The Chair: Before we move to the next question, I would like to remind members of the committee to speak slowly, and to address their remarks to the chair and not directly to each other. Thank you very much. We will now go to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach (SkeenaBulkley Valley, NDP): Mr. Chair, municipalities across Canada are facing a financial crisis. They've seen revenues plummet, and at the same time the cost of delivering municipal services has risen. As the Prime Minister knows, municipalities are unable to run deficits and so they are facing the reality of cutbacks and serious cuts to the services that Canadians depend on. We know that municipalities are vital during this time to provide services to Canadians. They're going to be even more important during the recovery, especially when it comes to delivering on the infrastructure programs before us. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities and mayors across Canada have called for emergency financial relief for the municipal sector. My question for the Prime Minister is, when can they expect federal financial support to arrive? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, no government in Canada's history has done more to work with our municipalities, with our cities, with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to respond to the challenges they're facing and to partner with them. Things from infrastructure to investments have made a huge difference right across the country in the quality of life of Canadians in towns, large and small, from coast to coast to coast. As I'm sure the member well knows, our Constitution requires that most of the funding for municipalities flow through the provinces. We are working with the provinces, as we continue to work with the cities, to ensure that we're able to support this order of government that delivers the vast majority of services to Canadians with very little financial means. We know how difficult it is for our cities. We will continue The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, it would seem that the federal government has the fiscal capacity and the responsibility to help municipalities weather this crisis. Transit systems have been hit particularly hard and have seen the bulk of the layoffs in the municipal sector. These transit services carry essential workers to work, whether they are health care workers, grocery store workers, janitors or others. The risk is that we will see higher fares to deal with this financial crisis. We will see service cutbacks precisely at a time when we want to be expanding transit and improving transit in our communities. Does the Prime Minister acknowledge that the federal government needs to step in to safeguard and protect Canada's transit services? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, this federal government recognizes how important it is to support all Canadians, which is why we put forward unprecedented measures to help millions upon millions of Canadians with the CERB and with the wage subsidy. We will continue to work with the provinces, which have jurisdiction over the municipalities. I'll be having a conversation with all other first ministers tonight to talk about a broad range of issues. I can highlight that the issue of transit funding has come up. We have continued to engage with them, but again, it is important to respect the Constitution and understand that funding for municipalities and cities does go through the provinces. The federal government is happy to be there to support, but it must be The Chair: We will go to Mr. Bachrach again. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I am wondering how the Prime Minister could explain to a bus driver in Vancouver who has been laid off that as a public sector worker, she can't access the federal wage subsidy, while an equivalent worker in the airline industry gets to keep her job with the federal help of that program. Could the Prime Minister explain how that is fair? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I'm happy to explain to the member and to all Canadians that our Constitution creates federal areas of jurisdiction and provincial areas of jurisdiction. The airline industry, like banking, like telecommunications, is a federal area of jurisdiction that we have been able to move forward on. More than that, we brought the Canada emergency response benefit and the wage subsidy to all industries across this country, because we knew that as the federal government, it was something that we needed to step up on The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I'd like to shift gears a little bit. Faced with minimal health care capacity, remote indigenous communities in my riding are taking matters into their own hands. The Nuxalk have put up a checkpoint on Highway 20 to protect community members and prevent non-essential travel. In particular, it is to protect the three remaining fluent speakers of the Nuxalk language, these cherished elders in their community. The Haida on Haida Gwaii have set up a similar checkpoint, as have communities throughout British Columbia, yet federal support for indigenous communities amounts to only $39 million for all of the indigenous communities in B. C. Does the Prime Minister not agree that more support is warranted to help indigenous communities in my riding and across the country? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, we made funds available to Canadians right across the country, particularly people in indigenous remote or northern communities who we knew would be facing more difficult challenges because of the existing vulnerabilities in their health care system and socio-economic circumstances. We have made unprecedented investments and we will continue to make the necessary investments, because we need to make sure that indigenous Canadians, and indeed all Canadians, have the supports they need to make it through this crisis. The Chair: We will continue with Mr. Berthold. Mr. Berthold, you have the floor. Mr. Luc Berthold (MganticL'rable, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I am going to keep talking about the area of jurisdiction that the Prime Minister likes to talk about, except that I want to point out the incompetence of the Liberals in keeping their commitments on infrastructure projects. My question is very simple. As the provinces gradually restart their economies, can the Prime Minister tell us how many projects that the provinces have submitted are waiting for approval from his government? Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, I hope that the length of the pause will not be taken out of my time. The Chair: No, I stopped the clock for your time. Ms. McKenna, you have the floor. Hon. Catherine McKenna (Minister of Infrastructure and Communities): I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, I was on mute. I'm very pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. I have spoken with all of my provincial and territorial counterparts over the last couple of weeks. Work on our historic infrastructure program is progressing well. My department has worked very hard to approve projects, and we will continue to do so. It is very important to build projects that will create good jobs The Chair: We are returning to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: We still haven't had a response. How many projects are currently awaiting government approval? I know that the minister has been meeting virtually with the provinces over the last few days. However, there are still hundreds of projects waiting for approval from the Liberal government. Rather than wait for the right political opportunity to approve these files, will the minister commit today to respecting the provinces and approving by next week all the projects that are sitting on her desk? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I'm pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. We are approving projects. If the hon. member speaks to the provinces and territories, he will see how well we are working together. We will announce the approval of projects because it's very important for our economy, our communities and creating good jobs. Mr. Luc Berthold: Does the minister understand that she hasn't told us how many projects are still pending? The construction season is very short. Approval of a project in July means that work can't begin until next year, which won't help revive our economy. Hon. Catherine McKenna: I want to make it clear that we have approved hundreds of projects in the last few weeks. We will work with the provinces, territories, municipalities and indigenous communities to implement these projects. These projects are important for the economy and the environment, as well as for jobs The Chair: We return now to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, while the minister is calling for a green recovery of the country's economy, public transit is at risk. Physical distancing measures will cause public transit use to drop for several months. The Union des municipalits du Qubec estimates that the monthly losses are between $75million and $100million. Other countries have included public transit in pandemic relief programs. Why isn't Canada? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, we recognize the importance of public transit for our economy, since some essential workers use public transit. We are working very closely with our counterparts and are listening to the municipalities. As the Prime Minister said, it's the provinces that must help because the money The Chair: We return now to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, once again, what we're hearing is that the government is passing the buck to the provinces. Unfortunately, the minister was unable to answer a single question about the number of infrastructure projects still on the federal government's desk, which is very important. Several large municipalities are waiting for the approval of projects. Moreover, public transit systems are facing an extremely serious financial crisis. Ridership in most systems is down 85%to90%. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is asking for help for small communities, as well as large municipalities. Why is the federal government ignoring the municipalities in the Canadian Federation of Municipalities at this time? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I can reassure the hon. member that we are working very closely with the municipalities. We are listening to the municipalities to find out what their issues are and how we can support them. Of course, we need the help of the provinces and territories. In terms of the number of projects that we've approved, I would be happy to inform the hon. member of the exact number of all the approved projects that my department has been working very hard on over the past few months to approve projects to go forward. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, do I have any time left? The Chair: No, your time is up. We'll now go on to Mr. Fast. Hon. Ed Fast (Abbotsford, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. This question is directed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. On March 28, the minister personally tweeted out a thank you to the People's Republic of China for donating PPE to Canada. This tweet happened within three hours of China's announcement of that gift. As it turned out, much of the PPE was defective and could not be used. More recently, Taiwan donated half a million surgical masks to Canada, yet here we are, two weeks later, and the minister has yet to personally thank Taiwan for its generosity. Will the minister now thank this free and democratic country for its generous gift to Canadians? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne (Minister of Foreign Affairs): Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank my colleague for the question. Indeed, we are very grateful to every nation for helping Canada. This is a global pandemic that knows no borders. We have been expressing our thanks to many nations that have contributed. We will continue to do so. It is important in a time of pandemic, Mr. Chair, that we not play politics and that humanity comes together. I can say, after my COVID foreign ministers call, that the world community has come together to make sure that supply chains will remain intact and that we will have transit hubs and air bridges. We will continue to work with every nation when it comes to health. This is a public good. We want to work together with everyone. The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Fast now. Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, I didn't hear a thank you there, so I'm going to try again. On May 4, the Government of Taiwan delivered 25,000 surgical masks to the Government of British Columbia. On hand were B. C. Minister of Citizens'Services Anne Kang and Minister of State for Child Care Katrina Chen, who, as ministers, officially thanked the Government of Taiwan for its donation. Again, will the minister now do the right thing and, on behalf of Canadians, recognize the generosity of Taiwan and thank its government for that timely donation? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, as I said to you before, Canada is grateful to all who have given supplies to Canada. This is a common endeavour. We are thankful. We are grateful to every nation and we will continue to be. As I said, when it comes to global health, when it comes to helping each other, I think it is a duty for all to come together. We are grateful and thankful for all those who have agreed to help Canada and Canadians from coast to coast to coast in times of need. I've repeated that and have said many times in many forums that we are grateful and thankful to all of those who are helping Canada. Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, again there was no specific thank you to Taiwan. The Government of Taiwan has been the world leader in successfully fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. We have a lot to learn from them and their response. Sadly, the People's Republic of China continues to oppose Taiwan's membership in the World Health Organization. Will the minister now do the right thing and assure Canadians that he will fully support efforts to grant Taiwan membership in the World Health Organization? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the member. As a former trade minister, he's very well aware of Canada's one China policy. That said, we support Taiwan to continue meaningful participation in international multilateral forums, particularly when it comes to health. This is a global good, and we want to support every nation. We recognize that Taiwan and others have been doing very well in fighting this pandemic. We also believe that Taiwan's role as an observer in the World Health Assembly meeting is of interest to the international health community and we have been supportive of that. Hon. Ed Fast: Mr. Chair, I'm going to pivot to repatriation flights. The minister has publicly said that over 20,000 stranded Canadians have been repatriated from abroad. Can he tell us exactly how many Canadians remain abroad who have expressed a desire to be repatriated? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Yes, Mr. Chair, I am very happy to update members. As of today, we have repatriated more than 20,000 Canadians on 232 flights from 87 countries. I would say that this is team Canada, and it knows no parties. Many members have written to me to make sure that we take care. It's not an exact science. We have, as I said, repatriated thousands and thousands. We continue, because we know there are still pockets of Canadian travellers who are stranded abroad. As the Prime Minister and I have said from the beginning, we will make our best effort to repatriate everyone who wants to come back home during the crisis. The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Moore now. Hon. Rob Moore (Fundy Royal, CPC): Mr. Chair, Canadians need to have faith in their justice system, even in a time of crisis. My office has received correspondence from Canadians concerned that trial delays due to COVID-19 may result in criminals walking free. As this government has been working overtime to criminalize law-abiding citizens with new and useless gun laws, will the Minister of Justice ensure that real criminals will not walk free as a result of delays in the justice system? Hon. David Lametti (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada): Mr. Chair, I thank the honourable member for his question. We have been working with my provincial counterparts across Canada, as well as with the various federal courts and also, through my provincial counterparts, with the superior courts and courts of appeal across Canada. Each particular jurisdiction has taken measures to ensure that basic essential services within the court system are maintained, through a variety of means, and we believe that we will be able to solve these various challenges. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, the regional relief and recovery fund was announced weeks ago as a way to help small and medium-sized businesses in rural communities, like those in my riding. In Atlantic Canada, these funds were to be distributed to the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. This is yet another announcement with no details from this Liberal government. Can the minister clarify whether we are days away or weeks away from this support flowing to the businesses that need it so desperately? Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): Mr. Chair, I had the chance to talk with many of the chambers of commerce and business owners throughout Atlantic Canada, and we hear their anxiety. That's why ACOA's doing great work on the ground to make sure we can help them through this very difficult period. The member is right. We have increased the budget of ACOAgood newsand I'll be coming up with the details very soon. It will be a pleasure to collaborate with him to make sure that we can help many businesses and business owners across the Atlantic region. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, my office has heard from many small business owners who have reached out to me. I know many have reached out to many of my colleagues and probably to all of us here today. They are frustrated by the eligibility requirements for some of the federal programs. In particular, they are unable to access the emergency business account, because they do not have a payroll. This could be the hair salon in my riding that subcontracts out its chairs. There are hundreds and thousands of small businesses in this very situation, vital small businesses in our communities, but they do not meet this requirement. These businesses, many of them, are weeks away from shutting down permanently. What does the Minister of Finance have to say to these small businesses that are suffering right now? Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Mr. Chair, I want to thank my honourable colleague for that really important question. I want all the businesses that he is talking about and all of them throughout the country to know that we continue to work very hard to make sure they're supported through this difficult period. More work needs to be done, and we will continue to do that work. We know that businesses are being supported through getting access to the wage subsidy to keep their employees together, and they're getting help, whether it's with rent or to defray costs by deferring GST and HST or customs duty payments. We're going to continue to work with all our businesses across the country. The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Moore for a brief question. You have less than 20 seconds, please. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, it's a very specific issue. There are small businesses, thousands of them, that do not have a payroll. Some have a personal account that they've dealt with over the years rather than a business account, and that makes them ineligible. These businesses need help right now. Hon. Mary Ng: I agree with the honourable member. Those businesses absolutely need support from us. We are going to keep working to ensure they are supported. The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Cumming next. Mr. James Cumming (Edmonton Centre, CPC): Mr. Chair, small businesses are concerned about their ability to survive, and no amount of deferrals, loans or subsidies can substitute for their need to be open and servicing their customers. Can the government confirm that a sectoral risk analysis has taken place to assist the provinces in reopening the economy? Hon. Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry): Mr. Chair, I can assure the member that we've been very clear in terms of our strategy around reopening the economy. We need to make sure that we follow the advice of the experts and the health authorities to do so in a manner that does not compromise the health and well-being of Canadians. We of course will have a sectoral lens, and as you can see by some of the initiatives and the support packages we've put forward The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Cumming now. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, thousands of business owners make a living and utilize dividends as their salary. They also use independent contractors. Can the government confirm that the programs currently in place will be expanded to these hard-working Canadians? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to assure the honourable member that we continue to work with all of our small businesses and I want to thank him for raising this very important issue. I want to assure our Canadian small businesses that we are going to continue to do this work to make sure they are supported. Mr. James Cumming: Can the minister give me a date when she will be able to announce to these businesses that they will be eligible? Hon. Mary Ng: I want to assure our Canadian small businesses of their importance and of the importance of their contributions to all of our communities. I want them to know that we continue to listen and that we will ensure that they are supported and continue to be supported during this difficult time. Mr. James Cumming: Minister, they need more than assurance. Can you give me a date when I can tell these thousands of businesses they will be supported if they pay dividends or if they use contractors within their businesses? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, these businesses are absolutely important and are getting support through a range of means. We will continue to work with these businesses to make sure they are supported through this difficult period. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, I spoke to a Second Cup owner whose landlord is not offering any kind of rent relief. The landlord says that he doesn't have the 25% needed to be eligible for the program because he's already paying for common area costs and deferrals on utilities, which he will have to pay on his mortgage. Will the government reform the rent relief program to focus on tenants and not just the landlords? Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr. Chair, I want to let the member know that we are working to make sure that the details of the emergency program for rent are out there so that both tenants and landlords can understand the situation. We're seeing a significant number of both landlords and tenants coming forward to register for this program, and we are convinced that it will be in the best interests of landlords to move forward and give tenants this relief. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, we've been hearing, however, from small business owners that their landlords don't find the government's rent relief program appealing enough. Can the government confirm, given the program's low eligibility rate, that the program will be expanded and be more efficient in helping tenants? Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we recognize that it's critically important that all of the details of this program be out there for landlords and tenants to understand. Those details are being worked on right now. This is a program that we've put out within the last week, and we are confident that it's in the best interests of tenants and landlords. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, during these trying times for small businesses, small businesses need all the help they can get. One easy way to do that would be to expand the Canada summer jobs program to businesses with over 50 employees. Will the government consider doing so to allow students to gain that very valuable work experience over the coming months? Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Mr. Chair, we are very excited about the uptake of the Canada summer jobs program this year. The second uptake provided employers across the country with the ability to add their needs for students to the mix. I'm looking forward to announcing a possible expansion of this program in the coming days. The Chair: The next question session will go to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall (SimcoeGrey, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. During this pandemic, the government has consistently called for a team Canada, non-partisan approach, and I was glad to hear that said a little earlier today. In fact, the public has called for that approach as well. However, at the same time, the current government has used a parliamentary back door to launch a poorly thought out gun ban. We have a government that didn't win the popular vote, and I'm just wondering how I explain to my residents, because I'm getting so many calls, that this is not a bloated response because, quite frankly, it is. Hon. Bill Blair (Scarborough Southwest, Lib.): First of all, Mr. Chair, I think the honourable member can explain to his constituents that the forming of regulations through order in council is actually the process prescribed in law in Canada under section 117. 15 of the Criminal Code. I would also invite the member to advise his constituents that way back in 1991, when there were some Conservatives who called themselves Progressive, the Mulroney government brought forward, in Bill C-17, the authority under that section for an order in council to prescribe specific makes, models and variants of military firearms as prohibited or restricted. The Harper government used the same tool The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall: I'm not sure, but I'm hoping, that I'll get an honest answer on this question from the minister, who has everything from rocket launchers to basically toy guns on the ban list. When will we get the cost of this buyback program? The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to please be careful in their language when they are referring to others. I won't comment on this one particularly, but I want all of you to be very, very careful when referring to other members. The honourable minister. Hon. Bill Blair: It's a good opportunity, Mr. Chair, to respond to some of the obfuscations and deceptions that have been put out there. We're not banning any toys and we're not banning shotguns. That's all misinformation that's being put out. I think it's very clear, and I invite the member to look at the list of weapons that are The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Thank you. What will be the cost of the buyback program, please? Hon. Bill Blair: Actually, I'm very much looking forward to bringing forward legislation as soon as the House resumes. We will have a vigorous debate in Parliament about the form a buyback will take and we will bring forward a budget at that time. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Will those with illegal weapons be eligible for the buyback program? Hon. Bill Blair: If people are illegally in possession of the weapons and they're committing a crime, they will be dealt with for the crimes they commit. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Okay. I'm going to switch it over. Canadians in my riding who suffer from cystic fibrosis are among the most vulnerable to COVID-19 infection. While these Canadians with existing lung conditions are incredibly worried about a virus that attacks the ability to breathe, the good news is that there are life-saving medicines for those with CF. The problem is with the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board and its restrictive guidelines. I am wondering if and when the government will correct these guidelines and give access to life-saving medicines for our most vulnerable. Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Mr. Chair, as you know, the government has been very committed to improving access and affordability for prescription medications for all Canadians. The PMPRB regulatory amendments will help Canadians be able to afford their prescriptions, and Canada will continue to be an important market for new medicines. In fact, many countries with much lower medicine prices gained access to new medicines in the same time frame as Canada frame, or even faster, so we are excited to do this work. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Mr. Chair, our seniors are being particularly hard hit right now during this pandemic, yet seniors have not been given any direct support. It's one of the number one calls I'm getting in my office. Funding to charities like the United Way is being labelled as support for seniors, but most won't see any of this support. Seniors in my riding have asked for an increase in their CPP and OAS, and to be able to make untaxed bulk withdrawals from their RRSPs while they still have some value. Can the minister confirm when these real and direct supports for seniors will be forthcoming? Hon. Deb Schulte (Minister of Seniors): I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. He mentioned. I'm not quite sure what's happening with my machine. I apologize. The Chair: You might want to try your space bar and keep it down while you're speaking. That might solve the problem. Hon. Deb Schulte: Okay, I'll try that. Thank you very much. I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. We have introduced a supplementary GST payment for low- and modest-income seniors. We've reduced the minimum RRIF withdrawal by 25%, and we've made the CERB available to working seniors who have lost their jobs due to the COVID pandemic. We know there's more work to do, and we'll have more to say in the future. The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that if there are issues, we are taking note of them, and we'll hopefully resolve them by the next meeting. We are getting much better, and we're all new at this. Thank you for your patience. We'll now go to Ms. Gaudreau. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau (LaurentidesLabelle, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My first question is for the Prime Minister. We've heard a lot about contact tracing apps. Several provinces have already made announcements on this, and others want to follow suit. Today, I'd like to know where the government stands on this. We've been talking about a national strategy for some time. Where are we now? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Obviously, contact tracing is an important part of managing any outbreak. In fact, we have been looking at a number of ways to support increased contact tracing across the country, including working with provinces and territories to boost their capacity through human resources and volunteer organizations. We are working very closely with them to make sure we have the capacity. The member is right that many other countries have used digital contact tracing apps. Anything we put forward as a digital tool to assist with contact tracing would be thoroughly considerate of Canadians'privacy rights. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Let me clarify my question a little. Yes, we are talking about public health, and we are currently experiencing a crisis. But you know as well as I do that the Privacy Commissioner has been calling us to task for a very long time now, because there is also a crisis of confidence. You know as well as I do that for 90%of Canadians, the misuse of their personal data is a cause for concern, whether it be for profiling or business development purposes. This is an issue that concerns all Canadians. The commissioner is indeed calling for a focus on reform of the Privacy Act. I'd like to know whether this commitment will be implemented quickly so that legislation can be passed on this issue, in this case the Privacy Act. Hon. Navdeep Bains: Particular attention must be paid to transparency, privacy and ethical concerns. Naturally, Canadians are concerned about how their data is used. New technologies are subject to the Privacy Act. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: We're talking about public health. The provinces are currently in the process of legislating. We're talking about what is going on in Quebec, among other places, and I would like to make sure that the federal government commits to respecting the proposals regarding geolocation and contact tracing possibilities, with full respect for the right to privacy. Can we commit to respecting the provinces? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have worked very closely with provinces and territories for a long time before the outbreak, but certainly ever since the outbreak. We respect the rights of jurisdictional authorities to use tools that have been properly vetted through their own provincial and territorial legislation. Nothing we would ever do at the federal level would put Canadians'privacy in jeopardy. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Concerning privacy, there are 30million Quebeckers and Canadians who have had their personal data leaked. Why is it that our laws don't allow us to apply financial penalties so that we can then go further? The very basis is to be concerned about our fundamental rights. The commissioner has been making this request for several years now. As the critic for access to information and privacy, I'd like a commitment that the federal government will deal not with what the provinces are doing, but with the Privacy Act. The Chair: Your time is up, but I'll give the floor to the minister for 30seconds. Hon. Navdeep Bains: Thank you for the question. Our government will ensure the privacy of Canadians is respected, support responsible innovation and take reasonable steps to strengthen enforcement powers. That's why we created a digital charter. We are strengthening Canada's privacy laws in response to the digital age. The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Baker. Mr. Yvan Baker (Etobicoke Centre, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll be sharing my time with the member for Malpeque. Mr. Chair, my question is for the Minister of Seniors. Minister, in my riding of Etobicoke Centre, we are mourning the loss of 40 residents to COVID-19 at the Eatonville long-term care centre. Over 143 residents and 88 staff members have now tested positive for the virus. This tragedy is not only taking place in Etobicoke Centre but across Canada. Of all Canadians who have died from COVID-19,79% were living in long-term care homes. That's over 2,000 seniors. This is a catastrophe, and it's frankly unacceptable. Our seniors and their families deserve better. I understand that long-term care homes fall within the jurisdiction of provincial governments in Canada, but this is a crisis. What is the federal government doing right now to help protect our seniors who are living in long-term care homes from COVID-19? What will we do to reform our long-term care homes in the future to ensure that our seniors in Etobicoke Centre and across Canada get the care they deserve? Hon. Deb Schulte: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to my colleague from Etobicoke Centre for his very thoughtful question. We are deeply concerned by the outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care facilities, and our thoughts are with those who have lost a loved one. It's a very difficult time. As my colleague mentioned, while these facilities are regulated by provinces and territories, we have been focused on protecting the health and safety of long-term care residents and staff while working with our partners in a team Canada approach. We've released guidelines to prevent and control COVID-19 infections. We're working with the provinces and territories to cost-share a temporary salary top-up for long-term care workers. We are working through investing $2 billion to secure personal protective equipment for the health of workers, including those in the long-term care homes, and we've deployed the Canadian Armed Forces to assist 25 long-term care homes in Quebec and Ontario. We all have a role to play to stop the spread of COVID-19 and to protect our seniors and caregivers. The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Easter. Hon. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. At the finance committee, we've heard a lot of concerns from all sectors of the economy as a result of COVID-19 and we've been presented with quite a number of possible solutions as well, several of which the government has acted upon. My question is on the support offered to the agri-food sector announced on Tuesday. It is very welcome support, but I sincerely believe the farm sector will be taking the Prime Minister up on the suggestion that $250 million should be seen as an initial investment. Potatoes are the number one commodity in Prince Edward Island. However, as a result of reduced processor contracts for next year, plus cancelled seed contracts, millions of dollars of seed and process potatoes have no home. To make matters worse, farmers have high fixed costs that they now have to spread over fewer acres. How does the minister see Tuesday's announcement addressing potato farmers'concerns? Second, in 2013, long-term financial safety nets were gutted by the Harper government. Will the minister be coming forward with improved business risk management programs as a result? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): Mr. Chair, I want to thank Mr. Easter, the member for the riding of Malpeque on Prince Edward Island. It's a beautiful rural riding with lots of agricultural production. I want to recognize the hard work of farmers throughout the crisis. On Tuesday, I was proud to announce one more step for supporting our producers and processors. We know the importance of our potato farmers, and that's why we are launching a first-ever surplus food purchase program, a $50-million fund designed to help redistribute existing inventories, such as potatoes, to local food organizations. On the financial safety net that we have in place for our farmers, called the business risk management program, we announced up to $125 million in funding through AgriRecovery and made changes to AgriStability that will help producers quickly. I will continue to discuss with my provincial counterparts toenhance and improve the BRM programs. In the meantime, I want to reiterate that BRM programs, including AgriInvest, are there to help farmers in difficult times. The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Johns now. Mr. Gord Johns (CourtenayAlberni, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, small businesses across Canada closed their doors to stop the spread and for public health. Now they're currently hanging off the edge of a cliff waiting for financial help. Robyn, who has owned Arbutus Health in Tofino for over 13 years, can't apply for the Canada emergency business account loan, simply because she doesn't have a payroll of over $20,000. All of her practitioners are paid contractors, so she is ineligible. With no business income and without emergency financing, it is virtually impossible for her to pay her bills or come up with the 25% needed for the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program. The government promised to be flexible and willing to adjust its COVID response rollout so that nobody falls through the cracks, but Robyn, like tens of thousands of proprietors who are the economic job creators of our communities, urgently needs the government's help now. Will the government amend its programs to help more business owners so that people like Robyn don't lose their businesses? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for his really good question. I know he and I have talked about this, and I appreciate the input and the feedback that he is providing from business directly. I want to assure Robyn and her businesses, and many businesses across the country, that we are absolutely listening, and we will continue to make sure we are supporting those businesses during this period. We know that many businesses are being helped through the Canada emergency business account. There are well over 550,000 businesses that are getting support through this emergency business account. We also know that more has to be done, and we will continue to work with you and businesses across the country so that we can indeed give them that necessary support to weather this difficult period of COVID-19. Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, that's not going to help Robyn feel comfort. I was talking to Heather last night, who also owns a business in Tofino, Basic Goodness Pizzeria, with her partner Marco. Like many proprietors of family businesses who aren't on payroll, they don't qualify for the business loans. They don't qualify for the wage subsidy because they're a seasonal business. Now with the new rollout of the rent support, they're not sure if their landlord is willing to play ball and even apply. That's three separate programs that leave them out. Heather was in tears last night as she told me that they have done nothing wrong to deserve being excluded from these emergency programs. I agree. Will the government fix the rent support program so that tenants can apply, instead of leaving it up to landlords, and so businesses can get the help they desperately need? Hon. Mona Fortier (OttawaVanier, Lib.): Mr. Chair, we've been working on this program since the beginning. We've been working on offering a response for small businesses and charities and non-profit organizations, and we are continuing to listen on the ground to how we can better assist the businesses that fall through the cracks. We will continue to do that as we go along in this emergency situation. Thank you very much to the honourable member for sharing the realities of his constituents. Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, when the government rolled out its commercial rent support program, why didn't it negotiate an eviction moratorium with the provinces, as Australia and other countries did, to protect business owners? Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as we know, Canadians are taking action and fighting against COVID-19. We know that many small businesses are worried about being able to pay rent. We've recognized it and we've been working with the provinces and territories to implement the Canada emergency commercial rent The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Johns. Mr. Gord Johns: To qualify for the Canada emergency wage subsidy, a 30% drop in revenue has to be shown. Anyone who's owned a business knows that even with this program, it's going to be hard to survive. Why is the government using a 70% measurement drop to qualify for the rent support program, but a 30% drop for the wage subsidy? Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, Mr. Chair, thank you to the honourable member for sharing his views on this program. We've been working with provinces and territories to provide forgivable loans to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rents for their tenants by 75%. We're hoping that tenants and landlords will be working together so we can support businesses during this very difficult crisis. The Chair: Before we move on to the next question, Mr. Berthold, did you have a question or a point of order? Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, I have a point of order. I checked the clock from the first round of five minutes, and as you may recall, it took a very long time for me to get an answer from the government. I went back and forth with MinisterMcKenna for four minutes and 14seconds. The Chair: Just a moment. The interpretation isn't coming through. It's working now. Go ahead, Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: I'll start over. During my first turn, it took 50seconds before a government minister deigned to answer my questions. After checking my time, I realized that the discussion between Ms. McKenna and I went on for four minutes and 14seconds, so I wasn't able to ask the minister one final question, a very important one. I would ask you to take that into account and allow me to ask MinisterMcKenna one last question, please. The Chair: The person chairing the meeting uses their judgment and does their best to keep an eye on what's going on. They try to be as fair as possible. I'll try to do a better job. I think it's more or less equal for all the members, but I apologize if the honourable member feels that he was denied a few seconds. Our next question goes to Mr. Doherty. Mr. Todd Doherty (CaribooPrince George, CPC): Mr. Chair, the Canada-U. S. border agreement is set to expire on May 20. Will the two governments renew the current agreement, or will it be modified? Hon. Bill Blair: The decision to close the border was made in Canada by Canadians in the best interest of Canadians. We're continuing to monitor the situation carefully. Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government be in a position to inform Canadians of any changes to the agreement? Hon. Bill Blair: I'm pleased to advise the member that we're continuing to monitor the situation, but I'm strongly of the opinion that the circumstances on both sides of our border do not indicate that this is the right time to make a change in the restrictions. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the government confirm whether there are any discussions about reopening the border to certain modes of transportation and restricting others? The Chair: Before I go to the minister, I want to remind the honourable members that we do have translators, and they are trying to translate. With respect to them, I know we're trying to get as many questions in as possible, but they do have to translate them, so please be considerate of our interpreters. The honourable minister has the floor. Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Let me please inform the honourable member that we are, of course, aware that the current agreement expires. I had a long conversation yesterday with the Prime Minister Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government announce a relief package for Canada's aviation industry? Hon. Navdeep Bains: We are engaged with the industry, and we are working with them on a solution, Mr. Chair. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, will this relief package include funding for airline ticket refunds similar to what other countries around the world have done? Yes or no? Hon. Navdeep Bains: It's early to say anything at this moment. We're taking a sectoral approach. This is about making sure that we restart the economy and have a strong recovery. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the Minister of Transport confirm that temperature screening is taking place at Canadian airports. Yes or no? Hon. Marc Garneau (Minister of Transport): Mr. Chair, I can confirm that Air Canada has now adopted a policy of checking temperatures for passengers boarding Air Canada flights. Mr. Todd Doherty: At which airports is that, and when did this practice start? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the announcement was made recently by Air Canada. It will start shortly and will apply to all places and destinations where Air Canada flies. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, this is for the Minister of Transport. Last week I asked the Minister of Labour if they were aware of a letter written on April 6 by CUPE to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Minister, were you aware of that letter? The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly. Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I didn't understand the reference to a letter from CUPE. Could my colleague please clarify? Mr. Todd Doherty: On April 6, CUPE wrote a letter to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Is the minister aware of that letter? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, could my colleague clarify what CUPE is referring to? Mr. Todd Doherty: CUPE is the labour organization that represents thousands of flight attendants across our country. Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I do understand. Yes, I will confirm that CUPE, which represents the flight attendants, did write to us. Before that I had conversations with CUPE with respect to flight attendants and the use of personal protective equipment. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the minister confirm whether or not they have provided PPE to the flight attendants and/or training for front-line staff for airlines and airports? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the airlines are providing PPE to flight attendants and flight crews. This has become a policy to ensure the safety not only of passengers on board but also of the flight attendants and flight crew. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, a business owner from Quesnel wrote to my office recently. He stated that he couldn't give his small business tenants a break on rent because the government is penalizing him for paying off his mortgage. When will the government change the CECRA rules to help more businesses? Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as you know, we laid out the CECRA program just last week, and we are encouraging landlords to take that opportunity to support the renters. We will continue to look at how we can provide some relief to small businesses with rents. Mr. Todd Doherty: With all due respect, Mr. Chair, any landlord who does not have a mortgage on their business is ineligible for CECRA. Is the minister aware of this, and are they trying to revise the CECRA program? Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with provinces and territories to present that program. Of course, we will continue to monitor how this program works for landlords and tenants. We are asking, actually encouraging, landlords to do their part and help tenants, like the one you mentioned, go through this. The Chair: We'll go to the next questioner. Go ahead, Ms. Dancho. Ms. Raquel Dancho (KildonanSt. Paul, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Small businesses in Manitoba employ 73% of Manitobans. That's over 286,000 Manitobans. I've been speaking with many small business owners in my riding. It's been heartbreaking, frankly, to hear that everything they've built and sacrificed for is in serious jeopardy, and through no fault of their own. Your government has created programs that are supposed to help them, but many legitimate businesses aren't able to apply. That could mean bankruptcy and cost thousands of Manitobans jobs. This is wrong. I'm hoping to hear specifics, not just nice words, on what you're going to do to help them. There are three issues regarding access to the $40,000 CEBA loan. First, businesses that recently incorporatedfor example, in late 2019are unable to apply their entire 2019 payroll. As a result, many are falling short of the $20,000 payroll threshold required to qualify for this loan. Second, many businesses contract their employees rather than have them on payroll. They also are unable to qualify for this loan. Third, many businesses use personal rather than business banking accounts. They aren't able to qualify for this loan either. What is your government going to do about these three scenarios? The Chair: I just want to remind honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly to the minister. As well, please take into consideration the interpreters, who have to listen and translate, so that we can have this conversation. Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for that question. Right from the very beginning, we've always said that we will listen and that we will work to make sure that measures go out to help our Canadian small businesses. She's absolutely right: 98% of all our businesses in this country are small businesses, so they absolutely contribute enormously to our communities and are job creators. That is why we have put out significant measures. For the Canada emergency business account, over 550,000 small businesses have been approved and are getting that support. I absolutely acknowledge that there is more work to do. I can assure the honourable member that we will continue to do this work so that businesses, all businesses, are supported, whether it is helping keep your employees together, helping with rent support, helping to keep your business's expenses low, or of course helping with the capital that is needed so that you can pay your operating expenses and your bills through this difficult time. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, I didn't hear any answers from the minister's remarks, unfortunately. Moving on, there are two issues regarding the 50% commercial rent assistance subsidy, where landlords pay 25%, the government pays 50%, and the tenant is responsible for 25%. First, many of the small landlords aren't able to take a 25% hit to their income, and are unable to provide the subsidy to their tenants. Second, with the 70% decline in revenue threshold for small businesses to even be eligible for the rent assist, many restaurants are at 65% or 67% decline. They desperately need this subsidy but aren't able to qualify. This is not about problems with the program details. What is the government planning to do to streamline this program for small businesses that can't access but desperately need the rent subsidy? Hon. Mlanie Joly: Mr. Chair, as the Minister of Official Languages, I just want to raise the fact that interpretation is very complicated right now. In order to make sure that we can continue to uphold bilingualism within the House, I would love it if my colleagues could take down the pace a bit. That would help the interpreters a whole lot. They are working very hard and trying to keep up. The Chair: That's a reasonable request. I just want to remind everyone again that when you're asking a question, make sure you are doing it at a pace at which you're considering the people who are interpreting Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, this is how fast I speak when we're in the House of Commons. It's just how I talk. The Chair: I understand. I have a lot of friends who speak very quickly. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Right. I understand. Perhaps we could get back to my question about the rent subsidy. The Chair: We stopped the time. You're not losing any time on this one. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Okay. I will try to speak more slowly. The Chair: I appreciate it. Thank you. The interpreters appreciate it. Now we'll go to the minister, please. Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with the provinces and territories to provide this forgivable loan to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rent of their tenants by 75%. We will continue to monitor how this program is delivered, as we announced it last week. It will be offered pretty soon. It will be very important that we understand what happens across the country, and we will monitor and adapt the program as we Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, it has been in the media quite a bit that this rent subsidy is not helping many, many, many small business owners. It's falling short of everything that was announced, so I think it needs to be taken a bit more seriously than that. There are two issues regarding the 75% wage subsidy. First, employers who pay themselves and their employees dividends rather than wages are unable to qualify. Second, there is also a 30% threshold revenue decline needed in order to apply. Many of the businesses in my riding are at 27% or 29%. They desperately need these funds but are unable to qualify. What is the government planning to do for these small businesses? Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, thank you to the hon. member for sharing the realities she's hearing from small business owners. We are providing help and support for businesses through these very difficult times. The wage subsidy has been taken up and is working for many businesses. We know that some still fall through the cracks and we will look at how we can continue to support businesses across the country. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends (BrossardSaint-Lambert, Lib.) ): We are now going to Mr. Kevin Waugh. Mr. Kevin Waugh (SaskatoonGrasswood, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. Three weeks ago, on April 17, the Minister of Canadian Heritage announced funding of $500 million to assist Canada's arts, sports and cultural sectors. We are still waiting to hear who is eligible and when they can expect to receive this funding. Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Canadian Heritage): Madam Chair, we will be releasing the details of that announcement, and how the money is going to be spent, in the coming days. Mr. Kevin Waugh: We all know that many media organizations, large and small, in Canada are struggling right now. Allegations have arisen that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CBC, is currently engaging in predatory behaviour and taking advantage of the current situation to harm its competitors using rate cuts. We've seen this from the province of Quebec. Many journalists have talked about this. What is the government going to do to address these allegations against the CBC? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have not been informed of these allegations. We will look into this, and we will get back to the hon. colleague if we do find any valuable information. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Local community and ethnic media outlets and papers have strong ties to their communities that often go much deeper than the major media outlets. Is the government currently using any local or ethnic media outlets to provide crucial coronavirus information through advertising? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, I totally agree with my colleague. We need to get the information to Canadians on COVID-19, which is why we have started an ad-buy campaign of $30 million, which is being distributed in more than 900 local, regional and national newspapers across the country and 500 radio and TV stations in 12 different languages, including Farsi, Mandarin, Spanish, Italian and many more. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Mr. Minister, I talked to the Winnipeg Free Press yesterday. It has received two ads from an ad agency in connection with the $30 million the government is doling out to help media outlets. They had one ad on March 27. The second ad was on April 11. That is two ads in the Winnipeg Free Press in the last eight weeks. Is this the kind of money you're attempting to dole out to help media: two ads in eight weeks? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have been doing a number of things for our media in Canada over the last few months and will continue to do so. On top of that $30 million ad-buy campaign, we have been investing $50 million in local journalism. Just this year, it means that 200 journalists will be hired in areas across the country where journalism is more poorly defined. The federal government has paid part I licence fees of our broadcasters to the CRTC. That means $30 million is staying in the pockets of our broadcasters. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Madam Chair, last week, as the minister would know, 15 community newspapers, including eight in Manitoba and seven in the province of Ontario, closed their doors for good. Is the government currently planning any further measures aimed at assisting community or ethnic media organizations? We understand that many more will close their doors within the next 30 to 60 days. Hon. Steven Guilbeault: We are planning a number of other measures, some of which will be included in the $500 million. I will be announcing the details of that in the coming days. Of the $595 million that the media will receive, we have a tax credit that has now entered into force, and the cheques should be in the mail by the end of the summer. So there are a number of things we've done and a number of things we will be doing in the coming months as well. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Waugh, you may have a short question. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Well, finally, you have the five members associated with that committee to dole out the $595 million. They haven't even met yet. When will they meet? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: I would like to remind my hon. colleague that in order for us to provide tax breaks for the 2019 period, media outlets had to file their tax returns so we could go ahead. This will now be able to proceed, Madam Chair. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We now move on to Mr. Godin. Mr. Godin, you may go ahead. Mr. Jol Godin (PortneufJacques-Cartier, CPC): Thank you, MadamChair. This being the first time I've had the floor during a virtual sitting of Parliament, I'd like to take this opportunity to greet my fellow members, all 259participants. I hope they are taking care of themselves. I'd like to talk about the Prime Minister's appearance on the show Tout le monde en parle. This is what he had to say about his economic recovery plan: We are going to remain focused on the economy as a wholeinnovationresearch and science, the green economy and a fairer economyThere are things we are all reflecting on right now that reflection is going to continue. That was a weak answer. It didn't inspire much confidence. Can the government assure Canadians that it is being proactive and working on a plan to get the economy moving again? It must act now. Things are starting to reopen gradually. Is the government going to take concrete action to revive the economy? Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Yes, absolutely. Our government is wholly committed to restarting the economy, and we are working closely with the provinces to do just that. Last week, our government, together with the provincial and territorial premiers, released the principles that will guide efforts to restore economic activity across the country. That is key. The discussion between the Prime Minister and the premiers is continuing today. Mr. Jol Godin: MadamChair, before we go any further, since it took a while for the minister, or the government, to answer the question, can I have that time back to ask questions? The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I stopped the clock, Mr. Godin. Mr. Jol Godin: Thank you. The Prime Minister's answer during his appearance on Tout le monde en parle didn't inspire much confidence and doesn't line up with the Deputy Prime Minister's comments. How can the government be proud of announcing $252million in assistance for the agri-food sector, when that is less than 1% of all the program funding the government has committed to help Canadians get through the COVID-19 crisis? Clearly, the government doesn't see the food supply chain as a priority and has no regard for farmers and pork and beef producers. Does the government realize that eating is vital to Canadians? When is the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food going to adjust the program and show respect for Canadian farmers? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: I have the utmost respect for farmers. We are going step by step. We've already confirmed various supports for the agricultural sector. This week, we focused on beef and pork producers and processors, as well as sectors with product surpluses that can be redirected to food banks. I can assure my fellow member that this is an additional step and that more supports are on the way in the weeks ahead. Bear in mind that a number of programs are already available to farmers. Mr. Jol Godin: I'd like to switch topics now. PortneufJacques-Cartier is home to a company that is already licensed by Health Canada and that, for 20years, has been manufacturing medical equipment including masks, face shields and thermometers. This is equipment our health workers need. The company has a licence from the federal government. In mid-March, Health Canada reached out to the company to find out how much equipment it could manufacture to help fight COVID-19. The company confirmed that it could immediately start producing 200,000masks a week, ramping up to a million masks over the next few weeks. Forty-five days later, it is still waiting on its first order from the Canadian government. We are managing a crisis with a limited supply of medical equipment. Can the health minister tell us why, 45days later, this company licensed by Health Canada hasn't received an order? Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Thank you for the question. Industry and suppliers have enthusiastically answered our call to equip Canada with products and goods during the crisis. Many of those suppliers have already received contracts. We have reached out to all the others and will negotiate contracts as needed. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I would now like to invite hon. member Jenica Atwin to speak. Mrs. Jenica Atwin (Fredericton, GP): Thank you, Madam Chair. Seniors living alone are most at risk of economic insecurity, particularly single senior women, as gender inequality in the job market has translated all too often into inadequate retirement income. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a poverty reduction plan that addresses the unique challenges faced by older women? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to assure the member that we are quite aware that this pandemic has typically affected single seniors, and many of those, given that they live longer, are single senior women. I want to assure her that we are working on this issue, and we have provided some supports already through measures such as the GST supplementary payment. That is on average almost $400 for single seniors. There's more work to do. We know that, so stay tuned. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, older women represent a high proportion of residents in long-term care facilities. Having spent their lives caring for parents, children and often their partners, they find themselves needing care in nursing homes. Multiple outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care homes in Canada have highlighted systemic gaps that senior and elderly women may face in such facilities, as well as the working conditions of the female-dominated ranks of nurses and personal support workers. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a federal strategy for long-term care homes that recognizes quality of life for residents and working conditions for the employees, ideally one that goes hand in hand with a poverty reduction plan and enhanced home and community care investments across the country? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I do want to thank the hon. member for her question. It's an important one. We are obviously deeply saddened by the outbreaks that have been going on in long-term care facilities and those who have lost their lives. We do recognize that the administration of long-term care and palliative care is the responsibility of provinces and territories; however, we have been taking a team Canada approach, and as you already know, we've been doing tremendous work with them to try to ensure that those who live in those facilities can be well cared for and safe. We are doing that with guidelines The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms. Atwin has the floor. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, from May 4 to May 10, we are observing Mental Health Week. We know that our essential workers right now are experiencing unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety, on top of putting their own physical safety and health on the line. Most of these workers work in precarious jobs with no access to paid sick leave or vacation, and without any benefits to access mental health services. Apart from the very welcome investments in online resources, can the minister explain how the government will support these workers now and once the crisis is behind us? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, thank you very much to the member for the question. I'm so glad that she's raising the issue of mental health and in particular how poor mental health is oftentimes connected to our socio-economic status. I appreciate the nuance in that question. She's right. We do have new resources that are available to all Canadians free of charge through the Wellness Together portal, but there is more to do. I think the announcement of top-up wages, for example, which the Prime Minister spoke about today, is another example of how we're taking the health and wellness of all low-income Canadians very seriously. We know that mental health is not divorced from socio-economic status, and I look forward to working with her more on other measures that we can take together. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, we're all very aware of the importance of temporary foreign workers and their role in ensuring our food sovereignty across this country. The pandemic has highlighted how we depend on their work. How are we protecting them? Madam Chair, will the government take action to strengthen legislation and ensure Canadians have access to the food they need while the workers who help bring it to our tables have safe working conditions, regardless of where they are working in this country? Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Thank you, Madam Chair. We are very concerned, as are countries around the world, that we support and create the environment for the health and safety of our temporary foreign workers and we value their contribution to our food supply chain here in Canada. We have issued guidelines to employers and are working very closely with local public health authorities in the provinces and territories to make sure workers are protected, that physical distancing and other recommendations are adhered to and that there are severe consequences if employers don't take care of their workers. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We are now going to Mr. MacGregor. Mr. Alistair MacGregor (CowichanMalahatLangford, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. My first question is this: Will the Liberal government prevent federal bailout funds from going to companies that use tax havens and avoid paying their fair share here in Canada, yes or no? Hon. Diane Lebouthillier (Minister of National Revenue): We are working to make sure that anyone who tries to circumvent the rules faces serious consequences. We are asking businesses to designate a representative to attest their claims. Any employer receiving the subsidy who is deemed ineligible will have to repay the full amount. Anyone who abuses the program could face fines of up to 225% of the subsidy amount as well as five years in prison. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, I didn't really hear a yes to that question, so I'll repeat it. Does the government really think it's appropriate for tax-avoiding corporations to receive funding provided for by taxpayers? Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: We will keep going after companies that engage in tax evasion. I want to be clear. We will target those who are responsible, not innocent workers. An employee is an employee, regardless of who they work for. The wage subsidy program does not hand a blank cheque over to employers. It is meant to help Canadians pay their bills, keep their jobs and get through the crisis. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, the agriculture funding announced by the government earlier this week amounts to less than 10% of what the Canadian Federation of Agriculture estimates will be required to help farmers weather this crisis. Why has the Minister of Agriculture shortchanged our farmers? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, this is one more step. This was one more step. We have already committed significant support to our farmers through different programs, and we will do more. I have to remind my colleague that we have put in $5 billion through FCC, $50 million for the temporary foreign workers, two times $50 million for pork and beef producers this week, and $77 million for food processing. This is only the beginning, and we should not forget that the business risk management programs are still there to offer support. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Yes, Madam Chair, but we're nearly two months into this pandemic and this announcement only came this week. Farmers need certainty. When can farmers expect further updates on funding, and how much will the government be providing? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, we are working closely with the farmers and their representatives to identify where the gaps are, but once again, we have made improvements to the AgriStability program. They can get, depending on the province, either 50% or 75% in advance payments, and they can also, right now, access their AgriInvest program. There is more than $2 billion ready to access today, if they have The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. MacGregor. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, federal disability recipients and seniors on fixed incomes have been hardest hit by cost of living increases from COVID-19. If we acknowledge that $2,000 per month is the minimum needed to get through this time, why are they being asked to survive on far less? When can they expect assistance, and how much will they receive? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to make sure people realize that we have provided some assistance through the GST supplementary benefit. We are also providing support to those who are still working, and we have done that by allowing them to access the CERB. There is more work to be done, so you'll be hearing more in the near future. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, as I think we've heard through today's question period, there are countless example of this government designing programs to exclude many small businesses that desperately need help. Whether it's the payroll requirements or other eligibility, we still, to this day, almost two months into the pandemic, have too many small businesses falling through the cracks. Madam Chair, why has the government taken this approach and when can we finally expect fixes to the whole system? Hon. Mary Ng: Madam Chair, right from the get-go, we have been committed to making sure that Canadians are helped through this crisis, and that small businesses get the support that they need, so that we are saving businesses and jobs in this country. That is what we have done with many of our programs. You're seeing that we are also listening, so that we can modify them as we need. I want to assure the member that the work is not done. We continue to do this. The Chair: Thank you. It is now over to Mr. Perron. Mr. Perron, you may go ahead. Mr. Yves Perron (BerthierMaskinong, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question will come as no surprise, since it has to do with agriculture. I hear the questions my fellow members are asking, and to be frank, I don't find the answers satisfactory. It is well and good to talk about existing programs, but they aren't working, so enough with that refrain. That's what people are telling us. It's not just members of the opposition saying it. This morning, both farmers and processors came together for a press conference at the Union des producteurs agricoles's head office in Longueuil. Six stakeholders from different sectors sounded the alarm. Can the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food therefore tell us when she will announce significant supports for the industry? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We have already announced significant amounts of support, and more is on the way. I'd like to correct my fellow member. It's not that the programs aren't working; it's that they aren't generous enough in farmers'eyes. That's why I'm working with my provincial counterparts to make improvements to programming, including AgriStability. Here's an example. After using the online AgriStability benefit estimator, a pork producer found out that he would get $11 per head, as they say in the industry. Pork producers are calling for $20 per head, so it's a good start, even though it's not enough and it isn't what they are asking for. We want to keep working together, but farmers have to access the money available to them through AgriStability. Mr. Yves Perron: Now it's my turn to correct the minister. Even before the crisis, we were hearing from people in the industry that the programs were neither suitable nor sufficient. We are in a crisis, and this is an exceptional situation. In the case of mad cow disease, farmers received direct assistance. That's the kind of assistance we are calling for. We don't want to hear about growing levels of debt. Of course, this is a first step, but farms are already deep in debt. A few days ago, the government announced $50million in funding for pork producers, even though they are asking for $20per hog for 27million hogs. The government's support covers just 2. 5million hogs. When I call the measure insufficient, I mean it is grossly insufficient. It's high time the government put forth more support. It has to stop saying that it's working hard and examining the situation. The government has to listen to the people in the industry. Again, this morning, they had some interesting proposals. When is the government going to announce a whole lot more in funding support? What's been announced so far is only 10% of what farmers are asking for. Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We are going step by step. The programs are already in place. We are trying to make them better, and we are committed to doing that. These programs are cost-shared with the provinces. However, I would point out to the member that, when it comes to AgriRecovery, we made an exception to the rule. We are moving forward in every province to help pork and beef producers. That's two funding envelopes of $50million each to help cover the additional costs from the decrease in plant processing capacity. That's new money that was not yet available, money we introduced this week. As the Prime Minister said, we are going to do more, and we are moving forward step by step. Mr. Yves Perron: What we concluded in committee this week is that the $125million is not new money. It was already earmarked for the programs. The government can't say that programs already exist and, at the same time, claim that they are new programs. Something doesn't add up there. What's more, there are different ways to make money available. I'd like to talk compensation. Everyone knows that the Canada-U. S. -Mexico Agreement came into force a month earlier than planned, despite the promises that had been made. That resulted in additional losses, once again. An easy way to make money available without committing new spending is to provide compensation and announce programs for supply-managed sectors that got nothing. It seems to me that a time of crisis is a time for the government to practise some judo and announce measures. I am reaching out to the government, as I always do, but it has to come forward with announcements. Can we expect the government to announce measures in the coming days? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Our commitment to farmers in supply-managed sectorsmeaning, egg, poultry and dairy farmersis as strong as it always was. I repeat, our commitment is clear. Dairy producers received their first payment at the end of last year or the beginning of this year. Support for poultry and egg farmers is in the form of investment programs, which aligns well with the recovery. At this time, we are focusing on emergency programs to help farmers hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. When it comes to the dairy sector, I hope I can count on your support. As you know, legislative changes are needed to grant the Canadian Dairy Commission's request and increase its borrowing limit by $200million so it can buy more butter and cheese. The Chair: Our next question will go to Mr. Lake. Hon. Mike Lake (EdmontonWetaskiwin, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we're all inundated, as we've heard during this entire question period, with Canadians'concerns about the economic restrictions and the social restrictions that they're under. Over the last couple of months, the WHO has given one very consistent message in terms of coming out of those economic and social restrictions. On March 16, Dr. Tedros said in his briefing, We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test. On March 25,44 days ago, he said, Aggressive measures to find, isolate, test, treat and trace are not only the best and fastest way out of extreme social and economic restrictionstheyre also the best way to prevent them. Does the minister agree with the WHO that relentless testing and tracing are critical to a successful economic and social relaunch strategy in Canada? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thanks to the member for the very astute observation and question. Absolutely, we agree that testing and contact tracing will form an important part of our response to living with COVID. We've been investing heavily in ensuring that we have the lab capacity, the collaboration across provinces and territories, and the variety of testing options to help us increase our capacity to test. We are aiming right now for a high volume of tests, but I will also say that in Canada we have one of the highest testing rates in the world. Although we're doing well, I can assure him that I am with him and I believe we need to do more. Hon. Mike Lake: I have some really quick questions for follow-up. First, what is Canada's current testing capability? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as I mentioned to his colleagues yesterday, we have currently the capacity to do approximately 60,000 tests per day across the country. Hon. Mike Lake: How many tests were conducted each day on average in Canada last week? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, it's hard for me to get that exact number, but I will get back to him with the exact number. Hon. Mike Lake: I'll save you the time. The exact number was 28,851, on average, every day last week. That's a gap of 30,000 from what your stated testing capability is. I'll give another quote from Dr. Tam, back on April 22,15 days ago. She said, As a first tranche, roughly close to 60,000 is where the provinces can potentially expand to as a target already. Does the minister happen to know, ballpark, what the average number of daily tests in Canada has been since that statement? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Your estimate was slightly higher than what my estimate was going to be, so that's a great piece of news. Listen, I will just say that I think if the premise here is that we could be doing more testing. I would agree, but I will also say that the provinces and territories are working incredibly hard on testing strategies that meet their own specific needs. I'm happy to have a conversation with the member later about that testing strategy. Dr. Tam works with all the chief public health officers across the country to ensure that their testing strategy is going to be applicable and appropriate for their particular jurisdictions. We, as the federal government, provide the capacity for them to conduct those tests. Hon. Mike Lake: Following up on that, is there a jurisdiction in Canada where relentless testing is not the appropriate strategy as provinces consider relaunching? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Each province and territory has its own outbreak and its own epidemic. For example, in British Columbia, where there are relatively fewer cases in general and less disease activity, they may have a different testing strategy than a province like Ontario, which is currently struggling with more outbreaks. Hon. Mike Lake: Given your comment that our current testing capability is 60,000, and acknowledging that only at one point in the entire history of our COVID response, over several months, has our weekly average been over 30,000it was about 31,000 for one day on a rolling basisMinister, are you satisfied with our current testing amounts right now, given that we're testing 50% of what the public health officer advises would be best? Hon. Patty Hajdu: I'm so amazed by the work the provinces and territories have done in a very short time to increase their capacity. We are supporting them with the tools that they need to get more testing done, but also to have other components in place that will allow them to do the rapid tracing of positive cases. I think it's very important to remember that testing strategies will be different across the provinces, based on the outbreak disease epidemiology. Having said that, I know that we can all do better, and I'm certain that my counterparts feel the same. The Chair: I'm going to have to cut the minister off at that one. I want to thank everyone for the session today, I think it went rather well. I'm very proud of you and proud of ourselves for what we managed to accomplish. The committee stands adjourned until Tuesday, May 12, at noon.

It would be carried out soon and the relief package would include funding for airline ticket refunds similar to what other countries around the world had done. The announcement was made recently by Air Canada. It would start shortly and would apply to all places and destinations where Air Canada flew.

tr-sq-636

tr-sq-636_0

What would the government do about small businesses in Canada? The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.) ): We'll call this meeting to order. Welcome to the fifth meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. Pursuant to the order passed on Monday, April20, the committee is meeting today to consider ministerial announcements, to allow members of the committee to present petitions, and to question ministers, including the Prime Minister, about the COVID-19 pandemic. Tomorrow, May8, Dr. AndreaMcCrady, Dominion Carillonneur, will give a special recital to mark the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day. Victory in Europe Day, VE Day, commemorates the formal acceptance of Germany's surrender by allied forces at the end of the Second World War. While the pandemic prevents us from gathering to celebrate in person, tomorrow at noon the voice of our nation will ring out in remembrance of this milestone in our history. Today's meeting is taking place by video conference. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. Just so you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entire committee. I would like to remind members that, as in the House of Commons or committee, they should not take photos of their colleagues or film the proceedings. In order to facilitate the work of the interpreters and to allow the meeting to proceed smoothly, I would ask you to follow some instructions. The video conference will be interpreted as in normal meetings of committees and in the House. In the lower part of your screen, you can choose the language: floor, English or French. Please wait until I call on you by name before you begin to speak. When you are ready to speak, click on the microphone icon to activate your microphone, or hold the space bar down while you are speaking. If you release the bar, your microphone will revert to mute, just like a walkie-talkie. Honourable members, I would like to remind you that if you want to speak English, you should be on the English channel. If you want to speak French, you should be on the French channel. Should you wish to alternate between the two languages, you should change the channel to the language that you are speaking each time you switch languages. Please direct your remarks through the chair. Should you need to request the floor outside of your designated speaking time, you should activate your mike and state that you have a point of order. If a member of the committee wishes to intervene on a point of order raised by another person, you should use the raised hand function to indicate to the chair that you wish to speak. To do this, click on the participant button at the bottom of your screen. When the list appears, you will see the raised hand option beside your name. Speak slowly and clearly at all times. When you are not speaking, leave your microphone on mute. It is highly recommended that you use a headset with a microphone. You have to remember to switch languages. Should any technical challenges arise, for example, in relation to interpretation, please advise the chair immediately by raising a point of order, and the technical team will work on resolving them. Please note that we may need to suspend during these times in order to correct a problem. I want to remind the honourable members to mute their microphones when they are not speaking. If you get accidentally disconnected, please try to rejoin the meeting with the information you used to join initially. If you are unable to rejoin, please contact our technical support team. Before we get started, please note that in the top right-hand corner of your screen is a button that you can use to change views. Speaker view allows you to focus on the person currently speaking; gallery view allows you to see a larger number of participants. You can click through the multiple pages in the gallery view to see who is on and how many more participants there are. I understand there are no ministerial announcements today. We will now proceed to presenting petitions for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during the meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. In addition, to ensure a petition is considered properly presented, the certificate of the petition and each page of the petition for a petition certified in a previous Parliament should be mailed to the committee no later than 6 p. m. the day before. Now we'll go to presenting petitions. Mr. Genuis. Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Mr. Chair, five years ago when Parliament passed Bill C-14, then justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said that it represented a finely tuned balance between access and safeguards. It also included a five-year review. Petitioners on the first petition I'm presenting are very concerned to see Bill C-7 before Parliament, which removes safeguards ahead of that five-year review. Petitioners specifically mention their concerns about the removal of the mandatory 10-day reflection period, which can already be waived in certain circumstances. They are concerned about reducing the number of witnesses required to oversee it and ensure that a request has been properly made. I commend that petition to the consideration of the House. The second and final petition that I will be presenting today is with respect to Senate Bill S-204. This would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ from a person who did not consent. This responds specifically to concerns about organ harvesting in the People's Republic of China involving Falun Gong practitioners and increasing concerns that this is being or about to be applied to Uighurs as well. Canada can and should take action on this. Petitioners are noting that in the previous Parliament there were bills on this, Bill C-350 and Bill S-240. Now, in this Parliament there is a bill, Bill S-204, and the petitioners hope that this 43rd Parliament will be the one that gets it passed. The Chair: We will go to Ms. May. Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's an honour. This is my first occasion to present a petition in our virtual format of the COVID-19 committee. Thank you to you and your staff, Mr. Chair, for developing a system that allows us to present petitions electronically. The petition I am presenting today, which was previously approved, is from a number of constituents who are concerned that we pursue the Paris Agreement to hold the global average temperature increase to no more than 1. 5C. The Paris Agreement itself embeds in it the concept of Just Transition with a capital J and a capital T, the concept of just transition ensuring fairness and support for all workers in the fossil fuel sector. The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to move forward with an act to ensure just transition and to ensure adequate funding so that workers and communities dependent on the fossil fuel sector receive meaningful support to ensure security in their lives in the transition to more sustainable energy use. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Chair: Those are all the petitions for today. I want to thank the honourable members for their usual collaboration and now we'll go on to Mr. James Bezan (SelkirkInterlakeEastman, CPC): On a point of order, Mr. Chair, on Tuesday, at our COVID-19 committee of the whole meeting, I was asking a question which started at 12: 56: 06 and was cut off at 1: 00: 32, so I still have 34 seconds of time remaining in my question time of five minutes. You said it could be no more than five minutes but that I had up to five minutes. Thirty-four seconds leaves a lot of time to have a quick question and a quick response. If you believe that my time was unjustly cut off and that it was unfair treatment of the official opposition when we were raising our points of order, I would ask that the 34 seconds be tacked on to the opening round for the opposition and credited to Rosemarie Falk, who will be leading off for the Conservatives. The Chair: Normally what happens is the chair uses judgment, and with 35 seconds, there isn't enough time obviously for a full question or answer, most of the time. I'll take it under advisement. I can't allot it. I want everyone to know that I do have a timer next to me and I am timing the questions, and I will be treating the answers the same way. If it's a 25-second question, it will be a 25-second answer. Thank you for bringing that up. I believe that issue has been remedied. We've taken a little bit of the chair's ability to give judgment on it, but it will be from now on. Thank you. Mr. James Bezan: Mr. Chair, 34 seconds is a considerable amount of time to do a short question and a short answer. The Chair: I appreciate the advice. Thank you, Mr. Bezan. We'll now proceed to the questioning of ministers. I would like to remind the honourable members that no member will be recognized for more than five minutes at a time and that members may split their time with one or more members by so indicating to the chair. Ministers responding to the questions should do so by simply turning on their microphone and speaking. Our first questioner is Ms. Falk. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk (BattlefordsLloydminster, CPC): Mr. Chair, yesterday, Elizabeth May and the leader of the separatists declared oil to be dead. It's certainly not dead, but it's dying under the Trudeau government. Will the Prime Minister stand up for Canada's energy workers, or does he agree with the fringe left and those who want to destroy our country? Ms. Elizabeth May: I have a point of order. The Chair: Go ahead, Ms. May. Ms. Elizabeth May: Mr. Chair, I believe that the language that the honourable member just used is unparliamentary Mr. Garnett Genuis: That's not a point of order. Ms. Elizabeth May: We can have differences of opinion, but it is absolutely Some hon. members: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: unacceptable and violates my privileges to An hon member: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: No, it's not debate. I would ask the chair to rule on that, not the member from the Conservative Party. It is unacceptable to assert that anyone who wants to make a point about our economy is trying to destroy the country. This allegation is a violation of my privilege. An hon. member: She was also named by the The Chair: Order. I didn't recognize anyone. I don't know who is speaking, so I'll just start talking myself. I want to remind honourable members to have respect in their questions and in their answers. When you refer to someone, please refer to them respectfully. This is a committee of the House, and I would expect no less of the honourable members. We'll go to the right honourable Prime Minister. You have 16 seconds. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. As I pointed out this morning in my press conference, we cannot move forward on a transformation of our energy sector without supporting the workers in that energy sector. We need their innovation and we need their hard work if we are going to lower our emissions, if we are going to reach our The Chair: We'll go to Ms. Falk again. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, it has been 43 days since the finance minister promised Canada's energy sector liquidity through the Business Development Bank of Canada. For 43 days the finance minister has failed to deliver on that promise. These delays cost jobs and they are costing us Canadian businesses. If the government doesn't step up to support our energy sector, they are in effect doubling down on their support for foreign, unethically sourced oil. Mr. Chair, when will the credit options be available to Canada's small and medium energy firms? The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that we do have interpreters who are listening and translating. In consideration to them, please speak at a reasonable pace so that they can understand and then translate. The right honourable Prime Minister. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, our priority through this pandemic and this crisis has been to support workers across the country. We have sent billions of dollars to workers right across the country, including Alberta, Saskatchewan, B. C. , and Newfoundland and Labrador in the energy sector for them to be able to support their families through this difficult time. We are also working on sectoral supports right across the country. Those will be announced in due course. Our focus from the get-go has been The Chair: We'll move to Ms. Falk. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, another group that has been ignored by the Liberals is our farmers. The announcements to date fall well short of what is needed to maintain a steady supply of affordable and healthy food. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture has asked the government for a $2. 6-billion emergency fund. Instead of responding to specific COVID-19 challenges, our farmers are facing the Liberals'reannounced $125 million that was already budgeted in the AgriRecovery program. Will the Prime Minister finally step up and take our food supply chain seriously, or is agriculture just an afterthought for him? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: On the contrary, Mr. Chair, we take agriculture and our agricultural sector extremely seriously, which is why we announced hundreds of millions of dollars a couple of days ago to respond to pressing needs. We will continue to make investments to ensure both the safety of workers in our agricultural sector and the safety of our communities, as well as the continued flow of high-quality Canadian food onto our tables right across the country. Supporting the people who produce our food is a priority for this government and will continue to be. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Well, Mr. Chair, recycled program announcements do not respond to the immediate needs facing our farmers. This is absolutely unacceptable. Our farmers are faced with rising operational costs, a disrupted service industry, labour shortages and a reduced capacity at processing plants. The government has a responsibility to take domestic food security seriously. When will the Prime Minister deliver adequate support to address the critical changes facing our ag industry? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I would suggest respectfully that the honourable member take a look once again at the announcement we made, which actually highlights significant new investments to support our agricultural industry. I certainly agree that there is more to do. Every step of the way in this unprecedented situation, we've been moving forward on doing more, on adjusting and on investing more. We need to support our agricultural sector and the people who work so hard to put food on Canadians'tables right across the country and we will continue to. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, Canadians expect to find healthy and affordable food at their grocery stores, but if the government does not take action now, that's not a given. Our farmers are trying to keep Canadians fed while keeping their heads above water. The Liberal government's own failed federal carbon tax is weighing them down. It is an enormous hit to their bottom line, and the recent carbon tax hike is taking even more money out of the pockets of farmers at a time when they can afford it the least. Will the Prime Minister exempt all farm operations from the carbon tax and reimburse the money that they have already taken from them? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, it's a shame to hear the member opposite accidentallyunintentionally, I'm certainmislead the House and Canadians. The price on pollution actually puts more money into Canadians'pockets, and that includes farm families. People who pay the cost of the price on pollution on average receive more money back. This is the way of creating a better future for our kids and grandkids, which I know people in communities right across the country, including our farm communities, want to see happen. We are moving forward in a responsible way to put a price on pollution and put more money in average Canadians'pockets. The Chair: We now continue with Mrs. Gill. Mrs. Gill, you have the floor. Mrs. Marilne Gill (Manicouagan, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. As you know, all sectors of the economy are fragile at the moment, specifically the fisheries. I am thinking about the lobster fishery in the Magdalen Islands, the crab fishery on the Cte-Nord or those fishing for herring in the south of the Gasp. Because imports have ceased, because the domestic market is weak and in decline because of the interruption of the tourism and restaurant industries, the fishing industry and its fishers must be supported. I would like to know what the government has done to support our fishers since the crisis began. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Our fishers do exceptional work that is extremely important in feeding Canadians and in contributing to our economic success through their exports around the world. This crisis has struck them very hard. That is why we have established measures in the tens of millions of dollars to support our processors. We have also announced help for the fishers. We know that these are difficult and unprecedented times, and we are going to Mrs. Marilne Gill: My thanks to the Prime Minister. I am actually talking about help for the fishers. I know about the processing industry and the $62. 5million to be used essentially for freezing products, but I am talking about the fishers themselves. Given the economic situation, most of our fishers are getting ready to leave. First, there are health risks. We know very well that it is impossible for them to observe all the social distancing measures. They have to incur additional expenses in order to conduct their normal fishing activities. In addition, they feel that they will be losing money, because of the drop in the price of their resource. They are just as essential as farmers, but they are going to have to work at a loss and they are not going to have workers to assist them. Workers in the seasonal industry do not know what tomorrow will bring. They do not even know whether they will be able to put food on the table next year. Are you going to do anything else, in addition to the assistance of $62. 5million? Time is of the essence. Our fishers have lacked certainty for weeks and they are very concerned. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Yes, indeed, we are going to do other things. Other investments will be made in various sectors in order to support Canadians. We recognize the challenges that fishers must face in terms of social distancing and of work that is often seasonal. We are going to continue working with the industry, with the fishers, and with the coastal communities in order to ensure that people have confidence in their abilities and in their future. In times of crisis, it is important for the government to be there to support people, and that is exactly what we are going to continue to do. This is an unprecedented crisis, but we can see once more that Canadians are there for each other. Our government will continue to be there for the fishers and the fishing industry. Mrs. Marilne Gill: I would have preferred us to be there from the start. Clearly, this is a difficult crisis. But, given the cyclical nature of the industry, some sectors have had to postpone for several weeks the preparations they need for fishing activities. The current program could be modified in a number of ways, to accommodate the cycle, the dates, and the size of the companies. They would really like to take advantage of the $40,000loan, but they cannot because of their payroll. Given the dates, they are also ineligible for the 75%salary subsidy. I can already suggest a number of solutions to the government and to the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, that would bring help to those businesses very quickly. The fishers carry on, because it is a duty for them, because they want to help us and to be part of the effort at this time of crisis. At the same time, they have no guarantee that they will be supported. I would really like to hear a guarantee that they will be supported, that they will be able to put food on the table this year, and that they will be able to support the communities that often depend on the fishing industry, a major industry in those communities. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Minister Jordan has been working with the fishers, the fishing industry and the communities affected by the crisis since the crisis began. We are assessing a number of solutions. We have proposed various solutions to support the communities, the workers and the families. This is an unprecedented situation. From the outset, our priority has been to support the millions of Canadians from coast to coast who have lost their jobs. We have been able to do so, but we are going to continue to work for those who must now face difficulties. We are going to be there for each other. That is what people are expecting from our government and from other Canadians. The Chair: Before we move to the next question, I would like to remind members of the committee to speak slowly, and to address their remarks to the chair and not directly to each other. Thank you very much. We will now go to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach (SkeenaBulkley Valley, NDP): Mr. Chair, municipalities across Canada are facing a financial crisis. They've seen revenues plummet, and at the same time the cost of delivering municipal services has risen. As the Prime Minister knows, municipalities are unable to run deficits and so they are facing the reality of cutbacks and serious cuts to the services that Canadians depend on. We know that municipalities are vital during this time to provide services to Canadians. They're going to be even more important during the recovery, especially when it comes to delivering on the infrastructure programs before us. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities and mayors across Canada have called for emergency financial relief for the municipal sector. My question for the Prime Minister is, when can they expect federal financial support to arrive? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, no government in Canada's history has done more to work with our municipalities, with our cities, with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to respond to the challenges they're facing and to partner with them. Things from infrastructure to investments have made a huge difference right across the country in the quality of life of Canadians in towns, large and small, from coast to coast to coast. As I'm sure the member well knows, our Constitution requires that most of the funding for municipalities flow through the provinces. We are working with the provinces, as we continue to work with the cities, to ensure that we're able to support this order of government that delivers the vast majority of services to Canadians with very little financial means. We know how difficult it is for our cities. We will continue The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, it would seem that the federal government has the fiscal capacity and the responsibility to help municipalities weather this crisis. Transit systems have been hit particularly hard and have seen the bulk of the layoffs in the municipal sector. These transit services carry essential workers to work, whether they are health care workers, grocery store workers, janitors or others. The risk is that we will see higher fares to deal with this financial crisis. We will see service cutbacks precisely at a time when we want to be expanding transit and improving transit in our communities. Does the Prime Minister acknowledge that the federal government needs to step in to safeguard and protect Canada's transit services? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, this federal government recognizes how important it is to support all Canadians, which is why we put forward unprecedented measures to help millions upon millions of Canadians with the CERB and with the wage subsidy. We will continue to work with the provinces, which have jurisdiction over the municipalities. I'll be having a conversation with all other first ministers tonight to talk about a broad range of issues. I can highlight that the issue of transit funding has come up. We have continued to engage with them, but again, it is important to respect the Constitution and understand that funding for municipalities and cities does go through the provinces. The federal government is happy to be there to support, but it must be The Chair: We will go to Mr. Bachrach again. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I am wondering how the Prime Minister could explain to a bus driver in Vancouver who has been laid off that as a public sector worker, she can't access the federal wage subsidy, while an equivalent worker in the airline industry gets to keep her job with the federal help of that program. Could the Prime Minister explain how that is fair? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I'm happy to explain to the member and to all Canadians that our Constitution creates federal areas of jurisdiction and provincial areas of jurisdiction. The airline industry, like banking, like telecommunications, is a federal area of jurisdiction that we have been able to move forward on. More than that, we brought the Canada emergency response benefit and the wage subsidy to all industries across this country, because we knew that as the federal government, it was something that we needed to step up on The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I'd like to shift gears a little bit. Faced with minimal health care capacity, remote indigenous communities in my riding are taking matters into their own hands. The Nuxalk have put up a checkpoint on Highway 20 to protect community members and prevent non-essential travel. In particular, it is to protect the three remaining fluent speakers of the Nuxalk language, these cherished elders in their community. The Haida on Haida Gwaii have set up a similar checkpoint, as have communities throughout British Columbia, yet federal support for indigenous communities amounts to only $39 million for all of the indigenous communities in B. C. Does the Prime Minister not agree that more support is warranted to help indigenous communities in my riding and across the country? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, we made funds available to Canadians right across the country, particularly people in indigenous remote or northern communities who we knew would be facing more difficult challenges because of the existing vulnerabilities in their health care system and socio-economic circumstances. We have made unprecedented investments and we will continue to make the necessary investments, because we need to make sure that indigenous Canadians, and indeed all Canadians, have the supports they need to make it through this crisis. The Chair: We will continue with Mr. Berthold. Mr. Berthold, you have the floor. Mr. Luc Berthold (MganticL'rable, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I am going to keep talking about the area of jurisdiction that the Prime Minister likes to talk about, except that I want to point out the incompetence of the Liberals in keeping their commitments on infrastructure projects. My question is very simple. As the provinces gradually restart their economies, can the Prime Minister tell us how many projects that the provinces have submitted are waiting for approval from his government? Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, I hope that the length of the pause will not be taken out of my time. The Chair: No, I stopped the clock for your time. Ms. McKenna, you have the floor. Hon. Catherine McKenna (Minister of Infrastructure and Communities): I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, I was on mute. I'm very pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. I have spoken with all of my provincial and territorial counterparts over the last couple of weeks. Work on our historic infrastructure program is progressing well. My department has worked very hard to approve projects, and we will continue to do so. It is very important to build projects that will create good jobs The Chair: We are returning to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: We still haven't had a response. How many projects are currently awaiting government approval? I know that the minister has been meeting virtually with the provinces over the last few days. However, there are still hundreds of projects waiting for approval from the Liberal government. Rather than wait for the right political opportunity to approve these files, will the minister commit today to respecting the provinces and approving by next week all the projects that are sitting on her desk? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I'm pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. We are approving projects. If the hon. member speaks to the provinces and territories, he will see how well we are working together. We will announce the approval of projects because it's very important for our economy, our communities and creating good jobs. Mr. Luc Berthold: Does the minister understand that she hasn't told us how many projects are still pending? The construction season is very short. Approval of a project in July means that work can't begin until next year, which won't help revive our economy. Hon. Catherine McKenna: I want to make it clear that we have approved hundreds of projects in the last few weeks. We will work with the provinces, territories, municipalities and indigenous communities to implement these projects. These projects are important for the economy and the environment, as well as for jobs The Chair: We return now to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, while the minister is calling for a green recovery of the country's economy, public transit is at risk. Physical distancing measures will cause public transit use to drop for several months. The Union des municipalits du Qubec estimates that the monthly losses are between $75million and $100million. Other countries have included public transit in pandemic relief programs. Why isn't Canada? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, we recognize the importance of public transit for our economy, since some essential workers use public transit. We are working very closely with our counterparts and are listening to the municipalities. As the Prime Minister said, it's the provinces that must help because the money The Chair: We return now to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, once again, what we're hearing is that the government is passing the buck to the provinces. Unfortunately, the minister was unable to answer a single question about the number of infrastructure projects still on the federal government's desk, which is very important. Several large municipalities are waiting for the approval of projects. Moreover, public transit systems are facing an extremely serious financial crisis. Ridership in most systems is down 85%to90%. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is asking for help for small communities, as well as large municipalities. Why is the federal government ignoring the municipalities in the Canadian Federation of Municipalities at this time? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I can reassure the hon. member that we are working very closely with the municipalities. We are listening to the municipalities to find out what their issues are and how we can support them. Of course, we need the help of the provinces and territories. In terms of the number of projects that we've approved, I would be happy to inform the hon. member of the exact number of all the approved projects that my department has been working very hard on over the past few months to approve projects to go forward. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, do I have any time left? The Chair: No, your time is up. We'll now go on to Mr. Fast. Hon. Ed Fast (Abbotsford, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. This question is directed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. On March 28, the minister personally tweeted out a thank you to the People's Republic of China for donating PPE to Canada. This tweet happened within three hours of China's announcement of that gift. As it turned out, much of the PPE was defective and could not be used. More recently, Taiwan donated half a million surgical masks to Canada, yet here we are, two weeks later, and the minister has yet to personally thank Taiwan for its generosity. Will the minister now thank this free and democratic country for its generous gift to Canadians? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne (Minister of Foreign Affairs): Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank my colleague for the question. Indeed, we are very grateful to every nation for helping Canada. This is a global pandemic that knows no borders. We have been expressing our thanks to many nations that have contributed. We will continue to do so. It is important in a time of pandemic, Mr. Chair, that we not play politics and that humanity comes together. I can say, after my COVID foreign ministers call, that the world community has come together to make sure that supply chains will remain intact and that we will have transit hubs and air bridges. We will continue to work with every nation when it comes to health. This is a public good. We want to work together with everyone. The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Fast now. Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, I didn't hear a thank you there, so I'm going to try again. On May 4, the Government of Taiwan delivered 25,000 surgical masks to the Government of British Columbia. On hand were B. C. Minister of Citizens'Services Anne Kang and Minister of State for Child Care Katrina Chen, who, as ministers, officially thanked the Government of Taiwan for its donation. Again, will the minister now do the right thing and, on behalf of Canadians, recognize the generosity of Taiwan and thank its government for that timely donation? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, as I said to you before, Canada is grateful to all who have given supplies to Canada. This is a common endeavour. We are thankful. We are grateful to every nation and we will continue to be. As I said, when it comes to global health, when it comes to helping each other, I think it is a duty for all to come together. We are grateful and thankful for all those who have agreed to help Canada and Canadians from coast to coast to coast in times of need. I've repeated that and have said many times in many forums that we are grateful and thankful to all of those who are helping Canada. Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, again there was no specific thank you to Taiwan. The Government of Taiwan has been the world leader in successfully fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. We have a lot to learn from them and their response. Sadly, the People's Republic of China continues to oppose Taiwan's membership in the World Health Organization. Will the minister now do the right thing and assure Canadians that he will fully support efforts to grant Taiwan membership in the World Health Organization? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the member. As a former trade minister, he's very well aware of Canada's one China policy. That said, we support Taiwan to continue meaningful participation in international multilateral forums, particularly when it comes to health. This is a global good, and we want to support every nation. We recognize that Taiwan and others have been doing very well in fighting this pandemic. We also believe that Taiwan's role as an observer in the World Health Assembly meeting is of interest to the international health community and we have been supportive of that. Hon. Ed Fast: Mr. Chair, I'm going to pivot to repatriation flights. The minister has publicly said that over 20,000 stranded Canadians have been repatriated from abroad. Can he tell us exactly how many Canadians remain abroad who have expressed a desire to be repatriated? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Yes, Mr. Chair, I am very happy to update members. As of today, we have repatriated more than 20,000 Canadians on 232 flights from 87 countries. I would say that this is team Canada, and it knows no parties. Many members have written to me to make sure that we take care. It's not an exact science. We have, as I said, repatriated thousands and thousands. We continue, because we know there are still pockets of Canadian travellers who are stranded abroad. As the Prime Minister and I have said from the beginning, we will make our best effort to repatriate everyone who wants to come back home during the crisis. The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Moore now. Hon. Rob Moore (Fundy Royal, CPC): Mr. Chair, Canadians need to have faith in their justice system, even in a time of crisis. My office has received correspondence from Canadians concerned that trial delays due to COVID-19 may result in criminals walking free. As this government has been working overtime to criminalize law-abiding citizens with new and useless gun laws, will the Minister of Justice ensure that real criminals will not walk free as a result of delays in the justice system? Hon. David Lametti (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada): Mr. Chair, I thank the honourable member for his question. We have been working with my provincial counterparts across Canada, as well as with the various federal courts and also, through my provincial counterparts, with the superior courts and courts of appeal across Canada. Each particular jurisdiction has taken measures to ensure that basic essential services within the court system are maintained, through a variety of means, and we believe that we will be able to solve these various challenges. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, the regional relief and recovery fund was announced weeks ago as a way to help small and medium-sized businesses in rural communities, like those in my riding. In Atlantic Canada, these funds were to be distributed to the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. This is yet another announcement with no details from this Liberal government. Can the minister clarify whether we are days away or weeks away from this support flowing to the businesses that need it so desperately? Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): Mr. Chair, I had the chance to talk with many of the chambers of commerce and business owners throughout Atlantic Canada, and we hear their anxiety. That's why ACOA's doing great work on the ground to make sure we can help them through this very difficult period. The member is right. We have increased the budget of ACOAgood newsand I'll be coming up with the details very soon. It will be a pleasure to collaborate with him to make sure that we can help many businesses and business owners across the Atlantic region. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, my office has heard from many small business owners who have reached out to me. I know many have reached out to many of my colleagues and probably to all of us here today. They are frustrated by the eligibility requirements for some of the federal programs. In particular, they are unable to access the emergency business account, because they do not have a payroll. This could be the hair salon in my riding that subcontracts out its chairs. There are hundreds and thousands of small businesses in this very situation, vital small businesses in our communities, but they do not meet this requirement. These businesses, many of them, are weeks away from shutting down permanently. What does the Minister of Finance have to say to these small businesses that are suffering right now? Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Mr. Chair, I want to thank my honourable colleague for that really important question. I want all the businesses that he is talking about and all of them throughout the country to know that we continue to work very hard to make sure they're supported through this difficult period. More work needs to be done, and we will continue to do that work. We know that businesses are being supported through getting access to the wage subsidy to keep their employees together, and they're getting help, whether it's with rent or to defray costs by deferring GST and HST or customs duty payments. We're going to continue to work with all our businesses across the country. The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Moore for a brief question. You have less than 20 seconds, please. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, it's a very specific issue. There are small businesses, thousands of them, that do not have a payroll. Some have a personal account that they've dealt with over the years rather than a business account, and that makes them ineligible. These businesses need help right now. Hon. Mary Ng: I agree with the honourable member. Those businesses absolutely need support from us. We are going to keep working to ensure they are supported. The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Cumming next. Mr. James Cumming (Edmonton Centre, CPC): Mr. Chair, small businesses are concerned about their ability to survive, and no amount of deferrals, loans or subsidies can substitute for their need to be open and servicing their customers. Can the government confirm that a sectoral risk analysis has taken place to assist the provinces in reopening the economy? Hon. Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry): Mr. Chair, I can assure the member that we've been very clear in terms of our strategy around reopening the economy. We need to make sure that we follow the advice of the experts and the health authorities to do so in a manner that does not compromise the health and well-being of Canadians. We of course will have a sectoral lens, and as you can see by some of the initiatives and the support packages we've put forward The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Cumming now. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, thousands of business owners make a living and utilize dividends as their salary. They also use independent contractors. Can the government confirm that the programs currently in place will be expanded to these hard-working Canadians? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to assure the honourable member that we continue to work with all of our small businesses and I want to thank him for raising this very important issue. I want to assure our Canadian small businesses that we are going to continue to do this work to make sure they are supported. Mr. James Cumming: Can the minister give me a date when she will be able to announce to these businesses that they will be eligible? Hon. Mary Ng: I want to assure our Canadian small businesses of their importance and of the importance of their contributions to all of our communities. I want them to know that we continue to listen and that we will ensure that they are supported and continue to be supported during this difficult time. Mr. James Cumming: Minister, they need more than assurance. Can you give me a date when I can tell these thousands of businesses they will be supported if they pay dividends or if they use contractors within their businesses? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, these businesses are absolutely important and are getting support through a range of means. We will continue to work with these businesses to make sure they are supported through this difficult period. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, I spoke to a Second Cup owner whose landlord is not offering any kind of rent relief. The landlord says that he doesn't have the 25% needed to be eligible for the program because he's already paying for common area costs and deferrals on utilities, which he will have to pay on his mortgage. Will the government reform the rent relief program to focus on tenants and not just the landlords? Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr. Chair, I want to let the member know that we are working to make sure that the details of the emergency program for rent are out there so that both tenants and landlords can understand the situation. We're seeing a significant number of both landlords and tenants coming forward to register for this program, and we are convinced that it will be in the best interests of landlords to move forward and give tenants this relief. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, we've been hearing, however, from small business owners that their landlords don't find the government's rent relief program appealing enough. Can the government confirm, given the program's low eligibility rate, that the program will be expanded and be more efficient in helping tenants? Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we recognize that it's critically important that all of the details of this program be out there for landlords and tenants to understand. Those details are being worked on right now. This is a program that we've put out within the last week, and we are confident that it's in the best interests of tenants and landlords. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, during these trying times for small businesses, small businesses need all the help they can get. One easy way to do that would be to expand the Canada summer jobs program to businesses with over 50 employees. Will the government consider doing so to allow students to gain that very valuable work experience over the coming months? Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Mr. Chair, we are very excited about the uptake of the Canada summer jobs program this year. The second uptake provided employers across the country with the ability to add their needs for students to the mix. I'm looking forward to announcing a possible expansion of this program in the coming days. The Chair: The next question session will go to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall (SimcoeGrey, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. During this pandemic, the government has consistently called for a team Canada, non-partisan approach, and I was glad to hear that said a little earlier today. In fact, the public has called for that approach as well. However, at the same time, the current government has used a parliamentary back door to launch a poorly thought out gun ban. We have a government that didn't win the popular vote, and I'm just wondering how I explain to my residents, because I'm getting so many calls, that this is not a bloated response because, quite frankly, it is. Hon. Bill Blair (Scarborough Southwest, Lib.): First of all, Mr. Chair, I think the honourable member can explain to his constituents that the forming of regulations through order in council is actually the process prescribed in law in Canada under section 117. 15 of the Criminal Code. I would also invite the member to advise his constituents that way back in 1991, when there were some Conservatives who called themselves Progressive, the Mulroney government brought forward, in Bill C-17, the authority under that section for an order in council to prescribe specific makes, models and variants of military firearms as prohibited or restricted. The Harper government used the same tool The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall: I'm not sure, but I'm hoping, that I'll get an honest answer on this question from the minister, who has everything from rocket launchers to basically toy guns on the ban list. When will we get the cost of this buyback program? The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to please be careful in their language when they are referring to others. I won't comment on this one particularly, but I want all of you to be very, very careful when referring to other members. The honourable minister. Hon. Bill Blair: It's a good opportunity, Mr. Chair, to respond to some of the obfuscations and deceptions that have been put out there. We're not banning any toys and we're not banning shotguns. That's all misinformation that's being put out. I think it's very clear, and I invite the member to look at the list of weapons that are The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Thank you. What will be the cost of the buyback program, please? Hon. Bill Blair: Actually, I'm very much looking forward to bringing forward legislation as soon as the House resumes. We will have a vigorous debate in Parliament about the form a buyback will take and we will bring forward a budget at that time. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Will those with illegal weapons be eligible for the buyback program? Hon. Bill Blair: If people are illegally in possession of the weapons and they're committing a crime, they will be dealt with for the crimes they commit. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Okay. I'm going to switch it over. Canadians in my riding who suffer from cystic fibrosis are among the most vulnerable to COVID-19 infection. While these Canadians with existing lung conditions are incredibly worried about a virus that attacks the ability to breathe, the good news is that there are life-saving medicines for those with CF. The problem is with the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board and its restrictive guidelines. I am wondering if and when the government will correct these guidelines and give access to life-saving medicines for our most vulnerable. Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Mr. Chair, as you know, the government has been very committed to improving access and affordability for prescription medications for all Canadians. The PMPRB regulatory amendments will help Canadians be able to afford their prescriptions, and Canada will continue to be an important market for new medicines. In fact, many countries with much lower medicine prices gained access to new medicines in the same time frame as Canada frame, or even faster, so we are excited to do this work. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Mr. Chair, our seniors are being particularly hard hit right now during this pandemic, yet seniors have not been given any direct support. It's one of the number one calls I'm getting in my office. Funding to charities like the United Way is being labelled as support for seniors, but most won't see any of this support. Seniors in my riding have asked for an increase in their CPP and OAS, and to be able to make untaxed bulk withdrawals from their RRSPs while they still have some value. Can the minister confirm when these real and direct supports for seniors will be forthcoming? Hon. Deb Schulte (Minister of Seniors): I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. He mentioned. I'm not quite sure what's happening with my machine. I apologize. The Chair: You might want to try your space bar and keep it down while you're speaking. That might solve the problem. Hon. Deb Schulte: Okay, I'll try that. Thank you very much. I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. We have introduced a supplementary GST payment for low- and modest-income seniors. We've reduced the minimum RRIF withdrawal by 25%, and we've made the CERB available to working seniors who have lost their jobs due to the COVID pandemic. We know there's more work to do, and we'll have more to say in the future. The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that if there are issues, we are taking note of them, and we'll hopefully resolve them by the next meeting. We are getting much better, and we're all new at this. Thank you for your patience. We'll now go to Ms. Gaudreau. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau (LaurentidesLabelle, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My first question is for the Prime Minister. We've heard a lot about contact tracing apps. Several provinces have already made announcements on this, and others want to follow suit. Today, I'd like to know where the government stands on this. We've been talking about a national strategy for some time. Where are we now? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Obviously, contact tracing is an important part of managing any outbreak. In fact, we have been looking at a number of ways to support increased contact tracing across the country, including working with provinces and territories to boost their capacity through human resources and volunteer organizations. We are working very closely with them to make sure we have the capacity. The member is right that many other countries have used digital contact tracing apps. Anything we put forward as a digital tool to assist with contact tracing would be thoroughly considerate of Canadians'privacy rights. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Let me clarify my question a little. Yes, we are talking about public health, and we are currently experiencing a crisis. But you know as well as I do that the Privacy Commissioner has been calling us to task for a very long time now, because there is also a crisis of confidence. You know as well as I do that for 90%of Canadians, the misuse of their personal data is a cause for concern, whether it be for profiling or business development purposes. This is an issue that concerns all Canadians. The commissioner is indeed calling for a focus on reform of the Privacy Act. I'd like to know whether this commitment will be implemented quickly so that legislation can be passed on this issue, in this case the Privacy Act. Hon. Navdeep Bains: Particular attention must be paid to transparency, privacy and ethical concerns. Naturally, Canadians are concerned about how their data is used. New technologies are subject to the Privacy Act. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: We're talking about public health. The provinces are currently in the process of legislating. We're talking about what is going on in Quebec, among other places, and I would like to make sure that the federal government commits to respecting the proposals regarding geolocation and contact tracing possibilities, with full respect for the right to privacy. Can we commit to respecting the provinces? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have worked very closely with provinces and territories for a long time before the outbreak, but certainly ever since the outbreak. We respect the rights of jurisdictional authorities to use tools that have been properly vetted through their own provincial and territorial legislation. Nothing we would ever do at the federal level would put Canadians'privacy in jeopardy. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Concerning privacy, there are 30million Quebeckers and Canadians who have had their personal data leaked. Why is it that our laws don't allow us to apply financial penalties so that we can then go further? The very basis is to be concerned about our fundamental rights. The commissioner has been making this request for several years now. As the critic for access to information and privacy, I'd like a commitment that the federal government will deal not with what the provinces are doing, but with the Privacy Act. The Chair: Your time is up, but I'll give the floor to the minister for 30seconds. Hon. Navdeep Bains: Thank you for the question. Our government will ensure the privacy of Canadians is respected, support responsible innovation and take reasonable steps to strengthen enforcement powers. That's why we created a digital charter. We are strengthening Canada's privacy laws in response to the digital age. The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Baker. Mr. Yvan Baker (Etobicoke Centre, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll be sharing my time with the member for Malpeque. Mr. Chair, my question is for the Minister of Seniors. Minister, in my riding of Etobicoke Centre, we are mourning the loss of 40 residents to COVID-19 at the Eatonville long-term care centre. Over 143 residents and 88 staff members have now tested positive for the virus. This tragedy is not only taking place in Etobicoke Centre but across Canada. Of all Canadians who have died from COVID-19,79% were living in long-term care homes. That's over 2,000 seniors. This is a catastrophe, and it's frankly unacceptable. Our seniors and their families deserve better. I understand that long-term care homes fall within the jurisdiction of provincial governments in Canada, but this is a crisis. What is the federal government doing right now to help protect our seniors who are living in long-term care homes from COVID-19? What will we do to reform our long-term care homes in the future to ensure that our seniors in Etobicoke Centre and across Canada get the care they deserve? Hon. Deb Schulte: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to my colleague from Etobicoke Centre for his very thoughtful question. We are deeply concerned by the outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care facilities, and our thoughts are with those who have lost a loved one. It's a very difficult time. As my colleague mentioned, while these facilities are regulated by provinces and territories, we have been focused on protecting the health and safety of long-term care residents and staff while working with our partners in a team Canada approach. We've released guidelines to prevent and control COVID-19 infections. We're working with the provinces and territories to cost-share a temporary salary top-up for long-term care workers. We are working through investing $2 billion to secure personal protective equipment for the health of workers, including those in the long-term care homes, and we've deployed the Canadian Armed Forces to assist 25 long-term care homes in Quebec and Ontario. We all have a role to play to stop the spread of COVID-19 and to protect our seniors and caregivers. The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Easter. Hon. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. At the finance committee, we've heard a lot of concerns from all sectors of the economy as a result of COVID-19 and we've been presented with quite a number of possible solutions as well, several of which the government has acted upon. My question is on the support offered to the agri-food sector announced on Tuesday. It is very welcome support, but I sincerely believe the farm sector will be taking the Prime Minister up on the suggestion that $250 million should be seen as an initial investment. Potatoes are the number one commodity in Prince Edward Island. However, as a result of reduced processor contracts for next year, plus cancelled seed contracts, millions of dollars of seed and process potatoes have no home. To make matters worse, farmers have high fixed costs that they now have to spread over fewer acres. How does the minister see Tuesday's announcement addressing potato farmers'concerns? Second, in 2013, long-term financial safety nets were gutted by the Harper government. Will the minister be coming forward with improved business risk management programs as a result? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): Mr. Chair, I want to thank Mr. Easter, the member for the riding of Malpeque on Prince Edward Island. It's a beautiful rural riding with lots of agricultural production. I want to recognize the hard work of farmers throughout the crisis. On Tuesday, I was proud to announce one more step for supporting our producers and processors. We know the importance of our potato farmers, and that's why we are launching a first-ever surplus food purchase program, a $50-million fund designed to help redistribute existing inventories, such as potatoes, to local food organizations. On the financial safety net that we have in place for our farmers, called the business risk management program, we announced up to $125 million in funding through AgriRecovery and made changes to AgriStability that will help producers quickly. I will continue to discuss with my provincial counterparts toenhance and improve the BRM programs. In the meantime, I want to reiterate that BRM programs, including AgriInvest, are there to help farmers in difficult times. The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Johns now. Mr. Gord Johns (CourtenayAlberni, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, small businesses across Canada closed their doors to stop the spread and for public health. Now they're currently hanging off the edge of a cliff waiting for financial help. Robyn, who has owned Arbutus Health in Tofino for over 13 years, can't apply for the Canada emergency business account loan, simply because she doesn't have a payroll of over $20,000. All of her practitioners are paid contractors, so she is ineligible. With no business income and without emergency financing, it is virtually impossible for her to pay her bills or come up with the 25% needed for the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program. The government promised to be flexible and willing to adjust its COVID response rollout so that nobody falls through the cracks, but Robyn, like tens of thousands of proprietors who are the economic job creators of our communities, urgently needs the government's help now. Will the government amend its programs to help more business owners so that people like Robyn don't lose their businesses? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for his really good question. I know he and I have talked about this, and I appreciate the input and the feedback that he is providing from business directly. I want to assure Robyn and her businesses, and many businesses across the country, that we are absolutely listening, and we will continue to make sure we are supporting those businesses during this period. We know that many businesses are being helped through the Canada emergency business account. There are well over 550,000 businesses that are getting support through this emergency business account. We also know that more has to be done, and we will continue to work with you and businesses across the country so that we can indeed give them that necessary support to weather this difficult period of COVID-19. Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, that's not going to help Robyn feel comfort. I was talking to Heather last night, who also owns a business in Tofino, Basic Goodness Pizzeria, with her partner Marco. Like many proprietors of family businesses who aren't on payroll, they don't qualify for the business loans. They don't qualify for the wage subsidy because they're a seasonal business. Now with the new rollout of the rent support, they're not sure if their landlord is willing to play ball and even apply. That's three separate programs that leave them out. Heather was in tears last night as she told me that they have done nothing wrong to deserve being excluded from these emergency programs. I agree. Will the government fix the rent support program so that tenants can apply, instead of leaving it up to landlords, and so businesses can get the help they desperately need? Hon. Mona Fortier (OttawaVanier, Lib.): Mr. Chair, we've been working on this program since the beginning. We've been working on offering a response for small businesses and charities and non-profit organizations, and we are continuing to listen on the ground to how we can better assist the businesses that fall through the cracks. We will continue to do that as we go along in this emergency situation. Thank you very much to the honourable member for sharing the realities of his constituents. Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, when the government rolled out its commercial rent support program, why didn't it negotiate an eviction moratorium with the provinces, as Australia and other countries did, to protect business owners? Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as we know, Canadians are taking action and fighting against COVID-19. We know that many small businesses are worried about being able to pay rent. We've recognized it and we've been working with the provinces and territories to implement the Canada emergency commercial rent The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Johns. Mr. Gord Johns: To qualify for the Canada emergency wage subsidy, a 30% drop in revenue has to be shown. Anyone who's owned a business knows that even with this program, it's going to be hard to survive. Why is the government using a 70% measurement drop to qualify for the rent support program, but a 30% drop for the wage subsidy? Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, Mr. Chair, thank you to the honourable member for sharing his views on this program. We've been working with provinces and territories to provide forgivable loans to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rents for their tenants by 75%. We're hoping that tenants and landlords will be working together so we can support businesses during this very difficult crisis. The Chair: Before we move on to the next question, Mr. Berthold, did you have a question or a point of order? Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, I have a point of order. I checked the clock from the first round of five minutes, and as you may recall, it took a very long time for me to get an answer from the government. I went back and forth with MinisterMcKenna for four minutes and 14seconds. The Chair: Just a moment. The interpretation isn't coming through. It's working now. Go ahead, Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: I'll start over. During my first turn, it took 50seconds before a government minister deigned to answer my questions. After checking my time, I realized that the discussion between Ms. McKenna and I went on for four minutes and 14seconds, so I wasn't able to ask the minister one final question, a very important one. I would ask you to take that into account and allow me to ask MinisterMcKenna one last question, please. The Chair: The person chairing the meeting uses their judgment and does their best to keep an eye on what's going on. They try to be as fair as possible. I'll try to do a better job. I think it's more or less equal for all the members, but I apologize if the honourable member feels that he was denied a few seconds. Our next question goes to Mr. Doherty. Mr. Todd Doherty (CaribooPrince George, CPC): Mr. Chair, the Canada-U. S. border agreement is set to expire on May 20. Will the two governments renew the current agreement, or will it be modified? Hon. Bill Blair: The decision to close the border was made in Canada by Canadians in the best interest of Canadians. We're continuing to monitor the situation carefully. Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government be in a position to inform Canadians of any changes to the agreement? Hon. Bill Blair: I'm pleased to advise the member that we're continuing to monitor the situation, but I'm strongly of the opinion that the circumstances on both sides of our border do not indicate that this is the right time to make a change in the restrictions. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the government confirm whether there are any discussions about reopening the border to certain modes of transportation and restricting others? The Chair: Before I go to the minister, I want to remind the honourable members that we do have translators, and they are trying to translate. With respect to them, I know we're trying to get as many questions in as possible, but they do have to translate them, so please be considerate of our interpreters. The honourable minister has the floor. Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Let me please inform the honourable member that we are, of course, aware that the current agreement expires. I had a long conversation yesterday with the Prime Minister Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government announce a relief package for Canada's aviation industry? Hon. Navdeep Bains: We are engaged with the industry, and we are working with them on a solution, Mr. Chair. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, will this relief package include funding for airline ticket refunds similar to what other countries around the world have done? Yes or no? Hon. Navdeep Bains: It's early to say anything at this moment. We're taking a sectoral approach. This is about making sure that we restart the economy and have a strong recovery. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the Minister of Transport confirm that temperature screening is taking place at Canadian airports. Yes or no? Hon. Marc Garneau (Minister of Transport): Mr. Chair, I can confirm that Air Canada has now adopted a policy of checking temperatures for passengers boarding Air Canada flights. Mr. Todd Doherty: At which airports is that, and when did this practice start? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the announcement was made recently by Air Canada. It will start shortly and will apply to all places and destinations where Air Canada flies. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, this is for the Minister of Transport. Last week I asked the Minister of Labour if they were aware of a letter written on April 6 by CUPE to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Minister, were you aware of that letter? The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly. Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I didn't understand the reference to a letter from CUPE. Could my colleague please clarify? Mr. Todd Doherty: On April 6, CUPE wrote a letter to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Is the minister aware of that letter? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, could my colleague clarify what CUPE is referring to? Mr. Todd Doherty: CUPE is the labour organization that represents thousands of flight attendants across our country. Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I do understand. Yes, I will confirm that CUPE, which represents the flight attendants, did write to us. Before that I had conversations with CUPE with respect to flight attendants and the use of personal protective equipment. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the minister confirm whether or not they have provided PPE to the flight attendants and/or training for front-line staff for airlines and airports? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the airlines are providing PPE to flight attendants and flight crews. This has become a policy to ensure the safety not only of passengers on board but also of the flight attendants and flight crew. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, a business owner from Quesnel wrote to my office recently. He stated that he couldn't give his small business tenants a break on rent because the government is penalizing him for paying off his mortgage. When will the government change the CECRA rules to help more businesses? Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as you know, we laid out the CECRA program just last week, and we are encouraging landlords to take that opportunity to support the renters. We will continue to look at how we can provide some relief to small businesses with rents. Mr. Todd Doherty: With all due respect, Mr. Chair, any landlord who does not have a mortgage on their business is ineligible for CECRA. Is the minister aware of this, and are they trying to revise the CECRA program? Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with provinces and territories to present that program. Of course, we will continue to monitor how this program works for landlords and tenants. We are asking, actually encouraging, landlords to do their part and help tenants, like the one you mentioned, go through this. The Chair: We'll go to the next questioner. Go ahead, Ms. Dancho. Ms. Raquel Dancho (KildonanSt. Paul, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Small businesses in Manitoba employ 73% of Manitobans. That's over 286,000 Manitobans. I've been speaking with many small business owners in my riding. It's been heartbreaking, frankly, to hear that everything they've built and sacrificed for is in serious jeopardy, and through no fault of their own. Your government has created programs that are supposed to help them, but many legitimate businesses aren't able to apply. That could mean bankruptcy and cost thousands of Manitobans jobs. This is wrong. I'm hoping to hear specifics, not just nice words, on what you're going to do to help them. There are three issues regarding access to the $40,000 CEBA loan. First, businesses that recently incorporatedfor example, in late 2019are unable to apply their entire 2019 payroll. As a result, many are falling short of the $20,000 payroll threshold required to qualify for this loan. Second, many businesses contract their employees rather than have them on payroll. They also are unable to qualify for this loan. Third, many businesses use personal rather than business banking accounts. They aren't able to qualify for this loan either. What is your government going to do about these three scenarios? The Chair: I just want to remind honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly to the minister. As well, please take into consideration the interpreters, who have to listen and translate, so that we can have this conversation. Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for that question. Right from the very beginning, we've always said that we will listen and that we will work to make sure that measures go out to help our Canadian small businesses. She's absolutely right: 98% of all our businesses in this country are small businesses, so they absolutely contribute enormously to our communities and are job creators. That is why we have put out significant measures. For the Canada emergency business account, over 550,000 small businesses have been approved and are getting that support. I absolutely acknowledge that there is more work to do. I can assure the honourable member that we will continue to do this work so that businesses, all businesses, are supported, whether it is helping keep your employees together, helping with rent support, helping to keep your business's expenses low, or of course helping with the capital that is needed so that you can pay your operating expenses and your bills through this difficult time. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, I didn't hear any answers from the minister's remarks, unfortunately. Moving on, there are two issues regarding the 50% commercial rent assistance subsidy, where landlords pay 25%, the government pays 50%, and the tenant is responsible for 25%. First, many of the small landlords aren't able to take a 25% hit to their income, and are unable to provide the subsidy to their tenants. Second, with the 70% decline in revenue threshold for small businesses to even be eligible for the rent assist, many restaurants are at 65% or 67% decline. They desperately need this subsidy but aren't able to qualify. This is not about problems with the program details. What is the government planning to do to streamline this program for small businesses that can't access but desperately need the rent subsidy? Hon. Mlanie Joly: Mr. Chair, as the Minister of Official Languages, I just want to raise the fact that interpretation is very complicated right now. In order to make sure that we can continue to uphold bilingualism within the House, I would love it if my colleagues could take down the pace a bit. That would help the interpreters a whole lot. They are working very hard and trying to keep up. The Chair: That's a reasonable request. I just want to remind everyone again that when you're asking a question, make sure you are doing it at a pace at which you're considering the people who are interpreting Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, this is how fast I speak when we're in the House of Commons. It's just how I talk. The Chair: I understand. I have a lot of friends who speak very quickly. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Right. I understand. Perhaps we could get back to my question about the rent subsidy. The Chair: We stopped the time. You're not losing any time on this one. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Okay. I will try to speak more slowly. The Chair: I appreciate it. Thank you. The interpreters appreciate it. Now we'll go to the minister, please. Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with the provinces and territories to provide this forgivable loan to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rent of their tenants by 75%. We will continue to monitor how this program is delivered, as we announced it last week. It will be offered pretty soon. It will be very important that we understand what happens across the country, and we will monitor and adapt the program as we Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, it has been in the media quite a bit that this rent subsidy is not helping many, many, many small business owners. It's falling short of everything that was announced, so I think it needs to be taken a bit more seriously than that. There are two issues regarding the 75% wage subsidy. First, employers who pay themselves and their employees dividends rather than wages are unable to qualify. Second, there is also a 30% threshold revenue decline needed in order to apply. Many of the businesses in my riding are at 27% or 29%. They desperately need these funds but are unable to qualify. What is the government planning to do for these small businesses? Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, thank you to the hon. member for sharing the realities she's hearing from small business owners. We are providing help and support for businesses through these very difficult times. The wage subsidy has been taken up and is working for many businesses. We know that some still fall through the cracks and we will look at how we can continue to support businesses across the country. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends (BrossardSaint-Lambert, Lib.) ): We are now going to Mr. Kevin Waugh. Mr. Kevin Waugh (SaskatoonGrasswood, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. Three weeks ago, on April 17, the Minister of Canadian Heritage announced funding of $500 million to assist Canada's arts, sports and cultural sectors. We are still waiting to hear who is eligible and when they can expect to receive this funding. Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Canadian Heritage): Madam Chair, we will be releasing the details of that announcement, and how the money is going to be spent, in the coming days. Mr. Kevin Waugh: We all know that many media organizations, large and small, in Canada are struggling right now. Allegations have arisen that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CBC, is currently engaging in predatory behaviour and taking advantage of the current situation to harm its competitors using rate cuts. We've seen this from the province of Quebec. Many journalists have talked about this. What is the government going to do to address these allegations against the CBC? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have not been informed of these allegations. We will look into this, and we will get back to the hon. colleague if we do find any valuable information. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Local community and ethnic media outlets and papers have strong ties to their communities that often go much deeper than the major media outlets. Is the government currently using any local or ethnic media outlets to provide crucial coronavirus information through advertising? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, I totally agree with my colleague. We need to get the information to Canadians on COVID-19, which is why we have started an ad-buy campaign of $30 million, which is being distributed in more than 900 local, regional and national newspapers across the country and 500 radio and TV stations in 12 different languages, including Farsi, Mandarin, Spanish, Italian and many more. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Mr. Minister, I talked to the Winnipeg Free Press yesterday. It has received two ads from an ad agency in connection with the $30 million the government is doling out to help media outlets. They had one ad on March 27. The second ad was on April 11. That is two ads in the Winnipeg Free Press in the last eight weeks. Is this the kind of money you're attempting to dole out to help media: two ads in eight weeks? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have been doing a number of things for our media in Canada over the last few months and will continue to do so. On top of that $30 million ad-buy campaign, we have been investing $50 million in local journalism. Just this year, it means that 200 journalists will be hired in areas across the country where journalism is more poorly defined. The federal government has paid part I licence fees of our broadcasters to the CRTC. That means $30 million is staying in the pockets of our broadcasters. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Madam Chair, last week, as the minister would know, 15 community newspapers, including eight in Manitoba and seven in the province of Ontario, closed their doors for good. Is the government currently planning any further measures aimed at assisting community or ethnic media organizations? We understand that many more will close their doors within the next 30 to 60 days. Hon. Steven Guilbeault: We are planning a number of other measures, some of which will be included in the $500 million. I will be announcing the details of that in the coming days. Of the $595 million that the media will receive, we have a tax credit that has now entered into force, and the cheques should be in the mail by the end of the summer. So there are a number of things we've done and a number of things we will be doing in the coming months as well. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Waugh, you may have a short question. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Well, finally, you have the five members associated with that committee to dole out the $595 million. They haven't even met yet. When will they meet? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: I would like to remind my hon. colleague that in order for us to provide tax breaks for the 2019 period, media outlets had to file their tax returns so we could go ahead. This will now be able to proceed, Madam Chair. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We now move on to Mr. Godin. Mr. Godin, you may go ahead. Mr. Jol Godin (PortneufJacques-Cartier, CPC): Thank you, MadamChair. This being the first time I've had the floor during a virtual sitting of Parliament, I'd like to take this opportunity to greet my fellow members, all 259participants. I hope they are taking care of themselves. I'd like to talk about the Prime Minister's appearance on the show Tout le monde en parle. This is what he had to say about his economic recovery plan: We are going to remain focused on the economy as a wholeinnovationresearch and science, the green economy and a fairer economyThere are things we are all reflecting on right now that reflection is going to continue. That was a weak answer. It didn't inspire much confidence. Can the government assure Canadians that it is being proactive and working on a plan to get the economy moving again? It must act now. Things are starting to reopen gradually. Is the government going to take concrete action to revive the economy? Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Yes, absolutely. Our government is wholly committed to restarting the economy, and we are working closely with the provinces to do just that. Last week, our government, together with the provincial and territorial premiers, released the principles that will guide efforts to restore economic activity across the country. That is key. The discussion between the Prime Minister and the premiers is continuing today. Mr. Jol Godin: MadamChair, before we go any further, since it took a while for the minister, or the government, to answer the question, can I have that time back to ask questions? The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I stopped the clock, Mr. Godin. Mr. Jol Godin: Thank you. The Prime Minister's answer during his appearance on Tout le monde en parle didn't inspire much confidence and doesn't line up with the Deputy Prime Minister's comments. How can the government be proud of announcing $252million in assistance for the agri-food sector, when that is less than 1% of all the program funding the government has committed to help Canadians get through the COVID-19 crisis? Clearly, the government doesn't see the food supply chain as a priority and has no regard for farmers and pork and beef producers. Does the government realize that eating is vital to Canadians? When is the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food going to adjust the program and show respect for Canadian farmers? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: I have the utmost respect for farmers. We are going step by step. We've already confirmed various supports for the agricultural sector. This week, we focused on beef and pork producers and processors, as well as sectors with product surpluses that can be redirected to food banks. I can assure my fellow member that this is an additional step and that more supports are on the way in the weeks ahead. Bear in mind that a number of programs are already available to farmers. Mr. Jol Godin: I'd like to switch topics now. PortneufJacques-Cartier is home to a company that is already licensed by Health Canada and that, for 20years, has been manufacturing medical equipment including masks, face shields and thermometers. This is equipment our health workers need. The company has a licence from the federal government. In mid-March, Health Canada reached out to the company to find out how much equipment it could manufacture to help fight COVID-19. The company confirmed that it could immediately start producing 200,000masks a week, ramping up to a million masks over the next few weeks. Forty-five days later, it is still waiting on its first order from the Canadian government. We are managing a crisis with a limited supply of medical equipment. Can the health minister tell us why, 45days later, this company licensed by Health Canada hasn't received an order? Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Thank you for the question. Industry and suppliers have enthusiastically answered our call to equip Canada with products and goods during the crisis. Many of those suppliers have already received contracts. We have reached out to all the others and will negotiate contracts as needed. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I would now like to invite hon. member Jenica Atwin to speak. Mrs. Jenica Atwin (Fredericton, GP): Thank you, Madam Chair. Seniors living alone are most at risk of economic insecurity, particularly single senior women, as gender inequality in the job market has translated all too often into inadequate retirement income. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a poverty reduction plan that addresses the unique challenges faced by older women? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to assure the member that we are quite aware that this pandemic has typically affected single seniors, and many of those, given that they live longer, are single senior women. I want to assure her that we are working on this issue, and we have provided some supports already through measures such as the GST supplementary payment. That is on average almost $400 for single seniors. There's more work to do. We know that, so stay tuned. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, older women represent a high proportion of residents in long-term care facilities. Having spent their lives caring for parents, children and often their partners, they find themselves needing care in nursing homes. Multiple outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care homes in Canada have highlighted systemic gaps that senior and elderly women may face in such facilities, as well as the working conditions of the female-dominated ranks of nurses and personal support workers. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a federal strategy for long-term care homes that recognizes quality of life for residents and working conditions for the employees, ideally one that goes hand in hand with a poverty reduction plan and enhanced home and community care investments across the country? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I do want to thank the hon. member for her question. It's an important one. We are obviously deeply saddened by the outbreaks that have been going on in long-term care facilities and those who have lost their lives. We do recognize that the administration of long-term care and palliative care is the responsibility of provinces and territories; however, we have been taking a team Canada approach, and as you already know, we've been doing tremendous work with them to try to ensure that those who live in those facilities can be well cared for and safe. We are doing that with guidelines The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms. Atwin has the floor. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, from May 4 to May 10, we are observing Mental Health Week. We know that our essential workers right now are experiencing unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety, on top of putting their own physical safety and health on the line. Most of these workers work in precarious jobs with no access to paid sick leave or vacation, and without any benefits to access mental health services. Apart from the very welcome investments in online resources, can the minister explain how the government will support these workers now and once the crisis is behind us? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, thank you very much to the member for the question. I'm so glad that she's raising the issue of mental health and in particular how poor mental health is oftentimes connected to our socio-economic status. I appreciate the nuance in that question. She's right. We do have new resources that are available to all Canadians free of charge through the Wellness Together portal, but there is more to do. I think the announcement of top-up wages, for example, which the Prime Minister spoke about today, is another example of how we're taking the health and wellness of all low-income Canadians very seriously. We know that mental health is not divorced from socio-economic status, and I look forward to working with her more on other measures that we can take together. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, we're all very aware of the importance of temporary foreign workers and their role in ensuring our food sovereignty across this country. The pandemic has highlighted how we depend on their work. How are we protecting them? Madam Chair, will the government take action to strengthen legislation and ensure Canadians have access to the food they need while the workers who help bring it to our tables have safe working conditions, regardless of where they are working in this country? Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Thank you, Madam Chair. We are very concerned, as are countries around the world, that we support and create the environment for the health and safety of our temporary foreign workers and we value their contribution to our food supply chain here in Canada. We have issued guidelines to employers and are working very closely with local public health authorities in the provinces and territories to make sure workers are protected, that physical distancing and other recommendations are adhered to and that there are severe consequences if employers don't take care of their workers. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We are now going to Mr. MacGregor. Mr. Alistair MacGregor (CowichanMalahatLangford, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. My first question is this: Will the Liberal government prevent federal bailout funds from going to companies that use tax havens and avoid paying their fair share here in Canada, yes or no? Hon. Diane Lebouthillier (Minister of National Revenue): We are working to make sure that anyone who tries to circumvent the rules faces serious consequences. We are asking businesses to designate a representative to attest their claims. Any employer receiving the subsidy who is deemed ineligible will have to repay the full amount. Anyone who abuses the program could face fines of up to 225% of the subsidy amount as well as five years in prison. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, I didn't really hear a yes to that question, so I'll repeat it. Does the government really think it's appropriate for tax-avoiding corporations to receive funding provided for by taxpayers? Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: We will keep going after companies that engage in tax evasion. I want to be clear. We will target those who are responsible, not innocent workers. An employee is an employee, regardless of who they work for. The wage subsidy program does not hand a blank cheque over to employers. It is meant to help Canadians pay their bills, keep their jobs and get through the crisis. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, the agriculture funding announced by the government earlier this week amounts to less than 10% of what the Canadian Federation of Agriculture estimates will be required to help farmers weather this crisis. Why has the Minister of Agriculture shortchanged our farmers? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, this is one more step. This was one more step. We have already committed significant support to our farmers through different programs, and we will do more. I have to remind my colleague that we have put in $5 billion through FCC, $50 million for the temporary foreign workers, two times $50 million for pork and beef producers this week, and $77 million for food processing. This is only the beginning, and we should not forget that the business risk management programs are still there to offer support. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Yes, Madam Chair, but we're nearly two months into this pandemic and this announcement only came this week. Farmers need certainty. When can farmers expect further updates on funding, and how much will the government be providing? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, we are working closely with the farmers and their representatives to identify where the gaps are, but once again, we have made improvements to the AgriStability program. They can get, depending on the province, either 50% or 75% in advance payments, and they can also, right now, access their AgriInvest program. There is more than $2 billion ready to access today, if they have The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. MacGregor. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, federal disability recipients and seniors on fixed incomes have been hardest hit by cost of living increases from COVID-19. If we acknowledge that $2,000 per month is the minimum needed to get through this time, why are they being asked to survive on far less? When can they expect assistance, and how much will they receive? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to make sure people realize that we have provided some assistance through the GST supplementary benefit. We are also providing support to those who are still working, and we have done that by allowing them to access the CERB. There is more work to be done, so you'll be hearing more in the near future. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, as I think we've heard through today's question period, there are countless example of this government designing programs to exclude many small businesses that desperately need help. Whether it's the payroll requirements or other eligibility, we still, to this day, almost two months into the pandemic, have too many small businesses falling through the cracks. Madam Chair, why has the government taken this approach and when can we finally expect fixes to the whole system? Hon. Mary Ng: Madam Chair, right from the get-go, we have been committed to making sure that Canadians are helped through this crisis, and that small businesses get the support that they need, so that we are saving businesses and jobs in this country. That is what we have done with many of our programs. You're seeing that we are also listening, so that we can modify them as we need. I want to assure the member that the work is not done. We continue to do this. The Chair: Thank you. It is now over to Mr. Perron. Mr. Perron, you may go ahead. Mr. Yves Perron (BerthierMaskinong, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question will come as no surprise, since it has to do with agriculture. I hear the questions my fellow members are asking, and to be frank, I don't find the answers satisfactory. It is well and good to talk about existing programs, but they aren't working, so enough with that refrain. That's what people are telling us. It's not just members of the opposition saying it. This morning, both farmers and processors came together for a press conference at the Union des producteurs agricoles's head office in Longueuil. Six stakeholders from different sectors sounded the alarm. Can the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food therefore tell us when she will announce significant supports for the industry? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We have already announced significant amounts of support, and more is on the way. I'd like to correct my fellow member. It's not that the programs aren't working; it's that they aren't generous enough in farmers'eyes. That's why I'm working with my provincial counterparts to make improvements to programming, including AgriStability. Here's an example. After using the online AgriStability benefit estimator, a pork producer found out that he would get $11 per head, as they say in the industry. Pork producers are calling for $20 per head, so it's a good start, even though it's not enough and it isn't what they are asking for. We want to keep working together, but farmers have to access the money available to them through AgriStability. Mr. Yves Perron: Now it's my turn to correct the minister. Even before the crisis, we were hearing from people in the industry that the programs were neither suitable nor sufficient. We are in a crisis, and this is an exceptional situation. In the case of mad cow disease, farmers received direct assistance. That's the kind of assistance we are calling for. We don't want to hear about growing levels of debt. Of course, this is a first step, but farms are already deep in debt. A few days ago, the government announced $50million in funding for pork producers, even though they are asking for $20per hog for 27million hogs. The government's support covers just 2. 5million hogs. When I call the measure insufficient, I mean it is grossly insufficient. It's high time the government put forth more support. It has to stop saying that it's working hard and examining the situation. The government has to listen to the people in the industry. Again, this morning, they had some interesting proposals. When is the government going to announce a whole lot more in funding support? What's been announced so far is only 10% of what farmers are asking for. Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We are going step by step. The programs are already in place. We are trying to make them better, and we are committed to doing that. These programs are cost-shared with the provinces. However, I would point out to the member that, when it comes to AgriRecovery, we made an exception to the rule. We are moving forward in every province to help pork and beef producers. That's two funding envelopes of $50million each to help cover the additional costs from the decrease in plant processing capacity. That's new money that was not yet available, money we introduced this week. As the Prime Minister said, we are going to do more, and we are moving forward step by step. Mr. Yves Perron: What we concluded in committee this week is that the $125million is not new money. It was already earmarked for the programs. The government can't say that programs already exist and, at the same time, claim that they are new programs. Something doesn't add up there. What's more, there are different ways to make money available. I'd like to talk compensation. Everyone knows that the Canada-U. S. -Mexico Agreement came into force a month earlier than planned, despite the promises that had been made. That resulted in additional losses, once again. An easy way to make money available without committing new spending is to provide compensation and announce programs for supply-managed sectors that got nothing. It seems to me that a time of crisis is a time for the government to practise some judo and announce measures. I am reaching out to the government, as I always do, but it has to come forward with announcements. Can we expect the government to announce measures in the coming days? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Our commitment to farmers in supply-managed sectorsmeaning, egg, poultry and dairy farmersis as strong as it always was. I repeat, our commitment is clear. Dairy producers received their first payment at the end of last year or the beginning of this year. Support for poultry and egg farmers is in the form of investment programs, which aligns well with the recovery. At this time, we are focusing on emergency programs to help farmers hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. When it comes to the dairy sector, I hope I can count on your support. As you know, legislative changes are needed to grant the Canadian Dairy Commission's request and increase its borrowing limit by $200million so it can buy more butter and cheese. The Chair: Our next question will go to Mr. Lake. Hon. Mike Lake (EdmontonWetaskiwin, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we're all inundated, as we've heard during this entire question period, with Canadians'concerns about the economic restrictions and the social restrictions that they're under. Over the last couple of months, the WHO has given one very consistent message in terms of coming out of those economic and social restrictions. On March 16, Dr. Tedros said in his briefing, We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test. On March 25,44 days ago, he said, Aggressive measures to find, isolate, test, treat and trace are not only the best and fastest way out of extreme social and economic restrictionstheyre also the best way to prevent them. Does the minister agree with the WHO that relentless testing and tracing are critical to a successful economic and social relaunch strategy in Canada? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thanks to the member for the very astute observation and question. Absolutely, we agree that testing and contact tracing will form an important part of our response to living with COVID. We've been investing heavily in ensuring that we have the lab capacity, the collaboration across provinces and territories, and the variety of testing options to help us increase our capacity to test. We are aiming right now for a high volume of tests, but I will also say that in Canada we have one of the highest testing rates in the world. Although we're doing well, I can assure him that I am with him and I believe we need to do more. Hon. Mike Lake: I have some really quick questions for follow-up. First, what is Canada's current testing capability? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as I mentioned to his colleagues yesterday, we have currently the capacity to do approximately 60,000 tests per day across the country. Hon. Mike Lake: How many tests were conducted each day on average in Canada last week? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, it's hard for me to get that exact number, but I will get back to him with the exact number. Hon. Mike Lake: I'll save you the time. The exact number was 28,851, on average, every day last week. That's a gap of 30,000 from what your stated testing capability is. I'll give another quote from Dr. Tam, back on April 22,15 days ago. She said, As a first tranche, roughly close to 60,000 is where the provinces can potentially expand to as a target already. Does the minister happen to know, ballpark, what the average number of daily tests in Canada has been since that statement? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Your estimate was slightly higher than what my estimate was going to be, so that's a great piece of news. Listen, I will just say that I think if the premise here is that we could be doing more testing. I would agree, but I will also say that the provinces and territories are working incredibly hard on testing strategies that meet their own specific needs. I'm happy to have a conversation with the member later about that testing strategy. Dr. Tam works with all the chief public health officers across the country to ensure that their testing strategy is going to be applicable and appropriate for their particular jurisdictions. We, as the federal government, provide the capacity for them to conduct those tests. Hon. Mike Lake: Following up on that, is there a jurisdiction in Canada where relentless testing is not the appropriate strategy as provinces consider relaunching? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Each province and territory has its own outbreak and its own epidemic. For example, in British Columbia, where there are relatively fewer cases in general and less disease activity, they may have a different testing strategy than a province like Ontario, which is currently struggling with more outbreaks. Hon. Mike Lake: Given your comment that our current testing capability is 60,000, and acknowledging that only at one point in the entire history of our COVID response, over several months, has our weekly average been over 30,000it was about 31,000 for one day on a rolling basisMinister, are you satisfied with our current testing amounts right now, given that we're testing 50% of what the public health officer advises would be best? Hon. Patty Hajdu: I'm so amazed by the work the provinces and territories have done in a very short time to increase their capacity. We are supporting them with the tools that they need to get more testing done, but also to have other components in place that will allow them to do the rapid tracing of positive cases. I think it's very important to remember that testing strategies will be different across the provinces, based on the outbreak disease epidemiology. Having said that, I know that we can all do better, and I'm certain that my counterparts feel the same. The Chair: I'm going to have to cut the minister off at that one. I want to thank everyone for the session today, I think it went rather well. I'm very proud of you and proud of ourselves for what we managed to accomplish. The committee stands adjourned until Tuesday, May 12, at noon.

As a fact, 98% of all the businesses in this country were small businesses, so they absolutely contributed enormously to the communities and were job creators. That was why the government had put out significant measures. For the Canada emergency business account, over 550,000 small businesses have been approved and were getting that support.

tr-sq-637

tr-sq-637_0

What did the meeting talk about the forgivable loan to commercial property owners? The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.) ): We'll call this meeting to order. Welcome to the fifth meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. Pursuant to the order passed on Monday, April20, the committee is meeting today to consider ministerial announcements, to allow members of the committee to present petitions, and to question ministers, including the Prime Minister, about the COVID-19 pandemic. Tomorrow, May8, Dr. AndreaMcCrady, Dominion Carillonneur, will give a special recital to mark the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day. Victory in Europe Day, VE Day, commemorates the formal acceptance of Germany's surrender by allied forces at the end of the Second World War. While the pandemic prevents us from gathering to celebrate in person, tomorrow at noon the voice of our nation will ring out in remembrance of this milestone in our history. Today's meeting is taking place by video conference. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. Just so you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entire committee. I would like to remind members that, as in the House of Commons or committee, they should not take photos of their colleagues or film the proceedings. In order to facilitate the work of the interpreters and to allow the meeting to proceed smoothly, I would ask you to follow some instructions. The video conference will be interpreted as in normal meetings of committees and in the House. In the lower part of your screen, you can choose the language: floor, English or French. Please wait until I call on you by name before you begin to speak. When you are ready to speak, click on the microphone icon to activate your microphone, or hold the space bar down while you are speaking. If you release the bar, your microphone will revert to mute, just like a walkie-talkie. Honourable members, I would like to remind you that if you want to speak English, you should be on the English channel. If you want to speak French, you should be on the French channel. Should you wish to alternate between the two languages, you should change the channel to the language that you are speaking each time you switch languages. Please direct your remarks through the chair. Should you need to request the floor outside of your designated speaking time, you should activate your mike and state that you have a point of order. If a member of the committee wishes to intervene on a point of order raised by another person, you should use the raised hand function to indicate to the chair that you wish to speak. To do this, click on the participant button at the bottom of your screen. When the list appears, you will see the raised hand option beside your name. Speak slowly and clearly at all times. When you are not speaking, leave your microphone on mute. It is highly recommended that you use a headset with a microphone. You have to remember to switch languages. Should any technical challenges arise, for example, in relation to interpretation, please advise the chair immediately by raising a point of order, and the technical team will work on resolving them. Please note that we may need to suspend during these times in order to correct a problem. I want to remind the honourable members to mute their microphones when they are not speaking. If you get accidentally disconnected, please try to rejoin the meeting with the information you used to join initially. If you are unable to rejoin, please contact our technical support team. Before we get started, please note that in the top right-hand corner of your screen is a button that you can use to change views. Speaker view allows you to focus on the person currently speaking; gallery view allows you to see a larger number of participants. You can click through the multiple pages in the gallery view to see who is on and how many more participants there are. I understand there are no ministerial announcements today. We will now proceed to presenting petitions for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during the meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. In addition, to ensure a petition is considered properly presented, the certificate of the petition and each page of the petition for a petition certified in a previous Parliament should be mailed to the committee no later than 6 p. m. the day before. Now we'll go to presenting petitions. Mr. Genuis. Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Mr. Chair, five years ago when Parliament passed Bill C-14, then justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said that it represented a finely tuned balance between access and safeguards. It also included a five-year review. Petitioners on the first petition I'm presenting are very concerned to see Bill C-7 before Parliament, which removes safeguards ahead of that five-year review. Petitioners specifically mention their concerns about the removal of the mandatory 10-day reflection period, which can already be waived in certain circumstances. They are concerned about reducing the number of witnesses required to oversee it and ensure that a request has been properly made. I commend that petition to the consideration of the House. The second and final petition that I will be presenting today is with respect to Senate Bill S-204. This would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ from a person who did not consent. This responds specifically to concerns about organ harvesting in the People's Republic of China involving Falun Gong practitioners and increasing concerns that this is being or about to be applied to Uighurs as well. Canada can and should take action on this. Petitioners are noting that in the previous Parliament there were bills on this, Bill C-350 and Bill S-240. Now, in this Parliament there is a bill, Bill S-204, and the petitioners hope that this 43rd Parliament will be the one that gets it passed. The Chair: We will go to Ms. May. Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's an honour. This is my first occasion to present a petition in our virtual format of the COVID-19 committee. Thank you to you and your staff, Mr. Chair, for developing a system that allows us to present petitions electronically. The petition I am presenting today, which was previously approved, is from a number of constituents who are concerned that we pursue the Paris Agreement to hold the global average temperature increase to no more than 1. 5C. The Paris Agreement itself embeds in it the concept of Just Transition with a capital J and a capital T, the concept of just transition ensuring fairness and support for all workers in the fossil fuel sector. The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to move forward with an act to ensure just transition and to ensure adequate funding so that workers and communities dependent on the fossil fuel sector receive meaningful support to ensure security in their lives in the transition to more sustainable energy use. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Chair: Those are all the petitions for today. I want to thank the honourable members for their usual collaboration and now we'll go on to Mr. James Bezan (SelkirkInterlakeEastman, CPC): On a point of order, Mr. Chair, on Tuesday, at our COVID-19 committee of the whole meeting, I was asking a question which started at 12: 56: 06 and was cut off at 1: 00: 32, so I still have 34 seconds of time remaining in my question time of five minutes. You said it could be no more than five minutes but that I had up to five minutes. Thirty-four seconds leaves a lot of time to have a quick question and a quick response. If you believe that my time was unjustly cut off and that it was unfair treatment of the official opposition when we were raising our points of order, I would ask that the 34 seconds be tacked on to the opening round for the opposition and credited to Rosemarie Falk, who will be leading off for the Conservatives. The Chair: Normally what happens is the chair uses judgment, and with 35 seconds, there isn't enough time obviously for a full question or answer, most of the time. I'll take it under advisement. I can't allot it. I want everyone to know that I do have a timer next to me and I am timing the questions, and I will be treating the answers the same way. If it's a 25-second question, it will be a 25-second answer. Thank you for bringing that up. I believe that issue has been remedied. We've taken a little bit of the chair's ability to give judgment on it, but it will be from now on. Thank you. Mr. James Bezan: Mr. Chair, 34 seconds is a considerable amount of time to do a short question and a short answer. The Chair: I appreciate the advice. Thank you, Mr. Bezan. We'll now proceed to the questioning of ministers. I would like to remind the honourable members that no member will be recognized for more than five minutes at a time and that members may split their time with one or more members by so indicating to the chair. Ministers responding to the questions should do so by simply turning on their microphone and speaking. Our first questioner is Ms. Falk. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk (BattlefordsLloydminster, CPC): Mr. Chair, yesterday, Elizabeth May and the leader of the separatists declared oil to be dead. It's certainly not dead, but it's dying under the Trudeau government. Will the Prime Minister stand up for Canada's energy workers, or does he agree with the fringe left and those who want to destroy our country? Ms. Elizabeth May: I have a point of order. The Chair: Go ahead, Ms. May. Ms. Elizabeth May: Mr. Chair, I believe that the language that the honourable member just used is unparliamentary Mr. Garnett Genuis: That's not a point of order. Ms. Elizabeth May: We can have differences of opinion, but it is absolutely Some hon. members: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: unacceptable and violates my privileges to An hon member: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: No, it's not debate. I would ask the chair to rule on that, not the member from the Conservative Party. It is unacceptable to assert that anyone who wants to make a point about our economy is trying to destroy the country. This allegation is a violation of my privilege. An hon. member: She was also named by the The Chair: Order. I didn't recognize anyone. I don't know who is speaking, so I'll just start talking myself. I want to remind honourable members to have respect in their questions and in their answers. When you refer to someone, please refer to them respectfully. This is a committee of the House, and I would expect no less of the honourable members. We'll go to the right honourable Prime Minister. You have 16 seconds. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. As I pointed out this morning in my press conference, we cannot move forward on a transformation of our energy sector without supporting the workers in that energy sector. We need their innovation and we need their hard work if we are going to lower our emissions, if we are going to reach our The Chair: We'll go to Ms. Falk again. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, it has been 43 days since the finance minister promised Canada's energy sector liquidity through the Business Development Bank of Canada. For 43 days the finance minister has failed to deliver on that promise. These delays cost jobs and they are costing us Canadian businesses. If the government doesn't step up to support our energy sector, they are in effect doubling down on their support for foreign, unethically sourced oil. Mr. Chair, when will the credit options be available to Canada's small and medium energy firms? The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that we do have interpreters who are listening and translating. In consideration to them, please speak at a reasonable pace so that they can understand and then translate. The right honourable Prime Minister. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, our priority through this pandemic and this crisis has been to support workers across the country. We have sent billions of dollars to workers right across the country, including Alberta, Saskatchewan, B. C. , and Newfoundland and Labrador in the energy sector for them to be able to support their families through this difficult time. We are also working on sectoral supports right across the country. Those will be announced in due course. Our focus from the get-go has been The Chair: We'll move to Ms. Falk. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, another group that has been ignored by the Liberals is our farmers. The announcements to date fall well short of what is needed to maintain a steady supply of affordable and healthy food. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture has asked the government for a $2. 6-billion emergency fund. Instead of responding to specific COVID-19 challenges, our farmers are facing the Liberals'reannounced $125 million that was already budgeted in the AgriRecovery program. Will the Prime Minister finally step up and take our food supply chain seriously, or is agriculture just an afterthought for him? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: On the contrary, Mr. Chair, we take agriculture and our agricultural sector extremely seriously, which is why we announced hundreds of millions of dollars a couple of days ago to respond to pressing needs. We will continue to make investments to ensure both the safety of workers in our agricultural sector and the safety of our communities, as well as the continued flow of high-quality Canadian food onto our tables right across the country. Supporting the people who produce our food is a priority for this government and will continue to be. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Well, Mr. Chair, recycled program announcements do not respond to the immediate needs facing our farmers. This is absolutely unacceptable. Our farmers are faced with rising operational costs, a disrupted service industry, labour shortages and a reduced capacity at processing plants. The government has a responsibility to take domestic food security seriously. When will the Prime Minister deliver adequate support to address the critical changes facing our ag industry? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I would suggest respectfully that the honourable member take a look once again at the announcement we made, which actually highlights significant new investments to support our agricultural industry. I certainly agree that there is more to do. Every step of the way in this unprecedented situation, we've been moving forward on doing more, on adjusting and on investing more. We need to support our agricultural sector and the people who work so hard to put food on Canadians'tables right across the country and we will continue to. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, Canadians expect to find healthy and affordable food at their grocery stores, but if the government does not take action now, that's not a given. Our farmers are trying to keep Canadians fed while keeping their heads above water. The Liberal government's own failed federal carbon tax is weighing them down. It is an enormous hit to their bottom line, and the recent carbon tax hike is taking even more money out of the pockets of farmers at a time when they can afford it the least. Will the Prime Minister exempt all farm operations from the carbon tax and reimburse the money that they have already taken from them? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, it's a shame to hear the member opposite accidentallyunintentionally, I'm certainmislead the House and Canadians. The price on pollution actually puts more money into Canadians'pockets, and that includes farm families. People who pay the cost of the price on pollution on average receive more money back. This is the way of creating a better future for our kids and grandkids, which I know people in communities right across the country, including our farm communities, want to see happen. We are moving forward in a responsible way to put a price on pollution and put more money in average Canadians'pockets. The Chair: We now continue with Mrs. Gill. Mrs. Gill, you have the floor. Mrs. Marilne Gill (Manicouagan, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. As you know, all sectors of the economy are fragile at the moment, specifically the fisheries. I am thinking about the lobster fishery in the Magdalen Islands, the crab fishery on the Cte-Nord or those fishing for herring in the south of the Gasp. Because imports have ceased, because the domestic market is weak and in decline because of the interruption of the tourism and restaurant industries, the fishing industry and its fishers must be supported. I would like to know what the government has done to support our fishers since the crisis began. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Our fishers do exceptional work that is extremely important in feeding Canadians and in contributing to our economic success through their exports around the world. This crisis has struck them very hard. That is why we have established measures in the tens of millions of dollars to support our processors. We have also announced help for the fishers. We know that these are difficult and unprecedented times, and we are going to Mrs. Marilne Gill: My thanks to the Prime Minister. I am actually talking about help for the fishers. I know about the processing industry and the $62. 5million to be used essentially for freezing products, but I am talking about the fishers themselves. Given the economic situation, most of our fishers are getting ready to leave. First, there are health risks. We know very well that it is impossible for them to observe all the social distancing measures. They have to incur additional expenses in order to conduct their normal fishing activities. In addition, they feel that they will be losing money, because of the drop in the price of their resource. They are just as essential as farmers, but they are going to have to work at a loss and they are not going to have workers to assist them. Workers in the seasonal industry do not know what tomorrow will bring. They do not even know whether they will be able to put food on the table next year. Are you going to do anything else, in addition to the assistance of $62. 5million? Time is of the essence. Our fishers have lacked certainty for weeks and they are very concerned. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Yes, indeed, we are going to do other things. Other investments will be made in various sectors in order to support Canadians. We recognize the challenges that fishers must face in terms of social distancing and of work that is often seasonal. We are going to continue working with the industry, with the fishers, and with the coastal communities in order to ensure that people have confidence in their abilities and in their future. In times of crisis, it is important for the government to be there to support people, and that is exactly what we are going to continue to do. This is an unprecedented crisis, but we can see once more that Canadians are there for each other. Our government will continue to be there for the fishers and the fishing industry. Mrs. Marilne Gill: I would have preferred us to be there from the start. Clearly, this is a difficult crisis. But, given the cyclical nature of the industry, some sectors have had to postpone for several weeks the preparations they need for fishing activities. The current program could be modified in a number of ways, to accommodate the cycle, the dates, and the size of the companies. They would really like to take advantage of the $40,000loan, but they cannot because of their payroll. Given the dates, they are also ineligible for the 75%salary subsidy. I can already suggest a number of solutions to the government and to the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, that would bring help to those businesses very quickly. The fishers carry on, because it is a duty for them, because they want to help us and to be part of the effort at this time of crisis. At the same time, they have no guarantee that they will be supported. I would really like to hear a guarantee that they will be supported, that they will be able to put food on the table this year, and that they will be able to support the communities that often depend on the fishing industry, a major industry in those communities. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Minister Jordan has been working with the fishers, the fishing industry and the communities affected by the crisis since the crisis began. We are assessing a number of solutions. We have proposed various solutions to support the communities, the workers and the families. This is an unprecedented situation. From the outset, our priority has been to support the millions of Canadians from coast to coast who have lost their jobs. We have been able to do so, but we are going to continue to work for those who must now face difficulties. We are going to be there for each other. That is what people are expecting from our government and from other Canadians. The Chair: Before we move to the next question, I would like to remind members of the committee to speak slowly, and to address their remarks to the chair and not directly to each other. Thank you very much. We will now go to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach (SkeenaBulkley Valley, NDP): Mr. Chair, municipalities across Canada are facing a financial crisis. They've seen revenues plummet, and at the same time the cost of delivering municipal services has risen. As the Prime Minister knows, municipalities are unable to run deficits and so they are facing the reality of cutbacks and serious cuts to the services that Canadians depend on. We know that municipalities are vital during this time to provide services to Canadians. They're going to be even more important during the recovery, especially when it comes to delivering on the infrastructure programs before us. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities and mayors across Canada have called for emergency financial relief for the municipal sector. My question for the Prime Minister is, when can they expect federal financial support to arrive? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, no government in Canada's history has done more to work with our municipalities, with our cities, with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to respond to the challenges they're facing and to partner with them. Things from infrastructure to investments have made a huge difference right across the country in the quality of life of Canadians in towns, large and small, from coast to coast to coast. As I'm sure the member well knows, our Constitution requires that most of the funding for municipalities flow through the provinces. We are working with the provinces, as we continue to work with the cities, to ensure that we're able to support this order of government that delivers the vast majority of services to Canadians with very little financial means. We know how difficult it is for our cities. We will continue The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, it would seem that the federal government has the fiscal capacity and the responsibility to help municipalities weather this crisis. Transit systems have been hit particularly hard and have seen the bulk of the layoffs in the municipal sector. These transit services carry essential workers to work, whether they are health care workers, grocery store workers, janitors or others. The risk is that we will see higher fares to deal with this financial crisis. We will see service cutbacks precisely at a time when we want to be expanding transit and improving transit in our communities. Does the Prime Minister acknowledge that the federal government needs to step in to safeguard and protect Canada's transit services? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, this federal government recognizes how important it is to support all Canadians, which is why we put forward unprecedented measures to help millions upon millions of Canadians with the CERB and with the wage subsidy. We will continue to work with the provinces, which have jurisdiction over the municipalities. I'll be having a conversation with all other first ministers tonight to talk about a broad range of issues. I can highlight that the issue of transit funding has come up. We have continued to engage with them, but again, it is important to respect the Constitution and understand that funding for municipalities and cities does go through the provinces. The federal government is happy to be there to support, but it must be The Chair: We will go to Mr. Bachrach again. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I am wondering how the Prime Minister could explain to a bus driver in Vancouver who has been laid off that as a public sector worker, she can't access the federal wage subsidy, while an equivalent worker in the airline industry gets to keep her job with the federal help of that program. Could the Prime Minister explain how that is fair? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I'm happy to explain to the member and to all Canadians that our Constitution creates federal areas of jurisdiction and provincial areas of jurisdiction. The airline industry, like banking, like telecommunications, is a federal area of jurisdiction that we have been able to move forward on. More than that, we brought the Canada emergency response benefit and the wage subsidy to all industries across this country, because we knew that as the federal government, it was something that we needed to step up on The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I'd like to shift gears a little bit. Faced with minimal health care capacity, remote indigenous communities in my riding are taking matters into their own hands. The Nuxalk have put up a checkpoint on Highway 20 to protect community members and prevent non-essential travel. In particular, it is to protect the three remaining fluent speakers of the Nuxalk language, these cherished elders in their community. The Haida on Haida Gwaii have set up a similar checkpoint, as have communities throughout British Columbia, yet federal support for indigenous communities amounts to only $39 million for all of the indigenous communities in B. C. Does the Prime Minister not agree that more support is warranted to help indigenous communities in my riding and across the country? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, we made funds available to Canadians right across the country, particularly people in indigenous remote or northern communities who we knew would be facing more difficult challenges because of the existing vulnerabilities in their health care system and socio-economic circumstances. We have made unprecedented investments and we will continue to make the necessary investments, because we need to make sure that indigenous Canadians, and indeed all Canadians, have the supports they need to make it through this crisis. The Chair: We will continue with Mr. Berthold. Mr. Berthold, you have the floor. Mr. Luc Berthold (MganticL'rable, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I am going to keep talking about the area of jurisdiction that the Prime Minister likes to talk about, except that I want to point out the incompetence of the Liberals in keeping their commitments on infrastructure projects. My question is very simple. As the provinces gradually restart their economies, can the Prime Minister tell us how many projects that the provinces have submitted are waiting for approval from his government? Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, I hope that the length of the pause will not be taken out of my time. The Chair: No, I stopped the clock for your time. Ms. McKenna, you have the floor. Hon. Catherine McKenna (Minister of Infrastructure and Communities): I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, I was on mute. I'm very pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. I have spoken with all of my provincial and territorial counterparts over the last couple of weeks. Work on our historic infrastructure program is progressing well. My department has worked very hard to approve projects, and we will continue to do so. It is very important to build projects that will create good jobs The Chair: We are returning to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: We still haven't had a response. How many projects are currently awaiting government approval? I know that the minister has been meeting virtually with the provinces over the last few days. However, there are still hundreds of projects waiting for approval from the Liberal government. Rather than wait for the right political opportunity to approve these files, will the minister commit today to respecting the provinces and approving by next week all the projects that are sitting on her desk? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I'm pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. We are approving projects. If the hon. member speaks to the provinces and territories, he will see how well we are working together. We will announce the approval of projects because it's very important for our economy, our communities and creating good jobs. Mr. Luc Berthold: Does the minister understand that she hasn't told us how many projects are still pending? The construction season is very short. Approval of a project in July means that work can't begin until next year, which won't help revive our economy. Hon. Catherine McKenna: I want to make it clear that we have approved hundreds of projects in the last few weeks. We will work with the provinces, territories, municipalities and indigenous communities to implement these projects. These projects are important for the economy and the environment, as well as for jobs The Chair: We return now to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, while the minister is calling for a green recovery of the country's economy, public transit is at risk. Physical distancing measures will cause public transit use to drop for several months. The Union des municipalits du Qubec estimates that the monthly losses are between $75million and $100million. Other countries have included public transit in pandemic relief programs. Why isn't Canada? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, we recognize the importance of public transit for our economy, since some essential workers use public transit. We are working very closely with our counterparts and are listening to the municipalities. As the Prime Minister said, it's the provinces that must help because the money The Chair: We return now to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, once again, what we're hearing is that the government is passing the buck to the provinces. Unfortunately, the minister was unable to answer a single question about the number of infrastructure projects still on the federal government's desk, which is very important. Several large municipalities are waiting for the approval of projects. Moreover, public transit systems are facing an extremely serious financial crisis. Ridership in most systems is down 85%to90%. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is asking for help for small communities, as well as large municipalities. Why is the federal government ignoring the municipalities in the Canadian Federation of Municipalities at this time? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I can reassure the hon. member that we are working very closely with the municipalities. We are listening to the municipalities to find out what their issues are and how we can support them. Of course, we need the help of the provinces and territories. In terms of the number of projects that we've approved, I would be happy to inform the hon. member of the exact number of all the approved projects that my department has been working very hard on over the past few months to approve projects to go forward. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, do I have any time left? The Chair: No, your time is up. We'll now go on to Mr. Fast. Hon. Ed Fast (Abbotsford, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. This question is directed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. On March 28, the minister personally tweeted out a thank you to the People's Republic of China for donating PPE to Canada. This tweet happened within three hours of China's announcement of that gift. As it turned out, much of the PPE was defective and could not be used. More recently, Taiwan donated half a million surgical masks to Canada, yet here we are, two weeks later, and the minister has yet to personally thank Taiwan for its generosity. Will the minister now thank this free and democratic country for its generous gift to Canadians? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne (Minister of Foreign Affairs): Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank my colleague for the question. Indeed, we are very grateful to every nation for helping Canada. This is a global pandemic that knows no borders. We have been expressing our thanks to many nations that have contributed. We will continue to do so. It is important in a time of pandemic, Mr. Chair, that we not play politics and that humanity comes together. I can say, after my COVID foreign ministers call, that the world community has come together to make sure that supply chains will remain intact and that we will have transit hubs and air bridges. We will continue to work with every nation when it comes to health. This is a public good. We want to work together with everyone. The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Fast now. Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, I didn't hear a thank you there, so I'm going to try again. On May 4, the Government of Taiwan delivered 25,000 surgical masks to the Government of British Columbia. On hand were B. C. Minister of Citizens'Services Anne Kang and Minister of State for Child Care Katrina Chen, who, as ministers, officially thanked the Government of Taiwan for its donation. Again, will the minister now do the right thing and, on behalf of Canadians, recognize the generosity of Taiwan and thank its government for that timely donation? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, as I said to you before, Canada is grateful to all who have given supplies to Canada. This is a common endeavour. We are thankful. We are grateful to every nation and we will continue to be. As I said, when it comes to global health, when it comes to helping each other, I think it is a duty for all to come together. We are grateful and thankful for all those who have agreed to help Canada and Canadians from coast to coast to coast in times of need. I've repeated that and have said many times in many forums that we are grateful and thankful to all of those who are helping Canada. Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, again there was no specific thank you to Taiwan. The Government of Taiwan has been the world leader in successfully fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. We have a lot to learn from them and their response. Sadly, the People's Republic of China continues to oppose Taiwan's membership in the World Health Organization. Will the minister now do the right thing and assure Canadians that he will fully support efforts to grant Taiwan membership in the World Health Organization? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the member. As a former trade minister, he's very well aware of Canada's one China policy. That said, we support Taiwan to continue meaningful participation in international multilateral forums, particularly when it comes to health. This is a global good, and we want to support every nation. We recognize that Taiwan and others have been doing very well in fighting this pandemic. We also believe that Taiwan's role as an observer in the World Health Assembly meeting is of interest to the international health community and we have been supportive of that. Hon. Ed Fast: Mr. Chair, I'm going to pivot to repatriation flights. The minister has publicly said that over 20,000 stranded Canadians have been repatriated from abroad. Can he tell us exactly how many Canadians remain abroad who have expressed a desire to be repatriated? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Yes, Mr. Chair, I am very happy to update members. As of today, we have repatriated more than 20,000 Canadians on 232 flights from 87 countries. I would say that this is team Canada, and it knows no parties. Many members have written to me to make sure that we take care. It's not an exact science. We have, as I said, repatriated thousands and thousands. We continue, because we know there are still pockets of Canadian travellers who are stranded abroad. As the Prime Minister and I have said from the beginning, we will make our best effort to repatriate everyone who wants to come back home during the crisis. The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Moore now. Hon. Rob Moore (Fundy Royal, CPC): Mr. Chair, Canadians need to have faith in their justice system, even in a time of crisis. My office has received correspondence from Canadians concerned that trial delays due to COVID-19 may result in criminals walking free. As this government has been working overtime to criminalize law-abiding citizens with new and useless gun laws, will the Minister of Justice ensure that real criminals will not walk free as a result of delays in the justice system? Hon. David Lametti (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada): Mr. Chair, I thank the honourable member for his question. We have been working with my provincial counterparts across Canada, as well as with the various federal courts and also, through my provincial counterparts, with the superior courts and courts of appeal across Canada. Each particular jurisdiction has taken measures to ensure that basic essential services within the court system are maintained, through a variety of means, and we believe that we will be able to solve these various challenges. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, the regional relief and recovery fund was announced weeks ago as a way to help small and medium-sized businesses in rural communities, like those in my riding. In Atlantic Canada, these funds were to be distributed to the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. This is yet another announcement with no details from this Liberal government. Can the minister clarify whether we are days away or weeks away from this support flowing to the businesses that need it so desperately? Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): Mr. Chair, I had the chance to talk with many of the chambers of commerce and business owners throughout Atlantic Canada, and we hear their anxiety. That's why ACOA's doing great work on the ground to make sure we can help them through this very difficult period. The member is right. We have increased the budget of ACOAgood newsand I'll be coming up with the details very soon. It will be a pleasure to collaborate with him to make sure that we can help many businesses and business owners across the Atlantic region. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, my office has heard from many small business owners who have reached out to me. I know many have reached out to many of my colleagues and probably to all of us here today. They are frustrated by the eligibility requirements for some of the federal programs. In particular, they are unable to access the emergency business account, because they do not have a payroll. This could be the hair salon in my riding that subcontracts out its chairs. There are hundreds and thousands of small businesses in this very situation, vital small businesses in our communities, but they do not meet this requirement. These businesses, many of them, are weeks away from shutting down permanently. What does the Minister of Finance have to say to these small businesses that are suffering right now? Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Mr. Chair, I want to thank my honourable colleague for that really important question. I want all the businesses that he is talking about and all of them throughout the country to know that we continue to work very hard to make sure they're supported through this difficult period. More work needs to be done, and we will continue to do that work. We know that businesses are being supported through getting access to the wage subsidy to keep their employees together, and they're getting help, whether it's with rent or to defray costs by deferring GST and HST or customs duty payments. We're going to continue to work with all our businesses across the country. The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Moore for a brief question. You have less than 20 seconds, please. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, it's a very specific issue. There are small businesses, thousands of them, that do not have a payroll. Some have a personal account that they've dealt with over the years rather than a business account, and that makes them ineligible. These businesses need help right now. Hon. Mary Ng: I agree with the honourable member. Those businesses absolutely need support from us. We are going to keep working to ensure they are supported. The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Cumming next. Mr. James Cumming (Edmonton Centre, CPC): Mr. Chair, small businesses are concerned about their ability to survive, and no amount of deferrals, loans or subsidies can substitute for their need to be open and servicing their customers. Can the government confirm that a sectoral risk analysis has taken place to assist the provinces in reopening the economy? Hon. Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry): Mr. Chair, I can assure the member that we've been very clear in terms of our strategy around reopening the economy. We need to make sure that we follow the advice of the experts and the health authorities to do so in a manner that does not compromise the health and well-being of Canadians. We of course will have a sectoral lens, and as you can see by some of the initiatives and the support packages we've put forward The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Cumming now. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, thousands of business owners make a living and utilize dividends as their salary. They also use independent contractors. Can the government confirm that the programs currently in place will be expanded to these hard-working Canadians? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to assure the honourable member that we continue to work with all of our small businesses and I want to thank him for raising this very important issue. I want to assure our Canadian small businesses that we are going to continue to do this work to make sure they are supported. Mr. James Cumming: Can the minister give me a date when she will be able to announce to these businesses that they will be eligible? Hon. Mary Ng: I want to assure our Canadian small businesses of their importance and of the importance of their contributions to all of our communities. I want them to know that we continue to listen and that we will ensure that they are supported and continue to be supported during this difficult time. Mr. James Cumming: Minister, they need more than assurance. Can you give me a date when I can tell these thousands of businesses they will be supported if they pay dividends or if they use contractors within their businesses? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, these businesses are absolutely important and are getting support through a range of means. We will continue to work with these businesses to make sure they are supported through this difficult period. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, I spoke to a Second Cup owner whose landlord is not offering any kind of rent relief. The landlord says that he doesn't have the 25% needed to be eligible for the program because he's already paying for common area costs and deferrals on utilities, which he will have to pay on his mortgage. Will the government reform the rent relief program to focus on tenants and not just the landlords? Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr. Chair, I want to let the member know that we are working to make sure that the details of the emergency program for rent are out there so that both tenants and landlords can understand the situation. We're seeing a significant number of both landlords and tenants coming forward to register for this program, and we are convinced that it will be in the best interests of landlords to move forward and give tenants this relief. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, we've been hearing, however, from small business owners that their landlords don't find the government's rent relief program appealing enough. Can the government confirm, given the program's low eligibility rate, that the program will be expanded and be more efficient in helping tenants? Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we recognize that it's critically important that all of the details of this program be out there for landlords and tenants to understand. Those details are being worked on right now. This is a program that we've put out within the last week, and we are confident that it's in the best interests of tenants and landlords. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, during these trying times for small businesses, small businesses need all the help they can get. One easy way to do that would be to expand the Canada summer jobs program to businesses with over 50 employees. Will the government consider doing so to allow students to gain that very valuable work experience over the coming months? Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Mr. Chair, we are very excited about the uptake of the Canada summer jobs program this year. The second uptake provided employers across the country with the ability to add their needs for students to the mix. I'm looking forward to announcing a possible expansion of this program in the coming days. The Chair: The next question session will go to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall (SimcoeGrey, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. During this pandemic, the government has consistently called for a team Canada, non-partisan approach, and I was glad to hear that said a little earlier today. In fact, the public has called for that approach as well. However, at the same time, the current government has used a parliamentary back door to launch a poorly thought out gun ban. We have a government that didn't win the popular vote, and I'm just wondering how I explain to my residents, because I'm getting so many calls, that this is not a bloated response because, quite frankly, it is. Hon. Bill Blair (Scarborough Southwest, Lib.): First of all, Mr. Chair, I think the honourable member can explain to his constituents that the forming of regulations through order in council is actually the process prescribed in law in Canada under section 117. 15 of the Criminal Code. I would also invite the member to advise his constituents that way back in 1991, when there were some Conservatives who called themselves Progressive, the Mulroney government brought forward, in Bill C-17, the authority under that section for an order in council to prescribe specific makes, models and variants of military firearms as prohibited or restricted. The Harper government used the same tool The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall: I'm not sure, but I'm hoping, that I'll get an honest answer on this question from the minister, who has everything from rocket launchers to basically toy guns on the ban list. When will we get the cost of this buyback program? The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to please be careful in their language when they are referring to others. I won't comment on this one particularly, but I want all of you to be very, very careful when referring to other members. The honourable minister. Hon. Bill Blair: It's a good opportunity, Mr. Chair, to respond to some of the obfuscations and deceptions that have been put out there. We're not banning any toys and we're not banning shotguns. That's all misinformation that's being put out. I think it's very clear, and I invite the member to look at the list of weapons that are The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Thank you. What will be the cost of the buyback program, please? Hon. Bill Blair: Actually, I'm very much looking forward to bringing forward legislation as soon as the House resumes. We will have a vigorous debate in Parliament about the form a buyback will take and we will bring forward a budget at that time. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Will those with illegal weapons be eligible for the buyback program? Hon. Bill Blair: If people are illegally in possession of the weapons and they're committing a crime, they will be dealt with for the crimes they commit. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Okay. I'm going to switch it over. Canadians in my riding who suffer from cystic fibrosis are among the most vulnerable to COVID-19 infection. While these Canadians with existing lung conditions are incredibly worried about a virus that attacks the ability to breathe, the good news is that there are life-saving medicines for those with CF. The problem is with the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board and its restrictive guidelines. I am wondering if and when the government will correct these guidelines and give access to life-saving medicines for our most vulnerable. Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Mr. Chair, as you know, the government has been very committed to improving access and affordability for prescription medications for all Canadians. The PMPRB regulatory amendments will help Canadians be able to afford their prescriptions, and Canada will continue to be an important market for new medicines. In fact, many countries with much lower medicine prices gained access to new medicines in the same time frame as Canada frame, or even faster, so we are excited to do this work. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Mr. Chair, our seniors are being particularly hard hit right now during this pandemic, yet seniors have not been given any direct support. It's one of the number one calls I'm getting in my office. Funding to charities like the United Way is being labelled as support for seniors, but most won't see any of this support. Seniors in my riding have asked for an increase in their CPP and OAS, and to be able to make untaxed bulk withdrawals from their RRSPs while they still have some value. Can the minister confirm when these real and direct supports for seniors will be forthcoming? Hon. Deb Schulte (Minister of Seniors): I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. He mentioned. I'm not quite sure what's happening with my machine. I apologize. The Chair: You might want to try your space bar and keep it down while you're speaking. That might solve the problem. Hon. Deb Schulte: Okay, I'll try that. Thank you very much. I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. We have introduced a supplementary GST payment for low- and modest-income seniors. We've reduced the minimum RRIF withdrawal by 25%, and we've made the CERB available to working seniors who have lost their jobs due to the COVID pandemic. We know there's more work to do, and we'll have more to say in the future. The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that if there are issues, we are taking note of them, and we'll hopefully resolve them by the next meeting. We are getting much better, and we're all new at this. Thank you for your patience. We'll now go to Ms. Gaudreau. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau (LaurentidesLabelle, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My first question is for the Prime Minister. We've heard a lot about contact tracing apps. Several provinces have already made announcements on this, and others want to follow suit. Today, I'd like to know where the government stands on this. We've been talking about a national strategy for some time. Where are we now? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Obviously, contact tracing is an important part of managing any outbreak. In fact, we have been looking at a number of ways to support increased contact tracing across the country, including working with provinces and territories to boost their capacity through human resources and volunteer organizations. We are working very closely with them to make sure we have the capacity. The member is right that many other countries have used digital contact tracing apps. Anything we put forward as a digital tool to assist with contact tracing would be thoroughly considerate of Canadians'privacy rights. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Let me clarify my question a little. Yes, we are talking about public health, and we are currently experiencing a crisis. But you know as well as I do that the Privacy Commissioner has been calling us to task for a very long time now, because there is also a crisis of confidence. You know as well as I do that for 90%of Canadians, the misuse of their personal data is a cause for concern, whether it be for profiling or business development purposes. This is an issue that concerns all Canadians. The commissioner is indeed calling for a focus on reform of the Privacy Act. I'd like to know whether this commitment will be implemented quickly so that legislation can be passed on this issue, in this case the Privacy Act. Hon. Navdeep Bains: Particular attention must be paid to transparency, privacy and ethical concerns. Naturally, Canadians are concerned about how their data is used. New technologies are subject to the Privacy Act. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: We're talking about public health. The provinces are currently in the process of legislating. We're talking about what is going on in Quebec, among other places, and I would like to make sure that the federal government commits to respecting the proposals regarding geolocation and contact tracing possibilities, with full respect for the right to privacy. Can we commit to respecting the provinces? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have worked very closely with provinces and territories for a long time before the outbreak, but certainly ever since the outbreak. We respect the rights of jurisdictional authorities to use tools that have been properly vetted through their own provincial and territorial legislation. Nothing we would ever do at the federal level would put Canadians'privacy in jeopardy. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Concerning privacy, there are 30million Quebeckers and Canadians who have had their personal data leaked. Why is it that our laws don't allow us to apply financial penalties so that we can then go further? The very basis is to be concerned about our fundamental rights. The commissioner has been making this request for several years now. As the critic for access to information and privacy, I'd like a commitment that the federal government will deal not with what the provinces are doing, but with the Privacy Act. The Chair: Your time is up, but I'll give the floor to the minister for 30seconds. Hon. Navdeep Bains: Thank you for the question. Our government will ensure the privacy of Canadians is respected, support responsible innovation and take reasonable steps to strengthen enforcement powers. That's why we created a digital charter. We are strengthening Canada's privacy laws in response to the digital age. The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Baker. Mr. Yvan Baker (Etobicoke Centre, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll be sharing my time with the member for Malpeque. Mr. Chair, my question is for the Minister of Seniors. Minister, in my riding of Etobicoke Centre, we are mourning the loss of 40 residents to COVID-19 at the Eatonville long-term care centre. Over 143 residents and 88 staff members have now tested positive for the virus. This tragedy is not only taking place in Etobicoke Centre but across Canada. Of all Canadians who have died from COVID-19,79% were living in long-term care homes. That's over 2,000 seniors. This is a catastrophe, and it's frankly unacceptable. Our seniors and their families deserve better. I understand that long-term care homes fall within the jurisdiction of provincial governments in Canada, but this is a crisis. What is the federal government doing right now to help protect our seniors who are living in long-term care homes from COVID-19? What will we do to reform our long-term care homes in the future to ensure that our seniors in Etobicoke Centre and across Canada get the care they deserve? Hon. Deb Schulte: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to my colleague from Etobicoke Centre for his very thoughtful question. We are deeply concerned by the outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care facilities, and our thoughts are with those who have lost a loved one. It's a very difficult time. As my colleague mentioned, while these facilities are regulated by provinces and territories, we have been focused on protecting the health and safety of long-term care residents and staff while working with our partners in a team Canada approach. We've released guidelines to prevent and control COVID-19 infections. We're working with the provinces and territories to cost-share a temporary salary top-up for long-term care workers. We are working through investing $2 billion to secure personal protective equipment for the health of workers, including those in the long-term care homes, and we've deployed the Canadian Armed Forces to assist 25 long-term care homes in Quebec and Ontario. We all have a role to play to stop the spread of COVID-19 and to protect our seniors and caregivers. The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Easter. Hon. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. At the finance committee, we've heard a lot of concerns from all sectors of the economy as a result of COVID-19 and we've been presented with quite a number of possible solutions as well, several of which the government has acted upon. My question is on the support offered to the agri-food sector announced on Tuesday. It is very welcome support, but I sincerely believe the farm sector will be taking the Prime Minister up on the suggestion that $250 million should be seen as an initial investment. Potatoes are the number one commodity in Prince Edward Island. However, as a result of reduced processor contracts for next year, plus cancelled seed contracts, millions of dollars of seed and process potatoes have no home. To make matters worse, farmers have high fixed costs that they now have to spread over fewer acres. How does the minister see Tuesday's announcement addressing potato farmers'concerns? Second, in 2013, long-term financial safety nets were gutted by the Harper government. Will the minister be coming forward with improved business risk management programs as a result? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): Mr. Chair, I want to thank Mr. Easter, the member for the riding of Malpeque on Prince Edward Island. It's a beautiful rural riding with lots of agricultural production. I want to recognize the hard work of farmers throughout the crisis. On Tuesday, I was proud to announce one more step for supporting our producers and processors. We know the importance of our potato farmers, and that's why we are launching a first-ever surplus food purchase program, a $50-million fund designed to help redistribute existing inventories, such as potatoes, to local food organizations. On the financial safety net that we have in place for our farmers, called the business risk management program, we announced up to $125 million in funding through AgriRecovery and made changes to AgriStability that will help producers quickly. I will continue to discuss with my provincial counterparts toenhance and improve the BRM programs. In the meantime, I want to reiterate that BRM programs, including AgriInvest, are there to help farmers in difficult times. The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Johns now. Mr. Gord Johns (CourtenayAlberni, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, small businesses across Canada closed their doors to stop the spread and for public health. Now they're currently hanging off the edge of a cliff waiting for financial help. Robyn, who has owned Arbutus Health in Tofino for over 13 years, can't apply for the Canada emergency business account loan, simply because she doesn't have a payroll of over $20,000. All of her practitioners are paid contractors, so she is ineligible. With no business income and without emergency financing, it is virtually impossible for her to pay her bills or come up with the 25% needed for the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program. The government promised to be flexible and willing to adjust its COVID response rollout so that nobody falls through the cracks, but Robyn, like tens of thousands of proprietors who are the economic job creators of our communities, urgently needs the government's help now. Will the government amend its programs to help more business owners so that people like Robyn don't lose their businesses? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for his really good question. I know he and I have talked about this, and I appreciate the input and the feedback that he is providing from business directly. I want to assure Robyn and her businesses, and many businesses across the country, that we are absolutely listening, and we will continue to make sure we are supporting those businesses during this period. We know that many businesses are being helped through the Canada emergency business account. There are well over 550,000 businesses that are getting support through this emergency business account. We also know that more has to be done, and we will continue to work with you and businesses across the country so that we can indeed give them that necessary support to weather this difficult period of COVID-19. Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, that's not going to help Robyn feel comfort. I was talking to Heather last night, who also owns a business in Tofino, Basic Goodness Pizzeria, with her partner Marco. Like many proprietors of family businesses who aren't on payroll, they don't qualify for the business loans. They don't qualify for the wage subsidy because they're a seasonal business. Now with the new rollout of the rent support, they're not sure if their landlord is willing to play ball and even apply. That's three separate programs that leave them out. Heather was in tears last night as she told me that they have done nothing wrong to deserve being excluded from these emergency programs. I agree. Will the government fix the rent support program so that tenants can apply, instead of leaving it up to landlords, and so businesses can get the help they desperately need? Hon. Mona Fortier (OttawaVanier, Lib.): Mr. Chair, we've been working on this program since the beginning. We've been working on offering a response for small businesses and charities and non-profit organizations, and we are continuing to listen on the ground to how we can better assist the businesses that fall through the cracks. We will continue to do that as we go along in this emergency situation. Thank you very much to the honourable member for sharing the realities of his constituents. Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, when the government rolled out its commercial rent support program, why didn't it negotiate an eviction moratorium with the provinces, as Australia and other countries did, to protect business owners? Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as we know, Canadians are taking action and fighting against COVID-19. We know that many small businesses are worried about being able to pay rent. We've recognized it and we've been working with the provinces and territories to implement the Canada emergency commercial rent The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Johns. Mr. Gord Johns: To qualify for the Canada emergency wage subsidy, a 30% drop in revenue has to be shown. Anyone who's owned a business knows that even with this program, it's going to be hard to survive. Why is the government using a 70% measurement drop to qualify for the rent support program, but a 30% drop for the wage subsidy? Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, Mr. Chair, thank you to the honourable member for sharing his views on this program. We've been working with provinces and territories to provide forgivable loans to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rents for their tenants by 75%. We're hoping that tenants and landlords will be working together so we can support businesses during this very difficult crisis. The Chair: Before we move on to the next question, Mr. Berthold, did you have a question or a point of order? Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, I have a point of order. I checked the clock from the first round of five minutes, and as you may recall, it took a very long time for me to get an answer from the government. I went back and forth with MinisterMcKenna for four minutes and 14seconds. The Chair: Just a moment. The interpretation isn't coming through. It's working now. Go ahead, Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: I'll start over. During my first turn, it took 50seconds before a government minister deigned to answer my questions. After checking my time, I realized that the discussion between Ms. McKenna and I went on for four minutes and 14seconds, so I wasn't able to ask the minister one final question, a very important one. I would ask you to take that into account and allow me to ask MinisterMcKenna one last question, please. The Chair: The person chairing the meeting uses their judgment and does their best to keep an eye on what's going on. They try to be as fair as possible. I'll try to do a better job. I think it's more or less equal for all the members, but I apologize if the honourable member feels that he was denied a few seconds. Our next question goes to Mr. Doherty. Mr. Todd Doherty (CaribooPrince George, CPC): Mr. Chair, the Canada-U. S. border agreement is set to expire on May 20. Will the two governments renew the current agreement, or will it be modified? Hon. Bill Blair: The decision to close the border was made in Canada by Canadians in the best interest of Canadians. We're continuing to monitor the situation carefully. Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government be in a position to inform Canadians of any changes to the agreement? Hon. Bill Blair: I'm pleased to advise the member that we're continuing to monitor the situation, but I'm strongly of the opinion that the circumstances on both sides of our border do not indicate that this is the right time to make a change in the restrictions. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the government confirm whether there are any discussions about reopening the border to certain modes of transportation and restricting others? The Chair: Before I go to the minister, I want to remind the honourable members that we do have translators, and they are trying to translate. With respect to them, I know we're trying to get as many questions in as possible, but they do have to translate them, so please be considerate of our interpreters. The honourable minister has the floor. Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Let me please inform the honourable member that we are, of course, aware that the current agreement expires. I had a long conversation yesterday with the Prime Minister Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government announce a relief package for Canada's aviation industry? Hon. Navdeep Bains: We are engaged with the industry, and we are working with them on a solution, Mr. Chair. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, will this relief package include funding for airline ticket refunds similar to what other countries around the world have done? Yes or no? Hon. Navdeep Bains: It's early to say anything at this moment. We're taking a sectoral approach. This is about making sure that we restart the economy and have a strong recovery. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the Minister of Transport confirm that temperature screening is taking place at Canadian airports. Yes or no? Hon. Marc Garneau (Minister of Transport): Mr. Chair, I can confirm that Air Canada has now adopted a policy of checking temperatures for passengers boarding Air Canada flights. Mr. Todd Doherty: At which airports is that, and when did this practice start? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the announcement was made recently by Air Canada. It will start shortly and will apply to all places and destinations where Air Canada flies. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, this is for the Minister of Transport. Last week I asked the Minister of Labour if they were aware of a letter written on April 6 by CUPE to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Minister, were you aware of that letter? The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly. Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I didn't understand the reference to a letter from CUPE. Could my colleague please clarify? Mr. Todd Doherty: On April 6, CUPE wrote a letter to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Is the minister aware of that letter? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, could my colleague clarify what CUPE is referring to? Mr. Todd Doherty: CUPE is the labour organization that represents thousands of flight attendants across our country. Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I do understand. Yes, I will confirm that CUPE, which represents the flight attendants, did write to us. Before that I had conversations with CUPE with respect to flight attendants and the use of personal protective equipment. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the minister confirm whether or not they have provided PPE to the flight attendants and/or training for front-line staff for airlines and airports? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the airlines are providing PPE to flight attendants and flight crews. This has become a policy to ensure the safety not only of passengers on board but also of the flight attendants and flight crew. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, a business owner from Quesnel wrote to my office recently. He stated that he couldn't give his small business tenants a break on rent because the government is penalizing him for paying off his mortgage. When will the government change the CECRA rules to help more businesses? Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as you know, we laid out the CECRA program just last week, and we are encouraging landlords to take that opportunity to support the renters. We will continue to look at how we can provide some relief to small businesses with rents. Mr. Todd Doherty: With all due respect, Mr. Chair, any landlord who does not have a mortgage on their business is ineligible for CECRA. Is the minister aware of this, and are they trying to revise the CECRA program? Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with provinces and territories to present that program. Of course, we will continue to monitor how this program works for landlords and tenants. We are asking, actually encouraging, landlords to do their part and help tenants, like the one you mentioned, go through this. The Chair: We'll go to the next questioner. Go ahead, Ms. Dancho. Ms. Raquel Dancho (KildonanSt. Paul, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Small businesses in Manitoba employ 73% of Manitobans. That's over 286,000 Manitobans. I've been speaking with many small business owners in my riding. It's been heartbreaking, frankly, to hear that everything they've built and sacrificed for is in serious jeopardy, and through no fault of their own. Your government has created programs that are supposed to help them, but many legitimate businesses aren't able to apply. That could mean bankruptcy and cost thousands of Manitobans jobs. This is wrong. I'm hoping to hear specifics, not just nice words, on what you're going to do to help them. There are three issues regarding access to the $40,000 CEBA loan. First, businesses that recently incorporatedfor example, in late 2019are unable to apply their entire 2019 payroll. As a result, many are falling short of the $20,000 payroll threshold required to qualify for this loan. Second, many businesses contract their employees rather than have them on payroll. They also are unable to qualify for this loan. Third, many businesses use personal rather than business banking accounts. They aren't able to qualify for this loan either. What is your government going to do about these three scenarios? The Chair: I just want to remind honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly to the minister. As well, please take into consideration the interpreters, who have to listen and translate, so that we can have this conversation. Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for that question. Right from the very beginning, we've always said that we will listen and that we will work to make sure that measures go out to help our Canadian small businesses. She's absolutely right: 98% of all our businesses in this country are small businesses, so they absolutely contribute enormously to our communities and are job creators. That is why we have put out significant measures. For the Canada emergency business account, over 550,000 small businesses have been approved and are getting that support. I absolutely acknowledge that there is more work to do. I can assure the honourable member that we will continue to do this work so that businesses, all businesses, are supported, whether it is helping keep your employees together, helping with rent support, helping to keep your business's expenses low, or of course helping with the capital that is needed so that you can pay your operating expenses and your bills through this difficult time. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, I didn't hear any answers from the minister's remarks, unfortunately. Moving on, there are two issues regarding the 50% commercial rent assistance subsidy, where landlords pay 25%, the government pays 50%, and the tenant is responsible for 25%. First, many of the small landlords aren't able to take a 25% hit to their income, and are unable to provide the subsidy to their tenants. Second, with the 70% decline in revenue threshold for small businesses to even be eligible for the rent assist, many restaurants are at 65% or 67% decline. They desperately need this subsidy but aren't able to qualify. This is not about problems with the program details. What is the government planning to do to streamline this program for small businesses that can't access but desperately need the rent subsidy? Hon. Mlanie Joly: Mr. Chair, as the Minister of Official Languages, I just want to raise the fact that interpretation is very complicated right now. In order to make sure that we can continue to uphold bilingualism within the House, I would love it if my colleagues could take down the pace a bit. That would help the interpreters a whole lot. They are working very hard and trying to keep up. The Chair: That's a reasonable request. I just want to remind everyone again that when you're asking a question, make sure you are doing it at a pace at which you're considering the people who are interpreting Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, this is how fast I speak when we're in the House of Commons. It's just how I talk. The Chair: I understand. I have a lot of friends who speak very quickly. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Right. I understand. Perhaps we could get back to my question about the rent subsidy. The Chair: We stopped the time. You're not losing any time on this one. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Okay. I will try to speak more slowly. The Chair: I appreciate it. Thank you. The interpreters appreciate it. Now we'll go to the minister, please. Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with the provinces and territories to provide this forgivable loan to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rent of their tenants by 75%. We will continue to monitor how this program is delivered, as we announced it last week. It will be offered pretty soon. It will be very important that we understand what happens across the country, and we will monitor and adapt the program as we Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, it has been in the media quite a bit that this rent subsidy is not helping many, many, many small business owners. It's falling short of everything that was announced, so I think it needs to be taken a bit more seriously than that. There are two issues regarding the 75% wage subsidy. First, employers who pay themselves and their employees dividends rather than wages are unable to qualify. Second, there is also a 30% threshold revenue decline needed in order to apply. Many of the businesses in my riding are at 27% or 29%. They desperately need these funds but are unable to qualify. What is the government planning to do for these small businesses? Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, thank you to the hon. member for sharing the realities she's hearing from small business owners. We are providing help and support for businesses through these very difficult times. The wage subsidy has been taken up and is working for many businesses. We know that some still fall through the cracks and we will look at how we can continue to support businesses across the country. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends (BrossardSaint-Lambert, Lib.) ): We are now going to Mr. Kevin Waugh. Mr. Kevin Waugh (SaskatoonGrasswood, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. Three weeks ago, on April 17, the Minister of Canadian Heritage announced funding of $500 million to assist Canada's arts, sports and cultural sectors. We are still waiting to hear who is eligible and when they can expect to receive this funding. Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Canadian Heritage): Madam Chair, we will be releasing the details of that announcement, and how the money is going to be spent, in the coming days. Mr. Kevin Waugh: We all know that many media organizations, large and small, in Canada are struggling right now. Allegations have arisen that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CBC, is currently engaging in predatory behaviour and taking advantage of the current situation to harm its competitors using rate cuts. We've seen this from the province of Quebec. Many journalists have talked about this. What is the government going to do to address these allegations against the CBC? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have not been informed of these allegations. We will look into this, and we will get back to the hon. colleague if we do find any valuable information. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Local community and ethnic media outlets and papers have strong ties to their communities that often go much deeper than the major media outlets. Is the government currently using any local or ethnic media outlets to provide crucial coronavirus information through advertising? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, I totally agree with my colleague. We need to get the information to Canadians on COVID-19, which is why we have started an ad-buy campaign of $30 million, which is being distributed in more than 900 local, regional and national newspapers across the country and 500 radio and TV stations in 12 different languages, including Farsi, Mandarin, Spanish, Italian and many more. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Mr. Minister, I talked to the Winnipeg Free Press yesterday. It has received two ads from an ad agency in connection with the $30 million the government is doling out to help media outlets. They had one ad on March 27. The second ad was on April 11. That is two ads in the Winnipeg Free Press in the last eight weeks. Is this the kind of money you're attempting to dole out to help media: two ads in eight weeks? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have been doing a number of things for our media in Canada over the last few months and will continue to do so. On top of that $30 million ad-buy campaign, we have been investing $50 million in local journalism. Just this year, it means that 200 journalists will be hired in areas across the country where journalism is more poorly defined. The federal government has paid part I licence fees of our broadcasters to the CRTC. That means $30 million is staying in the pockets of our broadcasters. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Madam Chair, last week, as the minister would know, 15 community newspapers, including eight in Manitoba and seven in the province of Ontario, closed their doors for good. Is the government currently planning any further measures aimed at assisting community or ethnic media organizations? We understand that many more will close their doors within the next 30 to 60 days. Hon. Steven Guilbeault: We are planning a number of other measures, some of which will be included in the $500 million. I will be announcing the details of that in the coming days. Of the $595 million that the media will receive, we have a tax credit that has now entered into force, and the cheques should be in the mail by the end of the summer. So there are a number of things we've done and a number of things we will be doing in the coming months as well. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Waugh, you may have a short question. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Well, finally, you have the five members associated with that committee to dole out the $595 million. They haven't even met yet. When will they meet? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: I would like to remind my hon. colleague that in order for us to provide tax breaks for the 2019 period, media outlets had to file their tax returns so we could go ahead. This will now be able to proceed, Madam Chair. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We now move on to Mr. Godin. Mr. Godin, you may go ahead. Mr. Jol Godin (PortneufJacques-Cartier, CPC): Thank you, MadamChair. This being the first time I've had the floor during a virtual sitting of Parliament, I'd like to take this opportunity to greet my fellow members, all 259participants. I hope they are taking care of themselves. I'd like to talk about the Prime Minister's appearance on the show Tout le monde en parle. This is what he had to say about his economic recovery plan: We are going to remain focused on the economy as a wholeinnovationresearch and science, the green economy and a fairer economyThere are things we are all reflecting on right now that reflection is going to continue. That was a weak answer. It didn't inspire much confidence. Can the government assure Canadians that it is being proactive and working on a plan to get the economy moving again? It must act now. Things are starting to reopen gradually. Is the government going to take concrete action to revive the economy? Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Yes, absolutely. Our government is wholly committed to restarting the economy, and we are working closely with the provinces to do just that. Last week, our government, together with the provincial and territorial premiers, released the principles that will guide efforts to restore economic activity across the country. That is key. The discussion between the Prime Minister and the premiers is continuing today. Mr. Jol Godin: MadamChair, before we go any further, since it took a while for the minister, or the government, to answer the question, can I have that time back to ask questions? The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I stopped the clock, Mr. Godin. Mr. Jol Godin: Thank you. The Prime Minister's answer during his appearance on Tout le monde en parle didn't inspire much confidence and doesn't line up with the Deputy Prime Minister's comments. How can the government be proud of announcing $252million in assistance for the agri-food sector, when that is less than 1% of all the program funding the government has committed to help Canadians get through the COVID-19 crisis? Clearly, the government doesn't see the food supply chain as a priority and has no regard for farmers and pork and beef producers. Does the government realize that eating is vital to Canadians? When is the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food going to adjust the program and show respect for Canadian farmers? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: I have the utmost respect for farmers. We are going step by step. We've already confirmed various supports for the agricultural sector. This week, we focused on beef and pork producers and processors, as well as sectors with product surpluses that can be redirected to food banks. I can assure my fellow member that this is an additional step and that more supports are on the way in the weeks ahead. Bear in mind that a number of programs are already available to farmers. Mr. Jol Godin: I'd like to switch topics now. PortneufJacques-Cartier is home to a company that is already licensed by Health Canada and that, for 20years, has been manufacturing medical equipment including masks, face shields and thermometers. This is equipment our health workers need. The company has a licence from the federal government. In mid-March, Health Canada reached out to the company to find out how much equipment it could manufacture to help fight COVID-19. The company confirmed that it could immediately start producing 200,000masks a week, ramping up to a million masks over the next few weeks. Forty-five days later, it is still waiting on its first order from the Canadian government. We are managing a crisis with a limited supply of medical equipment. Can the health minister tell us why, 45days later, this company licensed by Health Canada hasn't received an order? Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Thank you for the question. Industry and suppliers have enthusiastically answered our call to equip Canada with products and goods during the crisis. Many of those suppliers have already received contracts. We have reached out to all the others and will negotiate contracts as needed. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I would now like to invite hon. member Jenica Atwin to speak. Mrs. Jenica Atwin (Fredericton, GP): Thank you, Madam Chair. Seniors living alone are most at risk of economic insecurity, particularly single senior women, as gender inequality in the job market has translated all too often into inadequate retirement income. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a poverty reduction plan that addresses the unique challenges faced by older women? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to assure the member that we are quite aware that this pandemic has typically affected single seniors, and many of those, given that they live longer, are single senior women. I want to assure her that we are working on this issue, and we have provided some supports already through measures such as the GST supplementary payment. That is on average almost $400 for single seniors. There's more work to do. We know that, so stay tuned. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, older women represent a high proportion of residents in long-term care facilities. Having spent their lives caring for parents, children and often their partners, they find themselves needing care in nursing homes. Multiple outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care homes in Canada have highlighted systemic gaps that senior and elderly women may face in such facilities, as well as the working conditions of the female-dominated ranks of nurses and personal support workers. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a federal strategy for long-term care homes that recognizes quality of life for residents and working conditions for the employees, ideally one that goes hand in hand with a poverty reduction plan and enhanced home and community care investments across the country? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I do want to thank the hon. member for her question. It's an important one. We are obviously deeply saddened by the outbreaks that have been going on in long-term care facilities and those who have lost their lives. We do recognize that the administration of long-term care and palliative care is the responsibility of provinces and territories; however, we have been taking a team Canada approach, and as you already know, we've been doing tremendous work with them to try to ensure that those who live in those facilities can be well cared for and safe. We are doing that with guidelines The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms. Atwin has the floor. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, from May 4 to May 10, we are observing Mental Health Week. We know that our essential workers right now are experiencing unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety, on top of putting their own physical safety and health on the line. Most of these workers work in precarious jobs with no access to paid sick leave or vacation, and without any benefits to access mental health services. Apart from the very welcome investments in online resources, can the minister explain how the government will support these workers now and once the crisis is behind us? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, thank you very much to the member for the question. I'm so glad that she's raising the issue of mental health and in particular how poor mental health is oftentimes connected to our socio-economic status. I appreciate the nuance in that question. She's right. We do have new resources that are available to all Canadians free of charge through the Wellness Together portal, but there is more to do. I think the announcement of top-up wages, for example, which the Prime Minister spoke about today, is another example of how we're taking the health and wellness of all low-income Canadians very seriously. We know that mental health is not divorced from socio-economic status, and I look forward to working with her more on other measures that we can take together. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, we're all very aware of the importance of temporary foreign workers and their role in ensuring our food sovereignty across this country. The pandemic has highlighted how we depend on their work. How are we protecting them? Madam Chair, will the government take action to strengthen legislation and ensure Canadians have access to the food they need while the workers who help bring it to our tables have safe working conditions, regardless of where they are working in this country? Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Thank you, Madam Chair. We are very concerned, as are countries around the world, that we support and create the environment for the health and safety of our temporary foreign workers and we value their contribution to our food supply chain here in Canada. We have issued guidelines to employers and are working very closely with local public health authorities in the provinces and territories to make sure workers are protected, that physical distancing and other recommendations are adhered to and that there are severe consequences if employers don't take care of their workers. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We are now going to Mr. MacGregor. Mr. Alistair MacGregor (CowichanMalahatLangford, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. My first question is this: Will the Liberal government prevent federal bailout funds from going to companies that use tax havens and avoid paying their fair share here in Canada, yes or no? Hon. Diane Lebouthillier (Minister of National Revenue): We are working to make sure that anyone who tries to circumvent the rules faces serious consequences. We are asking businesses to designate a representative to attest their claims. Any employer receiving the subsidy who is deemed ineligible will have to repay the full amount. Anyone who abuses the program could face fines of up to 225% of the subsidy amount as well as five years in prison. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, I didn't really hear a yes to that question, so I'll repeat it. Does the government really think it's appropriate for tax-avoiding corporations to receive funding provided for by taxpayers? Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: We will keep going after companies that engage in tax evasion. I want to be clear. We will target those who are responsible, not innocent workers. An employee is an employee, regardless of who they work for. The wage subsidy program does not hand a blank cheque over to employers. It is meant to help Canadians pay their bills, keep their jobs and get through the crisis. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, the agriculture funding announced by the government earlier this week amounts to less than 10% of what the Canadian Federation of Agriculture estimates will be required to help farmers weather this crisis. Why has the Minister of Agriculture shortchanged our farmers? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, this is one more step. This was one more step. We have already committed significant support to our farmers through different programs, and we will do more. I have to remind my colleague that we have put in $5 billion through FCC, $50 million for the temporary foreign workers, two times $50 million for pork and beef producers this week, and $77 million for food processing. This is only the beginning, and we should not forget that the business risk management programs are still there to offer support. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Yes, Madam Chair, but we're nearly two months into this pandemic and this announcement only came this week. Farmers need certainty. When can farmers expect further updates on funding, and how much will the government be providing? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, we are working closely with the farmers and their representatives to identify where the gaps are, but once again, we have made improvements to the AgriStability program. They can get, depending on the province, either 50% or 75% in advance payments, and they can also, right now, access their AgriInvest program. There is more than $2 billion ready to access today, if they have The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. MacGregor. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, federal disability recipients and seniors on fixed incomes have been hardest hit by cost of living increases from COVID-19. If we acknowledge that $2,000 per month is the minimum needed to get through this time, why are they being asked to survive on far less? When can they expect assistance, and how much will they receive? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to make sure people realize that we have provided some assistance through the GST supplementary benefit. We are also providing support to those who are still working, and we have done that by allowing them to access the CERB. There is more work to be done, so you'll be hearing more in the near future. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, as I think we've heard through today's question period, there are countless example of this government designing programs to exclude many small businesses that desperately need help. Whether it's the payroll requirements or other eligibility, we still, to this day, almost two months into the pandemic, have too many small businesses falling through the cracks. Madam Chair, why has the government taken this approach and when can we finally expect fixes to the whole system? Hon. Mary Ng: Madam Chair, right from the get-go, we have been committed to making sure that Canadians are helped through this crisis, and that small businesses get the support that they need, so that we are saving businesses and jobs in this country. That is what we have done with many of our programs. You're seeing that we are also listening, so that we can modify them as we need. I want to assure the member that the work is not done. We continue to do this. The Chair: Thank you. It is now over to Mr. Perron. Mr. Perron, you may go ahead. Mr. Yves Perron (BerthierMaskinong, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question will come as no surprise, since it has to do with agriculture. I hear the questions my fellow members are asking, and to be frank, I don't find the answers satisfactory. It is well and good to talk about existing programs, but they aren't working, so enough with that refrain. That's what people are telling us. It's not just members of the opposition saying it. This morning, both farmers and processors came together for a press conference at the Union des producteurs agricoles's head office in Longueuil. Six stakeholders from different sectors sounded the alarm. Can the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food therefore tell us when she will announce significant supports for the industry? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We have already announced significant amounts of support, and more is on the way. I'd like to correct my fellow member. It's not that the programs aren't working; it's that they aren't generous enough in farmers'eyes. That's why I'm working with my provincial counterparts to make improvements to programming, including AgriStability. Here's an example. After using the online AgriStability benefit estimator, a pork producer found out that he would get $11 per head, as they say in the industry. Pork producers are calling for $20 per head, so it's a good start, even though it's not enough and it isn't what they are asking for. We want to keep working together, but farmers have to access the money available to them through AgriStability. Mr. Yves Perron: Now it's my turn to correct the minister. Even before the crisis, we were hearing from people in the industry that the programs were neither suitable nor sufficient. We are in a crisis, and this is an exceptional situation. In the case of mad cow disease, farmers received direct assistance. That's the kind of assistance we are calling for. We don't want to hear about growing levels of debt. Of course, this is a first step, but farms are already deep in debt. A few days ago, the government announced $50million in funding for pork producers, even though they are asking for $20per hog for 27million hogs. The government's support covers just 2. 5million hogs. When I call the measure insufficient, I mean it is grossly insufficient. It's high time the government put forth more support. It has to stop saying that it's working hard and examining the situation. The government has to listen to the people in the industry. Again, this morning, they had some interesting proposals. When is the government going to announce a whole lot more in funding support? What's been announced so far is only 10% of what farmers are asking for. Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We are going step by step. The programs are already in place. We are trying to make them better, and we are committed to doing that. These programs are cost-shared with the provinces. However, I would point out to the member that, when it comes to AgriRecovery, we made an exception to the rule. We are moving forward in every province to help pork and beef producers. That's two funding envelopes of $50million each to help cover the additional costs from the decrease in plant processing capacity. That's new money that was not yet available, money we introduced this week. As the Prime Minister said, we are going to do more, and we are moving forward step by step. Mr. Yves Perron: What we concluded in committee this week is that the $125million is not new money. It was already earmarked for the programs. The government can't say that programs already exist and, at the same time, claim that they are new programs. Something doesn't add up there. What's more, there are different ways to make money available. I'd like to talk compensation. Everyone knows that the Canada-U. S. -Mexico Agreement came into force a month earlier than planned, despite the promises that had been made. That resulted in additional losses, once again. An easy way to make money available without committing new spending is to provide compensation and announce programs for supply-managed sectors that got nothing. It seems to me that a time of crisis is a time for the government to practise some judo and announce measures. I am reaching out to the government, as I always do, but it has to come forward with announcements. Can we expect the government to announce measures in the coming days? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Our commitment to farmers in supply-managed sectorsmeaning, egg, poultry and dairy farmersis as strong as it always was. I repeat, our commitment is clear. Dairy producers received their first payment at the end of last year or the beginning of this year. Support for poultry and egg farmers is in the form of investment programs, which aligns well with the recovery. At this time, we are focusing on emergency programs to help farmers hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. When it comes to the dairy sector, I hope I can count on your support. As you know, legislative changes are needed to grant the Canadian Dairy Commission's request and increase its borrowing limit by $200million so it can buy more butter and cheese. The Chair: Our next question will go to Mr. Lake. Hon. Mike Lake (EdmontonWetaskiwin, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we're all inundated, as we've heard during this entire question period, with Canadians'concerns about the economic restrictions and the social restrictions that they're under. Over the last couple of months, the WHO has given one very consistent message in terms of coming out of those economic and social restrictions. On March 16, Dr. Tedros said in his briefing, We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test. On March 25,44 days ago, he said, Aggressive measures to find, isolate, test, treat and trace are not only the best and fastest way out of extreme social and economic restrictionstheyre also the best way to prevent them. Does the minister agree with the WHO that relentless testing and tracing are critical to a successful economic and social relaunch strategy in Canada? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thanks to the member for the very astute observation and question. Absolutely, we agree that testing and contact tracing will form an important part of our response to living with COVID. We've been investing heavily in ensuring that we have the lab capacity, the collaboration across provinces and territories, and the variety of testing options to help us increase our capacity to test. We are aiming right now for a high volume of tests, but I will also say that in Canada we have one of the highest testing rates in the world. Although we're doing well, I can assure him that I am with him and I believe we need to do more. Hon. Mike Lake: I have some really quick questions for follow-up. First, what is Canada's current testing capability? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as I mentioned to his colleagues yesterday, we have currently the capacity to do approximately 60,000 tests per day across the country. Hon. Mike Lake: How many tests were conducted each day on average in Canada last week? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, it's hard for me to get that exact number, but I will get back to him with the exact number. Hon. Mike Lake: I'll save you the time. The exact number was 28,851, on average, every day last week. That's a gap of 30,000 from what your stated testing capability is. I'll give another quote from Dr. Tam, back on April 22,15 days ago. She said, As a first tranche, roughly close to 60,000 is where the provinces can potentially expand to as a target already. Does the minister happen to know, ballpark, what the average number of daily tests in Canada has been since that statement? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Your estimate was slightly higher than what my estimate was going to be, so that's a great piece of news. Listen, I will just say that I think if the premise here is that we could be doing more testing. I would agree, but I will also say that the provinces and territories are working incredibly hard on testing strategies that meet their own specific needs. I'm happy to have a conversation with the member later about that testing strategy. Dr. Tam works with all the chief public health officers across the country to ensure that their testing strategy is going to be applicable and appropriate for their particular jurisdictions. We, as the federal government, provide the capacity for them to conduct those tests. Hon. Mike Lake: Following up on that, is there a jurisdiction in Canada where relentless testing is not the appropriate strategy as provinces consider relaunching? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Each province and territory has its own outbreak and its own epidemic. For example, in British Columbia, where there are relatively fewer cases in general and less disease activity, they may have a different testing strategy than a province like Ontario, which is currently struggling with more outbreaks. Hon. Mike Lake: Given your comment that our current testing capability is 60,000, and acknowledging that only at one point in the entire history of our COVID response, over several months, has our weekly average been over 30,000it was about 31,000 for one day on a rolling basisMinister, are you satisfied with our current testing amounts right now, given that we're testing 50% of what the public health officer advises would be best? Hon. Patty Hajdu: I'm so amazed by the work the provinces and territories have done in a very short time to increase their capacity. We are supporting them with the tools that they need to get more testing done, but also to have other components in place that will allow them to do the rapid tracing of positive cases. I think it's very important to remember that testing strategies will be different across the provinces, based on the outbreak disease epidemiology. Having said that, I know that we can all do better, and I'm certain that my counterparts feel the same. The Chair: I'm going to have to cut the minister off at that one. I want to thank everyone for the session today, I think it went rather well. I'm very proud of you and proud of ourselves for what we managed to accomplish. The committee stands adjourned until Tuesday, May 12, at noon.

Currently, there were two issues regarding the 50% commercial rent assistance subsidy, where landlords paid 25%, the government paid 50%, and the tenant was responsible for 25%. The government had been working with the provinces and territories to provide this forgivable loan to commercial property owners, who in turn would lower the rent of their tenants by 75%. The government would continue to monitor how this program was delivered.

tr-sq-638

tr-sq-638_0

Who would be eligible to receive the art funding? The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.) ): We'll call this meeting to order. Welcome to the fifth meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. Pursuant to the order passed on Monday, April20, the committee is meeting today to consider ministerial announcements, to allow members of the committee to present petitions, and to question ministers, including the Prime Minister, about the COVID-19 pandemic. Tomorrow, May8, Dr. AndreaMcCrady, Dominion Carillonneur, will give a special recital to mark the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day. Victory in Europe Day, VE Day, commemorates the formal acceptance of Germany's surrender by allied forces at the end of the Second World War. While the pandemic prevents us from gathering to celebrate in person, tomorrow at noon the voice of our nation will ring out in remembrance of this milestone in our history. Today's meeting is taking place by video conference. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. Just so you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entire committee. I would like to remind members that, as in the House of Commons or committee, they should not take photos of their colleagues or film the proceedings. In order to facilitate the work of the interpreters and to allow the meeting to proceed smoothly, I would ask you to follow some instructions. The video conference will be interpreted as in normal meetings of committees and in the House. In the lower part of your screen, you can choose the language: floor, English or French. Please wait until I call on you by name before you begin to speak. When you are ready to speak, click on the microphone icon to activate your microphone, or hold the space bar down while you are speaking. If you release the bar, your microphone will revert to mute, just like a walkie-talkie. Honourable members, I would like to remind you that if you want to speak English, you should be on the English channel. If you want to speak French, you should be on the French channel. Should you wish to alternate between the two languages, you should change the channel to the language that you are speaking each time you switch languages. Please direct your remarks through the chair. Should you need to request the floor outside of your designated speaking time, you should activate your mike and state that you have a point of order. If a member of the committee wishes to intervene on a point of order raised by another person, you should use the raised hand function to indicate to the chair that you wish to speak. To do this, click on the participant button at the bottom of your screen. When the list appears, you will see the raised hand option beside your name. Speak slowly and clearly at all times. When you are not speaking, leave your microphone on mute. It is highly recommended that you use a headset with a microphone. You have to remember to switch languages. Should any technical challenges arise, for example, in relation to interpretation, please advise the chair immediately by raising a point of order, and the technical team will work on resolving them. Please note that we may need to suspend during these times in order to correct a problem. I want to remind the honourable members to mute their microphones when they are not speaking. If you get accidentally disconnected, please try to rejoin the meeting with the information you used to join initially. If you are unable to rejoin, please contact our technical support team. Before we get started, please note that in the top right-hand corner of your screen is a button that you can use to change views. Speaker view allows you to focus on the person currently speaking; gallery view allows you to see a larger number of participants. You can click through the multiple pages in the gallery view to see who is on and how many more participants there are. I understand there are no ministerial announcements today. We will now proceed to presenting petitions for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during the meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. In addition, to ensure a petition is considered properly presented, the certificate of the petition and each page of the petition for a petition certified in a previous Parliament should be mailed to the committee no later than 6 p. m. the day before. Now we'll go to presenting petitions. Mr. Genuis. Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Mr. Chair, five years ago when Parliament passed Bill C-14, then justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said that it represented a finely tuned balance between access and safeguards. It also included a five-year review. Petitioners on the first petition I'm presenting are very concerned to see Bill C-7 before Parliament, which removes safeguards ahead of that five-year review. Petitioners specifically mention their concerns about the removal of the mandatory 10-day reflection period, which can already be waived in certain circumstances. They are concerned about reducing the number of witnesses required to oversee it and ensure that a request has been properly made. I commend that petition to the consideration of the House. The second and final petition that I will be presenting today is with respect to Senate Bill S-204. This would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ from a person who did not consent. This responds specifically to concerns about organ harvesting in the People's Republic of China involving Falun Gong practitioners and increasing concerns that this is being or about to be applied to Uighurs as well. Canada can and should take action on this. Petitioners are noting that in the previous Parliament there were bills on this, Bill C-350 and Bill S-240. Now, in this Parliament there is a bill, Bill S-204, and the petitioners hope that this 43rd Parliament will be the one that gets it passed. The Chair: We will go to Ms. May. Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's an honour. This is my first occasion to present a petition in our virtual format of the COVID-19 committee. Thank you to you and your staff, Mr. Chair, for developing a system that allows us to present petitions electronically. The petition I am presenting today, which was previously approved, is from a number of constituents who are concerned that we pursue the Paris Agreement to hold the global average temperature increase to no more than 1. 5C. The Paris Agreement itself embeds in it the concept of Just Transition with a capital J and a capital T, the concept of just transition ensuring fairness and support for all workers in the fossil fuel sector. The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to move forward with an act to ensure just transition and to ensure adequate funding so that workers and communities dependent on the fossil fuel sector receive meaningful support to ensure security in their lives in the transition to more sustainable energy use. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Chair: Those are all the petitions for today. I want to thank the honourable members for their usual collaboration and now we'll go on to Mr. James Bezan (SelkirkInterlakeEastman, CPC): On a point of order, Mr. Chair, on Tuesday, at our COVID-19 committee of the whole meeting, I was asking a question which started at 12: 56: 06 and was cut off at 1: 00: 32, so I still have 34 seconds of time remaining in my question time of five minutes. You said it could be no more than five minutes but that I had up to five minutes. Thirty-four seconds leaves a lot of time to have a quick question and a quick response. If you believe that my time was unjustly cut off and that it was unfair treatment of the official opposition when we were raising our points of order, I would ask that the 34 seconds be tacked on to the opening round for the opposition and credited to Rosemarie Falk, who will be leading off for the Conservatives. The Chair: Normally what happens is the chair uses judgment, and with 35 seconds, there isn't enough time obviously for a full question or answer, most of the time. I'll take it under advisement. I can't allot it. I want everyone to know that I do have a timer next to me and I am timing the questions, and I will be treating the answers the same way. If it's a 25-second question, it will be a 25-second answer. Thank you for bringing that up. I believe that issue has been remedied. We've taken a little bit of the chair's ability to give judgment on it, but it will be from now on. Thank you. Mr. James Bezan: Mr. Chair, 34 seconds is a considerable amount of time to do a short question and a short answer. The Chair: I appreciate the advice. Thank you, Mr. Bezan. We'll now proceed to the questioning of ministers. I would like to remind the honourable members that no member will be recognized for more than five minutes at a time and that members may split their time with one or more members by so indicating to the chair. Ministers responding to the questions should do so by simply turning on their microphone and speaking. Our first questioner is Ms. Falk. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk (BattlefordsLloydminster, CPC): Mr. Chair, yesterday, Elizabeth May and the leader of the separatists declared oil to be dead. It's certainly not dead, but it's dying under the Trudeau government. Will the Prime Minister stand up for Canada's energy workers, or does he agree with the fringe left and those who want to destroy our country? Ms. Elizabeth May: I have a point of order. The Chair: Go ahead, Ms. May. Ms. Elizabeth May: Mr. Chair, I believe that the language that the honourable member just used is unparliamentary Mr. Garnett Genuis: That's not a point of order. Ms. Elizabeth May: We can have differences of opinion, but it is absolutely Some hon. members: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: unacceptable and violates my privileges to An hon member: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: No, it's not debate. I would ask the chair to rule on that, not the member from the Conservative Party. It is unacceptable to assert that anyone who wants to make a point about our economy is trying to destroy the country. This allegation is a violation of my privilege. An hon. member: She was also named by the The Chair: Order. I didn't recognize anyone. I don't know who is speaking, so I'll just start talking myself. I want to remind honourable members to have respect in their questions and in their answers. When you refer to someone, please refer to them respectfully. This is a committee of the House, and I would expect no less of the honourable members. We'll go to the right honourable Prime Minister. You have 16 seconds. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. As I pointed out this morning in my press conference, we cannot move forward on a transformation of our energy sector without supporting the workers in that energy sector. We need their innovation and we need their hard work if we are going to lower our emissions, if we are going to reach our The Chair: We'll go to Ms. Falk again. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, it has been 43 days since the finance minister promised Canada's energy sector liquidity through the Business Development Bank of Canada. For 43 days the finance minister has failed to deliver on that promise. These delays cost jobs and they are costing us Canadian businesses. If the government doesn't step up to support our energy sector, they are in effect doubling down on their support for foreign, unethically sourced oil. Mr. Chair, when will the credit options be available to Canada's small and medium energy firms? The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that we do have interpreters who are listening and translating. In consideration to them, please speak at a reasonable pace so that they can understand and then translate. The right honourable Prime Minister. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, our priority through this pandemic and this crisis has been to support workers across the country. We have sent billions of dollars to workers right across the country, including Alberta, Saskatchewan, B. C. , and Newfoundland and Labrador in the energy sector for them to be able to support their families through this difficult time. We are also working on sectoral supports right across the country. Those will be announced in due course. Our focus from the get-go has been The Chair: We'll move to Ms. Falk. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, another group that has been ignored by the Liberals is our farmers. The announcements to date fall well short of what is needed to maintain a steady supply of affordable and healthy food. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture has asked the government for a $2. 6-billion emergency fund. Instead of responding to specific COVID-19 challenges, our farmers are facing the Liberals'reannounced $125 million that was already budgeted in the AgriRecovery program. Will the Prime Minister finally step up and take our food supply chain seriously, or is agriculture just an afterthought for him? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: On the contrary, Mr. Chair, we take agriculture and our agricultural sector extremely seriously, which is why we announced hundreds of millions of dollars a couple of days ago to respond to pressing needs. We will continue to make investments to ensure both the safety of workers in our agricultural sector and the safety of our communities, as well as the continued flow of high-quality Canadian food onto our tables right across the country. Supporting the people who produce our food is a priority for this government and will continue to be. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Well, Mr. Chair, recycled program announcements do not respond to the immediate needs facing our farmers. This is absolutely unacceptable. Our farmers are faced with rising operational costs, a disrupted service industry, labour shortages and a reduced capacity at processing plants. The government has a responsibility to take domestic food security seriously. When will the Prime Minister deliver adequate support to address the critical changes facing our ag industry? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I would suggest respectfully that the honourable member take a look once again at the announcement we made, which actually highlights significant new investments to support our agricultural industry. I certainly agree that there is more to do. Every step of the way in this unprecedented situation, we've been moving forward on doing more, on adjusting and on investing more. We need to support our agricultural sector and the people who work so hard to put food on Canadians'tables right across the country and we will continue to. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, Canadians expect to find healthy and affordable food at their grocery stores, but if the government does not take action now, that's not a given. Our farmers are trying to keep Canadians fed while keeping their heads above water. The Liberal government's own failed federal carbon tax is weighing them down. It is an enormous hit to their bottom line, and the recent carbon tax hike is taking even more money out of the pockets of farmers at a time when they can afford it the least. Will the Prime Minister exempt all farm operations from the carbon tax and reimburse the money that they have already taken from them? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, it's a shame to hear the member opposite accidentallyunintentionally, I'm certainmislead the House and Canadians. The price on pollution actually puts more money into Canadians'pockets, and that includes farm families. People who pay the cost of the price on pollution on average receive more money back. This is the way of creating a better future for our kids and grandkids, which I know people in communities right across the country, including our farm communities, want to see happen. We are moving forward in a responsible way to put a price on pollution and put more money in average Canadians'pockets. The Chair: We now continue with Mrs. Gill. Mrs. Gill, you have the floor. Mrs. Marilne Gill (Manicouagan, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. As you know, all sectors of the economy are fragile at the moment, specifically the fisheries. I am thinking about the lobster fishery in the Magdalen Islands, the crab fishery on the Cte-Nord or those fishing for herring in the south of the Gasp. Because imports have ceased, because the domestic market is weak and in decline because of the interruption of the tourism and restaurant industries, the fishing industry and its fishers must be supported. I would like to know what the government has done to support our fishers since the crisis began. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Our fishers do exceptional work that is extremely important in feeding Canadians and in contributing to our economic success through their exports around the world. This crisis has struck them very hard. That is why we have established measures in the tens of millions of dollars to support our processors. We have also announced help for the fishers. We know that these are difficult and unprecedented times, and we are going to Mrs. Marilne Gill: My thanks to the Prime Minister. I am actually talking about help for the fishers. I know about the processing industry and the $62. 5million to be used essentially for freezing products, but I am talking about the fishers themselves. Given the economic situation, most of our fishers are getting ready to leave. First, there are health risks. We know very well that it is impossible for them to observe all the social distancing measures. They have to incur additional expenses in order to conduct their normal fishing activities. In addition, they feel that they will be losing money, because of the drop in the price of their resource. They are just as essential as farmers, but they are going to have to work at a loss and they are not going to have workers to assist them. Workers in the seasonal industry do not know what tomorrow will bring. They do not even know whether they will be able to put food on the table next year. Are you going to do anything else, in addition to the assistance of $62. 5million? Time is of the essence. Our fishers have lacked certainty for weeks and they are very concerned. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Yes, indeed, we are going to do other things. Other investments will be made in various sectors in order to support Canadians. We recognize the challenges that fishers must face in terms of social distancing and of work that is often seasonal. We are going to continue working with the industry, with the fishers, and with the coastal communities in order to ensure that people have confidence in their abilities and in their future. In times of crisis, it is important for the government to be there to support people, and that is exactly what we are going to continue to do. This is an unprecedented crisis, but we can see once more that Canadians are there for each other. Our government will continue to be there for the fishers and the fishing industry. Mrs. Marilne Gill: I would have preferred us to be there from the start. Clearly, this is a difficult crisis. But, given the cyclical nature of the industry, some sectors have had to postpone for several weeks the preparations they need for fishing activities. The current program could be modified in a number of ways, to accommodate the cycle, the dates, and the size of the companies. They would really like to take advantage of the $40,000loan, but they cannot because of their payroll. Given the dates, they are also ineligible for the 75%salary subsidy. I can already suggest a number of solutions to the government and to the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, that would bring help to those businesses very quickly. The fishers carry on, because it is a duty for them, because they want to help us and to be part of the effort at this time of crisis. At the same time, they have no guarantee that they will be supported. I would really like to hear a guarantee that they will be supported, that they will be able to put food on the table this year, and that they will be able to support the communities that often depend on the fishing industry, a major industry in those communities. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Minister Jordan has been working with the fishers, the fishing industry and the communities affected by the crisis since the crisis began. We are assessing a number of solutions. We have proposed various solutions to support the communities, the workers and the families. This is an unprecedented situation. From the outset, our priority has been to support the millions of Canadians from coast to coast who have lost their jobs. We have been able to do so, but we are going to continue to work for those who must now face difficulties. We are going to be there for each other. That is what people are expecting from our government and from other Canadians. The Chair: Before we move to the next question, I would like to remind members of the committee to speak slowly, and to address their remarks to the chair and not directly to each other. Thank you very much. We will now go to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach (SkeenaBulkley Valley, NDP): Mr. Chair, municipalities across Canada are facing a financial crisis. They've seen revenues plummet, and at the same time the cost of delivering municipal services has risen. As the Prime Minister knows, municipalities are unable to run deficits and so they are facing the reality of cutbacks and serious cuts to the services that Canadians depend on. We know that municipalities are vital during this time to provide services to Canadians. They're going to be even more important during the recovery, especially when it comes to delivering on the infrastructure programs before us. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities and mayors across Canada have called for emergency financial relief for the municipal sector. My question for the Prime Minister is, when can they expect federal financial support to arrive? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, no government in Canada's history has done more to work with our municipalities, with our cities, with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to respond to the challenges they're facing and to partner with them. Things from infrastructure to investments have made a huge difference right across the country in the quality of life of Canadians in towns, large and small, from coast to coast to coast. As I'm sure the member well knows, our Constitution requires that most of the funding for municipalities flow through the provinces. We are working with the provinces, as we continue to work with the cities, to ensure that we're able to support this order of government that delivers the vast majority of services to Canadians with very little financial means. We know how difficult it is for our cities. We will continue The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, it would seem that the federal government has the fiscal capacity and the responsibility to help municipalities weather this crisis. Transit systems have been hit particularly hard and have seen the bulk of the layoffs in the municipal sector. These transit services carry essential workers to work, whether they are health care workers, grocery store workers, janitors or others. The risk is that we will see higher fares to deal with this financial crisis. We will see service cutbacks precisely at a time when we want to be expanding transit and improving transit in our communities. Does the Prime Minister acknowledge that the federal government needs to step in to safeguard and protect Canada's transit services? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, this federal government recognizes how important it is to support all Canadians, which is why we put forward unprecedented measures to help millions upon millions of Canadians with the CERB and with the wage subsidy. We will continue to work with the provinces, which have jurisdiction over the municipalities. I'll be having a conversation with all other first ministers tonight to talk about a broad range of issues. I can highlight that the issue of transit funding has come up. We have continued to engage with them, but again, it is important to respect the Constitution and understand that funding for municipalities and cities does go through the provinces. The federal government is happy to be there to support, but it must be The Chair: We will go to Mr. Bachrach again. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I am wondering how the Prime Minister could explain to a bus driver in Vancouver who has been laid off that as a public sector worker, she can't access the federal wage subsidy, while an equivalent worker in the airline industry gets to keep her job with the federal help of that program. Could the Prime Minister explain how that is fair? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I'm happy to explain to the member and to all Canadians that our Constitution creates federal areas of jurisdiction and provincial areas of jurisdiction. The airline industry, like banking, like telecommunications, is a federal area of jurisdiction that we have been able to move forward on. More than that, we brought the Canada emergency response benefit and the wage subsidy to all industries across this country, because we knew that as the federal government, it was something that we needed to step up on The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I'd like to shift gears a little bit. Faced with minimal health care capacity, remote indigenous communities in my riding are taking matters into their own hands. The Nuxalk have put up a checkpoint on Highway 20 to protect community members and prevent non-essential travel. In particular, it is to protect the three remaining fluent speakers of the Nuxalk language, these cherished elders in their community. The Haida on Haida Gwaii have set up a similar checkpoint, as have communities throughout British Columbia, yet federal support for indigenous communities amounts to only $39 million for all of the indigenous communities in B. C. Does the Prime Minister not agree that more support is warranted to help indigenous communities in my riding and across the country? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, we made funds available to Canadians right across the country, particularly people in indigenous remote or northern communities who we knew would be facing more difficult challenges because of the existing vulnerabilities in their health care system and socio-economic circumstances. We have made unprecedented investments and we will continue to make the necessary investments, because we need to make sure that indigenous Canadians, and indeed all Canadians, have the supports they need to make it through this crisis. The Chair: We will continue with Mr. Berthold. Mr. Berthold, you have the floor. Mr. Luc Berthold (MganticL'rable, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I am going to keep talking about the area of jurisdiction that the Prime Minister likes to talk about, except that I want to point out the incompetence of the Liberals in keeping their commitments on infrastructure projects. My question is very simple. As the provinces gradually restart their economies, can the Prime Minister tell us how many projects that the provinces have submitted are waiting for approval from his government? Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, I hope that the length of the pause will not be taken out of my time. The Chair: No, I stopped the clock for your time. Ms. McKenna, you have the floor. Hon. Catherine McKenna (Minister of Infrastructure and Communities): I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, I was on mute. I'm very pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. I have spoken with all of my provincial and territorial counterparts over the last couple of weeks. Work on our historic infrastructure program is progressing well. My department has worked very hard to approve projects, and we will continue to do so. It is very important to build projects that will create good jobs The Chair: We are returning to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: We still haven't had a response. How many projects are currently awaiting government approval? I know that the minister has been meeting virtually with the provinces over the last few days. However, there are still hundreds of projects waiting for approval from the Liberal government. Rather than wait for the right political opportunity to approve these files, will the minister commit today to respecting the provinces and approving by next week all the projects that are sitting on her desk? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I'm pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. We are approving projects. If the hon. member speaks to the provinces and territories, he will see how well we are working together. We will announce the approval of projects because it's very important for our economy, our communities and creating good jobs. Mr. Luc Berthold: Does the minister understand that she hasn't told us how many projects are still pending? The construction season is very short. Approval of a project in July means that work can't begin until next year, which won't help revive our economy. Hon. Catherine McKenna: I want to make it clear that we have approved hundreds of projects in the last few weeks. We will work with the provinces, territories, municipalities and indigenous communities to implement these projects. These projects are important for the economy and the environment, as well as for jobs The Chair: We return now to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, while the minister is calling for a green recovery of the country's economy, public transit is at risk. Physical distancing measures will cause public transit use to drop for several months. The Union des municipalits du Qubec estimates that the monthly losses are between $75million and $100million. Other countries have included public transit in pandemic relief programs. Why isn't Canada? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, we recognize the importance of public transit for our economy, since some essential workers use public transit. We are working very closely with our counterparts and are listening to the municipalities. As the Prime Minister said, it's the provinces that must help because the money The Chair: We return now to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, once again, what we're hearing is that the government is passing the buck to the provinces. Unfortunately, the minister was unable to answer a single question about the number of infrastructure projects still on the federal government's desk, which is very important. Several large municipalities are waiting for the approval of projects. Moreover, public transit systems are facing an extremely serious financial crisis. Ridership in most systems is down 85%to90%. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is asking for help for small communities, as well as large municipalities. Why is the federal government ignoring the municipalities in the Canadian Federation of Municipalities at this time? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I can reassure the hon. member that we are working very closely with the municipalities. We are listening to the municipalities to find out what their issues are and how we can support them. Of course, we need the help of the provinces and territories. In terms of the number of projects that we've approved, I would be happy to inform the hon. member of the exact number of all the approved projects that my department has been working very hard on over the past few months to approve projects to go forward. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, do I have any time left? The Chair: No, your time is up. We'll now go on to Mr. Fast. Hon. Ed Fast (Abbotsford, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. This question is directed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. On March 28, the minister personally tweeted out a thank you to the People's Republic of China for donating PPE to Canada. This tweet happened within three hours of China's announcement of that gift. As it turned out, much of the PPE was defective and could not be used. More recently, Taiwan donated half a million surgical masks to Canada, yet here we are, two weeks later, and the minister has yet to personally thank Taiwan for its generosity. Will the minister now thank this free and democratic country for its generous gift to Canadians? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne (Minister of Foreign Affairs): Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank my colleague for the question. Indeed, we are very grateful to every nation for helping Canada. This is a global pandemic that knows no borders. We have been expressing our thanks to many nations that have contributed. We will continue to do so. It is important in a time of pandemic, Mr. Chair, that we not play politics and that humanity comes together. I can say, after my COVID foreign ministers call, that the world community has come together to make sure that supply chains will remain intact and that we will have transit hubs and air bridges. We will continue to work with every nation when it comes to health. This is a public good. We want to work together with everyone. The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Fast now. Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, I didn't hear a thank you there, so I'm going to try again. On May 4, the Government of Taiwan delivered 25,000 surgical masks to the Government of British Columbia. On hand were B. C. Minister of Citizens'Services Anne Kang and Minister of State for Child Care Katrina Chen, who, as ministers, officially thanked the Government of Taiwan for its donation. Again, will the minister now do the right thing and, on behalf of Canadians, recognize the generosity of Taiwan and thank its government for that timely donation? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, as I said to you before, Canada is grateful to all who have given supplies to Canada. This is a common endeavour. We are thankful. We are grateful to every nation and we will continue to be. As I said, when it comes to global health, when it comes to helping each other, I think it is a duty for all to come together. We are grateful and thankful for all those who have agreed to help Canada and Canadians from coast to coast to coast in times of need. I've repeated that and have said many times in many forums that we are grateful and thankful to all of those who are helping Canada. Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, again there was no specific thank you to Taiwan. The Government of Taiwan has been the world leader in successfully fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. We have a lot to learn from them and their response. Sadly, the People's Republic of China continues to oppose Taiwan's membership in the World Health Organization. Will the minister now do the right thing and assure Canadians that he will fully support efforts to grant Taiwan membership in the World Health Organization? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the member. As a former trade minister, he's very well aware of Canada's one China policy. That said, we support Taiwan to continue meaningful participation in international multilateral forums, particularly when it comes to health. This is a global good, and we want to support every nation. We recognize that Taiwan and others have been doing very well in fighting this pandemic. We also believe that Taiwan's role as an observer in the World Health Assembly meeting is of interest to the international health community and we have been supportive of that. Hon. Ed Fast: Mr. Chair, I'm going to pivot to repatriation flights. The minister has publicly said that over 20,000 stranded Canadians have been repatriated from abroad. Can he tell us exactly how many Canadians remain abroad who have expressed a desire to be repatriated? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Yes, Mr. Chair, I am very happy to update members. As of today, we have repatriated more than 20,000 Canadians on 232 flights from 87 countries. I would say that this is team Canada, and it knows no parties. Many members have written to me to make sure that we take care. It's not an exact science. We have, as I said, repatriated thousands and thousands. We continue, because we know there are still pockets of Canadian travellers who are stranded abroad. As the Prime Minister and I have said from the beginning, we will make our best effort to repatriate everyone who wants to come back home during the crisis. The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Moore now. Hon. Rob Moore (Fundy Royal, CPC): Mr. Chair, Canadians need to have faith in their justice system, even in a time of crisis. My office has received correspondence from Canadians concerned that trial delays due to COVID-19 may result in criminals walking free. As this government has been working overtime to criminalize law-abiding citizens with new and useless gun laws, will the Minister of Justice ensure that real criminals will not walk free as a result of delays in the justice system? Hon. David Lametti (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada): Mr. Chair, I thank the honourable member for his question. We have been working with my provincial counterparts across Canada, as well as with the various federal courts and also, through my provincial counterparts, with the superior courts and courts of appeal across Canada. Each particular jurisdiction has taken measures to ensure that basic essential services within the court system are maintained, through a variety of means, and we believe that we will be able to solve these various challenges. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, the regional relief and recovery fund was announced weeks ago as a way to help small and medium-sized businesses in rural communities, like those in my riding. In Atlantic Canada, these funds were to be distributed to the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. This is yet another announcement with no details from this Liberal government. Can the minister clarify whether we are days away or weeks away from this support flowing to the businesses that need it so desperately? Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): Mr. Chair, I had the chance to talk with many of the chambers of commerce and business owners throughout Atlantic Canada, and we hear their anxiety. That's why ACOA's doing great work on the ground to make sure we can help them through this very difficult period. The member is right. We have increased the budget of ACOAgood newsand I'll be coming up with the details very soon. It will be a pleasure to collaborate with him to make sure that we can help many businesses and business owners across the Atlantic region. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, my office has heard from many small business owners who have reached out to me. I know many have reached out to many of my colleagues and probably to all of us here today. They are frustrated by the eligibility requirements for some of the federal programs. In particular, they are unable to access the emergency business account, because they do not have a payroll. This could be the hair salon in my riding that subcontracts out its chairs. There are hundreds and thousands of small businesses in this very situation, vital small businesses in our communities, but they do not meet this requirement. These businesses, many of them, are weeks away from shutting down permanently. What does the Minister of Finance have to say to these small businesses that are suffering right now? Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Mr. Chair, I want to thank my honourable colleague for that really important question. I want all the businesses that he is talking about and all of them throughout the country to know that we continue to work very hard to make sure they're supported through this difficult period. More work needs to be done, and we will continue to do that work. We know that businesses are being supported through getting access to the wage subsidy to keep their employees together, and they're getting help, whether it's with rent or to defray costs by deferring GST and HST or customs duty payments. We're going to continue to work with all our businesses across the country. The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Moore for a brief question. You have less than 20 seconds, please. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, it's a very specific issue. There are small businesses, thousands of them, that do not have a payroll. Some have a personal account that they've dealt with over the years rather than a business account, and that makes them ineligible. These businesses need help right now. Hon. Mary Ng: I agree with the honourable member. Those businesses absolutely need support from us. We are going to keep working to ensure they are supported. The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Cumming next. Mr. James Cumming (Edmonton Centre, CPC): Mr. Chair, small businesses are concerned about their ability to survive, and no amount of deferrals, loans or subsidies can substitute for their need to be open and servicing their customers. Can the government confirm that a sectoral risk analysis has taken place to assist the provinces in reopening the economy? Hon. Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry): Mr. Chair, I can assure the member that we've been very clear in terms of our strategy around reopening the economy. We need to make sure that we follow the advice of the experts and the health authorities to do so in a manner that does not compromise the health and well-being of Canadians. We of course will have a sectoral lens, and as you can see by some of the initiatives and the support packages we've put forward The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Cumming now. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, thousands of business owners make a living and utilize dividends as their salary. They also use independent contractors. Can the government confirm that the programs currently in place will be expanded to these hard-working Canadians? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to assure the honourable member that we continue to work with all of our small businesses and I want to thank him for raising this very important issue. I want to assure our Canadian small businesses that we are going to continue to do this work to make sure they are supported. Mr. James Cumming: Can the minister give me a date when she will be able to announce to these businesses that they will be eligible? Hon. Mary Ng: I want to assure our Canadian small businesses of their importance and of the importance of their contributions to all of our communities. I want them to know that we continue to listen and that we will ensure that they are supported and continue to be supported during this difficult time. Mr. James Cumming: Minister, they need more than assurance. Can you give me a date when I can tell these thousands of businesses they will be supported if they pay dividends or if they use contractors within their businesses? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, these businesses are absolutely important and are getting support through a range of means. We will continue to work with these businesses to make sure they are supported through this difficult period. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, I spoke to a Second Cup owner whose landlord is not offering any kind of rent relief. The landlord says that he doesn't have the 25% needed to be eligible for the program because he's already paying for common area costs and deferrals on utilities, which he will have to pay on his mortgage. Will the government reform the rent relief program to focus on tenants and not just the landlords? Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr. Chair, I want to let the member know that we are working to make sure that the details of the emergency program for rent are out there so that both tenants and landlords can understand the situation. We're seeing a significant number of both landlords and tenants coming forward to register for this program, and we are convinced that it will be in the best interests of landlords to move forward and give tenants this relief. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, we've been hearing, however, from small business owners that their landlords don't find the government's rent relief program appealing enough. Can the government confirm, given the program's low eligibility rate, that the program will be expanded and be more efficient in helping tenants? Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we recognize that it's critically important that all of the details of this program be out there for landlords and tenants to understand. Those details are being worked on right now. This is a program that we've put out within the last week, and we are confident that it's in the best interests of tenants and landlords. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, during these trying times for small businesses, small businesses need all the help they can get. One easy way to do that would be to expand the Canada summer jobs program to businesses with over 50 employees. Will the government consider doing so to allow students to gain that very valuable work experience over the coming months? Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Mr. Chair, we are very excited about the uptake of the Canada summer jobs program this year. The second uptake provided employers across the country with the ability to add their needs for students to the mix. I'm looking forward to announcing a possible expansion of this program in the coming days. The Chair: The next question session will go to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall (SimcoeGrey, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. During this pandemic, the government has consistently called for a team Canada, non-partisan approach, and I was glad to hear that said a little earlier today. In fact, the public has called for that approach as well. However, at the same time, the current government has used a parliamentary back door to launch a poorly thought out gun ban. We have a government that didn't win the popular vote, and I'm just wondering how I explain to my residents, because I'm getting so many calls, that this is not a bloated response because, quite frankly, it is. Hon. Bill Blair (Scarborough Southwest, Lib.): First of all, Mr. Chair, I think the honourable member can explain to his constituents that the forming of regulations through order in council is actually the process prescribed in law in Canada under section 117. 15 of the Criminal Code. I would also invite the member to advise his constituents that way back in 1991, when there were some Conservatives who called themselves Progressive, the Mulroney government brought forward, in Bill C-17, the authority under that section for an order in council to prescribe specific makes, models and variants of military firearms as prohibited or restricted. The Harper government used the same tool The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall: I'm not sure, but I'm hoping, that I'll get an honest answer on this question from the minister, who has everything from rocket launchers to basically toy guns on the ban list. When will we get the cost of this buyback program? The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to please be careful in their language when they are referring to others. I won't comment on this one particularly, but I want all of you to be very, very careful when referring to other members. The honourable minister. Hon. Bill Blair: It's a good opportunity, Mr. Chair, to respond to some of the obfuscations and deceptions that have been put out there. We're not banning any toys and we're not banning shotguns. That's all misinformation that's being put out. I think it's very clear, and I invite the member to look at the list of weapons that are The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Thank you. What will be the cost of the buyback program, please? Hon. Bill Blair: Actually, I'm very much looking forward to bringing forward legislation as soon as the House resumes. We will have a vigorous debate in Parliament about the form a buyback will take and we will bring forward a budget at that time. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Will those with illegal weapons be eligible for the buyback program? Hon. Bill Blair: If people are illegally in possession of the weapons and they're committing a crime, they will be dealt with for the crimes they commit. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Okay. I'm going to switch it over. Canadians in my riding who suffer from cystic fibrosis are among the most vulnerable to COVID-19 infection. While these Canadians with existing lung conditions are incredibly worried about a virus that attacks the ability to breathe, the good news is that there are life-saving medicines for those with CF. The problem is with the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board and its restrictive guidelines. I am wondering if and when the government will correct these guidelines and give access to life-saving medicines for our most vulnerable. Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Mr. Chair, as you know, the government has been very committed to improving access and affordability for prescription medications for all Canadians. The PMPRB regulatory amendments will help Canadians be able to afford their prescriptions, and Canada will continue to be an important market for new medicines. In fact, many countries with much lower medicine prices gained access to new medicines in the same time frame as Canada frame, or even faster, so we are excited to do this work. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Mr. Chair, our seniors are being particularly hard hit right now during this pandemic, yet seniors have not been given any direct support. It's one of the number one calls I'm getting in my office. Funding to charities like the United Way is being labelled as support for seniors, but most won't see any of this support. Seniors in my riding have asked for an increase in their CPP and OAS, and to be able to make untaxed bulk withdrawals from their RRSPs while they still have some value. Can the minister confirm when these real and direct supports for seniors will be forthcoming? Hon. Deb Schulte (Minister of Seniors): I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. He mentioned. I'm not quite sure what's happening with my machine. I apologize. The Chair: You might want to try your space bar and keep it down while you're speaking. That might solve the problem. Hon. Deb Schulte: Okay, I'll try that. Thank you very much. I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. We have introduced a supplementary GST payment for low- and modest-income seniors. We've reduced the minimum RRIF withdrawal by 25%, and we've made the CERB available to working seniors who have lost their jobs due to the COVID pandemic. We know there's more work to do, and we'll have more to say in the future. The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that if there are issues, we are taking note of them, and we'll hopefully resolve them by the next meeting. We are getting much better, and we're all new at this. Thank you for your patience. We'll now go to Ms. Gaudreau. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau (LaurentidesLabelle, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My first question is for the Prime Minister. We've heard a lot about contact tracing apps. Several provinces have already made announcements on this, and others want to follow suit. Today, I'd like to know where the government stands on this. We've been talking about a national strategy for some time. Where are we now? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Obviously, contact tracing is an important part of managing any outbreak. In fact, we have been looking at a number of ways to support increased contact tracing across the country, including working with provinces and territories to boost their capacity through human resources and volunteer organizations. We are working very closely with them to make sure we have the capacity. The member is right that many other countries have used digital contact tracing apps. Anything we put forward as a digital tool to assist with contact tracing would be thoroughly considerate of Canadians'privacy rights. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Let me clarify my question a little. Yes, we are talking about public health, and we are currently experiencing a crisis. But you know as well as I do that the Privacy Commissioner has been calling us to task for a very long time now, because there is also a crisis of confidence. You know as well as I do that for 90%of Canadians, the misuse of their personal data is a cause for concern, whether it be for profiling or business development purposes. This is an issue that concerns all Canadians. The commissioner is indeed calling for a focus on reform of the Privacy Act. I'd like to know whether this commitment will be implemented quickly so that legislation can be passed on this issue, in this case the Privacy Act. Hon. Navdeep Bains: Particular attention must be paid to transparency, privacy and ethical concerns. Naturally, Canadians are concerned about how their data is used. New technologies are subject to the Privacy Act. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: We're talking about public health. The provinces are currently in the process of legislating. We're talking about what is going on in Quebec, among other places, and I would like to make sure that the federal government commits to respecting the proposals regarding geolocation and contact tracing possibilities, with full respect for the right to privacy. Can we commit to respecting the provinces? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have worked very closely with provinces and territories for a long time before the outbreak, but certainly ever since the outbreak. We respect the rights of jurisdictional authorities to use tools that have been properly vetted through their own provincial and territorial legislation. Nothing we would ever do at the federal level would put Canadians'privacy in jeopardy. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Concerning privacy, there are 30million Quebeckers and Canadians who have had their personal data leaked. Why is it that our laws don't allow us to apply financial penalties so that we can then go further? The very basis is to be concerned about our fundamental rights. The commissioner has been making this request for several years now. As the critic for access to information and privacy, I'd like a commitment that the federal government will deal not with what the provinces are doing, but with the Privacy Act. The Chair: Your time is up, but I'll give the floor to the minister for 30seconds. Hon. Navdeep Bains: Thank you for the question. Our government will ensure the privacy of Canadians is respected, support responsible innovation and take reasonable steps to strengthen enforcement powers. That's why we created a digital charter. We are strengthening Canada's privacy laws in response to the digital age. The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Baker. Mr. Yvan Baker (Etobicoke Centre, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll be sharing my time with the member for Malpeque. Mr. Chair, my question is for the Minister of Seniors. Minister, in my riding of Etobicoke Centre, we are mourning the loss of 40 residents to COVID-19 at the Eatonville long-term care centre. Over 143 residents and 88 staff members have now tested positive for the virus. This tragedy is not only taking place in Etobicoke Centre but across Canada. Of all Canadians who have died from COVID-19,79% were living in long-term care homes. That's over 2,000 seniors. This is a catastrophe, and it's frankly unacceptable. Our seniors and their families deserve better. I understand that long-term care homes fall within the jurisdiction of provincial governments in Canada, but this is a crisis. What is the federal government doing right now to help protect our seniors who are living in long-term care homes from COVID-19? What will we do to reform our long-term care homes in the future to ensure that our seniors in Etobicoke Centre and across Canada get the care they deserve? Hon. Deb Schulte: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to my colleague from Etobicoke Centre for his very thoughtful question. We are deeply concerned by the outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care facilities, and our thoughts are with those who have lost a loved one. It's a very difficult time. As my colleague mentioned, while these facilities are regulated by provinces and territories, we have been focused on protecting the health and safety of long-term care residents and staff while working with our partners in a team Canada approach. We've released guidelines to prevent and control COVID-19 infections. We're working with the provinces and territories to cost-share a temporary salary top-up for long-term care workers. We are working through investing $2 billion to secure personal protective equipment for the health of workers, including those in the long-term care homes, and we've deployed the Canadian Armed Forces to assist 25 long-term care homes in Quebec and Ontario. We all have a role to play to stop the spread of COVID-19 and to protect our seniors and caregivers. The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Easter. Hon. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. At the finance committee, we've heard a lot of concerns from all sectors of the economy as a result of COVID-19 and we've been presented with quite a number of possible solutions as well, several of which the government has acted upon. My question is on the support offered to the agri-food sector announced on Tuesday. It is very welcome support, but I sincerely believe the farm sector will be taking the Prime Minister up on the suggestion that $250 million should be seen as an initial investment. Potatoes are the number one commodity in Prince Edward Island. However, as a result of reduced processor contracts for next year, plus cancelled seed contracts, millions of dollars of seed and process potatoes have no home. To make matters worse, farmers have high fixed costs that they now have to spread over fewer acres. How does the minister see Tuesday's announcement addressing potato farmers'concerns? Second, in 2013, long-term financial safety nets were gutted by the Harper government. Will the minister be coming forward with improved business risk management programs as a result? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): Mr. Chair, I want to thank Mr. Easter, the member for the riding of Malpeque on Prince Edward Island. It's a beautiful rural riding with lots of agricultural production. I want to recognize the hard work of farmers throughout the crisis. On Tuesday, I was proud to announce one more step for supporting our producers and processors. We know the importance of our potato farmers, and that's why we are launching a first-ever surplus food purchase program, a $50-million fund designed to help redistribute existing inventories, such as potatoes, to local food organizations. On the financial safety net that we have in place for our farmers, called the business risk management program, we announced up to $125 million in funding through AgriRecovery and made changes to AgriStability that will help producers quickly. I will continue to discuss with my provincial counterparts toenhance and improve the BRM programs. In the meantime, I want to reiterate that BRM programs, including AgriInvest, are there to help farmers in difficult times. The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Johns now. Mr. Gord Johns (CourtenayAlberni, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, small businesses across Canada closed their doors to stop the spread and for public health. Now they're currently hanging off the edge of a cliff waiting for financial help. Robyn, who has owned Arbutus Health in Tofino for over 13 years, can't apply for the Canada emergency business account loan, simply because she doesn't have a payroll of over $20,000. All of her practitioners are paid contractors, so she is ineligible. With no business income and without emergency financing, it is virtually impossible for her to pay her bills or come up with the 25% needed for the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program. The government promised to be flexible and willing to adjust its COVID response rollout so that nobody falls through the cracks, but Robyn, like tens of thousands of proprietors who are the economic job creators of our communities, urgently needs the government's help now. Will the government amend its programs to help more business owners so that people like Robyn don't lose their businesses? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for his really good question. I know he and I have talked about this, and I appreciate the input and the feedback that he is providing from business directly. I want to assure Robyn and her businesses, and many businesses across the country, that we are absolutely listening, and we will continue to make sure we are supporting those businesses during this period. We know that many businesses are being helped through the Canada emergency business account. There are well over 550,000 businesses that are getting support through this emergency business account. We also know that more has to be done, and we will continue to work with you and businesses across the country so that we can indeed give them that necessary support to weather this difficult period of COVID-19. Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, that's not going to help Robyn feel comfort. I was talking to Heather last night, who also owns a business in Tofino, Basic Goodness Pizzeria, with her partner Marco. Like many proprietors of family businesses who aren't on payroll, they don't qualify for the business loans. They don't qualify for the wage subsidy because they're a seasonal business. Now with the new rollout of the rent support, they're not sure if their landlord is willing to play ball and even apply. That's three separate programs that leave them out. Heather was in tears last night as she told me that they have done nothing wrong to deserve being excluded from these emergency programs. I agree. Will the government fix the rent support program so that tenants can apply, instead of leaving it up to landlords, and so businesses can get the help they desperately need? Hon. Mona Fortier (OttawaVanier, Lib.): Mr. Chair, we've been working on this program since the beginning. We've been working on offering a response for small businesses and charities and non-profit organizations, and we are continuing to listen on the ground to how we can better assist the businesses that fall through the cracks. We will continue to do that as we go along in this emergency situation. Thank you very much to the honourable member for sharing the realities of his constituents. Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, when the government rolled out its commercial rent support program, why didn't it negotiate an eviction moratorium with the provinces, as Australia and other countries did, to protect business owners? Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as we know, Canadians are taking action and fighting against COVID-19. We know that many small businesses are worried about being able to pay rent. We've recognized it and we've been working with the provinces and territories to implement the Canada emergency commercial rent The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Johns. Mr. Gord Johns: To qualify for the Canada emergency wage subsidy, a 30% drop in revenue has to be shown. Anyone who's owned a business knows that even with this program, it's going to be hard to survive. Why is the government using a 70% measurement drop to qualify for the rent support program, but a 30% drop for the wage subsidy? Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, Mr. Chair, thank you to the honourable member for sharing his views on this program. We've been working with provinces and territories to provide forgivable loans to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rents for their tenants by 75%. We're hoping that tenants and landlords will be working together so we can support businesses during this very difficult crisis. The Chair: Before we move on to the next question, Mr. Berthold, did you have a question or a point of order? Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, I have a point of order. I checked the clock from the first round of five minutes, and as you may recall, it took a very long time for me to get an answer from the government. I went back and forth with MinisterMcKenna for four minutes and 14seconds. The Chair: Just a moment. The interpretation isn't coming through. It's working now. Go ahead, Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: I'll start over. During my first turn, it took 50seconds before a government minister deigned to answer my questions. After checking my time, I realized that the discussion between Ms. McKenna and I went on for four minutes and 14seconds, so I wasn't able to ask the minister one final question, a very important one. I would ask you to take that into account and allow me to ask MinisterMcKenna one last question, please. The Chair: The person chairing the meeting uses their judgment and does their best to keep an eye on what's going on. They try to be as fair as possible. I'll try to do a better job. I think it's more or less equal for all the members, but I apologize if the honourable member feels that he was denied a few seconds. Our next question goes to Mr. Doherty. Mr. Todd Doherty (CaribooPrince George, CPC): Mr. Chair, the Canada-U. S. border agreement is set to expire on May 20. Will the two governments renew the current agreement, or will it be modified? Hon. Bill Blair: The decision to close the border was made in Canada by Canadians in the best interest of Canadians. We're continuing to monitor the situation carefully. Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government be in a position to inform Canadians of any changes to the agreement? Hon. Bill Blair: I'm pleased to advise the member that we're continuing to monitor the situation, but I'm strongly of the opinion that the circumstances on both sides of our border do not indicate that this is the right time to make a change in the restrictions. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the government confirm whether there are any discussions about reopening the border to certain modes of transportation and restricting others? The Chair: Before I go to the minister, I want to remind the honourable members that we do have translators, and they are trying to translate. With respect to them, I know we're trying to get as many questions in as possible, but they do have to translate them, so please be considerate of our interpreters. The honourable minister has the floor. Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Let me please inform the honourable member that we are, of course, aware that the current agreement expires. I had a long conversation yesterday with the Prime Minister Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government announce a relief package for Canada's aviation industry? Hon. Navdeep Bains: We are engaged with the industry, and we are working with them on a solution, Mr. Chair. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, will this relief package include funding for airline ticket refunds similar to what other countries around the world have done? Yes or no? Hon. Navdeep Bains: It's early to say anything at this moment. We're taking a sectoral approach. This is about making sure that we restart the economy and have a strong recovery. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the Minister of Transport confirm that temperature screening is taking place at Canadian airports. Yes or no? Hon. Marc Garneau (Minister of Transport): Mr. Chair, I can confirm that Air Canada has now adopted a policy of checking temperatures for passengers boarding Air Canada flights. Mr. Todd Doherty: At which airports is that, and when did this practice start? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the announcement was made recently by Air Canada. It will start shortly and will apply to all places and destinations where Air Canada flies. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, this is for the Minister of Transport. Last week I asked the Minister of Labour if they were aware of a letter written on April 6 by CUPE to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Minister, were you aware of that letter? The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly. Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I didn't understand the reference to a letter from CUPE. Could my colleague please clarify? Mr. Todd Doherty: On April 6, CUPE wrote a letter to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Is the minister aware of that letter? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, could my colleague clarify what CUPE is referring to? Mr. Todd Doherty: CUPE is the labour organization that represents thousands of flight attendants across our country. Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I do understand. Yes, I will confirm that CUPE, which represents the flight attendants, did write to us. Before that I had conversations with CUPE with respect to flight attendants and the use of personal protective equipment. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the minister confirm whether or not they have provided PPE to the flight attendants and/or training for front-line staff for airlines and airports? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the airlines are providing PPE to flight attendants and flight crews. This has become a policy to ensure the safety not only of passengers on board but also of the flight attendants and flight crew. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, a business owner from Quesnel wrote to my office recently. He stated that he couldn't give his small business tenants a break on rent because the government is penalizing him for paying off his mortgage. When will the government change the CECRA rules to help more businesses? Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as you know, we laid out the CECRA program just last week, and we are encouraging landlords to take that opportunity to support the renters. We will continue to look at how we can provide some relief to small businesses with rents. Mr. Todd Doherty: With all due respect, Mr. Chair, any landlord who does not have a mortgage on their business is ineligible for CECRA. Is the minister aware of this, and are they trying to revise the CECRA program? Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with provinces and territories to present that program. Of course, we will continue to monitor how this program works for landlords and tenants. We are asking, actually encouraging, landlords to do their part and help tenants, like the one you mentioned, go through this. The Chair: We'll go to the next questioner. Go ahead, Ms. Dancho. Ms. Raquel Dancho (KildonanSt. Paul, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Small businesses in Manitoba employ 73% of Manitobans. That's over 286,000 Manitobans. I've been speaking with many small business owners in my riding. It's been heartbreaking, frankly, to hear that everything they've built and sacrificed for is in serious jeopardy, and through no fault of their own. Your government has created programs that are supposed to help them, but many legitimate businesses aren't able to apply. That could mean bankruptcy and cost thousands of Manitobans jobs. This is wrong. I'm hoping to hear specifics, not just nice words, on what you're going to do to help them. There are three issues regarding access to the $40,000 CEBA loan. First, businesses that recently incorporatedfor example, in late 2019are unable to apply their entire 2019 payroll. As a result, many are falling short of the $20,000 payroll threshold required to qualify for this loan. Second, many businesses contract their employees rather than have them on payroll. They also are unable to qualify for this loan. Third, many businesses use personal rather than business banking accounts. They aren't able to qualify for this loan either. What is your government going to do about these three scenarios? The Chair: I just want to remind honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly to the minister. As well, please take into consideration the interpreters, who have to listen and translate, so that we can have this conversation. Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for that question. Right from the very beginning, we've always said that we will listen and that we will work to make sure that measures go out to help our Canadian small businesses. She's absolutely right: 98% of all our businesses in this country are small businesses, so they absolutely contribute enormously to our communities and are job creators. That is why we have put out significant measures. For the Canada emergency business account, over 550,000 small businesses have been approved and are getting that support. I absolutely acknowledge that there is more work to do. I can assure the honourable member that we will continue to do this work so that businesses, all businesses, are supported, whether it is helping keep your employees together, helping with rent support, helping to keep your business's expenses low, or of course helping with the capital that is needed so that you can pay your operating expenses and your bills through this difficult time. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, I didn't hear any answers from the minister's remarks, unfortunately. Moving on, there are two issues regarding the 50% commercial rent assistance subsidy, where landlords pay 25%, the government pays 50%, and the tenant is responsible for 25%. First, many of the small landlords aren't able to take a 25% hit to their income, and are unable to provide the subsidy to their tenants. Second, with the 70% decline in revenue threshold for small businesses to even be eligible for the rent assist, many restaurants are at 65% or 67% decline. They desperately need this subsidy but aren't able to qualify. This is not about problems with the program details. What is the government planning to do to streamline this program for small businesses that can't access but desperately need the rent subsidy? Hon. Mlanie Joly: Mr. Chair, as the Minister of Official Languages, I just want to raise the fact that interpretation is very complicated right now. In order to make sure that we can continue to uphold bilingualism within the House, I would love it if my colleagues could take down the pace a bit. That would help the interpreters a whole lot. They are working very hard and trying to keep up. The Chair: That's a reasonable request. I just want to remind everyone again that when you're asking a question, make sure you are doing it at a pace at which you're considering the people who are interpreting Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, this is how fast I speak when we're in the House of Commons. It's just how I talk. The Chair: I understand. I have a lot of friends who speak very quickly. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Right. I understand. Perhaps we could get back to my question about the rent subsidy. The Chair: We stopped the time. You're not losing any time on this one. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Okay. I will try to speak more slowly. The Chair: I appreciate it. Thank you. The interpreters appreciate it. Now we'll go to the minister, please. Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with the provinces and territories to provide this forgivable loan to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rent of their tenants by 75%. We will continue to monitor how this program is delivered, as we announced it last week. It will be offered pretty soon. It will be very important that we understand what happens across the country, and we will monitor and adapt the program as we Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, it has been in the media quite a bit that this rent subsidy is not helping many, many, many small business owners. It's falling short of everything that was announced, so I think it needs to be taken a bit more seriously than that. There are two issues regarding the 75% wage subsidy. First, employers who pay themselves and their employees dividends rather than wages are unable to qualify. Second, there is also a 30% threshold revenue decline needed in order to apply. Many of the businesses in my riding are at 27% or 29%. They desperately need these funds but are unable to qualify. What is the government planning to do for these small businesses? Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, thank you to the hon. member for sharing the realities she's hearing from small business owners. We are providing help and support for businesses through these very difficult times. The wage subsidy has been taken up and is working for many businesses. We know that some still fall through the cracks and we will look at how we can continue to support businesses across the country. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends (BrossardSaint-Lambert, Lib.) ): We are now going to Mr. Kevin Waugh. Mr. Kevin Waugh (SaskatoonGrasswood, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. Three weeks ago, on April 17, the Minister of Canadian Heritage announced funding of $500 million to assist Canada's arts, sports and cultural sectors. We are still waiting to hear who is eligible and when they can expect to receive this funding. Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Canadian Heritage): Madam Chair, we will be releasing the details of that announcement, and how the money is going to be spent, in the coming days. Mr. Kevin Waugh: We all know that many media organizations, large and small, in Canada are struggling right now. Allegations have arisen that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CBC, is currently engaging in predatory behaviour and taking advantage of the current situation to harm its competitors using rate cuts. We've seen this from the province of Quebec. Many journalists have talked about this. What is the government going to do to address these allegations against the CBC? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have not been informed of these allegations. We will look into this, and we will get back to the hon. colleague if we do find any valuable information. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Local community and ethnic media outlets and papers have strong ties to their communities that often go much deeper than the major media outlets. Is the government currently using any local or ethnic media outlets to provide crucial coronavirus information through advertising? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, I totally agree with my colleague. We need to get the information to Canadians on COVID-19, which is why we have started an ad-buy campaign of $30 million, which is being distributed in more than 900 local, regional and national newspapers across the country and 500 radio and TV stations in 12 different languages, including Farsi, Mandarin, Spanish, Italian and many more. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Mr. Minister, I talked to the Winnipeg Free Press yesterday. It has received two ads from an ad agency in connection with the $30 million the government is doling out to help media outlets. They had one ad on March 27. The second ad was on April 11. That is two ads in the Winnipeg Free Press in the last eight weeks. Is this the kind of money you're attempting to dole out to help media: two ads in eight weeks? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have been doing a number of things for our media in Canada over the last few months and will continue to do so. On top of that $30 million ad-buy campaign, we have been investing $50 million in local journalism. Just this year, it means that 200 journalists will be hired in areas across the country where journalism is more poorly defined. The federal government has paid part I licence fees of our broadcasters to the CRTC. That means $30 million is staying in the pockets of our broadcasters. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Madam Chair, last week, as the minister would know, 15 community newspapers, including eight in Manitoba and seven in the province of Ontario, closed their doors for good. Is the government currently planning any further measures aimed at assisting community or ethnic media organizations? We understand that many more will close their doors within the next 30 to 60 days. Hon. Steven Guilbeault: We are planning a number of other measures, some of which will be included in the $500 million. I will be announcing the details of that in the coming days. Of the $595 million that the media will receive, we have a tax credit that has now entered into force, and the cheques should be in the mail by the end of the summer. So there are a number of things we've done and a number of things we will be doing in the coming months as well. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Waugh, you may have a short question. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Well, finally, you have the five members associated with that committee to dole out the $595 million. They haven't even met yet. When will they meet? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: I would like to remind my hon. colleague that in order for us to provide tax breaks for the 2019 period, media outlets had to file their tax returns so we could go ahead. This will now be able to proceed, Madam Chair. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We now move on to Mr. Godin. Mr. Godin, you may go ahead. Mr. Jol Godin (PortneufJacques-Cartier, CPC): Thank you, MadamChair. This being the first time I've had the floor during a virtual sitting of Parliament, I'd like to take this opportunity to greet my fellow members, all 259participants. I hope they are taking care of themselves. I'd like to talk about the Prime Minister's appearance on the show Tout le monde en parle. This is what he had to say about his economic recovery plan: We are going to remain focused on the economy as a wholeinnovationresearch and science, the green economy and a fairer economyThere are things we are all reflecting on right now that reflection is going to continue. That was a weak answer. It didn't inspire much confidence. Can the government assure Canadians that it is being proactive and working on a plan to get the economy moving again? It must act now. Things are starting to reopen gradually. Is the government going to take concrete action to revive the economy? Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Yes, absolutely. Our government is wholly committed to restarting the economy, and we are working closely with the provinces to do just that. Last week, our government, together with the provincial and territorial premiers, released the principles that will guide efforts to restore economic activity across the country. That is key. The discussion between the Prime Minister and the premiers is continuing today. Mr. Jol Godin: MadamChair, before we go any further, since it took a while for the minister, or the government, to answer the question, can I have that time back to ask questions? The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I stopped the clock, Mr. Godin. Mr. Jol Godin: Thank you. The Prime Minister's answer during his appearance on Tout le monde en parle didn't inspire much confidence and doesn't line up with the Deputy Prime Minister's comments. How can the government be proud of announcing $252million in assistance for the agri-food sector, when that is less than 1% of all the program funding the government has committed to help Canadians get through the COVID-19 crisis? Clearly, the government doesn't see the food supply chain as a priority and has no regard for farmers and pork and beef producers. Does the government realize that eating is vital to Canadians? When is the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food going to adjust the program and show respect for Canadian farmers? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: I have the utmost respect for farmers. We are going step by step. We've already confirmed various supports for the agricultural sector. This week, we focused on beef and pork producers and processors, as well as sectors with product surpluses that can be redirected to food banks. I can assure my fellow member that this is an additional step and that more supports are on the way in the weeks ahead. Bear in mind that a number of programs are already available to farmers. Mr. Jol Godin: I'd like to switch topics now. PortneufJacques-Cartier is home to a company that is already licensed by Health Canada and that, for 20years, has been manufacturing medical equipment including masks, face shields and thermometers. This is equipment our health workers need. The company has a licence from the federal government. In mid-March, Health Canada reached out to the company to find out how much equipment it could manufacture to help fight COVID-19. The company confirmed that it could immediately start producing 200,000masks a week, ramping up to a million masks over the next few weeks. Forty-five days later, it is still waiting on its first order from the Canadian government. We are managing a crisis with a limited supply of medical equipment. Can the health minister tell us why, 45days later, this company licensed by Health Canada hasn't received an order? Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Thank you for the question. Industry and suppliers have enthusiastically answered our call to equip Canada with products and goods during the crisis. Many of those suppliers have already received contracts. We have reached out to all the others and will negotiate contracts as needed. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I would now like to invite hon. member Jenica Atwin to speak. Mrs. Jenica Atwin (Fredericton, GP): Thank you, Madam Chair. Seniors living alone are most at risk of economic insecurity, particularly single senior women, as gender inequality in the job market has translated all too often into inadequate retirement income. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a poverty reduction plan that addresses the unique challenges faced by older women? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to assure the member that we are quite aware that this pandemic has typically affected single seniors, and many of those, given that they live longer, are single senior women. I want to assure her that we are working on this issue, and we have provided some supports already through measures such as the GST supplementary payment. That is on average almost $400 for single seniors. There's more work to do. We know that, so stay tuned. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, older women represent a high proportion of residents in long-term care facilities. Having spent their lives caring for parents, children and often their partners, they find themselves needing care in nursing homes. Multiple outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care homes in Canada have highlighted systemic gaps that senior and elderly women may face in such facilities, as well as the working conditions of the female-dominated ranks of nurses and personal support workers. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a federal strategy for long-term care homes that recognizes quality of life for residents and working conditions for the employees, ideally one that goes hand in hand with a poverty reduction plan and enhanced home and community care investments across the country? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I do want to thank the hon. member for her question. It's an important one. We are obviously deeply saddened by the outbreaks that have been going on in long-term care facilities and those who have lost their lives. We do recognize that the administration of long-term care and palliative care is the responsibility of provinces and territories; however, we have been taking a team Canada approach, and as you already know, we've been doing tremendous work with them to try to ensure that those who live in those facilities can be well cared for and safe. We are doing that with guidelines The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms. Atwin has the floor. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, from May 4 to May 10, we are observing Mental Health Week. We know that our essential workers right now are experiencing unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety, on top of putting their own physical safety and health on the line. Most of these workers work in precarious jobs with no access to paid sick leave or vacation, and without any benefits to access mental health services. Apart from the very welcome investments in online resources, can the minister explain how the government will support these workers now and once the crisis is behind us? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, thank you very much to the member for the question. I'm so glad that she's raising the issue of mental health and in particular how poor mental health is oftentimes connected to our socio-economic status. I appreciate the nuance in that question. She's right. We do have new resources that are available to all Canadians free of charge through the Wellness Together portal, but there is more to do. I think the announcement of top-up wages, for example, which the Prime Minister spoke about today, is another example of how we're taking the health and wellness of all low-income Canadians very seriously. We know that mental health is not divorced from socio-economic status, and I look forward to working with her more on other measures that we can take together. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, we're all very aware of the importance of temporary foreign workers and their role in ensuring our food sovereignty across this country. The pandemic has highlighted how we depend on their work. How are we protecting them? Madam Chair, will the government take action to strengthen legislation and ensure Canadians have access to the food they need while the workers who help bring it to our tables have safe working conditions, regardless of where they are working in this country? Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Thank you, Madam Chair. We are very concerned, as are countries around the world, that we support and create the environment for the health and safety of our temporary foreign workers and we value their contribution to our food supply chain here in Canada. We have issued guidelines to employers and are working very closely with local public health authorities in the provinces and territories to make sure workers are protected, that physical distancing and other recommendations are adhered to and that there are severe consequences if employers don't take care of their workers. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We are now going to Mr. MacGregor. Mr. Alistair MacGregor (CowichanMalahatLangford, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. My first question is this: Will the Liberal government prevent federal bailout funds from going to companies that use tax havens and avoid paying their fair share here in Canada, yes or no? Hon. Diane Lebouthillier (Minister of National Revenue): We are working to make sure that anyone who tries to circumvent the rules faces serious consequences. We are asking businesses to designate a representative to attest their claims. Any employer receiving the subsidy who is deemed ineligible will have to repay the full amount. Anyone who abuses the program could face fines of up to 225% of the subsidy amount as well as five years in prison. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, I didn't really hear a yes to that question, so I'll repeat it. Does the government really think it's appropriate for tax-avoiding corporations to receive funding provided for by taxpayers? Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: We will keep going after companies that engage in tax evasion. I want to be clear. We will target those who are responsible, not innocent workers. An employee is an employee, regardless of who they work for. The wage subsidy program does not hand a blank cheque over to employers. It is meant to help Canadians pay their bills, keep their jobs and get through the crisis. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, the agriculture funding announced by the government earlier this week amounts to less than 10% of what the Canadian Federation of Agriculture estimates will be required to help farmers weather this crisis. Why has the Minister of Agriculture shortchanged our farmers? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, this is one more step. This was one more step. We have already committed significant support to our farmers through different programs, and we will do more. I have to remind my colleague that we have put in $5 billion through FCC, $50 million for the temporary foreign workers, two times $50 million for pork and beef producers this week, and $77 million for food processing. This is only the beginning, and we should not forget that the business risk management programs are still there to offer support. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Yes, Madam Chair, but we're nearly two months into this pandemic and this announcement only came this week. Farmers need certainty. When can farmers expect further updates on funding, and how much will the government be providing? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, we are working closely with the farmers and their representatives to identify where the gaps are, but once again, we have made improvements to the AgriStability program. They can get, depending on the province, either 50% or 75% in advance payments, and they can also, right now, access their AgriInvest program. There is more than $2 billion ready to access today, if they have The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. MacGregor. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, federal disability recipients and seniors on fixed incomes have been hardest hit by cost of living increases from COVID-19. If we acknowledge that $2,000 per month is the minimum needed to get through this time, why are they being asked to survive on far less? When can they expect assistance, and how much will they receive? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to make sure people realize that we have provided some assistance through the GST supplementary benefit. We are also providing support to those who are still working, and we have done that by allowing them to access the CERB. There is more work to be done, so you'll be hearing more in the near future. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, as I think we've heard through today's question period, there are countless example of this government designing programs to exclude many small businesses that desperately need help. Whether it's the payroll requirements or other eligibility, we still, to this day, almost two months into the pandemic, have too many small businesses falling through the cracks. Madam Chair, why has the government taken this approach and when can we finally expect fixes to the whole system? Hon. Mary Ng: Madam Chair, right from the get-go, we have been committed to making sure that Canadians are helped through this crisis, and that small businesses get the support that they need, so that we are saving businesses and jobs in this country. That is what we have done with many of our programs. You're seeing that we are also listening, so that we can modify them as we need. I want to assure the member that the work is not done. We continue to do this. The Chair: Thank you. It is now over to Mr. Perron. Mr. Perron, you may go ahead. Mr. Yves Perron (BerthierMaskinong, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question will come as no surprise, since it has to do with agriculture. I hear the questions my fellow members are asking, and to be frank, I don't find the answers satisfactory. It is well and good to talk about existing programs, but they aren't working, so enough with that refrain. That's what people are telling us. It's not just members of the opposition saying it. This morning, both farmers and processors came together for a press conference at the Union des producteurs agricoles's head office in Longueuil. Six stakeholders from different sectors sounded the alarm. Can the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food therefore tell us when she will announce significant supports for the industry? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We have already announced significant amounts of support, and more is on the way. I'd like to correct my fellow member. It's not that the programs aren't working; it's that they aren't generous enough in farmers'eyes. That's why I'm working with my provincial counterparts to make improvements to programming, including AgriStability. Here's an example. After using the online AgriStability benefit estimator, a pork producer found out that he would get $11 per head, as they say in the industry. Pork producers are calling for $20 per head, so it's a good start, even though it's not enough and it isn't what they are asking for. We want to keep working together, but farmers have to access the money available to them through AgriStability. Mr. Yves Perron: Now it's my turn to correct the minister. Even before the crisis, we were hearing from people in the industry that the programs were neither suitable nor sufficient. We are in a crisis, and this is an exceptional situation. In the case of mad cow disease, farmers received direct assistance. That's the kind of assistance we are calling for. We don't want to hear about growing levels of debt. Of course, this is a first step, but farms are already deep in debt. A few days ago, the government announced $50million in funding for pork producers, even though they are asking for $20per hog for 27million hogs. The government's support covers just 2. 5million hogs. When I call the measure insufficient, I mean it is grossly insufficient. It's high time the government put forth more support. It has to stop saying that it's working hard and examining the situation. The government has to listen to the people in the industry. Again, this morning, they had some interesting proposals. When is the government going to announce a whole lot more in funding support? What's been announced so far is only 10% of what farmers are asking for. Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We are going step by step. The programs are already in place. We are trying to make them better, and we are committed to doing that. These programs are cost-shared with the provinces. However, I would point out to the member that, when it comes to AgriRecovery, we made an exception to the rule. We are moving forward in every province to help pork and beef producers. That's two funding envelopes of $50million each to help cover the additional costs from the decrease in plant processing capacity. That's new money that was not yet available, money we introduced this week. As the Prime Minister said, we are going to do more, and we are moving forward step by step. Mr. Yves Perron: What we concluded in committee this week is that the $125million is not new money. It was already earmarked for the programs. The government can't say that programs already exist and, at the same time, claim that they are new programs. Something doesn't add up there. What's more, there are different ways to make money available. I'd like to talk compensation. Everyone knows that the Canada-U. S. -Mexico Agreement came into force a month earlier than planned, despite the promises that had been made. That resulted in additional losses, once again. An easy way to make money available without committing new spending is to provide compensation and announce programs for supply-managed sectors that got nothing. It seems to me that a time of crisis is a time for the government to practise some judo and announce measures. I am reaching out to the government, as I always do, but it has to come forward with announcements. Can we expect the government to announce measures in the coming days? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Our commitment to farmers in supply-managed sectorsmeaning, egg, poultry and dairy farmersis as strong as it always was. I repeat, our commitment is clear. Dairy producers received their first payment at the end of last year or the beginning of this year. Support for poultry and egg farmers is in the form of investment programs, which aligns well with the recovery. At this time, we are focusing on emergency programs to help farmers hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. When it comes to the dairy sector, I hope I can count on your support. As you know, legislative changes are needed to grant the Canadian Dairy Commission's request and increase its borrowing limit by $200million so it can buy more butter and cheese. The Chair: Our next question will go to Mr. Lake. Hon. Mike Lake (EdmontonWetaskiwin, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we're all inundated, as we've heard during this entire question period, with Canadians'concerns about the economic restrictions and the social restrictions that they're under. Over the last couple of months, the WHO has given one very consistent message in terms of coming out of those economic and social restrictions. On March 16, Dr. Tedros said in his briefing, We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test. On March 25,44 days ago, he said, Aggressive measures to find, isolate, test, treat and trace are not only the best and fastest way out of extreme social and economic restrictionstheyre also the best way to prevent them. Does the minister agree with the WHO that relentless testing and tracing are critical to a successful economic and social relaunch strategy in Canada? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thanks to the member for the very astute observation and question. Absolutely, we agree that testing and contact tracing will form an important part of our response to living with COVID. We've been investing heavily in ensuring that we have the lab capacity, the collaboration across provinces and territories, and the variety of testing options to help us increase our capacity to test. We are aiming right now for a high volume of tests, but I will also say that in Canada we have one of the highest testing rates in the world. Although we're doing well, I can assure him that I am with him and I believe we need to do more. Hon. Mike Lake: I have some really quick questions for follow-up. First, what is Canada's current testing capability? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as I mentioned to his colleagues yesterday, we have currently the capacity to do approximately 60,000 tests per day across the country. Hon. Mike Lake: How many tests were conducted each day on average in Canada last week? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, it's hard for me to get that exact number, but I will get back to him with the exact number. Hon. Mike Lake: I'll save you the time. The exact number was 28,851, on average, every day last week. That's a gap of 30,000 from what your stated testing capability is. I'll give another quote from Dr. Tam, back on April 22,15 days ago. She said, As a first tranche, roughly close to 60,000 is where the provinces can potentially expand to as a target already. Does the minister happen to know, ballpark, what the average number of daily tests in Canada has been since that statement? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Your estimate was slightly higher than what my estimate was going to be, so that's a great piece of news. Listen, I will just say that I think if the premise here is that we could be doing more testing. I would agree, but I will also say that the provinces and territories are working incredibly hard on testing strategies that meet their own specific needs. I'm happy to have a conversation with the member later about that testing strategy. Dr. Tam works with all the chief public health officers across the country to ensure that their testing strategy is going to be applicable and appropriate for their particular jurisdictions. We, as the federal government, provide the capacity for them to conduct those tests. Hon. Mike Lake: Following up on that, is there a jurisdiction in Canada where relentless testing is not the appropriate strategy as provinces consider relaunching? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Each province and territory has its own outbreak and its own epidemic. For example, in British Columbia, where there are relatively fewer cases in general and less disease activity, they may have a different testing strategy than a province like Ontario, which is currently struggling with more outbreaks. Hon. Mike Lake: Given your comment that our current testing capability is 60,000, and acknowledging that only at one point in the entire history of our COVID response, over several months, has our weekly average been over 30,000it was about 31,000 for one day on a rolling basisMinister, are you satisfied with our current testing amounts right now, given that we're testing 50% of what the public health officer advises would be best? Hon. Patty Hajdu: I'm so amazed by the work the provinces and territories have done in a very short time to increase their capacity. We are supporting them with the tools that they need to get more testing done, but also to have other components in place that will allow them to do the rapid tracing of positive cases. I think it's very important to remember that testing strategies will be different across the provinces, based on the outbreak disease epidemiology. Having said that, I know that we can all do better, and I'm certain that my counterparts feel the same. The Chair: I'm going to have to cut the minister off at that one. I want to thank everyone for the session today, I think it went rather well. I'm very proud of you and proud of ourselves for what we managed to accomplish. The committee stands adjourned until Tuesday, May 12, at noon.

On April 17, the Minister of Canadian Heritage announced funding of $500 million to assist Canada's arts, sports and cultural sectors. Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Canadian Heritage) suggested that the department would be releasing the details of that announcement, and how the money was going to be spent in the coming days.

tr-sq-639

tr-sq-639_0

What did the meeting discuss about the various supports for the agricultural sector? The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.) ): We'll call this meeting to order. Welcome to the fifth meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. Pursuant to the order passed on Monday, April20, the committee is meeting today to consider ministerial announcements, to allow members of the committee to present petitions, and to question ministers, including the Prime Minister, about the COVID-19 pandemic. Tomorrow, May8, Dr. AndreaMcCrady, Dominion Carillonneur, will give a special recital to mark the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day. Victory in Europe Day, VE Day, commemorates the formal acceptance of Germany's surrender by allied forces at the end of the Second World War. While the pandemic prevents us from gathering to celebrate in person, tomorrow at noon the voice of our nation will ring out in remembrance of this milestone in our history. Today's meeting is taking place by video conference. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. Just so you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entire committee. I would like to remind members that, as in the House of Commons or committee, they should not take photos of their colleagues or film the proceedings. In order to facilitate the work of the interpreters and to allow the meeting to proceed smoothly, I would ask you to follow some instructions. The video conference will be interpreted as in normal meetings of committees and in the House. In the lower part of your screen, you can choose the language: floor, English or French. Please wait until I call on you by name before you begin to speak. When you are ready to speak, click on the microphone icon to activate your microphone, or hold the space bar down while you are speaking. If you release the bar, your microphone will revert to mute, just like a walkie-talkie. Honourable members, I would like to remind you that if you want to speak English, you should be on the English channel. If you want to speak French, you should be on the French channel. Should you wish to alternate between the two languages, you should change the channel to the language that you are speaking each time you switch languages. Please direct your remarks through the chair. Should you need to request the floor outside of your designated speaking time, you should activate your mike and state that you have a point of order. If a member of the committee wishes to intervene on a point of order raised by another person, you should use the raised hand function to indicate to the chair that you wish to speak. To do this, click on the participant button at the bottom of your screen. When the list appears, you will see the raised hand option beside your name. Speak slowly and clearly at all times. When you are not speaking, leave your microphone on mute. It is highly recommended that you use a headset with a microphone. You have to remember to switch languages. Should any technical challenges arise, for example, in relation to interpretation, please advise the chair immediately by raising a point of order, and the technical team will work on resolving them. Please note that we may need to suspend during these times in order to correct a problem. I want to remind the honourable members to mute their microphones when they are not speaking. If you get accidentally disconnected, please try to rejoin the meeting with the information you used to join initially. If you are unable to rejoin, please contact our technical support team. Before we get started, please note that in the top right-hand corner of your screen is a button that you can use to change views. Speaker view allows you to focus on the person currently speaking; gallery view allows you to see a larger number of participants. You can click through the multiple pages in the gallery view to see who is on and how many more participants there are. I understand there are no ministerial announcements today. We will now proceed to presenting petitions for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during the meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. In addition, to ensure a petition is considered properly presented, the certificate of the petition and each page of the petition for a petition certified in a previous Parliament should be mailed to the committee no later than 6 p. m. the day before. Now we'll go to presenting petitions. Mr. Genuis. Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Mr. Chair, five years ago when Parliament passed Bill C-14, then justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said that it represented a finely tuned balance between access and safeguards. It also included a five-year review. Petitioners on the first petition I'm presenting are very concerned to see Bill C-7 before Parliament, which removes safeguards ahead of that five-year review. Petitioners specifically mention their concerns about the removal of the mandatory 10-day reflection period, which can already be waived in certain circumstances. They are concerned about reducing the number of witnesses required to oversee it and ensure that a request has been properly made. I commend that petition to the consideration of the House. The second and final petition that I will be presenting today is with respect to Senate Bill S-204. This would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ from a person who did not consent. This responds specifically to concerns about organ harvesting in the People's Republic of China involving Falun Gong practitioners and increasing concerns that this is being or about to be applied to Uighurs as well. Canada can and should take action on this. Petitioners are noting that in the previous Parliament there were bills on this, Bill C-350 and Bill S-240. Now, in this Parliament there is a bill, Bill S-204, and the petitioners hope that this 43rd Parliament will be the one that gets it passed. The Chair: We will go to Ms. May. Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's an honour. This is my first occasion to present a petition in our virtual format of the COVID-19 committee. Thank you to you and your staff, Mr. Chair, for developing a system that allows us to present petitions electronically. The petition I am presenting today, which was previously approved, is from a number of constituents who are concerned that we pursue the Paris Agreement to hold the global average temperature increase to no more than 1. 5C. The Paris Agreement itself embeds in it the concept of Just Transition with a capital J and a capital T, the concept of just transition ensuring fairness and support for all workers in the fossil fuel sector. The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to move forward with an act to ensure just transition and to ensure adequate funding so that workers and communities dependent on the fossil fuel sector receive meaningful support to ensure security in their lives in the transition to more sustainable energy use. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Chair: Those are all the petitions for today. I want to thank the honourable members for their usual collaboration and now we'll go on to Mr. James Bezan (SelkirkInterlakeEastman, CPC): On a point of order, Mr. Chair, on Tuesday, at our COVID-19 committee of the whole meeting, I was asking a question which started at 12: 56: 06 and was cut off at 1: 00: 32, so I still have 34 seconds of time remaining in my question time of five minutes. You said it could be no more than five minutes but that I had up to five minutes. Thirty-four seconds leaves a lot of time to have a quick question and a quick response. If you believe that my time was unjustly cut off and that it was unfair treatment of the official opposition when we were raising our points of order, I would ask that the 34 seconds be tacked on to the opening round for the opposition and credited to Rosemarie Falk, who will be leading off for the Conservatives. The Chair: Normally what happens is the chair uses judgment, and with 35 seconds, there isn't enough time obviously for a full question or answer, most of the time. I'll take it under advisement. I can't allot it. I want everyone to know that I do have a timer next to me and I am timing the questions, and I will be treating the answers the same way. If it's a 25-second question, it will be a 25-second answer. Thank you for bringing that up. I believe that issue has been remedied. We've taken a little bit of the chair's ability to give judgment on it, but it will be from now on. Thank you. Mr. James Bezan: Mr. Chair, 34 seconds is a considerable amount of time to do a short question and a short answer. The Chair: I appreciate the advice. Thank you, Mr. Bezan. We'll now proceed to the questioning of ministers. I would like to remind the honourable members that no member will be recognized for more than five minutes at a time and that members may split their time with one or more members by so indicating to the chair. Ministers responding to the questions should do so by simply turning on their microphone and speaking. Our first questioner is Ms. Falk. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk (BattlefordsLloydminster, CPC): Mr. Chair, yesterday, Elizabeth May and the leader of the separatists declared oil to be dead. It's certainly not dead, but it's dying under the Trudeau government. Will the Prime Minister stand up for Canada's energy workers, or does he agree with the fringe left and those who want to destroy our country? Ms. Elizabeth May: I have a point of order. The Chair: Go ahead, Ms. May. Ms. Elizabeth May: Mr. Chair, I believe that the language that the honourable member just used is unparliamentary Mr. Garnett Genuis: That's not a point of order. Ms. Elizabeth May: We can have differences of opinion, but it is absolutely Some hon. members: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: unacceptable and violates my privileges to An hon member: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: No, it's not debate. I would ask the chair to rule on that, not the member from the Conservative Party. It is unacceptable to assert that anyone who wants to make a point about our economy is trying to destroy the country. This allegation is a violation of my privilege. An hon. member: She was also named by the The Chair: Order. I didn't recognize anyone. I don't know who is speaking, so I'll just start talking myself. I want to remind honourable members to have respect in their questions and in their answers. When you refer to someone, please refer to them respectfully. This is a committee of the House, and I would expect no less of the honourable members. We'll go to the right honourable Prime Minister. You have 16 seconds. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. As I pointed out this morning in my press conference, we cannot move forward on a transformation of our energy sector without supporting the workers in that energy sector. We need their innovation and we need their hard work if we are going to lower our emissions, if we are going to reach our The Chair: We'll go to Ms. Falk again. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, it has been 43 days since the finance minister promised Canada's energy sector liquidity through the Business Development Bank of Canada. For 43 days the finance minister has failed to deliver on that promise. These delays cost jobs and they are costing us Canadian businesses. If the government doesn't step up to support our energy sector, they are in effect doubling down on their support for foreign, unethically sourced oil. Mr. Chair, when will the credit options be available to Canada's small and medium energy firms? The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that we do have interpreters who are listening and translating. In consideration to them, please speak at a reasonable pace so that they can understand and then translate. The right honourable Prime Minister. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, our priority through this pandemic and this crisis has been to support workers across the country. We have sent billions of dollars to workers right across the country, including Alberta, Saskatchewan, B. C. , and Newfoundland and Labrador in the energy sector for them to be able to support their families through this difficult time. We are also working on sectoral supports right across the country. Those will be announced in due course. Our focus from the get-go has been The Chair: We'll move to Ms. Falk. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, another group that has been ignored by the Liberals is our farmers. The announcements to date fall well short of what is needed to maintain a steady supply of affordable and healthy food. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture has asked the government for a $2. 6-billion emergency fund. Instead of responding to specific COVID-19 challenges, our farmers are facing the Liberals'reannounced $125 million that was already budgeted in the AgriRecovery program. Will the Prime Minister finally step up and take our food supply chain seriously, or is agriculture just an afterthought for him? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: On the contrary, Mr. Chair, we take agriculture and our agricultural sector extremely seriously, which is why we announced hundreds of millions of dollars a couple of days ago to respond to pressing needs. We will continue to make investments to ensure both the safety of workers in our agricultural sector and the safety of our communities, as well as the continued flow of high-quality Canadian food onto our tables right across the country. Supporting the people who produce our food is a priority for this government and will continue to be. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Well, Mr. Chair, recycled program announcements do not respond to the immediate needs facing our farmers. This is absolutely unacceptable. Our farmers are faced with rising operational costs, a disrupted service industry, labour shortages and a reduced capacity at processing plants. The government has a responsibility to take domestic food security seriously. When will the Prime Minister deliver adequate support to address the critical changes facing our ag industry? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I would suggest respectfully that the honourable member take a look once again at the announcement we made, which actually highlights significant new investments to support our agricultural industry. I certainly agree that there is more to do. Every step of the way in this unprecedented situation, we've been moving forward on doing more, on adjusting and on investing more. We need to support our agricultural sector and the people who work so hard to put food on Canadians'tables right across the country and we will continue to. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, Canadians expect to find healthy and affordable food at their grocery stores, but if the government does not take action now, that's not a given. Our farmers are trying to keep Canadians fed while keeping their heads above water. The Liberal government's own failed federal carbon tax is weighing them down. It is an enormous hit to their bottom line, and the recent carbon tax hike is taking even more money out of the pockets of farmers at a time when they can afford it the least. Will the Prime Minister exempt all farm operations from the carbon tax and reimburse the money that they have already taken from them? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, it's a shame to hear the member opposite accidentallyunintentionally, I'm certainmislead the House and Canadians. The price on pollution actually puts more money into Canadians'pockets, and that includes farm families. People who pay the cost of the price on pollution on average receive more money back. This is the way of creating a better future for our kids and grandkids, which I know people in communities right across the country, including our farm communities, want to see happen. We are moving forward in a responsible way to put a price on pollution and put more money in average Canadians'pockets. The Chair: We now continue with Mrs. Gill. Mrs. Gill, you have the floor. Mrs. Marilne Gill (Manicouagan, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. As you know, all sectors of the economy are fragile at the moment, specifically the fisheries. I am thinking about the lobster fishery in the Magdalen Islands, the crab fishery on the Cte-Nord or those fishing for herring in the south of the Gasp. Because imports have ceased, because the domestic market is weak and in decline because of the interruption of the tourism and restaurant industries, the fishing industry and its fishers must be supported. I would like to know what the government has done to support our fishers since the crisis began. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Our fishers do exceptional work that is extremely important in feeding Canadians and in contributing to our economic success through their exports around the world. This crisis has struck them very hard. That is why we have established measures in the tens of millions of dollars to support our processors. We have also announced help for the fishers. We know that these are difficult and unprecedented times, and we are going to Mrs. Marilne Gill: My thanks to the Prime Minister. I am actually talking about help for the fishers. I know about the processing industry and the $62. 5million to be used essentially for freezing products, but I am talking about the fishers themselves. Given the economic situation, most of our fishers are getting ready to leave. First, there are health risks. We know very well that it is impossible for them to observe all the social distancing measures. They have to incur additional expenses in order to conduct their normal fishing activities. In addition, they feel that they will be losing money, because of the drop in the price of their resource. They are just as essential as farmers, but they are going to have to work at a loss and they are not going to have workers to assist them. Workers in the seasonal industry do not know what tomorrow will bring. They do not even know whether they will be able to put food on the table next year. Are you going to do anything else, in addition to the assistance of $62. 5million? Time is of the essence. Our fishers have lacked certainty for weeks and they are very concerned. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Yes, indeed, we are going to do other things. Other investments will be made in various sectors in order to support Canadians. We recognize the challenges that fishers must face in terms of social distancing and of work that is often seasonal. We are going to continue working with the industry, with the fishers, and with the coastal communities in order to ensure that people have confidence in their abilities and in their future. In times of crisis, it is important for the government to be there to support people, and that is exactly what we are going to continue to do. This is an unprecedented crisis, but we can see once more that Canadians are there for each other. Our government will continue to be there for the fishers and the fishing industry. Mrs. Marilne Gill: I would have preferred us to be there from the start. Clearly, this is a difficult crisis. But, given the cyclical nature of the industry, some sectors have had to postpone for several weeks the preparations they need for fishing activities. The current program could be modified in a number of ways, to accommodate the cycle, the dates, and the size of the companies. They would really like to take advantage of the $40,000loan, but they cannot because of their payroll. Given the dates, they are also ineligible for the 75%salary subsidy. I can already suggest a number of solutions to the government and to the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, that would bring help to those businesses very quickly. The fishers carry on, because it is a duty for them, because they want to help us and to be part of the effort at this time of crisis. At the same time, they have no guarantee that they will be supported. I would really like to hear a guarantee that they will be supported, that they will be able to put food on the table this year, and that they will be able to support the communities that often depend on the fishing industry, a major industry in those communities. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Minister Jordan has been working with the fishers, the fishing industry and the communities affected by the crisis since the crisis began. We are assessing a number of solutions. We have proposed various solutions to support the communities, the workers and the families. This is an unprecedented situation. From the outset, our priority has been to support the millions of Canadians from coast to coast who have lost their jobs. We have been able to do so, but we are going to continue to work for those who must now face difficulties. We are going to be there for each other. That is what people are expecting from our government and from other Canadians. The Chair: Before we move to the next question, I would like to remind members of the committee to speak slowly, and to address their remarks to the chair and not directly to each other. Thank you very much. We will now go to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach (SkeenaBulkley Valley, NDP): Mr. Chair, municipalities across Canada are facing a financial crisis. They've seen revenues plummet, and at the same time the cost of delivering municipal services has risen. As the Prime Minister knows, municipalities are unable to run deficits and so they are facing the reality of cutbacks and serious cuts to the services that Canadians depend on. We know that municipalities are vital during this time to provide services to Canadians. They're going to be even more important during the recovery, especially when it comes to delivering on the infrastructure programs before us. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities and mayors across Canada have called for emergency financial relief for the municipal sector. My question for the Prime Minister is, when can they expect federal financial support to arrive? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, no government in Canada's history has done more to work with our municipalities, with our cities, with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to respond to the challenges they're facing and to partner with them. Things from infrastructure to investments have made a huge difference right across the country in the quality of life of Canadians in towns, large and small, from coast to coast to coast. As I'm sure the member well knows, our Constitution requires that most of the funding for municipalities flow through the provinces. We are working with the provinces, as we continue to work with the cities, to ensure that we're able to support this order of government that delivers the vast majority of services to Canadians with very little financial means. We know how difficult it is for our cities. We will continue The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, it would seem that the federal government has the fiscal capacity and the responsibility to help municipalities weather this crisis. Transit systems have been hit particularly hard and have seen the bulk of the layoffs in the municipal sector. These transit services carry essential workers to work, whether they are health care workers, grocery store workers, janitors or others. The risk is that we will see higher fares to deal with this financial crisis. We will see service cutbacks precisely at a time when we want to be expanding transit and improving transit in our communities. Does the Prime Minister acknowledge that the federal government needs to step in to safeguard and protect Canada's transit services? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, this federal government recognizes how important it is to support all Canadians, which is why we put forward unprecedented measures to help millions upon millions of Canadians with the CERB and with the wage subsidy. We will continue to work with the provinces, which have jurisdiction over the municipalities. I'll be having a conversation with all other first ministers tonight to talk about a broad range of issues. I can highlight that the issue of transit funding has come up. We have continued to engage with them, but again, it is important to respect the Constitution and understand that funding for municipalities and cities does go through the provinces. The federal government is happy to be there to support, but it must be The Chair: We will go to Mr. Bachrach again. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I am wondering how the Prime Minister could explain to a bus driver in Vancouver who has been laid off that as a public sector worker, she can't access the federal wage subsidy, while an equivalent worker in the airline industry gets to keep her job with the federal help of that program. Could the Prime Minister explain how that is fair? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I'm happy to explain to the member and to all Canadians that our Constitution creates federal areas of jurisdiction and provincial areas of jurisdiction. The airline industry, like banking, like telecommunications, is a federal area of jurisdiction that we have been able to move forward on. More than that, we brought the Canada emergency response benefit and the wage subsidy to all industries across this country, because we knew that as the federal government, it was something that we needed to step up on The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I'd like to shift gears a little bit. Faced with minimal health care capacity, remote indigenous communities in my riding are taking matters into their own hands. The Nuxalk have put up a checkpoint on Highway 20 to protect community members and prevent non-essential travel. In particular, it is to protect the three remaining fluent speakers of the Nuxalk language, these cherished elders in their community. The Haida on Haida Gwaii have set up a similar checkpoint, as have communities throughout British Columbia, yet federal support for indigenous communities amounts to only $39 million for all of the indigenous communities in B. C. Does the Prime Minister not agree that more support is warranted to help indigenous communities in my riding and across the country? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, we made funds available to Canadians right across the country, particularly people in indigenous remote or northern communities who we knew would be facing more difficult challenges because of the existing vulnerabilities in their health care system and socio-economic circumstances. We have made unprecedented investments and we will continue to make the necessary investments, because we need to make sure that indigenous Canadians, and indeed all Canadians, have the supports they need to make it through this crisis. The Chair: We will continue with Mr. Berthold. Mr. Berthold, you have the floor. Mr. Luc Berthold (MganticL'rable, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I am going to keep talking about the area of jurisdiction that the Prime Minister likes to talk about, except that I want to point out the incompetence of the Liberals in keeping their commitments on infrastructure projects. My question is very simple. As the provinces gradually restart their economies, can the Prime Minister tell us how many projects that the provinces have submitted are waiting for approval from his government? Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, I hope that the length of the pause will not be taken out of my time. The Chair: No, I stopped the clock for your time. Ms. McKenna, you have the floor. Hon. Catherine McKenna (Minister of Infrastructure and Communities): I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, I was on mute. I'm very pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. I have spoken with all of my provincial and territorial counterparts over the last couple of weeks. Work on our historic infrastructure program is progressing well. My department has worked very hard to approve projects, and we will continue to do so. It is very important to build projects that will create good jobs The Chair: We are returning to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: We still haven't had a response. How many projects are currently awaiting government approval? I know that the minister has been meeting virtually with the provinces over the last few days. However, there are still hundreds of projects waiting for approval from the Liberal government. Rather than wait for the right political opportunity to approve these files, will the minister commit today to respecting the provinces and approving by next week all the projects that are sitting on her desk? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I'm pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. We are approving projects. If the hon. member speaks to the provinces and territories, he will see how well we are working together. We will announce the approval of projects because it's very important for our economy, our communities and creating good jobs. Mr. Luc Berthold: Does the minister understand that she hasn't told us how many projects are still pending? The construction season is very short. Approval of a project in July means that work can't begin until next year, which won't help revive our economy. Hon. Catherine McKenna: I want to make it clear that we have approved hundreds of projects in the last few weeks. We will work with the provinces, territories, municipalities and indigenous communities to implement these projects. These projects are important for the economy and the environment, as well as for jobs The Chair: We return now to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, while the minister is calling for a green recovery of the country's economy, public transit is at risk. Physical distancing measures will cause public transit use to drop for several months. The Union des municipalits du Qubec estimates that the monthly losses are between $75million and $100million. Other countries have included public transit in pandemic relief programs. Why isn't Canada? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, we recognize the importance of public transit for our economy, since some essential workers use public transit. We are working very closely with our counterparts and are listening to the municipalities. As the Prime Minister said, it's the provinces that must help because the money The Chair: We return now to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, once again, what we're hearing is that the government is passing the buck to the provinces. Unfortunately, the minister was unable to answer a single question about the number of infrastructure projects still on the federal government's desk, which is very important. Several large municipalities are waiting for the approval of projects. Moreover, public transit systems are facing an extremely serious financial crisis. Ridership in most systems is down 85%to90%. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is asking for help for small communities, as well as large municipalities. Why is the federal government ignoring the municipalities in the Canadian Federation of Municipalities at this time? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I can reassure the hon. member that we are working very closely with the municipalities. We are listening to the municipalities to find out what their issues are and how we can support them. Of course, we need the help of the provinces and territories. In terms of the number of projects that we've approved, I would be happy to inform the hon. member of the exact number of all the approved projects that my department has been working very hard on over the past few months to approve projects to go forward. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, do I have any time left? The Chair: No, your time is up. We'll now go on to Mr. Fast. Hon. Ed Fast (Abbotsford, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. This question is directed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. On March 28, the minister personally tweeted out a thank you to the People's Republic of China for donating PPE to Canada. This tweet happened within three hours of China's announcement of that gift. As it turned out, much of the PPE was defective and could not be used. More recently, Taiwan donated half a million surgical masks to Canada, yet here we are, two weeks later, and the minister has yet to personally thank Taiwan for its generosity. Will the minister now thank this free and democratic country for its generous gift to Canadians? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne (Minister of Foreign Affairs): Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank my colleague for the question. Indeed, we are very grateful to every nation for helping Canada. This is a global pandemic that knows no borders. We have been expressing our thanks to many nations that have contributed. We will continue to do so. It is important in a time of pandemic, Mr. Chair, that we not play politics and that humanity comes together. I can say, after my COVID foreign ministers call, that the world community has come together to make sure that supply chains will remain intact and that we will have transit hubs and air bridges. We will continue to work with every nation when it comes to health. This is a public good. We want to work together with everyone. The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Fast now. Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, I didn't hear a thank you there, so I'm going to try again. On May 4, the Government of Taiwan delivered 25,000 surgical masks to the Government of British Columbia. On hand were B. C. Minister of Citizens'Services Anne Kang and Minister of State for Child Care Katrina Chen, who, as ministers, officially thanked the Government of Taiwan for its donation. Again, will the minister now do the right thing and, on behalf of Canadians, recognize the generosity of Taiwan and thank its government for that timely donation? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, as I said to you before, Canada is grateful to all who have given supplies to Canada. This is a common endeavour. We are thankful. We are grateful to every nation and we will continue to be. As I said, when it comes to global health, when it comes to helping each other, I think it is a duty for all to come together. We are grateful and thankful for all those who have agreed to help Canada and Canadians from coast to coast to coast in times of need. I've repeated that and have said many times in many forums that we are grateful and thankful to all of those who are helping Canada. Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, again there was no specific thank you to Taiwan. The Government of Taiwan has been the world leader in successfully fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. We have a lot to learn from them and their response. Sadly, the People's Republic of China continues to oppose Taiwan's membership in the World Health Organization. Will the minister now do the right thing and assure Canadians that he will fully support efforts to grant Taiwan membership in the World Health Organization? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the member. As a former trade minister, he's very well aware of Canada's one China policy. That said, we support Taiwan to continue meaningful participation in international multilateral forums, particularly when it comes to health. This is a global good, and we want to support every nation. We recognize that Taiwan and others have been doing very well in fighting this pandemic. We also believe that Taiwan's role as an observer in the World Health Assembly meeting is of interest to the international health community and we have been supportive of that. Hon. Ed Fast: Mr. Chair, I'm going to pivot to repatriation flights. The minister has publicly said that over 20,000 stranded Canadians have been repatriated from abroad. Can he tell us exactly how many Canadians remain abroad who have expressed a desire to be repatriated? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Yes, Mr. Chair, I am very happy to update members. As of today, we have repatriated more than 20,000 Canadians on 232 flights from 87 countries. I would say that this is team Canada, and it knows no parties. Many members have written to me to make sure that we take care. It's not an exact science. We have, as I said, repatriated thousands and thousands. We continue, because we know there are still pockets of Canadian travellers who are stranded abroad. As the Prime Minister and I have said from the beginning, we will make our best effort to repatriate everyone who wants to come back home during the crisis. The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Moore now. Hon. Rob Moore (Fundy Royal, CPC): Mr. Chair, Canadians need to have faith in their justice system, even in a time of crisis. My office has received correspondence from Canadians concerned that trial delays due to COVID-19 may result in criminals walking free. As this government has been working overtime to criminalize law-abiding citizens with new and useless gun laws, will the Minister of Justice ensure that real criminals will not walk free as a result of delays in the justice system? Hon. David Lametti (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada): Mr. Chair, I thank the honourable member for his question. We have been working with my provincial counterparts across Canada, as well as with the various federal courts and also, through my provincial counterparts, with the superior courts and courts of appeal across Canada. Each particular jurisdiction has taken measures to ensure that basic essential services within the court system are maintained, through a variety of means, and we believe that we will be able to solve these various challenges. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, the regional relief and recovery fund was announced weeks ago as a way to help small and medium-sized businesses in rural communities, like those in my riding. In Atlantic Canada, these funds were to be distributed to the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. This is yet another announcement with no details from this Liberal government. Can the minister clarify whether we are days away or weeks away from this support flowing to the businesses that need it so desperately? Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): Mr. Chair, I had the chance to talk with many of the chambers of commerce and business owners throughout Atlantic Canada, and we hear their anxiety. That's why ACOA's doing great work on the ground to make sure we can help them through this very difficult period. The member is right. We have increased the budget of ACOAgood newsand I'll be coming up with the details very soon. It will be a pleasure to collaborate with him to make sure that we can help many businesses and business owners across the Atlantic region. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, my office has heard from many small business owners who have reached out to me. I know many have reached out to many of my colleagues and probably to all of us here today. They are frustrated by the eligibility requirements for some of the federal programs. In particular, they are unable to access the emergency business account, because they do not have a payroll. This could be the hair salon in my riding that subcontracts out its chairs. There are hundreds and thousands of small businesses in this very situation, vital small businesses in our communities, but they do not meet this requirement. These businesses, many of them, are weeks away from shutting down permanently. What does the Minister of Finance have to say to these small businesses that are suffering right now? Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Mr. Chair, I want to thank my honourable colleague for that really important question. I want all the businesses that he is talking about and all of them throughout the country to know that we continue to work very hard to make sure they're supported through this difficult period. More work needs to be done, and we will continue to do that work. We know that businesses are being supported through getting access to the wage subsidy to keep their employees together, and they're getting help, whether it's with rent or to defray costs by deferring GST and HST or customs duty payments. We're going to continue to work with all our businesses across the country. The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Moore for a brief question. You have less than 20 seconds, please. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, it's a very specific issue. There are small businesses, thousands of them, that do not have a payroll. Some have a personal account that they've dealt with over the years rather than a business account, and that makes them ineligible. These businesses need help right now. Hon. Mary Ng: I agree with the honourable member. Those businesses absolutely need support from us. We are going to keep working to ensure they are supported. The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Cumming next. Mr. James Cumming (Edmonton Centre, CPC): Mr. Chair, small businesses are concerned about their ability to survive, and no amount of deferrals, loans or subsidies can substitute for their need to be open and servicing their customers. Can the government confirm that a sectoral risk analysis has taken place to assist the provinces in reopening the economy? Hon. Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry): Mr. Chair, I can assure the member that we've been very clear in terms of our strategy around reopening the economy. We need to make sure that we follow the advice of the experts and the health authorities to do so in a manner that does not compromise the health and well-being of Canadians. We of course will have a sectoral lens, and as you can see by some of the initiatives and the support packages we've put forward The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Cumming now. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, thousands of business owners make a living and utilize dividends as their salary. They also use independent contractors. Can the government confirm that the programs currently in place will be expanded to these hard-working Canadians? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to assure the honourable member that we continue to work with all of our small businesses and I want to thank him for raising this very important issue. I want to assure our Canadian small businesses that we are going to continue to do this work to make sure they are supported. Mr. James Cumming: Can the minister give me a date when she will be able to announce to these businesses that they will be eligible? Hon. Mary Ng: I want to assure our Canadian small businesses of their importance and of the importance of their contributions to all of our communities. I want them to know that we continue to listen and that we will ensure that they are supported and continue to be supported during this difficult time. Mr. James Cumming: Minister, they need more than assurance. Can you give me a date when I can tell these thousands of businesses they will be supported if they pay dividends or if they use contractors within their businesses? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, these businesses are absolutely important and are getting support through a range of means. We will continue to work with these businesses to make sure they are supported through this difficult period. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, I spoke to a Second Cup owner whose landlord is not offering any kind of rent relief. The landlord says that he doesn't have the 25% needed to be eligible for the program because he's already paying for common area costs and deferrals on utilities, which he will have to pay on his mortgage. Will the government reform the rent relief program to focus on tenants and not just the landlords? Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr. Chair, I want to let the member know that we are working to make sure that the details of the emergency program for rent are out there so that both tenants and landlords can understand the situation. We're seeing a significant number of both landlords and tenants coming forward to register for this program, and we are convinced that it will be in the best interests of landlords to move forward and give tenants this relief. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, we've been hearing, however, from small business owners that their landlords don't find the government's rent relief program appealing enough. Can the government confirm, given the program's low eligibility rate, that the program will be expanded and be more efficient in helping tenants? Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we recognize that it's critically important that all of the details of this program be out there for landlords and tenants to understand. Those details are being worked on right now. This is a program that we've put out within the last week, and we are confident that it's in the best interests of tenants and landlords. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, during these trying times for small businesses, small businesses need all the help they can get. One easy way to do that would be to expand the Canada summer jobs program to businesses with over 50 employees. Will the government consider doing so to allow students to gain that very valuable work experience over the coming months? Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Mr. Chair, we are very excited about the uptake of the Canada summer jobs program this year. The second uptake provided employers across the country with the ability to add their needs for students to the mix. I'm looking forward to announcing a possible expansion of this program in the coming days. The Chair: The next question session will go to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall (SimcoeGrey, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. During this pandemic, the government has consistently called for a team Canada, non-partisan approach, and I was glad to hear that said a little earlier today. In fact, the public has called for that approach as well. However, at the same time, the current government has used a parliamentary back door to launch a poorly thought out gun ban. We have a government that didn't win the popular vote, and I'm just wondering how I explain to my residents, because I'm getting so many calls, that this is not a bloated response because, quite frankly, it is. Hon. Bill Blair (Scarborough Southwest, Lib.): First of all, Mr. Chair, I think the honourable member can explain to his constituents that the forming of regulations through order in council is actually the process prescribed in law in Canada under section 117. 15 of the Criminal Code. I would also invite the member to advise his constituents that way back in 1991, when there were some Conservatives who called themselves Progressive, the Mulroney government brought forward, in Bill C-17, the authority under that section for an order in council to prescribe specific makes, models and variants of military firearms as prohibited or restricted. The Harper government used the same tool The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall: I'm not sure, but I'm hoping, that I'll get an honest answer on this question from the minister, who has everything from rocket launchers to basically toy guns on the ban list. When will we get the cost of this buyback program? The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to please be careful in their language when they are referring to others. I won't comment on this one particularly, but I want all of you to be very, very careful when referring to other members. The honourable minister. Hon. Bill Blair: It's a good opportunity, Mr. Chair, to respond to some of the obfuscations and deceptions that have been put out there. We're not banning any toys and we're not banning shotguns. That's all misinformation that's being put out. I think it's very clear, and I invite the member to look at the list of weapons that are The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Thank you. What will be the cost of the buyback program, please? Hon. Bill Blair: Actually, I'm very much looking forward to bringing forward legislation as soon as the House resumes. We will have a vigorous debate in Parliament about the form a buyback will take and we will bring forward a budget at that time. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Will those with illegal weapons be eligible for the buyback program? Hon. Bill Blair: If people are illegally in possession of the weapons and they're committing a crime, they will be dealt with for the crimes they commit. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Okay. I'm going to switch it over. Canadians in my riding who suffer from cystic fibrosis are among the most vulnerable to COVID-19 infection. While these Canadians with existing lung conditions are incredibly worried about a virus that attacks the ability to breathe, the good news is that there are life-saving medicines for those with CF. The problem is with the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board and its restrictive guidelines. I am wondering if and when the government will correct these guidelines and give access to life-saving medicines for our most vulnerable. Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Mr. Chair, as you know, the government has been very committed to improving access and affordability for prescription medications for all Canadians. The PMPRB regulatory amendments will help Canadians be able to afford their prescriptions, and Canada will continue to be an important market for new medicines. In fact, many countries with much lower medicine prices gained access to new medicines in the same time frame as Canada frame, or even faster, so we are excited to do this work. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Mr. Chair, our seniors are being particularly hard hit right now during this pandemic, yet seniors have not been given any direct support. It's one of the number one calls I'm getting in my office. Funding to charities like the United Way is being labelled as support for seniors, but most won't see any of this support. Seniors in my riding have asked for an increase in their CPP and OAS, and to be able to make untaxed bulk withdrawals from their RRSPs while they still have some value. Can the minister confirm when these real and direct supports for seniors will be forthcoming? Hon. Deb Schulte (Minister of Seniors): I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. He mentioned. I'm not quite sure what's happening with my machine. I apologize. The Chair: You might want to try your space bar and keep it down while you're speaking. That might solve the problem. Hon. Deb Schulte: Okay, I'll try that. Thank you very much. I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. We have introduced a supplementary GST payment for low- and modest-income seniors. We've reduced the minimum RRIF withdrawal by 25%, and we've made the CERB available to working seniors who have lost their jobs due to the COVID pandemic. We know there's more work to do, and we'll have more to say in the future. The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that if there are issues, we are taking note of them, and we'll hopefully resolve them by the next meeting. We are getting much better, and we're all new at this. Thank you for your patience. We'll now go to Ms. Gaudreau. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau (LaurentidesLabelle, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My first question is for the Prime Minister. We've heard a lot about contact tracing apps. Several provinces have already made announcements on this, and others want to follow suit. Today, I'd like to know where the government stands on this. We've been talking about a national strategy for some time. Where are we now? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Obviously, contact tracing is an important part of managing any outbreak. In fact, we have been looking at a number of ways to support increased contact tracing across the country, including working with provinces and territories to boost their capacity through human resources and volunteer organizations. We are working very closely with them to make sure we have the capacity. The member is right that many other countries have used digital contact tracing apps. Anything we put forward as a digital tool to assist with contact tracing would be thoroughly considerate of Canadians'privacy rights. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Let me clarify my question a little. Yes, we are talking about public health, and we are currently experiencing a crisis. But you know as well as I do that the Privacy Commissioner has been calling us to task for a very long time now, because there is also a crisis of confidence. You know as well as I do that for 90%of Canadians, the misuse of their personal data is a cause for concern, whether it be for profiling or business development purposes. This is an issue that concerns all Canadians. The commissioner is indeed calling for a focus on reform of the Privacy Act. I'd like to know whether this commitment will be implemented quickly so that legislation can be passed on this issue, in this case the Privacy Act. Hon. Navdeep Bains: Particular attention must be paid to transparency, privacy and ethical concerns. Naturally, Canadians are concerned about how their data is used. New technologies are subject to the Privacy Act. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: We're talking about public health. The provinces are currently in the process of legislating. We're talking about what is going on in Quebec, among other places, and I would like to make sure that the federal government commits to respecting the proposals regarding geolocation and contact tracing possibilities, with full respect for the right to privacy. Can we commit to respecting the provinces? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have worked very closely with provinces and territories for a long time before the outbreak, but certainly ever since the outbreak. We respect the rights of jurisdictional authorities to use tools that have been properly vetted through their own provincial and territorial legislation. Nothing we would ever do at the federal level would put Canadians'privacy in jeopardy. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Concerning privacy, there are 30million Quebeckers and Canadians who have had their personal data leaked. Why is it that our laws don't allow us to apply financial penalties so that we can then go further? The very basis is to be concerned about our fundamental rights. The commissioner has been making this request for several years now. As the critic for access to information and privacy, I'd like a commitment that the federal government will deal not with what the provinces are doing, but with the Privacy Act. The Chair: Your time is up, but I'll give the floor to the minister for 30seconds. Hon. Navdeep Bains: Thank you for the question. Our government will ensure the privacy of Canadians is respected, support responsible innovation and take reasonable steps to strengthen enforcement powers. That's why we created a digital charter. We are strengthening Canada's privacy laws in response to the digital age. The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Baker. Mr. Yvan Baker (Etobicoke Centre, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll be sharing my time with the member for Malpeque. Mr. Chair, my question is for the Minister of Seniors. Minister, in my riding of Etobicoke Centre, we are mourning the loss of 40 residents to COVID-19 at the Eatonville long-term care centre. Over 143 residents and 88 staff members have now tested positive for the virus. This tragedy is not only taking place in Etobicoke Centre but across Canada. Of all Canadians who have died from COVID-19,79% were living in long-term care homes. That's over 2,000 seniors. This is a catastrophe, and it's frankly unacceptable. Our seniors and their families deserve better. I understand that long-term care homes fall within the jurisdiction of provincial governments in Canada, but this is a crisis. What is the federal government doing right now to help protect our seniors who are living in long-term care homes from COVID-19? What will we do to reform our long-term care homes in the future to ensure that our seniors in Etobicoke Centre and across Canada get the care they deserve? Hon. Deb Schulte: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to my colleague from Etobicoke Centre for his very thoughtful question. We are deeply concerned by the outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care facilities, and our thoughts are with those who have lost a loved one. It's a very difficult time. As my colleague mentioned, while these facilities are regulated by provinces and territories, we have been focused on protecting the health and safety of long-term care residents and staff while working with our partners in a team Canada approach. We've released guidelines to prevent and control COVID-19 infections. We're working with the provinces and territories to cost-share a temporary salary top-up for long-term care workers. We are working through investing $2 billion to secure personal protective equipment for the health of workers, including those in the long-term care homes, and we've deployed the Canadian Armed Forces to assist 25 long-term care homes in Quebec and Ontario. We all have a role to play to stop the spread of COVID-19 and to protect our seniors and caregivers. The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Easter. Hon. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. At the finance committee, we've heard a lot of concerns from all sectors of the economy as a result of COVID-19 and we've been presented with quite a number of possible solutions as well, several of which the government has acted upon. My question is on the support offered to the agri-food sector announced on Tuesday. It is very welcome support, but I sincerely believe the farm sector will be taking the Prime Minister up on the suggestion that $250 million should be seen as an initial investment. Potatoes are the number one commodity in Prince Edward Island. However, as a result of reduced processor contracts for next year, plus cancelled seed contracts, millions of dollars of seed and process potatoes have no home. To make matters worse, farmers have high fixed costs that they now have to spread over fewer acres. How does the minister see Tuesday's announcement addressing potato farmers'concerns? Second, in 2013, long-term financial safety nets were gutted by the Harper government. Will the minister be coming forward with improved business risk management programs as a result? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): Mr. Chair, I want to thank Mr. Easter, the member for the riding of Malpeque on Prince Edward Island. It's a beautiful rural riding with lots of agricultural production. I want to recognize the hard work of farmers throughout the crisis. On Tuesday, I was proud to announce one more step for supporting our producers and processors. We know the importance of our potato farmers, and that's why we are launching a first-ever surplus food purchase program, a $50-million fund designed to help redistribute existing inventories, such as potatoes, to local food organizations. On the financial safety net that we have in place for our farmers, called the business risk management program, we announced up to $125 million in funding through AgriRecovery and made changes to AgriStability that will help producers quickly. I will continue to discuss with my provincial counterparts toenhance and improve the BRM programs. In the meantime, I want to reiterate that BRM programs, including AgriInvest, are there to help farmers in difficult times. The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Johns now. Mr. Gord Johns (CourtenayAlberni, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, small businesses across Canada closed their doors to stop the spread and for public health. Now they're currently hanging off the edge of a cliff waiting for financial help. Robyn, who has owned Arbutus Health in Tofino for over 13 years, can't apply for the Canada emergency business account loan, simply because she doesn't have a payroll of over $20,000. All of her practitioners are paid contractors, so she is ineligible. With no business income and without emergency financing, it is virtually impossible for her to pay her bills or come up with the 25% needed for the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program. The government promised to be flexible and willing to adjust its COVID response rollout so that nobody falls through the cracks, but Robyn, like tens of thousands of proprietors who are the economic job creators of our communities, urgently needs the government's help now. Will the government amend its programs to help more business owners so that people like Robyn don't lose their businesses? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for his really good question. I know he and I have talked about this, and I appreciate the input and the feedback that he is providing from business directly. I want to assure Robyn and her businesses, and many businesses across the country, that we are absolutely listening, and we will continue to make sure we are supporting those businesses during this period. We know that many businesses are being helped through the Canada emergency business account. There are well over 550,000 businesses that are getting support through this emergency business account. We also know that more has to be done, and we will continue to work with you and businesses across the country so that we can indeed give them that necessary support to weather this difficult period of COVID-19. Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, that's not going to help Robyn feel comfort. I was talking to Heather last night, who also owns a business in Tofino, Basic Goodness Pizzeria, with her partner Marco. Like many proprietors of family businesses who aren't on payroll, they don't qualify for the business loans. They don't qualify for the wage subsidy because they're a seasonal business. Now with the new rollout of the rent support, they're not sure if their landlord is willing to play ball and even apply. That's three separate programs that leave them out. Heather was in tears last night as she told me that they have done nothing wrong to deserve being excluded from these emergency programs. I agree. Will the government fix the rent support program so that tenants can apply, instead of leaving it up to landlords, and so businesses can get the help they desperately need? Hon. Mona Fortier (OttawaVanier, Lib.): Mr. Chair, we've been working on this program since the beginning. We've been working on offering a response for small businesses and charities and non-profit organizations, and we are continuing to listen on the ground to how we can better assist the businesses that fall through the cracks. We will continue to do that as we go along in this emergency situation. Thank you very much to the honourable member for sharing the realities of his constituents. Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, when the government rolled out its commercial rent support program, why didn't it negotiate an eviction moratorium with the provinces, as Australia and other countries did, to protect business owners? Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as we know, Canadians are taking action and fighting against COVID-19. We know that many small businesses are worried about being able to pay rent. We've recognized it and we've been working with the provinces and territories to implement the Canada emergency commercial rent The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Johns. Mr. Gord Johns: To qualify for the Canada emergency wage subsidy, a 30% drop in revenue has to be shown. Anyone who's owned a business knows that even with this program, it's going to be hard to survive. Why is the government using a 70% measurement drop to qualify for the rent support program, but a 30% drop for the wage subsidy? Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, Mr. Chair, thank you to the honourable member for sharing his views on this program. We've been working with provinces and territories to provide forgivable loans to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rents for their tenants by 75%. We're hoping that tenants and landlords will be working together so we can support businesses during this very difficult crisis. The Chair: Before we move on to the next question, Mr. Berthold, did you have a question or a point of order? Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, I have a point of order. I checked the clock from the first round of five minutes, and as you may recall, it took a very long time for me to get an answer from the government. I went back and forth with MinisterMcKenna for four minutes and 14seconds. The Chair: Just a moment. The interpretation isn't coming through. It's working now. Go ahead, Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: I'll start over. During my first turn, it took 50seconds before a government minister deigned to answer my questions. After checking my time, I realized that the discussion between Ms. McKenna and I went on for four minutes and 14seconds, so I wasn't able to ask the minister one final question, a very important one. I would ask you to take that into account and allow me to ask MinisterMcKenna one last question, please. The Chair: The person chairing the meeting uses their judgment and does their best to keep an eye on what's going on. They try to be as fair as possible. I'll try to do a better job. I think it's more or less equal for all the members, but I apologize if the honourable member feels that he was denied a few seconds. Our next question goes to Mr. Doherty. Mr. Todd Doherty (CaribooPrince George, CPC): Mr. Chair, the Canada-U. S. border agreement is set to expire on May 20. Will the two governments renew the current agreement, or will it be modified? Hon. Bill Blair: The decision to close the border was made in Canada by Canadians in the best interest of Canadians. We're continuing to monitor the situation carefully. Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government be in a position to inform Canadians of any changes to the agreement? Hon. Bill Blair: I'm pleased to advise the member that we're continuing to monitor the situation, but I'm strongly of the opinion that the circumstances on both sides of our border do not indicate that this is the right time to make a change in the restrictions. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the government confirm whether there are any discussions about reopening the border to certain modes of transportation and restricting others? The Chair: Before I go to the minister, I want to remind the honourable members that we do have translators, and they are trying to translate. With respect to them, I know we're trying to get as many questions in as possible, but they do have to translate them, so please be considerate of our interpreters. The honourable minister has the floor. Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Let me please inform the honourable member that we are, of course, aware that the current agreement expires. I had a long conversation yesterday with the Prime Minister Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government announce a relief package for Canada's aviation industry? Hon. Navdeep Bains: We are engaged with the industry, and we are working with them on a solution, Mr. Chair. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, will this relief package include funding for airline ticket refunds similar to what other countries around the world have done? Yes or no? Hon. Navdeep Bains: It's early to say anything at this moment. We're taking a sectoral approach. This is about making sure that we restart the economy and have a strong recovery. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the Minister of Transport confirm that temperature screening is taking place at Canadian airports. Yes or no? Hon. Marc Garneau (Minister of Transport): Mr. Chair, I can confirm that Air Canada has now adopted a policy of checking temperatures for passengers boarding Air Canada flights. Mr. Todd Doherty: At which airports is that, and when did this practice start? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the announcement was made recently by Air Canada. It will start shortly and will apply to all places and destinations where Air Canada flies. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, this is for the Minister of Transport. Last week I asked the Minister of Labour if they were aware of a letter written on April 6 by CUPE to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Minister, were you aware of that letter? The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly. Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I didn't understand the reference to a letter from CUPE. Could my colleague please clarify? Mr. Todd Doherty: On April 6, CUPE wrote a letter to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Is the minister aware of that letter? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, could my colleague clarify what CUPE is referring to? Mr. Todd Doherty: CUPE is the labour organization that represents thousands of flight attendants across our country. Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I do understand. Yes, I will confirm that CUPE, which represents the flight attendants, did write to us. Before that I had conversations with CUPE with respect to flight attendants and the use of personal protective equipment. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the minister confirm whether or not they have provided PPE to the flight attendants and/or training for front-line staff for airlines and airports? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the airlines are providing PPE to flight attendants and flight crews. This has become a policy to ensure the safety not only of passengers on board but also of the flight attendants and flight crew. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, a business owner from Quesnel wrote to my office recently. He stated that he couldn't give his small business tenants a break on rent because the government is penalizing him for paying off his mortgage. When will the government change the CECRA rules to help more businesses? Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as you know, we laid out the CECRA program just last week, and we are encouraging landlords to take that opportunity to support the renters. We will continue to look at how we can provide some relief to small businesses with rents. Mr. Todd Doherty: With all due respect, Mr. Chair, any landlord who does not have a mortgage on their business is ineligible for CECRA. Is the minister aware of this, and are they trying to revise the CECRA program? Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with provinces and territories to present that program. Of course, we will continue to monitor how this program works for landlords and tenants. We are asking, actually encouraging, landlords to do their part and help tenants, like the one you mentioned, go through this. The Chair: We'll go to the next questioner. Go ahead, Ms. Dancho. Ms. Raquel Dancho (KildonanSt. Paul, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Small businesses in Manitoba employ 73% of Manitobans. That's over 286,000 Manitobans. I've been speaking with many small business owners in my riding. It's been heartbreaking, frankly, to hear that everything they've built and sacrificed for is in serious jeopardy, and through no fault of their own. Your government has created programs that are supposed to help them, but many legitimate businesses aren't able to apply. That could mean bankruptcy and cost thousands of Manitobans jobs. This is wrong. I'm hoping to hear specifics, not just nice words, on what you're going to do to help them. There are three issues regarding access to the $40,000 CEBA loan. First, businesses that recently incorporatedfor example, in late 2019are unable to apply their entire 2019 payroll. As a result, many are falling short of the $20,000 payroll threshold required to qualify for this loan. Second, many businesses contract their employees rather than have them on payroll. They also are unable to qualify for this loan. Third, many businesses use personal rather than business banking accounts. They aren't able to qualify for this loan either. What is your government going to do about these three scenarios? The Chair: I just want to remind honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly to the minister. As well, please take into consideration the interpreters, who have to listen and translate, so that we can have this conversation. Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for that question. Right from the very beginning, we've always said that we will listen and that we will work to make sure that measures go out to help our Canadian small businesses. She's absolutely right: 98% of all our businesses in this country are small businesses, so they absolutely contribute enormously to our communities and are job creators. That is why we have put out significant measures. For the Canada emergency business account, over 550,000 small businesses have been approved and are getting that support. I absolutely acknowledge that there is more work to do. I can assure the honourable member that we will continue to do this work so that businesses, all businesses, are supported, whether it is helping keep your employees together, helping with rent support, helping to keep your business's expenses low, or of course helping with the capital that is needed so that you can pay your operating expenses and your bills through this difficult time. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, I didn't hear any answers from the minister's remarks, unfortunately. Moving on, there are two issues regarding the 50% commercial rent assistance subsidy, where landlords pay 25%, the government pays 50%, and the tenant is responsible for 25%. First, many of the small landlords aren't able to take a 25% hit to their income, and are unable to provide the subsidy to their tenants. Second, with the 70% decline in revenue threshold for small businesses to even be eligible for the rent assist, many restaurants are at 65% or 67% decline. They desperately need this subsidy but aren't able to qualify. This is not about problems with the program details. What is the government planning to do to streamline this program for small businesses that can't access but desperately need the rent subsidy? Hon. Mlanie Joly: Mr. Chair, as the Minister of Official Languages, I just want to raise the fact that interpretation is very complicated right now. In order to make sure that we can continue to uphold bilingualism within the House, I would love it if my colleagues could take down the pace a bit. That would help the interpreters a whole lot. They are working very hard and trying to keep up. The Chair: That's a reasonable request. I just want to remind everyone again that when you're asking a question, make sure you are doing it at a pace at which you're considering the people who are interpreting Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, this is how fast I speak when we're in the House of Commons. It's just how I talk. The Chair: I understand. I have a lot of friends who speak very quickly. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Right. I understand. Perhaps we could get back to my question about the rent subsidy. The Chair: We stopped the time. You're not losing any time on this one. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Okay. I will try to speak more slowly. The Chair: I appreciate it. Thank you. The interpreters appreciate it. Now we'll go to the minister, please. Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with the provinces and territories to provide this forgivable loan to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rent of their tenants by 75%. We will continue to monitor how this program is delivered, as we announced it last week. It will be offered pretty soon. It will be very important that we understand what happens across the country, and we will monitor and adapt the program as we Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, it has been in the media quite a bit that this rent subsidy is not helping many, many, many small business owners. It's falling short of everything that was announced, so I think it needs to be taken a bit more seriously than that. There are two issues regarding the 75% wage subsidy. First, employers who pay themselves and their employees dividends rather than wages are unable to qualify. Second, there is also a 30% threshold revenue decline needed in order to apply. Many of the businesses in my riding are at 27% or 29%. They desperately need these funds but are unable to qualify. What is the government planning to do for these small businesses? Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, thank you to the hon. member for sharing the realities she's hearing from small business owners. We are providing help and support for businesses through these very difficult times. The wage subsidy has been taken up and is working for many businesses. We know that some still fall through the cracks and we will look at how we can continue to support businesses across the country. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends (BrossardSaint-Lambert, Lib.) ): We are now going to Mr. Kevin Waugh. Mr. Kevin Waugh (SaskatoonGrasswood, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. Three weeks ago, on April 17, the Minister of Canadian Heritage announced funding of $500 million to assist Canada's arts, sports and cultural sectors. We are still waiting to hear who is eligible and when they can expect to receive this funding. Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Canadian Heritage): Madam Chair, we will be releasing the details of that announcement, and how the money is going to be spent, in the coming days. Mr. Kevin Waugh: We all know that many media organizations, large and small, in Canada are struggling right now. Allegations have arisen that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CBC, is currently engaging in predatory behaviour and taking advantage of the current situation to harm its competitors using rate cuts. We've seen this from the province of Quebec. Many journalists have talked about this. What is the government going to do to address these allegations against the CBC? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have not been informed of these allegations. We will look into this, and we will get back to the hon. colleague if we do find any valuable information. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Local community and ethnic media outlets and papers have strong ties to their communities that often go much deeper than the major media outlets. Is the government currently using any local or ethnic media outlets to provide crucial coronavirus information through advertising? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, I totally agree with my colleague. We need to get the information to Canadians on COVID-19, which is why we have started an ad-buy campaign of $30 million, which is being distributed in more than 900 local, regional and national newspapers across the country and 500 radio and TV stations in 12 different languages, including Farsi, Mandarin, Spanish, Italian and many more. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Mr. Minister, I talked to the Winnipeg Free Press yesterday. It has received two ads from an ad agency in connection with the $30 million the government is doling out to help media outlets. They had one ad on March 27. The second ad was on April 11. That is two ads in the Winnipeg Free Press in the last eight weeks. Is this the kind of money you're attempting to dole out to help media: two ads in eight weeks? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have been doing a number of things for our media in Canada over the last few months and will continue to do so. On top of that $30 million ad-buy campaign, we have been investing $50 million in local journalism. Just this year, it means that 200 journalists will be hired in areas across the country where journalism is more poorly defined. The federal government has paid part I licence fees of our broadcasters to the CRTC. That means $30 million is staying in the pockets of our broadcasters. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Madam Chair, last week, as the minister would know, 15 community newspapers, including eight in Manitoba and seven in the province of Ontario, closed their doors for good. Is the government currently planning any further measures aimed at assisting community or ethnic media organizations? We understand that many more will close their doors within the next 30 to 60 days. Hon. Steven Guilbeault: We are planning a number of other measures, some of which will be included in the $500 million. I will be announcing the details of that in the coming days. Of the $595 million that the media will receive, we have a tax credit that has now entered into force, and the cheques should be in the mail by the end of the summer. So there are a number of things we've done and a number of things we will be doing in the coming months as well. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Waugh, you may have a short question. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Well, finally, you have the five members associated with that committee to dole out the $595 million. They haven't even met yet. When will they meet? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: I would like to remind my hon. colleague that in order for us to provide tax breaks for the 2019 period, media outlets had to file their tax returns so we could go ahead. This will now be able to proceed, Madam Chair. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We now move on to Mr. Godin. Mr. Godin, you may go ahead. Mr. Jol Godin (PortneufJacques-Cartier, CPC): Thank you, MadamChair. This being the first time I've had the floor during a virtual sitting of Parliament, I'd like to take this opportunity to greet my fellow members, all 259participants. I hope they are taking care of themselves. I'd like to talk about the Prime Minister's appearance on the show Tout le monde en parle. This is what he had to say about his economic recovery plan: We are going to remain focused on the economy as a wholeinnovationresearch and science, the green economy and a fairer economyThere are things we are all reflecting on right now that reflection is going to continue. That was a weak answer. It didn't inspire much confidence. Can the government assure Canadians that it is being proactive and working on a plan to get the economy moving again? It must act now. Things are starting to reopen gradually. Is the government going to take concrete action to revive the economy? Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Yes, absolutely. Our government is wholly committed to restarting the economy, and we are working closely with the provinces to do just that. Last week, our government, together with the provincial and territorial premiers, released the principles that will guide efforts to restore economic activity across the country. That is key. The discussion between the Prime Minister and the premiers is continuing today. Mr. Jol Godin: MadamChair, before we go any further, since it took a while for the minister, or the government, to answer the question, can I have that time back to ask questions? The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I stopped the clock, Mr. Godin. Mr. Jol Godin: Thank you. The Prime Minister's answer during his appearance on Tout le monde en parle didn't inspire much confidence and doesn't line up with the Deputy Prime Minister's comments. How can the government be proud of announcing $252million in assistance for the agri-food sector, when that is less than 1% of all the program funding the government has committed to help Canadians get through the COVID-19 crisis? Clearly, the government doesn't see the food supply chain as a priority and has no regard for farmers and pork and beef producers. Does the government realize that eating is vital to Canadians? When is the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food going to adjust the program and show respect for Canadian farmers? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: I have the utmost respect for farmers. We are going step by step. We've already confirmed various supports for the agricultural sector. This week, we focused on beef and pork producers and processors, as well as sectors with product surpluses that can be redirected to food banks. I can assure my fellow member that this is an additional step and that more supports are on the way in the weeks ahead. Bear in mind that a number of programs are already available to farmers. Mr. Jol Godin: I'd like to switch topics now. PortneufJacques-Cartier is home to a company that is already licensed by Health Canada and that, for 20years, has been manufacturing medical equipment including masks, face shields and thermometers. This is equipment our health workers need. The company has a licence from the federal government. In mid-March, Health Canada reached out to the company to find out how much equipment it could manufacture to help fight COVID-19. The company confirmed that it could immediately start producing 200,000masks a week, ramping up to a million masks over the next few weeks. Forty-five days later, it is still waiting on its first order from the Canadian government. We are managing a crisis with a limited supply of medical equipment. Can the health minister tell us why, 45days later, this company licensed by Health Canada hasn't received an order? Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Thank you for the question. Industry and suppliers have enthusiastically answered our call to equip Canada with products and goods during the crisis. Many of those suppliers have already received contracts. We have reached out to all the others and will negotiate contracts as needed. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I would now like to invite hon. member Jenica Atwin to speak. Mrs. Jenica Atwin (Fredericton, GP): Thank you, Madam Chair. Seniors living alone are most at risk of economic insecurity, particularly single senior women, as gender inequality in the job market has translated all too often into inadequate retirement income. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a poverty reduction plan that addresses the unique challenges faced by older women? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to assure the member that we are quite aware that this pandemic has typically affected single seniors, and many of those, given that they live longer, are single senior women. I want to assure her that we are working on this issue, and we have provided some supports already through measures such as the GST supplementary payment. That is on average almost $400 for single seniors. There's more work to do. We know that, so stay tuned. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, older women represent a high proportion of residents in long-term care facilities. Having spent their lives caring for parents, children and often their partners, they find themselves needing care in nursing homes. Multiple outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care homes in Canada have highlighted systemic gaps that senior and elderly women may face in such facilities, as well as the working conditions of the female-dominated ranks of nurses and personal support workers. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a federal strategy for long-term care homes that recognizes quality of life for residents and working conditions for the employees, ideally one that goes hand in hand with a poverty reduction plan and enhanced home and community care investments across the country? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I do want to thank the hon. member for her question. It's an important one. We are obviously deeply saddened by the outbreaks that have been going on in long-term care facilities and those who have lost their lives. We do recognize that the administration of long-term care and palliative care is the responsibility of provinces and territories; however, we have been taking a team Canada approach, and as you already know, we've been doing tremendous work with them to try to ensure that those who live in those facilities can be well cared for and safe. We are doing that with guidelines The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms. Atwin has the floor. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, from May 4 to May 10, we are observing Mental Health Week. We know that our essential workers right now are experiencing unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety, on top of putting their own physical safety and health on the line. Most of these workers work in precarious jobs with no access to paid sick leave or vacation, and without any benefits to access mental health services. Apart from the very welcome investments in online resources, can the minister explain how the government will support these workers now and once the crisis is behind us? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, thank you very much to the member for the question. I'm so glad that she's raising the issue of mental health and in particular how poor mental health is oftentimes connected to our socio-economic status. I appreciate the nuance in that question. She's right. We do have new resources that are available to all Canadians free of charge through the Wellness Together portal, but there is more to do. I think the announcement of top-up wages, for example, which the Prime Minister spoke about today, is another example of how we're taking the health and wellness of all low-income Canadians very seriously. We know that mental health is not divorced from socio-economic status, and I look forward to working with her more on other measures that we can take together. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, we're all very aware of the importance of temporary foreign workers and their role in ensuring our food sovereignty across this country. The pandemic has highlighted how we depend on their work. How are we protecting them? Madam Chair, will the government take action to strengthen legislation and ensure Canadians have access to the food they need while the workers who help bring it to our tables have safe working conditions, regardless of where they are working in this country? Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Thank you, Madam Chair. We are very concerned, as are countries around the world, that we support and create the environment for the health and safety of our temporary foreign workers and we value their contribution to our food supply chain here in Canada. We have issued guidelines to employers and are working very closely with local public health authorities in the provinces and territories to make sure workers are protected, that physical distancing and other recommendations are adhered to and that there are severe consequences if employers don't take care of their workers. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We are now going to Mr. MacGregor. Mr. Alistair MacGregor (CowichanMalahatLangford, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. My first question is this: Will the Liberal government prevent federal bailout funds from going to companies that use tax havens and avoid paying their fair share here in Canada, yes or no? Hon. Diane Lebouthillier (Minister of National Revenue): We are working to make sure that anyone who tries to circumvent the rules faces serious consequences. We are asking businesses to designate a representative to attest their claims. Any employer receiving the subsidy who is deemed ineligible will have to repay the full amount. Anyone who abuses the program could face fines of up to 225% of the subsidy amount as well as five years in prison. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, I didn't really hear a yes to that question, so I'll repeat it. Does the government really think it's appropriate for tax-avoiding corporations to receive funding provided for by taxpayers? Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: We will keep going after companies that engage in tax evasion. I want to be clear. We will target those who are responsible, not innocent workers. An employee is an employee, regardless of who they work for. The wage subsidy program does not hand a blank cheque over to employers. It is meant to help Canadians pay their bills, keep their jobs and get through the crisis. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, the agriculture funding announced by the government earlier this week amounts to less than 10% of what the Canadian Federation of Agriculture estimates will be required to help farmers weather this crisis. Why has the Minister of Agriculture shortchanged our farmers? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, this is one more step. This was one more step. We have already committed significant support to our farmers through different programs, and we will do more. I have to remind my colleague that we have put in $5 billion through FCC, $50 million for the temporary foreign workers, two times $50 million for pork and beef producers this week, and $77 million for food processing. This is only the beginning, and we should not forget that the business risk management programs are still there to offer support. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Yes, Madam Chair, but we're nearly two months into this pandemic and this announcement only came this week. Farmers need certainty. When can farmers expect further updates on funding, and how much will the government be providing? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, we are working closely with the farmers and their representatives to identify where the gaps are, but once again, we have made improvements to the AgriStability program. They can get, depending on the province, either 50% or 75% in advance payments, and they can also, right now, access their AgriInvest program. There is more than $2 billion ready to access today, if they have The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. MacGregor. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, federal disability recipients and seniors on fixed incomes have been hardest hit by cost of living increases from COVID-19. If we acknowledge that $2,000 per month is the minimum needed to get through this time, why are they being asked to survive on far less? When can they expect assistance, and how much will they receive? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to make sure people realize that we have provided some assistance through the GST supplementary benefit. We are also providing support to those who are still working, and we have done that by allowing them to access the CERB. There is more work to be done, so you'll be hearing more in the near future. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, as I think we've heard through today's question period, there are countless example of this government designing programs to exclude many small businesses that desperately need help. Whether it's the payroll requirements or other eligibility, we still, to this day, almost two months into the pandemic, have too many small businesses falling through the cracks. Madam Chair, why has the government taken this approach and when can we finally expect fixes to the whole system? Hon. Mary Ng: Madam Chair, right from the get-go, we have been committed to making sure that Canadians are helped through this crisis, and that small businesses get the support that they need, so that we are saving businesses and jobs in this country. That is what we have done with many of our programs. You're seeing that we are also listening, so that we can modify them as we need. I want to assure the member that the work is not done. We continue to do this. The Chair: Thank you. It is now over to Mr. Perron. Mr. Perron, you may go ahead. Mr. Yves Perron (BerthierMaskinong, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question will come as no surprise, since it has to do with agriculture. I hear the questions my fellow members are asking, and to be frank, I don't find the answers satisfactory. It is well and good to talk about existing programs, but they aren't working, so enough with that refrain. That's what people are telling us. It's not just members of the opposition saying it. This morning, both farmers and processors came together for a press conference at the Union des producteurs agricoles's head office in Longueuil. Six stakeholders from different sectors sounded the alarm. Can the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food therefore tell us when she will announce significant supports for the industry? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We have already announced significant amounts of support, and more is on the way. I'd like to correct my fellow member. It's not that the programs aren't working; it's that they aren't generous enough in farmers'eyes. That's why I'm working with my provincial counterparts to make improvements to programming, including AgriStability. Here's an example. After using the online AgriStability benefit estimator, a pork producer found out that he would get $11 per head, as they say in the industry. Pork producers are calling for $20 per head, so it's a good start, even though it's not enough and it isn't what they are asking for. We want to keep working together, but farmers have to access the money available to them through AgriStability. Mr. Yves Perron: Now it's my turn to correct the minister. Even before the crisis, we were hearing from people in the industry that the programs were neither suitable nor sufficient. We are in a crisis, and this is an exceptional situation. In the case of mad cow disease, farmers received direct assistance. That's the kind of assistance we are calling for. We don't want to hear about growing levels of debt. Of course, this is a first step, but farms are already deep in debt. A few days ago, the government announced $50million in funding for pork producers, even though they are asking for $20per hog for 27million hogs. The government's support covers just 2. 5million hogs. When I call the measure insufficient, I mean it is grossly insufficient. It's high time the government put forth more support. It has to stop saying that it's working hard and examining the situation. The government has to listen to the people in the industry. Again, this morning, they had some interesting proposals. When is the government going to announce a whole lot more in funding support? What's been announced so far is only 10% of what farmers are asking for. Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We are going step by step. The programs are already in place. We are trying to make them better, and we are committed to doing that. These programs are cost-shared with the provinces. However, I would point out to the member that, when it comes to AgriRecovery, we made an exception to the rule. We are moving forward in every province to help pork and beef producers. That's two funding envelopes of $50million each to help cover the additional costs from the decrease in plant processing capacity. That's new money that was not yet available, money we introduced this week. As the Prime Minister said, we are going to do more, and we are moving forward step by step. Mr. Yves Perron: What we concluded in committee this week is that the $125million is not new money. It was already earmarked for the programs. The government can't say that programs already exist and, at the same time, claim that they are new programs. Something doesn't add up there. What's more, there are different ways to make money available. I'd like to talk compensation. Everyone knows that the Canada-U. S. -Mexico Agreement came into force a month earlier than planned, despite the promises that had been made. That resulted in additional losses, once again. An easy way to make money available without committing new spending is to provide compensation and announce programs for supply-managed sectors that got nothing. It seems to me that a time of crisis is a time for the government to practise some judo and announce measures. I am reaching out to the government, as I always do, but it has to come forward with announcements. Can we expect the government to announce measures in the coming days? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Our commitment to farmers in supply-managed sectorsmeaning, egg, poultry and dairy farmersis as strong as it always was. I repeat, our commitment is clear. Dairy producers received their first payment at the end of last year or the beginning of this year. Support for poultry and egg farmers is in the form of investment programs, which aligns well with the recovery. At this time, we are focusing on emergency programs to help farmers hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. When it comes to the dairy sector, I hope I can count on your support. As you know, legislative changes are needed to grant the Canadian Dairy Commission's request and increase its borrowing limit by $200million so it can buy more butter and cheese. The Chair: Our next question will go to Mr. Lake. Hon. Mike Lake (EdmontonWetaskiwin, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we're all inundated, as we've heard during this entire question period, with Canadians'concerns about the economic restrictions and the social restrictions that they're under. Over the last couple of months, the WHO has given one very consistent message in terms of coming out of those economic and social restrictions. On March 16, Dr. Tedros said in his briefing, We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test. On March 25,44 days ago, he said, Aggressive measures to find, isolate, test, treat and trace are not only the best and fastest way out of extreme social and economic restrictionstheyre also the best way to prevent them. Does the minister agree with the WHO that relentless testing and tracing are critical to a successful economic and social relaunch strategy in Canada? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thanks to the member for the very astute observation and question. Absolutely, we agree that testing and contact tracing will form an important part of our response to living with COVID. We've been investing heavily in ensuring that we have the lab capacity, the collaboration across provinces and territories, and the variety of testing options to help us increase our capacity to test. We are aiming right now for a high volume of tests, but I will also say that in Canada we have one of the highest testing rates in the world. Although we're doing well, I can assure him that I am with him and I believe we need to do more. Hon. Mike Lake: I have some really quick questions for follow-up. First, what is Canada's current testing capability? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as I mentioned to his colleagues yesterday, we have currently the capacity to do approximately 60,000 tests per day across the country. Hon. Mike Lake: How many tests were conducted each day on average in Canada last week? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, it's hard for me to get that exact number, but I will get back to him with the exact number. Hon. Mike Lake: I'll save you the time. The exact number was 28,851, on average, every day last week. That's a gap of 30,000 from what your stated testing capability is. I'll give another quote from Dr. Tam, back on April 22,15 days ago. She said, As a first tranche, roughly close to 60,000 is where the provinces can potentially expand to as a target already. Does the minister happen to know, ballpark, what the average number of daily tests in Canada has been since that statement? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Your estimate was slightly higher than what my estimate was going to be, so that's a great piece of news. Listen, I will just say that I think if the premise here is that we could be doing more testing. I would agree, but I will also say that the provinces and territories are working incredibly hard on testing strategies that meet their own specific needs. I'm happy to have a conversation with the member later about that testing strategy. Dr. Tam works with all the chief public health officers across the country to ensure that their testing strategy is going to be applicable and appropriate for their particular jurisdictions. We, as the federal government, provide the capacity for them to conduct those tests. Hon. Mike Lake: Following up on that, is there a jurisdiction in Canada where relentless testing is not the appropriate strategy as provinces consider relaunching? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Each province and territory has its own outbreak and its own epidemic. For example, in British Columbia, where there are relatively fewer cases in general and less disease activity, they may have a different testing strategy than a province like Ontario, which is currently struggling with more outbreaks. Hon. Mike Lake: Given your comment that our current testing capability is 60,000, and acknowledging that only at one point in the entire history of our COVID response, over several months, has our weekly average been over 30,000it was about 31,000 for one day on a rolling basisMinister, are you satisfied with our current testing amounts right now, given that we're testing 50% of what the public health officer advises would be best? Hon. Patty Hajdu: I'm so amazed by the work the provinces and territories have done in a very short time to increase their capacity. We are supporting them with the tools that they need to get more testing done, but also to have other components in place that will allow them to do the rapid tracing of positive cases. I think it's very important to remember that testing strategies will be different across the provinces, based on the outbreak disease epidemiology. Having said that, I know that we can all do better, and I'm certain that my counterparts feel the same. The Chair: I'm going to have to cut the minister off at that one. I want to thank everyone for the session today, I think it went rather well. I'm very proud of you and proud of ourselves for what we managed to accomplish. The committee stands adjourned until Tuesday, May 12, at noon.

It was suggested that farmers and relative products were largely influenced by Covid-19. Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau introduced that the government had already confirmed various supports for the agricultural sector. This week, the government focused on beef and pork producers and processors, as well as sectors with product surpluses that could be redirected to food banks. At the same time, industry and suppliers had enthusiastically answered the call to equip Canada with products and goods during the crisis.

tr-gq-640

tr-gq-640_0

Summarize the whole meeting. The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.) ): We'll call this meeting to order. Welcome to the fifth meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. Pursuant to the order passed on Monday, April20, the committee is meeting today to consider ministerial announcements, to allow members of the committee to present petitions, and to question ministers, including the Prime Minister, about the COVID-19 pandemic. Tomorrow, May8, Dr. AndreaMcCrady, Dominion Carillonneur, will give a special recital to mark the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day. Victory in Europe Day, VE Day, commemorates the formal acceptance of Germany's surrender by allied forces at the end of the Second World War. While the pandemic prevents us from gathering to celebrate in person, tomorrow at noon the voice of our nation will ring out in remembrance of this milestone in our history. Today's meeting is taking place by video conference. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. Just so you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entire committee. I would like to remind members that, as in the House of Commons or committee, they should not take photos of their colleagues or film the proceedings. In order to facilitate the work of the interpreters and to allow the meeting to proceed smoothly, I would ask you to follow some instructions. The video conference will be interpreted as in normal meetings of committees and in the House. In the lower part of your screen, you can choose the language: floor, English or French. Please wait until I call on you by name before you begin to speak. When you are ready to speak, click on the microphone icon to activate your microphone, or hold the space bar down while you are speaking. If you release the bar, your microphone will revert to mute, just like a walkie-talkie. Honourable members, I would like to remind you that if you want to speak English, you should be on the English channel. If you want to speak French, you should be on the French channel. Should you wish to alternate between the two languages, you should change the channel to the language that you are speaking each time you switch languages. Please direct your remarks through the chair. Should you need to request the floor outside of your designated speaking time, you should activate your mike and state that you have a point of order. If a member of the committee wishes to intervene on a point of order raised by another person, you should use the raised hand function to indicate to the chair that you wish to speak. To do this, click on the participant button at the bottom of your screen. When the list appears, you will see the raised hand option beside your name. Speak slowly and clearly at all times. When you are not speaking, leave your microphone on mute. It is highly recommended that you use a headset with a microphone. You have to remember to switch languages. Should any technical challenges arise, for example, in relation to interpretation, please advise the chair immediately by raising a point of order, and the technical team will work on resolving them. Please note that we may need to suspend during these times in order to correct a problem. I want to remind the honourable members to mute their microphones when they are not speaking. If you get accidentally disconnected, please try to rejoin the meeting with the information you used to join initially. If you are unable to rejoin, please contact our technical support team. Before we get started, please note that in the top right-hand corner of your screen is a button that you can use to change views. Speaker view allows you to focus on the person currently speaking; gallery view allows you to see a larger number of participants. You can click through the multiple pages in the gallery view to see who is on and how many more participants there are. I understand there are no ministerial announcements today. We will now proceed to presenting petitions for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during the meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. In addition, to ensure a petition is considered properly presented, the certificate of the petition and each page of the petition for a petition certified in a previous Parliament should be mailed to the committee no later than 6 p. m. the day before. Now we'll go to presenting petitions. Mr. Genuis. Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Mr. Chair, five years ago when Parliament passed Bill C-14, then justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said that it represented a finely tuned balance between access and safeguards. It also included a five-year review. Petitioners on the first petition I'm presenting are very concerned to see Bill C-7 before Parliament, which removes safeguards ahead of that five-year review. Petitioners specifically mention their concerns about the removal of the mandatory 10-day reflection period, which can already be waived in certain circumstances. They are concerned about reducing the number of witnesses required to oversee it and ensure that a request has been properly made. I commend that petition to the consideration of the House. The second and final petition that I will be presenting today is with respect to Senate Bill S-204. This would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ from a person who did not consent. This responds specifically to concerns about organ harvesting in the People's Republic of China involving Falun Gong practitioners and increasing concerns that this is being or about to be applied to Uighurs as well. Canada can and should take action on this. Petitioners are noting that in the previous Parliament there were bills on this, Bill C-350 and Bill S-240. Now, in this Parliament there is a bill, Bill S-204, and the petitioners hope that this 43rd Parliament will be the one that gets it passed. The Chair: We will go to Ms. May. Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's an honour. This is my first occasion to present a petition in our virtual format of the COVID-19 committee. Thank you to you and your staff, Mr. Chair, for developing a system that allows us to present petitions electronically. The petition I am presenting today, which was previously approved, is from a number of constituents who are concerned that we pursue the Paris Agreement to hold the global average temperature increase to no more than 1. 5C. The Paris Agreement itself embeds in it the concept of Just Transition with a capital J and a capital T, the concept of just transition ensuring fairness and support for all workers in the fossil fuel sector. The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to move forward with an act to ensure just transition and to ensure adequate funding so that workers and communities dependent on the fossil fuel sector receive meaningful support to ensure security in their lives in the transition to more sustainable energy use. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Chair: Those are all the petitions for today. I want to thank the honourable members for their usual collaboration and now we'll go on to Mr. James Bezan (SelkirkInterlakeEastman, CPC): On a point of order, Mr. Chair, on Tuesday, at our COVID-19 committee of the whole meeting, I was asking a question which started at 12: 56: 06 and was cut off at 1: 00: 32, so I still have 34 seconds of time remaining in my question time of five minutes. You said it could be no more than five minutes but that I had up to five minutes. Thirty-four seconds leaves a lot of time to have a quick question and a quick response. If you believe that my time was unjustly cut off and that it was unfair treatment of the official opposition when we were raising our points of order, I would ask that the 34 seconds be tacked on to the opening round for the opposition and credited to Rosemarie Falk, who will be leading off for the Conservatives. The Chair: Normally what happens is the chair uses judgment, and with 35 seconds, there isn't enough time obviously for a full question or answer, most of the time. I'll take it under advisement. I can't allot it. I want everyone to know that I do have a timer next to me and I am timing the questions, and I will be treating the answers the same way. If it's a 25-second question, it will be a 25-second answer. Thank you for bringing that up. I believe that issue has been remedied. We've taken a little bit of the chair's ability to give judgment on it, but it will be from now on. Thank you. Mr. James Bezan: Mr. Chair, 34 seconds is a considerable amount of time to do a short question and a short answer. The Chair: I appreciate the advice. Thank you, Mr. Bezan. We'll now proceed to the questioning of ministers. I would like to remind the honourable members that no member will be recognized for more than five minutes at a time and that members may split their time with one or more members by so indicating to the chair. Ministers responding to the questions should do so by simply turning on their microphone and speaking. Our first questioner is Ms. Falk. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk (BattlefordsLloydminster, CPC): Mr. Chair, yesterday, Elizabeth May and the leader of the separatists declared oil to be dead. It's certainly not dead, but it's dying under the Trudeau government. Will the Prime Minister stand up for Canada's energy workers, or does he agree with the fringe left and those who want to destroy our country? Ms. Elizabeth May: I have a point of order. The Chair: Go ahead, Ms. May. Ms. Elizabeth May: Mr. Chair, I believe that the language that the honourable member just used is unparliamentary Mr. Garnett Genuis: That's not a point of order. Ms. Elizabeth May: We can have differences of opinion, but it is absolutely Some hon. members: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: unacceptable and violates my privileges to An hon member: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: No, it's not debate. I would ask the chair to rule on that, not the member from the Conservative Party. It is unacceptable to assert that anyone who wants to make a point about our economy is trying to destroy the country. This allegation is a violation of my privilege. An hon. member: She was also named by the The Chair: Order. I didn't recognize anyone. I don't know who is speaking, so I'll just start talking myself. I want to remind honourable members to have respect in their questions and in their answers. When you refer to someone, please refer to them respectfully. This is a committee of the House, and I would expect no less of the honourable members. We'll go to the right honourable Prime Minister. You have 16 seconds. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. As I pointed out this morning in my press conference, we cannot move forward on a transformation of our energy sector without supporting the workers in that energy sector. We need their innovation and we need their hard work if we are going to lower our emissions, if we are going to reach our The Chair: We'll go to Ms. Falk again. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, it has been 43 days since the finance minister promised Canada's energy sector liquidity through the Business Development Bank of Canada. For 43 days the finance minister has failed to deliver on that promise. These delays cost jobs and they are costing us Canadian businesses. If the government doesn't step up to support our energy sector, they are in effect doubling down on their support for foreign, unethically sourced oil. Mr. Chair, when will the credit options be available to Canada's small and medium energy firms? The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that we do have interpreters who are listening and translating. In consideration to them, please speak at a reasonable pace so that they can understand and then translate. The right honourable Prime Minister. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, our priority through this pandemic and this crisis has been to support workers across the country. We have sent billions of dollars to workers right across the country, including Alberta, Saskatchewan, B. C. , and Newfoundland and Labrador in the energy sector for them to be able to support their families through this difficult time. We are also working on sectoral supports right across the country. Those will be announced in due course. Our focus from the get-go has been The Chair: We'll move to Ms. Falk. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, another group that has been ignored by the Liberals is our farmers. The announcements to date fall well short of what is needed to maintain a steady supply of affordable and healthy food. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture has asked the government for a $2. 6-billion emergency fund. Instead of responding to specific COVID-19 challenges, our farmers are facing the Liberals'reannounced $125 million that was already budgeted in the AgriRecovery program. Will the Prime Minister finally step up and take our food supply chain seriously, or is agriculture just an afterthought for him? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: On the contrary, Mr. Chair, we take agriculture and our agricultural sector extremely seriously, which is why we announced hundreds of millions of dollars a couple of days ago to respond to pressing needs. We will continue to make investments to ensure both the safety of workers in our agricultural sector and the safety of our communities, as well as the continued flow of high-quality Canadian food onto our tables right across the country. Supporting the people who produce our food is a priority for this government and will continue to be. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Well, Mr. Chair, recycled program announcements do not respond to the immediate needs facing our farmers. This is absolutely unacceptable. Our farmers are faced with rising operational costs, a disrupted service industry, labour shortages and a reduced capacity at processing plants. The government has a responsibility to take domestic food security seriously. When will the Prime Minister deliver adequate support to address the critical changes facing our ag industry? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I would suggest respectfully that the honourable member take a look once again at the announcement we made, which actually highlights significant new investments to support our agricultural industry. I certainly agree that there is more to do. Every step of the way in this unprecedented situation, we've been moving forward on doing more, on adjusting and on investing more. We need to support our agricultural sector and the people who work so hard to put food on Canadians'tables right across the country and we will continue to. Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, Canadians expect to find healthy and affordable food at their grocery stores, but if the government does not take action now, that's not a given. Our farmers are trying to keep Canadians fed while keeping their heads above water. The Liberal government's own failed federal carbon tax is weighing them down. It is an enormous hit to their bottom line, and the recent carbon tax hike is taking even more money out of the pockets of farmers at a time when they can afford it the least. Will the Prime Minister exempt all farm operations from the carbon tax and reimburse the money that they have already taken from them? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, it's a shame to hear the member opposite accidentallyunintentionally, I'm certainmislead the House and Canadians. The price on pollution actually puts more money into Canadians'pockets, and that includes farm families. People who pay the cost of the price on pollution on average receive more money back. This is the way of creating a better future for our kids and grandkids, which I know people in communities right across the country, including our farm communities, want to see happen. We are moving forward in a responsible way to put a price on pollution and put more money in average Canadians'pockets. The Chair: We now continue with Mrs. Gill. Mrs. Gill, you have the floor. Mrs. Marilne Gill (Manicouagan, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. As you know, all sectors of the economy are fragile at the moment, specifically the fisheries. I am thinking about the lobster fishery in the Magdalen Islands, the crab fishery on the Cte-Nord or those fishing for herring in the south of the Gasp. Because imports have ceased, because the domestic market is weak and in decline because of the interruption of the tourism and restaurant industries, the fishing industry and its fishers must be supported. I would like to know what the government has done to support our fishers since the crisis began. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Our fishers do exceptional work that is extremely important in feeding Canadians and in contributing to our economic success through their exports around the world. This crisis has struck them very hard. That is why we have established measures in the tens of millions of dollars to support our processors. We have also announced help for the fishers. We know that these are difficult and unprecedented times, and we are going to Mrs. Marilne Gill: My thanks to the Prime Minister. I am actually talking about help for the fishers. I know about the processing industry and the $62. 5million to be used essentially for freezing products, but I am talking about the fishers themselves. Given the economic situation, most of our fishers are getting ready to leave. First, there are health risks. We know very well that it is impossible for them to observe all the social distancing measures. They have to incur additional expenses in order to conduct their normal fishing activities. In addition, they feel that they will be losing money, because of the drop in the price of their resource. They are just as essential as farmers, but they are going to have to work at a loss and they are not going to have workers to assist them. Workers in the seasonal industry do not know what tomorrow will bring. They do not even know whether they will be able to put food on the table next year. Are you going to do anything else, in addition to the assistance of $62. 5million? Time is of the essence. Our fishers have lacked certainty for weeks and they are very concerned. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Yes, indeed, we are going to do other things. Other investments will be made in various sectors in order to support Canadians. We recognize the challenges that fishers must face in terms of social distancing and of work that is often seasonal. We are going to continue working with the industry, with the fishers, and with the coastal communities in order to ensure that people have confidence in their abilities and in their future. In times of crisis, it is important for the government to be there to support people, and that is exactly what we are going to continue to do. This is an unprecedented crisis, but we can see once more that Canadians are there for each other. Our government will continue to be there for the fishers and the fishing industry. Mrs. Marilne Gill: I would have preferred us to be there from the start. Clearly, this is a difficult crisis. But, given the cyclical nature of the industry, some sectors have had to postpone for several weeks the preparations they need for fishing activities. The current program could be modified in a number of ways, to accommodate the cycle, the dates, and the size of the companies. They would really like to take advantage of the $40,000loan, but they cannot because of their payroll. Given the dates, they are also ineligible for the 75%salary subsidy. I can already suggest a number of solutions to the government and to the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, that would bring help to those businesses very quickly. The fishers carry on, because it is a duty for them, because they want to help us and to be part of the effort at this time of crisis. At the same time, they have no guarantee that they will be supported. I would really like to hear a guarantee that they will be supported, that they will be able to put food on the table this year, and that they will be able to support the communities that often depend on the fishing industry, a major industry in those communities. Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Minister Jordan has been working with the fishers, the fishing industry and the communities affected by the crisis since the crisis began. We are assessing a number of solutions. We have proposed various solutions to support the communities, the workers and the families. This is an unprecedented situation. From the outset, our priority has been to support the millions of Canadians from coast to coast who have lost their jobs. We have been able to do so, but we are going to continue to work for those who must now face difficulties. We are going to be there for each other. That is what people are expecting from our government and from other Canadians. The Chair: Before we move to the next question, I would like to remind members of the committee to speak slowly, and to address their remarks to the chair and not directly to each other. Thank you very much. We will now go to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach (SkeenaBulkley Valley, NDP): Mr. Chair, municipalities across Canada are facing a financial crisis. They've seen revenues plummet, and at the same time the cost of delivering municipal services has risen. As the Prime Minister knows, municipalities are unable to run deficits and so they are facing the reality of cutbacks and serious cuts to the services that Canadians depend on. We know that municipalities are vital during this time to provide services to Canadians. They're going to be even more important during the recovery, especially when it comes to delivering on the infrastructure programs before us. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities and mayors across Canada have called for emergency financial relief for the municipal sector. My question for the Prime Minister is, when can they expect federal financial support to arrive? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, no government in Canada's history has done more to work with our municipalities, with our cities, with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to respond to the challenges they're facing and to partner with them. Things from infrastructure to investments have made a huge difference right across the country in the quality of life of Canadians in towns, large and small, from coast to coast to coast. As I'm sure the member well knows, our Constitution requires that most of the funding for municipalities flow through the provinces. We are working with the provinces, as we continue to work with the cities, to ensure that we're able to support this order of government that delivers the vast majority of services to Canadians with very little financial means. We know how difficult it is for our cities. We will continue The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, it would seem that the federal government has the fiscal capacity and the responsibility to help municipalities weather this crisis. Transit systems have been hit particularly hard and have seen the bulk of the layoffs in the municipal sector. These transit services carry essential workers to work, whether they are health care workers, grocery store workers, janitors or others. The risk is that we will see higher fares to deal with this financial crisis. We will see service cutbacks precisely at a time when we want to be expanding transit and improving transit in our communities. Does the Prime Minister acknowledge that the federal government needs to step in to safeguard and protect Canada's transit services? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, this federal government recognizes how important it is to support all Canadians, which is why we put forward unprecedented measures to help millions upon millions of Canadians with the CERB and with the wage subsidy. We will continue to work with the provinces, which have jurisdiction over the municipalities. I'll be having a conversation with all other first ministers tonight to talk about a broad range of issues. I can highlight that the issue of transit funding has come up. We have continued to engage with them, but again, it is important to respect the Constitution and understand that funding for municipalities and cities does go through the provinces. The federal government is happy to be there to support, but it must be The Chair: We will go to Mr. Bachrach again. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I am wondering how the Prime Minister could explain to a bus driver in Vancouver who has been laid off that as a public sector worker, she can't access the federal wage subsidy, while an equivalent worker in the airline industry gets to keep her job with the federal help of that program. Could the Prime Minister explain how that is fair? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I'm happy to explain to the member and to all Canadians that our Constitution creates federal areas of jurisdiction and provincial areas of jurisdiction. The airline industry, like banking, like telecommunications, is a federal area of jurisdiction that we have been able to move forward on. More than that, we brought the Canada emergency response benefit and the wage subsidy to all industries across this country, because we knew that as the federal government, it was something that we needed to step up on The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Bachrach. Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I'd like to shift gears a little bit. Faced with minimal health care capacity, remote indigenous communities in my riding are taking matters into their own hands. The Nuxalk have put up a checkpoint on Highway 20 to protect community members and prevent non-essential travel. In particular, it is to protect the three remaining fluent speakers of the Nuxalk language, these cherished elders in their community. The Haida on Haida Gwaii have set up a similar checkpoint, as have communities throughout British Columbia, yet federal support for indigenous communities amounts to only $39 million for all of the indigenous communities in B. C. Does the Prime Minister not agree that more support is warranted to help indigenous communities in my riding and across the country? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, we made funds available to Canadians right across the country, particularly people in indigenous remote or northern communities who we knew would be facing more difficult challenges because of the existing vulnerabilities in their health care system and socio-economic circumstances. We have made unprecedented investments and we will continue to make the necessary investments, because we need to make sure that indigenous Canadians, and indeed all Canadians, have the supports they need to make it through this crisis. The Chair: We will continue with Mr. Berthold. Mr. Berthold, you have the floor. Mr. Luc Berthold (MganticL'rable, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I am going to keep talking about the area of jurisdiction that the Prime Minister likes to talk about, except that I want to point out the incompetence of the Liberals in keeping their commitments on infrastructure projects. My question is very simple. As the provinces gradually restart their economies, can the Prime Minister tell us how many projects that the provinces have submitted are waiting for approval from his government? Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, I hope that the length of the pause will not be taken out of my time. The Chair: No, I stopped the clock for your time. Ms. McKenna, you have the floor. Hon. Catherine McKenna (Minister of Infrastructure and Communities): I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, I was on mute. I'm very pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. I have spoken with all of my provincial and territorial counterparts over the last couple of weeks. Work on our historic infrastructure program is progressing well. My department has worked very hard to approve projects, and we will continue to do so. It is very important to build projects that will create good jobs The Chair: We are returning to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: We still haven't had a response. How many projects are currently awaiting government approval? I know that the minister has been meeting virtually with the provinces over the last few days. However, there are still hundreds of projects waiting for approval from the Liberal government. Rather than wait for the right political opportunity to approve these files, will the minister commit today to respecting the provinces and approving by next week all the projects that are sitting on her desk? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I'm pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. We are approving projects. If the hon. member speaks to the provinces and territories, he will see how well we are working together. We will announce the approval of projects because it's very important for our economy, our communities and creating good jobs. Mr. Luc Berthold: Does the minister understand that she hasn't told us how many projects are still pending? The construction season is very short. Approval of a project in July means that work can't begin until next year, which won't help revive our economy. Hon. Catherine McKenna: I want to make it clear that we have approved hundreds of projects in the last few weeks. We will work with the provinces, territories, municipalities and indigenous communities to implement these projects. These projects are important for the economy and the environment, as well as for jobs The Chair: We return now to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, while the minister is calling for a green recovery of the country's economy, public transit is at risk. Physical distancing measures will cause public transit use to drop for several months. The Union des municipalits du Qubec estimates that the monthly losses are between $75million and $100million. Other countries have included public transit in pandemic relief programs. Why isn't Canada? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, we recognize the importance of public transit for our economy, since some essential workers use public transit. We are working very closely with our counterparts and are listening to the municipalities. As the Prime Minister said, it's the provinces that must help because the money The Chair: We return now to Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, once again, what we're hearing is that the government is passing the buck to the provinces. Unfortunately, the minister was unable to answer a single question about the number of infrastructure projects still on the federal government's desk, which is very important. Several large municipalities are waiting for the approval of projects. Moreover, public transit systems are facing an extremely serious financial crisis. Ridership in most systems is down 85%to90%. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is asking for help for small communities, as well as large municipalities. Why is the federal government ignoring the municipalities in the Canadian Federation of Municipalities at this time? Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I can reassure the hon. member that we are working very closely with the municipalities. We are listening to the municipalities to find out what their issues are and how we can support them. Of course, we need the help of the provinces and territories. In terms of the number of projects that we've approved, I would be happy to inform the hon. member of the exact number of all the approved projects that my department has been working very hard on over the past few months to approve projects to go forward. Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, do I have any time left? The Chair: No, your time is up. We'll now go on to Mr. Fast. Hon. Ed Fast (Abbotsford, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. This question is directed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. On March 28, the minister personally tweeted out a thank you to the People's Republic of China for donating PPE to Canada. This tweet happened within three hours of China's announcement of that gift. As it turned out, much of the PPE was defective and could not be used. More recently, Taiwan donated half a million surgical masks to Canada, yet here we are, two weeks later, and the minister has yet to personally thank Taiwan for its generosity. Will the minister now thank this free and democratic country for its generous gift to Canadians? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne (Minister of Foreign Affairs): Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank my colleague for the question. Indeed, we are very grateful to every nation for helping Canada. This is a global pandemic that knows no borders. We have been expressing our thanks to many nations that have contributed. We will continue to do so. It is important in a time of pandemic, Mr. Chair, that we not play politics and that humanity comes together. I can say, after my COVID foreign ministers call, that the world community has come together to make sure that supply chains will remain intact and that we will have transit hubs and air bridges. We will continue to work with every nation when it comes to health. This is a public good. We want to work together with everyone. The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Fast now. Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, I didn't hear a thank you there, so I'm going to try again. On May 4, the Government of Taiwan delivered 25,000 surgical masks to the Government of British Columbia. On hand were B. C. Minister of Citizens'Services Anne Kang and Minister of State for Child Care Katrina Chen, who, as ministers, officially thanked the Government of Taiwan for its donation. Again, will the minister now do the right thing and, on behalf of Canadians, recognize the generosity of Taiwan and thank its government for that timely donation? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, as I said to you before, Canada is grateful to all who have given supplies to Canada. This is a common endeavour. We are thankful. We are grateful to every nation and we will continue to be. As I said, when it comes to global health, when it comes to helping each other, I think it is a duty for all to come together. We are grateful and thankful for all those who have agreed to help Canada and Canadians from coast to coast to coast in times of need. I've repeated that and have said many times in many forums that we are grateful and thankful to all of those who are helping Canada. Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, again there was no specific thank you to Taiwan. The Government of Taiwan has been the world leader in successfully fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. We have a lot to learn from them and their response. Sadly, the People's Republic of China continues to oppose Taiwan's membership in the World Health Organization. Will the minister now do the right thing and assure Canadians that he will fully support efforts to grant Taiwan membership in the World Health Organization? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the member. As a former trade minister, he's very well aware of Canada's one China policy. That said, we support Taiwan to continue meaningful participation in international multilateral forums, particularly when it comes to health. This is a global good, and we want to support every nation. We recognize that Taiwan and others have been doing very well in fighting this pandemic. We also believe that Taiwan's role as an observer in the World Health Assembly meeting is of interest to the international health community and we have been supportive of that. Hon. Ed Fast: Mr. Chair, I'm going to pivot to repatriation flights. The minister has publicly said that over 20,000 stranded Canadians have been repatriated from abroad. Can he tell us exactly how many Canadians remain abroad who have expressed a desire to be repatriated? Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Yes, Mr. Chair, I am very happy to update members. As of today, we have repatriated more than 20,000 Canadians on 232 flights from 87 countries. I would say that this is team Canada, and it knows no parties. Many members have written to me to make sure that we take care. It's not an exact science. We have, as I said, repatriated thousands and thousands. We continue, because we know there are still pockets of Canadian travellers who are stranded abroad. As the Prime Minister and I have said from the beginning, we will make our best effort to repatriate everyone who wants to come back home during the crisis. The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Moore now. Hon. Rob Moore (Fundy Royal, CPC): Mr. Chair, Canadians need to have faith in their justice system, even in a time of crisis. My office has received correspondence from Canadians concerned that trial delays due to COVID-19 may result in criminals walking free. As this government has been working overtime to criminalize law-abiding citizens with new and useless gun laws, will the Minister of Justice ensure that real criminals will not walk free as a result of delays in the justice system? Hon. David Lametti (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada): Mr. Chair, I thank the honourable member for his question. We have been working with my provincial counterparts across Canada, as well as with the various federal courts and also, through my provincial counterparts, with the superior courts and courts of appeal across Canada. Each particular jurisdiction has taken measures to ensure that basic essential services within the court system are maintained, through a variety of means, and we believe that we will be able to solve these various challenges. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, the regional relief and recovery fund was announced weeks ago as a way to help small and medium-sized businesses in rural communities, like those in my riding. In Atlantic Canada, these funds were to be distributed to the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. This is yet another announcement with no details from this Liberal government. Can the minister clarify whether we are days away or weeks away from this support flowing to the businesses that need it so desperately? Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): Mr. Chair, I had the chance to talk with many of the chambers of commerce and business owners throughout Atlantic Canada, and we hear their anxiety. That's why ACOA's doing great work on the ground to make sure we can help them through this very difficult period. The member is right. We have increased the budget of ACOAgood newsand I'll be coming up with the details very soon. It will be a pleasure to collaborate with him to make sure that we can help many businesses and business owners across the Atlantic region. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, my office has heard from many small business owners who have reached out to me. I know many have reached out to many of my colleagues and probably to all of us here today. They are frustrated by the eligibility requirements for some of the federal programs. In particular, they are unable to access the emergency business account, because they do not have a payroll. This could be the hair salon in my riding that subcontracts out its chairs. There are hundreds and thousands of small businesses in this very situation, vital small businesses in our communities, but they do not meet this requirement. These businesses, many of them, are weeks away from shutting down permanently. What does the Minister of Finance have to say to these small businesses that are suffering right now? Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Mr. Chair, I want to thank my honourable colleague for that really important question. I want all the businesses that he is talking about and all of them throughout the country to know that we continue to work very hard to make sure they're supported through this difficult period. More work needs to be done, and we will continue to do that work. We know that businesses are being supported through getting access to the wage subsidy to keep their employees together, and they're getting help, whether it's with rent or to defray costs by deferring GST and HST or customs duty payments. We're going to continue to work with all our businesses across the country. The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Moore for a brief question. You have less than 20 seconds, please. Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, it's a very specific issue. There are small businesses, thousands of them, that do not have a payroll. Some have a personal account that they've dealt with over the years rather than a business account, and that makes them ineligible. These businesses need help right now. Hon. Mary Ng: I agree with the honourable member. Those businesses absolutely need support from us. We are going to keep working to ensure they are supported. The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Cumming next. Mr. James Cumming (Edmonton Centre, CPC): Mr. Chair, small businesses are concerned about their ability to survive, and no amount of deferrals, loans or subsidies can substitute for their need to be open and servicing their customers. Can the government confirm that a sectoral risk analysis has taken place to assist the provinces in reopening the economy? Hon. Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry): Mr. Chair, I can assure the member that we've been very clear in terms of our strategy around reopening the economy. We need to make sure that we follow the advice of the experts and the health authorities to do so in a manner that does not compromise the health and well-being of Canadians. We of course will have a sectoral lens, and as you can see by some of the initiatives and the support packages we've put forward The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Cumming now. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, thousands of business owners make a living and utilize dividends as their salary. They also use independent contractors. Can the government confirm that the programs currently in place will be expanded to these hard-working Canadians? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to assure the honourable member that we continue to work with all of our small businesses and I want to thank him for raising this very important issue. I want to assure our Canadian small businesses that we are going to continue to do this work to make sure they are supported. Mr. James Cumming: Can the minister give me a date when she will be able to announce to these businesses that they will be eligible? Hon. Mary Ng: I want to assure our Canadian small businesses of their importance and of the importance of their contributions to all of our communities. I want them to know that we continue to listen and that we will ensure that they are supported and continue to be supported during this difficult time. Mr. James Cumming: Minister, they need more than assurance. Can you give me a date when I can tell these thousands of businesses they will be supported if they pay dividends or if they use contractors within their businesses? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, these businesses are absolutely important and are getting support through a range of means. We will continue to work with these businesses to make sure they are supported through this difficult period. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, I spoke to a Second Cup owner whose landlord is not offering any kind of rent relief. The landlord says that he doesn't have the 25% needed to be eligible for the program because he's already paying for common area costs and deferrals on utilities, which he will have to pay on his mortgage. Will the government reform the rent relief program to focus on tenants and not just the landlords? Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr. Chair, I want to let the member know that we are working to make sure that the details of the emergency program for rent are out there so that both tenants and landlords can understand the situation. We're seeing a significant number of both landlords and tenants coming forward to register for this program, and we are convinced that it will be in the best interests of landlords to move forward and give tenants this relief. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, we've been hearing, however, from small business owners that their landlords don't find the government's rent relief program appealing enough. Can the government confirm, given the program's low eligibility rate, that the program will be expanded and be more efficient in helping tenants? Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we recognize that it's critically important that all of the details of this program be out there for landlords and tenants to understand. Those details are being worked on right now. This is a program that we've put out within the last week, and we are confident that it's in the best interests of tenants and landlords. Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, during these trying times for small businesses, small businesses need all the help they can get. One easy way to do that would be to expand the Canada summer jobs program to businesses with over 50 employees. Will the government consider doing so to allow students to gain that very valuable work experience over the coming months? Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Mr. Chair, we are very excited about the uptake of the Canada summer jobs program this year. The second uptake provided employers across the country with the ability to add their needs for students to the mix. I'm looking forward to announcing a possible expansion of this program in the coming days. The Chair: The next question session will go to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall (SimcoeGrey, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. During this pandemic, the government has consistently called for a team Canada, non-partisan approach, and I was glad to hear that said a little earlier today. In fact, the public has called for that approach as well. However, at the same time, the current government has used a parliamentary back door to launch a poorly thought out gun ban. We have a government that didn't win the popular vote, and I'm just wondering how I explain to my residents, because I'm getting so many calls, that this is not a bloated response because, quite frankly, it is. Hon. Bill Blair (Scarborough Southwest, Lib.): First of all, Mr. Chair, I think the honourable member can explain to his constituents that the forming of regulations through order in council is actually the process prescribed in law in Canada under section 117. 15 of the Criminal Code. I would also invite the member to advise his constituents that way back in 1991, when there were some Conservatives who called themselves Progressive, the Mulroney government brought forward, in Bill C-17, the authority under that section for an order in council to prescribe specific makes, models and variants of military firearms as prohibited or restricted. The Harper government used the same tool The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall: I'm not sure, but I'm hoping, that I'll get an honest answer on this question from the minister, who has everything from rocket launchers to basically toy guns on the ban list. When will we get the cost of this buyback program? The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to please be careful in their language when they are referring to others. I won't comment on this one particularly, but I want all of you to be very, very careful when referring to other members. The honourable minister. Hon. Bill Blair: It's a good opportunity, Mr. Chair, to respond to some of the obfuscations and deceptions that have been put out there. We're not banning any toys and we're not banning shotguns. That's all misinformation that's being put out. I think it's very clear, and I invite the member to look at the list of weapons that are The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Thank you. What will be the cost of the buyback program, please? Hon. Bill Blair: Actually, I'm very much looking forward to bringing forward legislation as soon as the House resumes. We will have a vigorous debate in Parliament about the form a buyback will take and we will bring forward a budget at that time. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Will those with illegal weapons be eligible for the buyback program? Hon. Bill Blair: If people are illegally in possession of the weapons and they're committing a crime, they will be dealt with for the crimes they commit. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Okay. I'm going to switch it over. Canadians in my riding who suffer from cystic fibrosis are among the most vulnerable to COVID-19 infection. While these Canadians with existing lung conditions are incredibly worried about a virus that attacks the ability to breathe, the good news is that there are life-saving medicines for those with CF. The problem is with the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board and its restrictive guidelines. I am wondering if and when the government will correct these guidelines and give access to life-saving medicines for our most vulnerable. Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Mr. Chair, as you know, the government has been very committed to improving access and affordability for prescription medications for all Canadians. The PMPRB regulatory amendments will help Canadians be able to afford their prescriptions, and Canada will continue to be an important market for new medicines. In fact, many countries with much lower medicine prices gained access to new medicines in the same time frame as Canada frame, or even faster, so we are excited to do this work. Mr. Terry Dowdall: Mr. Chair, our seniors are being particularly hard hit right now during this pandemic, yet seniors have not been given any direct support. It's one of the number one calls I'm getting in my office. Funding to charities like the United Way is being labelled as support for seniors, but most won't see any of this support. Seniors in my riding have asked for an increase in their CPP and OAS, and to be able to make untaxed bulk withdrawals from their RRSPs while they still have some value. Can the minister confirm when these real and direct supports for seniors will be forthcoming? Hon. Deb Schulte (Minister of Seniors): I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. He mentioned. I'm not quite sure what's happening with my machine. I apologize. The Chair: You might want to try your space bar and keep it down while you're speaking. That might solve the problem. Hon. Deb Schulte: Okay, I'll try that. Thank you very much. I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. We have introduced a supplementary GST payment for low- and modest-income seniors. We've reduced the minimum RRIF withdrawal by 25%, and we've made the CERB available to working seniors who have lost their jobs due to the COVID pandemic. We know there's more work to do, and we'll have more to say in the future. The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that if there are issues, we are taking note of them, and we'll hopefully resolve them by the next meeting. We are getting much better, and we're all new at this. Thank you for your patience. We'll now go to Ms. Gaudreau. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau (LaurentidesLabelle, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My first question is for the Prime Minister. We've heard a lot about contact tracing apps. Several provinces have already made announcements on this, and others want to follow suit. Today, I'd like to know where the government stands on this. We've been talking about a national strategy for some time. Where are we now? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Obviously, contact tracing is an important part of managing any outbreak. In fact, we have been looking at a number of ways to support increased contact tracing across the country, including working with provinces and territories to boost their capacity through human resources and volunteer organizations. We are working very closely with them to make sure we have the capacity. The member is right that many other countries have used digital contact tracing apps. Anything we put forward as a digital tool to assist with contact tracing would be thoroughly considerate of Canadians'privacy rights. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Let me clarify my question a little. Yes, we are talking about public health, and we are currently experiencing a crisis. But you know as well as I do that the Privacy Commissioner has been calling us to task for a very long time now, because there is also a crisis of confidence. You know as well as I do that for 90%of Canadians, the misuse of their personal data is a cause for concern, whether it be for profiling or business development purposes. This is an issue that concerns all Canadians. The commissioner is indeed calling for a focus on reform of the Privacy Act. I'd like to know whether this commitment will be implemented quickly so that legislation can be passed on this issue, in this case the Privacy Act. Hon. Navdeep Bains: Particular attention must be paid to transparency, privacy and ethical concerns. Naturally, Canadians are concerned about how their data is used. New technologies are subject to the Privacy Act. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: We're talking about public health. The provinces are currently in the process of legislating. We're talking about what is going on in Quebec, among other places, and I would like to make sure that the federal government commits to respecting the proposals regarding geolocation and contact tracing possibilities, with full respect for the right to privacy. Can we commit to respecting the provinces? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have worked very closely with provinces and territories for a long time before the outbreak, but certainly ever since the outbreak. We respect the rights of jurisdictional authorities to use tools that have been properly vetted through their own provincial and territorial legislation. Nothing we would ever do at the federal level would put Canadians'privacy in jeopardy. Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Concerning privacy, there are 30million Quebeckers and Canadians who have had their personal data leaked. Why is it that our laws don't allow us to apply financial penalties so that we can then go further? The very basis is to be concerned about our fundamental rights. The commissioner has been making this request for several years now. As the critic for access to information and privacy, I'd like a commitment that the federal government will deal not with what the provinces are doing, but with the Privacy Act. The Chair: Your time is up, but I'll give the floor to the minister for 30seconds. Hon. Navdeep Bains: Thank you for the question. Our government will ensure the privacy of Canadians is respected, support responsible innovation and take reasonable steps to strengthen enforcement powers. That's why we created a digital charter. We are strengthening Canada's privacy laws in response to the digital age. The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Baker. Mr. Yvan Baker (Etobicoke Centre, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll be sharing my time with the member for Malpeque. Mr. Chair, my question is for the Minister of Seniors. Minister, in my riding of Etobicoke Centre, we are mourning the loss of 40 residents to COVID-19 at the Eatonville long-term care centre. Over 143 residents and 88 staff members have now tested positive for the virus. This tragedy is not only taking place in Etobicoke Centre but across Canada. Of all Canadians who have died from COVID-19,79% were living in long-term care homes. That's over 2,000 seniors. This is a catastrophe, and it's frankly unacceptable. Our seniors and their families deserve better. I understand that long-term care homes fall within the jurisdiction of provincial governments in Canada, but this is a crisis. What is the federal government doing right now to help protect our seniors who are living in long-term care homes from COVID-19? What will we do to reform our long-term care homes in the future to ensure that our seniors in Etobicoke Centre and across Canada get the care they deserve? Hon. Deb Schulte: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to my colleague from Etobicoke Centre for his very thoughtful question. We are deeply concerned by the outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care facilities, and our thoughts are with those who have lost a loved one. It's a very difficult time. As my colleague mentioned, while these facilities are regulated by provinces and territories, we have been focused on protecting the health and safety of long-term care residents and staff while working with our partners in a team Canada approach. We've released guidelines to prevent and control COVID-19 infections. We're working with the provinces and territories to cost-share a temporary salary top-up for long-term care workers. We are working through investing $2 billion to secure personal protective equipment for the health of workers, including those in the long-term care homes, and we've deployed the Canadian Armed Forces to assist 25 long-term care homes in Quebec and Ontario. We all have a role to play to stop the spread of COVID-19 and to protect our seniors and caregivers. The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Easter. Hon. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. At the finance committee, we've heard a lot of concerns from all sectors of the economy as a result of COVID-19 and we've been presented with quite a number of possible solutions as well, several of which the government has acted upon. My question is on the support offered to the agri-food sector announced on Tuesday. It is very welcome support, but I sincerely believe the farm sector will be taking the Prime Minister up on the suggestion that $250 million should be seen as an initial investment. Potatoes are the number one commodity in Prince Edward Island. However, as a result of reduced processor contracts for next year, plus cancelled seed contracts, millions of dollars of seed and process potatoes have no home. To make matters worse, farmers have high fixed costs that they now have to spread over fewer acres. How does the minister see Tuesday's announcement addressing potato farmers'concerns? Second, in 2013, long-term financial safety nets were gutted by the Harper government. Will the minister be coming forward with improved business risk management programs as a result? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): Mr. Chair, I want to thank Mr. Easter, the member for the riding of Malpeque on Prince Edward Island. It's a beautiful rural riding with lots of agricultural production. I want to recognize the hard work of farmers throughout the crisis. On Tuesday, I was proud to announce one more step for supporting our producers and processors. We know the importance of our potato farmers, and that's why we are launching a first-ever surplus food purchase program, a $50-million fund designed to help redistribute existing inventories, such as potatoes, to local food organizations. On the financial safety net that we have in place for our farmers, called the business risk management program, we announced up to $125 million in funding through AgriRecovery and made changes to AgriStability that will help producers quickly. I will continue to discuss with my provincial counterparts toenhance and improve the BRM programs. In the meantime, I want to reiterate that BRM programs, including AgriInvest, are there to help farmers in difficult times. The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Johns now. Mr. Gord Johns (CourtenayAlberni, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, small businesses across Canada closed their doors to stop the spread and for public health. Now they're currently hanging off the edge of a cliff waiting for financial help. Robyn, who has owned Arbutus Health in Tofino for over 13 years, can't apply for the Canada emergency business account loan, simply because she doesn't have a payroll of over $20,000. All of her practitioners are paid contractors, so she is ineligible. With no business income and without emergency financing, it is virtually impossible for her to pay her bills or come up with the 25% needed for the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program. The government promised to be flexible and willing to adjust its COVID response rollout so that nobody falls through the cracks, but Robyn, like tens of thousands of proprietors who are the economic job creators of our communities, urgently needs the government's help now. Will the government amend its programs to help more business owners so that people like Robyn don't lose their businesses? Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for his really good question. I know he and I have talked about this, and I appreciate the input and the feedback that he is providing from business directly. I want to assure Robyn and her businesses, and many businesses across the country, that we are absolutely listening, and we will continue to make sure we are supporting those businesses during this period. We know that many businesses are being helped through the Canada emergency business account. There are well over 550,000 businesses that are getting support through this emergency business account. We also know that more has to be done, and we will continue to work with you and businesses across the country so that we can indeed give them that necessary support to weather this difficult period of COVID-19. Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, that's not going to help Robyn feel comfort. I was talking to Heather last night, who also owns a business in Tofino, Basic Goodness Pizzeria, with her partner Marco. Like many proprietors of family businesses who aren't on payroll, they don't qualify for the business loans. They don't qualify for the wage subsidy because they're a seasonal business. Now with the new rollout of the rent support, they're not sure if their landlord is willing to play ball and even apply. That's three separate programs that leave them out. Heather was in tears last night as she told me that they have done nothing wrong to deserve being excluded from these emergency programs. I agree. Will the government fix the rent support program so that tenants can apply, instead of leaving it up to landlords, and so businesses can get the help they desperately need? Hon. Mona Fortier (OttawaVanier, Lib.): Mr. Chair, we've been working on this program since the beginning. We've been working on offering a response for small businesses and charities and non-profit organizations, and we are continuing to listen on the ground to how we can better assist the businesses that fall through the cracks. We will continue to do that as we go along in this emergency situation. Thank you very much to the honourable member for sharing the realities of his constituents. Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, when the government rolled out its commercial rent support program, why didn't it negotiate an eviction moratorium with the provinces, as Australia and other countries did, to protect business owners? Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as we know, Canadians are taking action and fighting against COVID-19. We know that many small businesses are worried about being able to pay rent. We've recognized it and we've been working with the provinces and territories to implement the Canada emergency commercial rent The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Johns. Mr. Gord Johns: To qualify for the Canada emergency wage subsidy, a 30% drop in revenue has to be shown. Anyone who's owned a business knows that even with this program, it's going to be hard to survive. Why is the government using a 70% measurement drop to qualify for the rent support program, but a 30% drop for the wage subsidy? Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, Mr. Chair, thank you to the honourable member for sharing his views on this program. We've been working with provinces and territories to provide forgivable loans to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rents for their tenants by 75%. We're hoping that tenants and landlords will be working together so we can support businesses during this very difficult crisis. The Chair: Before we move on to the next question, Mr. Berthold, did you have a question or a point of order? Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, I have a point of order. I checked the clock from the first round of five minutes, and as you may recall, it took a very long time for me to get an answer from the government. I went back and forth with MinisterMcKenna for four minutes and 14seconds. The Chair: Just a moment. The interpretation isn't coming through. It's working now. Go ahead, Mr. Berthold. Mr. Luc Berthold: I'll start over. During my first turn, it took 50seconds before a government minister deigned to answer my questions. After checking my time, I realized that the discussion between Ms. McKenna and I went on for four minutes and 14seconds, so I wasn't able to ask the minister one final question, a very important one. I would ask you to take that into account and allow me to ask MinisterMcKenna one last question, please. The Chair: The person chairing the meeting uses their judgment and does their best to keep an eye on what's going on. They try to be as fair as possible. I'll try to do a better job. I think it's more or less equal for all the members, but I apologize if the honourable member feels that he was denied a few seconds. Our next question goes to Mr. Doherty. Mr. Todd Doherty (CaribooPrince George, CPC): Mr. Chair, the Canada-U. S. border agreement is set to expire on May 20. Will the two governments renew the current agreement, or will it be modified? Hon. Bill Blair: The decision to close the border was made in Canada by Canadians in the best interest of Canadians. We're continuing to monitor the situation carefully. Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government be in a position to inform Canadians of any changes to the agreement? Hon. Bill Blair: I'm pleased to advise the member that we're continuing to monitor the situation, but I'm strongly of the opinion that the circumstances on both sides of our border do not indicate that this is the right time to make a change in the restrictions. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the government confirm whether there are any discussions about reopening the border to certain modes of transportation and restricting others? The Chair: Before I go to the minister, I want to remind the honourable members that we do have translators, and they are trying to translate. With respect to them, I know we're trying to get as many questions in as possible, but they do have to translate them, so please be considerate of our interpreters. The honourable minister has the floor. Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Let me please inform the honourable member that we are, of course, aware that the current agreement expires. I had a long conversation yesterday with the Prime Minister Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government announce a relief package for Canada's aviation industry? Hon. Navdeep Bains: We are engaged with the industry, and we are working with them on a solution, Mr. Chair. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, will this relief package include funding for airline ticket refunds similar to what other countries around the world have done? Yes or no? Hon. Navdeep Bains: It's early to say anything at this moment. We're taking a sectoral approach. This is about making sure that we restart the economy and have a strong recovery. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the Minister of Transport confirm that temperature screening is taking place at Canadian airports. Yes or no? Hon. Marc Garneau (Minister of Transport): Mr. Chair, I can confirm that Air Canada has now adopted a policy of checking temperatures for passengers boarding Air Canada flights. Mr. Todd Doherty: At which airports is that, and when did this practice start? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the announcement was made recently by Air Canada. It will start shortly and will apply to all places and destinations where Air Canada flies. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, this is for the Minister of Transport. Last week I asked the Minister of Labour if they were aware of a letter written on April 6 by CUPE to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Minister, were you aware of that letter? The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly. Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I didn't understand the reference to a letter from CUPE. Could my colleague please clarify? Mr. Todd Doherty: On April 6, CUPE wrote a letter to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Is the minister aware of that letter? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, could my colleague clarify what CUPE is referring to? Mr. Todd Doherty: CUPE is the labour organization that represents thousands of flight attendants across our country. Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I do understand. Yes, I will confirm that CUPE, which represents the flight attendants, did write to us. Before that I had conversations with CUPE with respect to flight attendants and the use of personal protective equipment. Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the minister confirm whether or not they have provided PPE to the flight attendants and/or training for front-line staff for airlines and airports? Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the airlines are providing PPE to flight attendants and flight crews. This has become a policy to ensure the safety not only of passengers on board but also of the flight attendants and flight crew. Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, a business owner from Quesnel wrote to my office recently. He stated that he couldn't give his small business tenants a break on rent because the government is penalizing him for paying off his mortgage. When will the government change the CECRA rules to help more businesses? Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as you know, we laid out the CECRA program just last week, and we are encouraging landlords to take that opportunity to support the renters. We will continue to look at how we can provide some relief to small businesses with rents. Mr. Todd Doherty: With all due respect, Mr. Chair, any landlord who does not have a mortgage on their business is ineligible for CECRA. Is the minister aware of this, and are they trying to revise the CECRA program? Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with provinces and territories to present that program. Of course, we will continue to monitor how this program works for landlords and tenants. We are asking, actually encouraging, landlords to do their part and help tenants, like the one you mentioned, go through this. The Chair: We'll go to the next questioner. Go ahead, Ms. Dancho. Ms. Raquel Dancho (KildonanSt. Paul, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Small businesses in Manitoba employ 73% of Manitobans. That's over 286,000 Manitobans. I've been speaking with many small business owners in my riding. It's been heartbreaking, frankly, to hear that everything they've built and sacrificed for is in serious jeopardy, and through no fault of their own. Your government has created programs that are supposed to help them, but many legitimate businesses aren't able to apply. That could mean bankruptcy and cost thousands of Manitobans jobs. This is wrong. I'm hoping to hear specifics, not just nice words, on what you're going to do to help them. There are three issues regarding access to the $40,000 CEBA loan. First, businesses that recently incorporatedfor example, in late 2019are unable to apply their entire 2019 payroll. As a result, many are falling short of the $20,000 payroll threshold required to qualify for this loan. Second, many businesses contract their employees rather than have them on payroll. They also are unable to qualify for this loan. Third, many businesses use personal rather than business banking accounts. They aren't able to qualify for this loan either. What is your government going to do about these three scenarios? The Chair: I just want to remind honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly to the minister. As well, please take into consideration the interpreters, who have to listen and translate, so that we can have this conversation. Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for that question. Right from the very beginning, we've always said that we will listen and that we will work to make sure that measures go out to help our Canadian small businesses. She's absolutely right: 98% of all our businesses in this country are small businesses, so they absolutely contribute enormously to our communities and are job creators. That is why we have put out significant measures. For the Canada emergency business account, over 550,000 small businesses have been approved and are getting that support. I absolutely acknowledge that there is more work to do. I can assure the honourable member that we will continue to do this work so that businesses, all businesses, are supported, whether it is helping keep your employees together, helping with rent support, helping to keep your business's expenses low, or of course helping with the capital that is needed so that you can pay your operating expenses and your bills through this difficult time. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, I didn't hear any answers from the minister's remarks, unfortunately. Moving on, there are two issues regarding the 50% commercial rent assistance subsidy, where landlords pay 25%, the government pays 50%, and the tenant is responsible for 25%. First, many of the small landlords aren't able to take a 25% hit to their income, and are unable to provide the subsidy to their tenants. Second, with the 70% decline in revenue threshold for small businesses to even be eligible for the rent assist, many restaurants are at 65% or 67% decline. They desperately need this subsidy but aren't able to qualify. This is not about problems with the program details. What is the government planning to do to streamline this program for small businesses that can't access but desperately need the rent subsidy? Hon. Mlanie Joly: Mr. Chair, as the Minister of Official Languages, I just want to raise the fact that interpretation is very complicated right now. In order to make sure that we can continue to uphold bilingualism within the House, I would love it if my colleagues could take down the pace a bit. That would help the interpreters a whole lot. They are working very hard and trying to keep up. The Chair: That's a reasonable request. I just want to remind everyone again that when you're asking a question, make sure you are doing it at a pace at which you're considering the people who are interpreting Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, this is how fast I speak when we're in the House of Commons. It's just how I talk. The Chair: I understand. I have a lot of friends who speak very quickly. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Right. I understand. Perhaps we could get back to my question about the rent subsidy. The Chair: We stopped the time. You're not losing any time on this one. Ms. Raquel Dancho: Okay. I will try to speak more slowly. The Chair: I appreciate it. Thank you. The interpreters appreciate it. Now we'll go to the minister, please. Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with the provinces and territories to provide this forgivable loan to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rent of their tenants by 75%. We will continue to monitor how this program is delivered, as we announced it last week. It will be offered pretty soon. It will be very important that we understand what happens across the country, and we will monitor and adapt the program as we Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, it has been in the media quite a bit that this rent subsidy is not helping many, many, many small business owners. It's falling short of everything that was announced, so I think it needs to be taken a bit more seriously than that. There are two issues regarding the 75% wage subsidy. First, employers who pay themselves and their employees dividends rather than wages are unable to qualify. Second, there is also a 30% threshold revenue decline needed in order to apply. Many of the businesses in my riding are at 27% or 29%. They desperately need these funds but are unable to qualify. What is the government planning to do for these small businesses? Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, thank you to the hon. member for sharing the realities she's hearing from small business owners. We are providing help and support for businesses through these very difficult times. The wage subsidy has been taken up and is working for many businesses. We know that some still fall through the cracks and we will look at how we can continue to support businesses across the country. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends (BrossardSaint-Lambert, Lib.) ): We are now going to Mr. Kevin Waugh. Mr. Kevin Waugh (SaskatoonGrasswood, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. Three weeks ago, on April 17, the Minister of Canadian Heritage announced funding of $500 million to assist Canada's arts, sports and cultural sectors. We are still waiting to hear who is eligible and when they can expect to receive this funding. Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Canadian Heritage): Madam Chair, we will be releasing the details of that announcement, and how the money is going to be spent, in the coming days. Mr. Kevin Waugh: We all know that many media organizations, large and small, in Canada are struggling right now. Allegations have arisen that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CBC, is currently engaging in predatory behaviour and taking advantage of the current situation to harm its competitors using rate cuts. We've seen this from the province of Quebec. Many journalists have talked about this. What is the government going to do to address these allegations against the CBC? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have not been informed of these allegations. We will look into this, and we will get back to the hon. colleague if we do find any valuable information. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Local community and ethnic media outlets and papers have strong ties to their communities that often go much deeper than the major media outlets. Is the government currently using any local or ethnic media outlets to provide crucial coronavirus information through advertising? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, I totally agree with my colleague. We need to get the information to Canadians on COVID-19, which is why we have started an ad-buy campaign of $30 million, which is being distributed in more than 900 local, regional and national newspapers across the country and 500 radio and TV stations in 12 different languages, including Farsi, Mandarin, Spanish, Italian and many more. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Mr. Minister, I talked to the Winnipeg Free Press yesterday. It has received two ads from an ad agency in connection with the $30 million the government is doling out to help media outlets. They had one ad on March 27. The second ad was on April 11. That is two ads in the Winnipeg Free Press in the last eight weeks. Is this the kind of money you're attempting to dole out to help media: two ads in eight weeks? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have been doing a number of things for our media in Canada over the last few months and will continue to do so. On top of that $30 million ad-buy campaign, we have been investing $50 million in local journalism. Just this year, it means that 200 journalists will be hired in areas across the country where journalism is more poorly defined. The federal government has paid part I licence fees of our broadcasters to the CRTC. That means $30 million is staying in the pockets of our broadcasters. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Madam Chair, last week, as the minister would know, 15 community newspapers, including eight in Manitoba and seven in the province of Ontario, closed their doors for good. Is the government currently planning any further measures aimed at assisting community or ethnic media organizations? We understand that many more will close their doors within the next 30 to 60 days. Hon. Steven Guilbeault: We are planning a number of other measures, some of which will be included in the $500 million. I will be announcing the details of that in the coming days. Of the $595 million that the media will receive, we have a tax credit that has now entered into force, and the cheques should be in the mail by the end of the summer. So there are a number of things we've done and a number of things we will be doing in the coming months as well. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Waugh, you may have a short question. Mr. Kevin Waugh: Well, finally, you have the five members associated with that committee to dole out the $595 million. They haven't even met yet. When will they meet? Hon. Steven Guilbeault: I would like to remind my hon. colleague that in order for us to provide tax breaks for the 2019 period, media outlets had to file their tax returns so we could go ahead. This will now be able to proceed, Madam Chair. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We now move on to Mr. Godin. Mr. Godin, you may go ahead. Mr. Jol Godin (PortneufJacques-Cartier, CPC): Thank you, MadamChair. This being the first time I've had the floor during a virtual sitting of Parliament, I'd like to take this opportunity to greet my fellow members, all 259participants. I hope they are taking care of themselves. I'd like to talk about the Prime Minister's appearance on the show Tout le monde en parle. This is what he had to say about his economic recovery plan: We are going to remain focused on the economy as a wholeinnovationresearch and science, the green economy and a fairer economyThere are things we are all reflecting on right now that reflection is going to continue. That was a weak answer. It didn't inspire much confidence. Can the government assure Canadians that it is being proactive and working on a plan to get the economy moving again? It must act now. Things are starting to reopen gradually. Is the government going to take concrete action to revive the economy? Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Yes, absolutely. Our government is wholly committed to restarting the economy, and we are working closely with the provinces to do just that. Last week, our government, together with the provincial and territorial premiers, released the principles that will guide efforts to restore economic activity across the country. That is key. The discussion between the Prime Minister and the premiers is continuing today. Mr. Jol Godin: MadamChair, before we go any further, since it took a while for the minister, or the government, to answer the question, can I have that time back to ask questions? The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I stopped the clock, Mr. Godin. Mr. Jol Godin: Thank you. The Prime Minister's answer during his appearance on Tout le monde en parle didn't inspire much confidence and doesn't line up with the Deputy Prime Minister's comments. How can the government be proud of announcing $252million in assistance for the agri-food sector, when that is less than 1% of all the program funding the government has committed to help Canadians get through the COVID-19 crisis? Clearly, the government doesn't see the food supply chain as a priority and has no regard for farmers and pork and beef producers. Does the government realize that eating is vital to Canadians? When is the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food going to adjust the program and show respect for Canadian farmers? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: I have the utmost respect for farmers. We are going step by step. We've already confirmed various supports for the agricultural sector. This week, we focused on beef and pork producers and processors, as well as sectors with product surpluses that can be redirected to food banks. I can assure my fellow member that this is an additional step and that more supports are on the way in the weeks ahead. Bear in mind that a number of programs are already available to farmers. Mr. Jol Godin: I'd like to switch topics now. PortneufJacques-Cartier is home to a company that is already licensed by Health Canada and that, for 20years, has been manufacturing medical equipment including masks, face shields and thermometers. This is equipment our health workers need. The company has a licence from the federal government. In mid-March, Health Canada reached out to the company to find out how much equipment it could manufacture to help fight COVID-19. The company confirmed that it could immediately start producing 200,000masks a week, ramping up to a million masks over the next few weeks. Forty-five days later, it is still waiting on its first order from the Canadian government. We are managing a crisis with a limited supply of medical equipment. Can the health minister tell us why, 45days later, this company licensed by Health Canada hasn't received an order? Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Thank you for the question. Industry and suppliers have enthusiastically answered our call to equip Canada with products and goods during the crisis. Many of those suppliers have already received contracts. We have reached out to all the others and will negotiate contracts as needed. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I would now like to invite hon. member Jenica Atwin to speak. Mrs. Jenica Atwin (Fredericton, GP): Thank you, Madam Chair. Seniors living alone are most at risk of economic insecurity, particularly single senior women, as gender inequality in the job market has translated all too often into inadequate retirement income. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a poverty reduction plan that addresses the unique challenges faced by older women? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to assure the member that we are quite aware that this pandemic has typically affected single seniors, and many of those, given that they live longer, are single senior women. I want to assure her that we are working on this issue, and we have provided some supports already through measures such as the GST supplementary payment. That is on average almost $400 for single seniors. There's more work to do. We know that, so stay tuned. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, older women represent a high proportion of residents in long-term care facilities. Having spent their lives caring for parents, children and often their partners, they find themselves needing care in nursing homes. Multiple outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care homes in Canada have highlighted systemic gaps that senior and elderly women may face in such facilities, as well as the working conditions of the female-dominated ranks of nurses and personal support workers. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a federal strategy for long-term care homes that recognizes quality of life for residents and working conditions for the employees, ideally one that goes hand in hand with a poverty reduction plan and enhanced home and community care investments across the country? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I do want to thank the hon. member for her question. It's an important one. We are obviously deeply saddened by the outbreaks that have been going on in long-term care facilities and those who have lost their lives. We do recognize that the administration of long-term care and palliative care is the responsibility of provinces and territories; however, we have been taking a team Canada approach, and as you already know, we've been doing tremendous work with them to try to ensure that those who live in those facilities can be well cared for and safe. We are doing that with guidelines The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms. Atwin has the floor. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, from May 4 to May 10, we are observing Mental Health Week. We know that our essential workers right now are experiencing unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety, on top of putting their own physical safety and health on the line. Most of these workers work in precarious jobs with no access to paid sick leave or vacation, and without any benefits to access mental health services. Apart from the very welcome investments in online resources, can the minister explain how the government will support these workers now and once the crisis is behind us? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, thank you very much to the member for the question. I'm so glad that she's raising the issue of mental health and in particular how poor mental health is oftentimes connected to our socio-economic status. I appreciate the nuance in that question. She's right. We do have new resources that are available to all Canadians free of charge through the Wellness Together portal, but there is more to do. I think the announcement of top-up wages, for example, which the Prime Minister spoke about today, is another example of how we're taking the health and wellness of all low-income Canadians very seriously. We know that mental health is not divorced from socio-economic status, and I look forward to working with her more on other measures that we can take together. Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, we're all very aware of the importance of temporary foreign workers and their role in ensuring our food sovereignty across this country. The pandemic has highlighted how we depend on their work. How are we protecting them? Madam Chair, will the government take action to strengthen legislation and ensure Canadians have access to the food they need while the workers who help bring it to our tables have safe working conditions, regardless of where they are working in this country? Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Thank you, Madam Chair. We are very concerned, as are countries around the world, that we support and create the environment for the health and safety of our temporary foreign workers and we value their contribution to our food supply chain here in Canada. We have issued guidelines to employers and are working very closely with local public health authorities in the provinces and territories to make sure workers are protected, that physical distancing and other recommendations are adhered to and that there are severe consequences if employers don't take care of their workers. The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We are now going to Mr. MacGregor. Mr. Alistair MacGregor (CowichanMalahatLangford, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. My first question is this: Will the Liberal government prevent federal bailout funds from going to companies that use tax havens and avoid paying their fair share here in Canada, yes or no? Hon. Diane Lebouthillier (Minister of National Revenue): We are working to make sure that anyone who tries to circumvent the rules faces serious consequences. We are asking businesses to designate a representative to attest their claims. Any employer receiving the subsidy who is deemed ineligible will have to repay the full amount. Anyone who abuses the program could face fines of up to 225% of the subsidy amount as well as five years in prison. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, I didn't really hear a yes to that question, so I'll repeat it. Does the government really think it's appropriate for tax-avoiding corporations to receive funding provided for by taxpayers? Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: We will keep going after companies that engage in tax evasion. I want to be clear. We will target those who are responsible, not innocent workers. An employee is an employee, regardless of who they work for. The wage subsidy program does not hand a blank cheque over to employers. It is meant to help Canadians pay their bills, keep their jobs and get through the crisis. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, the agriculture funding announced by the government earlier this week amounts to less than 10% of what the Canadian Federation of Agriculture estimates will be required to help farmers weather this crisis. Why has the Minister of Agriculture shortchanged our farmers? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, this is one more step. This was one more step. We have already committed significant support to our farmers through different programs, and we will do more. I have to remind my colleague that we have put in $5 billion through FCC, $50 million for the temporary foreign workers, two times $50 million for pork and beef producers this week, and $77 million for food processing. This is only the beginning, and we should not forget that the business risk management programs are still there to offer support. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Yes, Madam Chair, but we're nearly two months into this pandemic and this announcement only came this week. Farmers need certainty. When can farmers expect further updates on funding, and how much will the government be providing? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, we are working closely with the farmers and their representatives to identify where the gaps are, but once again, we have made improvements to the AgriStability program. They can get, depending on the province, either 50% or 75% in advance payments, and they can also, right now, access their AgriInvest program. There is more than $2 billion ready to access today, if they have The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. MacGregor. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, federal disability recipients and seniors on fixed incomes have been hardest hit by cost of living increases from COVID-19. If we acknowledge that $2,000 per month is the minimum needed to get through this time, why are they being asked to survive on far less? When can they expect assistance, and how much will they receive? Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to make sure people realize that we have provided some assistance through the GST supplementary benefit. We are also providing support to those who are still working, and we have done that by allowing them to access the CERB. There is more work to be done, so you'll be hearing more in the near future. Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, as I think we've heard through today's question period, there are countless example of this government designing programs to exclude many small businesses that desperately need help. Whether it's the payroll requirements or other eligibility, we still, to this day, almost two months into the pandemic, have too many small businesses falling through the cracks. Madam Chair, why has the government taken this approach and when can we finally expect fixes to the whole system? Hon. Mary Ng: Madam Chair, right from the get-go, we have been committed to making sure that Canadians are helped through this crisis, and that small businesses get the support that they need, so that we are saving businesses and jobs in this country. That is what we have done with many of our programs. You're seeing that we are also listening, so that we can modify them as we need. I want to assure the member that the work is not done. We continue to do this. The Chair: Thank you. It is now over to Mr. Perron. Mr. Perron, you may go ahead. Mr. Yves Perron (BerthierMaskinong, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question will come as no surprise, since it has to do with agriculture. I hear the questions my fellow members are asking, and to be frank, I don't find the answers satisfactory. It is well and good to talk about existing programs, but they aren't working, so enough with that refrain. That's what people are telling us. It's not just members of the opposition saying it. This morning, both farmers and processors came together for a press conference at the Union des producteurs agricoles's head office in Longueuil. Six stakeholders from different sectors sounded the alarm. Can the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food therefore tell us when she will announce significant supports for the industry? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We have already announced significant amounts of support, and more is on the way. I'd like to correct my fellow member. It's not that the programs aren't working; it's that they aren't generous enough in farmers'eyes. That's why I'm working with my provincial counterparts to make improvements to programming, including AgriStability. Here's an example. After using the online AgriStability benefit estimator, a pork producer found out that he would get $11 per head, as they say in the industry. Pork producers are calling for $20 per head, so it's a good start, even though it's not enough and it isn't what they are asking for. We want to keep working together, but farmers have to access the money available to them through AgriStability. Mr. Yves Perron: Now it's my turn to correct the minister. Even before the crisis, we were hearing from people in the industry that the programs were neither suitable nor sufficient. We are in a crisis, and this is an exceptional situation. In the case of mad cow disease, farmers received direct assistance. That's the kind of assistance we are calling for. We don't want to hear about growing levels of debt. Of course, this is a first step, but farms are already deep in debt. A few days ago, the government announced $50million in funding for pork producers, even though they are asking for $20per hog for 27million hogs. The government's support covers just 2. 5million hogs. When I call the measure insufficient, I mean it is grossly insufficient. It's high time the government put forth more support. It has to stop saying that it's working hard and examining the situation. The government has to listen to the people in the industry. Again, this morning, they had some interesting proposals. When is the government going to announce a whole lot more in funding support? What's been announced so far is only 10% of what farmers are asking for. Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We are going step by step. The programs are already in place. We are trying to make them better, and we are committed to doing that. These programs are cost-shared with the provinces. However, I would point out to the member that, when it comes to AgriRecovery, we made an exception to the rule. We are moving forward in every province to help pork and beef producers. That's two funding envelopes of $50million each to help cover the additional costs from the decrease in plant processing capacity. That's new money that was not yet available, money we introduced this week. As the Prime Minister said, we are going to do more, and we are moving forward step by step. Mr. Yves Perron: What we concluded in committee this week is that the $125million is not new money. It was already earmarked for the programs. The government can't say that programs already exist and, at the same time, claim that they are new programs. Something doesn't add up there. What's more, there are different ways to make money available. I'd like to talk compensation. Everyone knows that the Canada-U. S. -Mexico Agreement came into force a month earlier than planned, despite the promises that had been made. That resulted in additional losses, once again. An easy way to make money available without committing new spending is to provide compensation and announce programs for supply-managed sectors that got nothing. It seems to me that a time of crisis is a time for the government to practise some judo and announce measures. I am reaching out to the government, as I always do, but it has to come forward with announcements. Can we expect the government to announce measures in the coming days? Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Our commitment to farmers in supply-managed sectorsmeaning, egg, poultry and dairy farmersis as strong as it always was. I repeat, our commitment is clear. Dairy producers received their first payment at the end of last year or the beginning of this year. Support for poultry and egg farmers is in the form of investment programs, which aligns well with the recovery. At this time, we are focusing on emergency programs to help farmers hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. When it comes to the dairy sector, I hope I can count on your support. As you know, legislative changes are needed to grant the Canadian Dairy Commission's request and increase its borrowing limit by $200million so it can buy more butter and cheese. The Chair: Our next question will go to Mr. Lake. Hon. Mike Lake (EdmontonWetaskiwin, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we're all inundated, as we've heard during this entire question period, with Canadians'concerns about the economic restrictions and the social restrictions that they're under. Over the last couple of months, the WHO has given one very consistent message in terms of coming out of those economic and social restrictions. On March 16, Dr. Tedros said in his briefing, We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test. On March 25,44 days ago, he said, Aggressive measures to find, isolate, test, treat and trace are not only the best and fastest way out of extreme social and economic restrictionstheyre also the best way to prevent them. Does the minister agree with the WHO that relentless testing and tracing are critical to a successful economic and social relaunch strategy in Canada? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thanks to the member for the very astute observation and question. Absolutely, we agree that testing and contact tracing will form an important part of our response to living with COVID. We've been investing heavily in ensuring that we have the lab capacity, the collaboration across provinces and territories, and the variety of testing options to help us increase our capacity to test. We are aiming right now for a high volume of tests, but I will also say that in Canada we have one of the highest testing rates in the world. Although we're doing well, I can assure him that I am with him and I believe we need to do more. Hon. Mike Lake: I have some really quick questions for follow-up. First, what is Canada's current testing capability? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as I mentioned to his colleagues yesterday, we have currently the capacity to do approximately 60,000 tests per day across the country. Hon. Mike Lake: How many tests were conducted each day on average in Canada last week? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, it's hard for me to get that exact number, but I will get back to him with the exact number. Hon. Mike Lake: I'll save you the time. The exact number was 28,851, on average, every day last week. That's a gap of 30,000 from what your stated testing capability is. I'll give another quote from Dr. Tam, back on April 22,15 days ago. She said, As a first tranche, roughly close to 60,000 is where the provinces can potentially expand to as a target already. Does the minister happen to know, ballpark, what the average number of daily tests in Canada has been since that statement? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Your estimate was slightly higher than what my estimate was going to be, so that's a great piece of news. Listen, I will just say that I think if the premise here is that we could be doing more testing. I would agree, but I will also say that the provinces and territories are working incredibly hard on testing strategies that meet their own specific needs. I'm happy to have a conversation with the member later about that testing strategy. Dr. Tam works with all the chief public health officers across the country to ensure that their testing strategy is going to be applicable and appropriate for their particular jurisdictions. We, as the federal government, provide the capacity for them to conduct those tests. Hon. Mike Lake: Following up on that, is there a jurisdiction in Canada where relentless testing is not the appropriate strategy as provinces consider relaunching? Hon. Patty Hajdu: Each province and territory has its own outbreak and its own epidemic. For example, in British Columbia, where there are relatively fewer cases in general and less disease activity, they may have a different testing strategy than a province like Ontario, which is currently struggling with more outbreaks. Hon. Mike Lake: Given your comment that our current testing capability is 60,000, and acknowledging that only at one point in the entire history of our COVID response, over several months, has our weekly average been over 30,000it was about 31,000 for one day on a rolling basisMinister, are you satisfied with our current testing amounts right now, given that we're testing 50% of what the public health officer advises would be best? Hon. Patty Hajdu: I'm so amazed by the work the provinces and territories have done in a very short time to increase their capacity. We are supporting them with the tools that they need to get more testing done, but also to have other components in place that will allow them to do the rapid tracing of positive cases. I think it's very important to remember that testing strategies will be different across the provinces, based on the outbreak disease epidemiology. Having said that, I know that we can all do better, and I'm certain that my counterparts feel the same. The Chair: I'm going to have to cut the minister off at that one. I want to thank everyone for the session today, I think it went rather well. I'm very proud of you and proud of ourselves for what we managed to accomplish. The committee stands adjourned until Tuesday, May 12, at noon.

The meeting was the fifth meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. First of all, petitioners presented several petitions concerning BillC-7, Senate Bill S-204 and virtual format of the Covid-19 committee. Later, the meeting questioned the ministry on the pressing issues faced by the business sector in Canada and the governments'approaches towards the bad impact caused by Covid-19. The government in return, introduced the pressing facts and assured the committee that a great number of actions had been taken into reality. Moreover, the meeting also discussed the rent assistance and ways to ensure the privileges of both the land owner and the farmers. When it comes to the international affairs, the ministry restated the importance of One China agreement and said that the border issues were taken a close look by the government. In the end, the ministry was challenged with the exact figures of the current situation in Canada.

tr-sq-641

tr-sq-641_0

Summarize industrial designer's bad experience of remote control. Industrial Designer: Now what. Project Manager:'Kay, hello everybody. Uh, I guess you all know what is it about, you all received the email, I guess. Uh, we are actually doing this meeting to start a new project which is about designing a remote control. So I'm going to be the project manager of this uh project. And uh so I'm {disfmarker} present myself. I'm Fabien Cardinaux and uh I I guess you can present yourself. So I dunno, you can starts. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay, so my name is Petre {gap}. You can call me Petre {gap}, or Peter if you like. I don't care {gap}. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Uh my name's Bob Mor. Project Manager: And you are? In the project? Industrial Designer: Uh, in the project I'm supposed to be the technic. Marketing: Oh, sorry. Project Manager: {gap} Marketing:'Kay. So my name's Bob Morris. I'm the Marketing Expert for this project. Industrial Designer: Bob, Marketing: Bob yeah. Industrial Designer: okay. User Interface: My name is Hamed Getabdar, and uh I'm going to be Interface Designer in this project. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: So, uh, so today we are doing a short meeting to present the project, so um We are gooding we are going to present the tool we are {vocalsound} we are going to use during all this project. We are talking about the project plan, and we are going to to discuss about st our first ideas and so on, and, yeah. So we have around twenty five minutes to do this meeting. Um. So what is the goal of this project? Is to design a new remote control. So it should be, of course, new and original, and um it should be trendy, and user friendly. That mean it's a very challenging project, and uh uh. So w it's {disfmarker} we will try to do our best, and hopefully come with something very new and that people want to buy. So, um {disfmarker} So what's uh what are we going to do during this all this project? So it's more like we are going to do inv individual work all in o in o our specialities and we are going to meet each other quite often to discuss and to find a good way. Um. Yeah and everything is {disfmarker} will be like this. Um so now we are going to to get used t to to the tools we are going to use all {disfmarker} during all this project. So we can try to use uh the whiteboard here. So {gap} uh. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: For example we can try to write what is our our favourite animal and write the f our favourite characteristics about it. Mm. Uh {vocalsound}. So uh {disfmarker} {gap} So I will ask you all to do the same. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Just to get used to the whiteboard. Industrial Designer: So probably I would try to try to draw the animal. Well sh should I draw the picture of the animal? Project Manager: Yeah, yeah, you can draw the picture, of course {vocalsound}. Industrial Designer: I I th I think I should. Marketing: Yeah go ahead. Industrial Designer: Okay, so. Um {vocalsound}. Okay, American, um. Um. I would use the bird. So I tried to sketch it out. I had to first uh write it down because I am not absolutely sure if I can draw it, but ah. Can you recognise it {vocalsound} as a bird? Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay {vocalsound} it's your turn to {disfmarker} Marketing: Okay, okay. {vocalsound} So I think my favourite animal would be a c a cat. Project Manager: Oh. Marketing: That's its head. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Um I probably like cats the most because they're cuddly and furry and uh playful. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {gap} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Okay. User Interface: I dunno if I should go with this {gap} {vocalsound}. Industrial Designer: Oh it's okay. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: Thanks. {vocalsound} User Interface: If it is enough line. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Maybe put it up User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm sorry. {vocalsound} Marketing: {disfmarker} Put it a Maybe put it on the desk or something. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I should get used to the tool, so. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh just wait {gap} a little bit. C could we put it here, to make it as straight as possible? User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ah probably not. User Interface: {vocalsound} They should be remote. Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay, it {disfmarker} it works like this. Marketing: Uh, that's better. User Interface: Okay, thanks. Marketing: Your lapel microphone's fallen off. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Are you left-handed? User Interface: No. Industrial Designer: Oh, pity {vocalsound}. User Interface: Okay. Should I clean? {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: Okay, I think like horses uh because they are strong and beautiful, so if I want to write it here, I think I can. {vocalsound} Oh {vocalsound}. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Never mind. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Ah, it's maybe better if you leave it. Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we should just continue. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah, don't worry about it. {vocalsound} User Interface: {gap} Project Manager: {gap}, no worry. Marketing: No. Industrial Designer: {gap} User Interface: Okay. Industrial Designer: You won't draw them, or? Project Manager: You can draw it, if you want. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: I dunno if I can. Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Just try. I would like to see how it looks like. User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} It may be like a cow or I dunno, whatever. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm not good very good in drawing. Okay, so this is very {vocalsound} {disfmarker} It's a bird, I think. I dunno what is it. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: No, I think it's clear. User Interface: {vocalsound} Four. Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm. Yeah. I'm shameful {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh that's good, it's good. Industrial Designer: It's okay. It's in it's indeed beautiful. Project Manager: Good. Marketing: Yeah, and strong. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} Okay. Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Bob. Have to remember it. Bob. Project Manager: So good um {disfmarker} So, let's talk about money. Uh we are going to to sell {disfmarker} we want to sell uh this remote control for twenty five Euro Euro. And uh our expected profit will be around fifty million Euro. And uh we are trying to to have a market all around the world. So {gap} n not only for Switzerland, but for the world. Uh. So, um. The {disfmarker} We expect a production cost of maximum uh twelve point fifty Euro. Industrial Designer: Per unit, I guess. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, of course. Industrial Designer: Y oh okay. Project Manager: Um, so we can start today to have a first idea of what we want to do what are our experiments with remote control, and any idea? So, if you have some experience, good or bad, with remote controls you can share it and say what you f what is your idea. Anything. Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: Well, from experience, um I've had remote controls in the past that have had very {disfmarker} they've had lots and lots of buttons and they've been very small, and it's been very hard to to to use, because there's so many buttons, and you know it's very hard to see which buttons do what, and the buttons are very small and very hard to press. Um and and normally you only every use, you know, on a T_V_ remote you only ever use, mostly, you know, f four or f six buttons. Um. Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: Oh. Marketing: So it's frustrated me in the past, th that. Industrial Designer: Okay, I have also some points uh. Maybe two points. Uh first would be that in current remote controls there is no back light {vocalsound}, so if you are if you are uh playing with this in the dark room it's it's probably worth to to have something like uh back light. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: And maybe it could be also dependant on the the amount of of light in the room, so that if if it's in the day it doesn't need to be back lighted because it works on the battery, so. So something like this. And the second thing, f second point from me would be that in a normal remote control there is uh {disfmarker} there are two buttons for volume control. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: But I prefer like a potential-meter or something like. Marketing: Ah, okay. Okay. Industrial Designer: You know, some slider or {disfmarker} Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: Not just two discrete buttons for volume, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Marketing: Okay, n {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: but something which {disfmarker} Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Marketing: Is that because the {disfmarker} of the discrete volume levels, or is that Industrial Designer: Yeah, but I can reach {disfmarker} In uh one second I can mute it down, or or make a high volume. Project Manager: {gap} Are you not afraid that if you take your remote control you can move the slide and it could {gap} {disfmarker} the the volume can go up very quickly Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Ah, n. Project Manager: and it can {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: If it drops to the floor then it starts to scream {gap}. Project Manager: Yeah, also if y when you take the the remote control, for example on the table, you take it and you push the button and everything is very loud, and Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah, f It depends what what you feel about that. Project Manager: you have a heart attack {vocalsound}. Okay. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah but we can we can think of these things afterwards, but if {gap} you have some more notes on that. Project Manager: Yeah so you can {disfmarker} User Interface: Uh I {disfmarker} Yeah, Project Manager: Do you have something? User Interface: just a simple experience. I uh I prefer um remote control working with radio waves, because remote control working with infra-red rays you should you should you should keep it in a specific direction and then try it hard to tune {gap}. Project Manager: Yeah, that's true. Yeah without obstacles and {gap}. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Okay. Let's continue. Industrial Designer: Um. Project Manager: I have a meeting in five minutes, so maybe we should hurry. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: Um. So we will close uh this meeting. Industrial Designer: Okay, just a second. {gap} Project Manager: So we will have a next meeting in uh thirty minutes. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Um. Uh. The {disfmarker} So I will ask you to do some work. Uh the the interface interface developer will work on the on the design of the remote control, start to to have new idea and Industrial Designer: Which i which is Hamed, {gap}? Project Manager: read about {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: Mm. Marketing: He's the Industrial Designer? No, you're the Industrial Designer. Industrial Designer: Uh I am the Technical Designer, User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Oh. Industrial Designer: I dunno which one, uh v. Marketing: Yeah, Project Manager: Industry and {disfmarker} Oh. Marketing: I think that's the first. I_D_. Industrial Designer. User Interface: Uh-huh. Marketing: And the second one is the User Interface Designer. User Interface: Mm-hmm. Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: User Interf Okay. Marketing: And then last one's marketing, which is me. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Okay, so I'm the first one. Project Manager: So, um {disfmarker} Marketing: {gap} Project Manager: For the User Interface Designer, which is Hamed um, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: uh, you are going to work on the technical functions of the remote control. Industrial Designer: I see. User Interface: Okay. Project Manager: And for the Marketing uh Manager, I dunno, okay, which is Bob, uh you are going to try to to find the user requirements f uh for the remote control. Um, you will receive by email uh the specific instructions and uh by your personal coach. Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} Sign. Project Manager: Yep finished. So I see you in thirty minutes. Marketing: Great, okay. Project Manager: {gap} Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: Okay, thanks. Marketing: Thanks guys. Bye. User Interface: Bye. Project Manager: Thank you. Industrial Designer: {gap} Uh. {gap}

Firstly, remote control without backlight was inconvenient to use in the dark room. Secondly, the industrial designer preferred a potential-meter for volume control instead of two buttons.

tr-sq-642

tr-sq-642_0

Summarize the task allocation for team members. Industrial Designer: Now what. Project Manager:'Kay, hello everybody. Uh, I guess you all know what is it about, you all received the email, I guess. Uh, we are actually doing this meeting to start a new project which is about designing a remote control. So I'm going to be the project manager of this uh project. And uh so I'm {disfmarker} present myself. I'm Fabien Cardinaux and uh I I guess you can present yourself. So I dunno, you can starts. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay, so my name is Petre {gap}. You can call me Petre {gap}, or Peter if you like. I don't care {gap}. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Uh my name's Bob Mor. Project Manager: And you are? In the project? Industrial Designer: Uh, in the project I'm supposed to be the technic. Marketing: Oh, sorry. Project Manager: {gap} Marketing:'Kay. So my name's Bob Morris. I'm the Marketing Expert for this project. Industrial Designer: Bob, Marketing: Bob yeah. Industrial Designer: okay. User Interface: My name is Hamed Getabdar, and uh I'm going to be Interface Designer in this project. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: So, uh, so today we are doing a short meeting to present the project, so um We are gooding we are going to present the tool we are {vocalsound} we are going to use during all this project. We are talking about the project plan, and we are going to to discuss about st our first ideas and so on, and, yeah. So we have around twenty five minutes to do this meeting. Um. So what is the goal of this project? Is to design a new remote control. So it should be, of course, new and original, and um it should be trendy, and user friendly. That mean it's a very challenging project, and uh uh. So w it's {disfmarker} we will try to do our best, and hopefully come with something very new and that people want to buy. So, um {disfmarker} So what's uh what are we going to do during this all this project? So it's more like we are going to do inv individual work all in o in o our specialities and we are going to meet each other quite often to discuss and to find a good way. Um. Yeah and everything is {disfmarker} will be like this. Um so now we are going to to get used t to to the tools we are going to use all {disfmarker} during all this project. So we can try to use uh the whiteboard here. So {gap} uh. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: For example we can try to write what is our our favourite animal and write the f our favourite characteristics about it. Mm. Uh {vocalsound}. So uh {disfmarker} {gap} So I will ask you all to do the same. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Just to get used to the whiteboard. Industrial Designer: So probably I would try to try to draw the animal. Well sh should I draw the picture of the animal? Project Manager: Yeah, yeah, you can draw the picture, of course {vocalsound}. Industrial Designer: I I th I think I should. Marketing: Yeah go ahead. Industrial Designer: Okay, so. Um {vocalsound}. Okay, American, um. Um. I would use the bird. So I tried to sketch it out. I had to first uh write it down because I am not absolutely sure if I can draw it, but ah. Can you recognise it {vocalsound} as a bird? Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay {vocalsound} it's your turn to {disfmarker} Marketing: Okay, okay. {vocalsound} So I think my favourite animal would be a c a cat. Project Manager: Oh. Marketing: That's its head. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Um I probably like cats the most because they're cuddly and furry and uh playful. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {gap} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Okay. User Interface: I dunno if I should go with this {gap} {vocalsound}. Industrial Designer: Oh it's okay. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: Thanks. {vocalsound} User Interface: If it is enough line. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Maybe put it up User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm sorry. {vocalsound} Marketing: {disfmarker} Put it a Maybe put it on the desk or something. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I should get used to the tool, so. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh just wait {gap} a little bit. C could we put it here, to make it as straight as possible? User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ah probably not. User Interface: {vocalsound} They should be remote. Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay, it {disfmarker} it works like this. Marketing: Uh, that's better. User Interface: Okay, thanks. Marketing: Your lapel microphone's fallen off. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Are you left-handed? User Interface: No. Industrial Designer: Oh, pity {vocalsound}. User Interface: Okay. Should I clean? {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: Okay, I think like horses uh because they are strong and beautiful, so if I want to write it here, I think I can. {vocalsound} Oh {vocalsound}. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Never mind. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Ah, it's maybe better if you leave it. Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we should just continue. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah, don't worry about it. {vocalsound} User Interface: {gap} Project Manager: {gap}, no worry. Marketing: No. Industrial Designer: {gap} User Interface: Okay. Industrial Designer: You won't draw them, or? Project Manager: You can draw it, if you want. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: I dunno if I can. Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Just try. I would like to see how it looks like. User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} It may be like a cow or I dunno, whatever. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm not good very good in drawing. Okay, so this is very {vocalsound} {disfmarker} It's a bird, I think. I dunno what is it. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: No, I think it's clear. User Interface: {vocalsound} Four. Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm. Yeah. I'm shameful {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh that's good, it's good. Industrial Designer: It's okay. It's in it's indeed beautiful. Project Manager: Good. Marketing: Yeah, and strong. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} Okay. Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Bob. Have to remember it. Bob. Project Manager: So good um {disfmarker} So, let's talk about money. Uh we are going to to sell {disfmarker} we want to sell uh this remote control for twenty five Euro Euro. And uh our expected profit will be around fifty million Euro. And uh we are trying to to have a market all around the world. So {gap} n not only for Switzerland, but for the world. Uh. So, um. The {disfmarker} We expect a production cost of maximum uh twelve point fifty Euro. Industrial Designer: Per unit, I guess. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, of course. Industrial Designer: Y oh okay. Project Manager: Um, so we can start today to have a first idea of what we want to do what are our experiments with remote control, and any idea? So, if you have some experience, good or bad, with remote controls you can share it and say what you f what is your idea. Anything. Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: Well, from experience, um I've had remote controls in the past that have had very {disfmarker} they've had lots and lots of buttons and they've been very small, and it's been very hard to to to use, because there's so many buttons, and you know it's very hard to see which buttons do what, and the buttons are very small and very hard to press. Um and and normally you only every use, you know, on a T_V_ remote you only ever use, mostly, you know, f four or f six buttons. Um. Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: Oh. Marketing: So it's frustrated me in the past, th that. Industrial Designer: Okay, I have also some points uh. Maybe two points. Uh first would be that in current remote controls there is no back light {vocalsound}, so if you are if you are uh playing with this in the dark room it's it's probably worth to to have something like uh back light. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: And maybe it could be also dependant on the the amount of of light in the room, so that if if it's in the day it doesn't need to be back lighted because it works on the battery, so. So something like this. And the second thing, f second point from me would be that in a normal remote control there is uh {disfmarker} there are two buttons for volume control. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: But I prefer like a potential-meter or something like. Marketing: Ah, okay. Okay. Industrial Designer: You know, some slider or {disfmarker} Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: Not just two discrete buttons for volume, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Marketing: Okay, n {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: but something which {disfmarker} Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Marketing: Is that because the {disfmarker} of the discrete volume levels, or is that Industrial Designer: Yeah, but I can reach {disfmarker} In uh one second I can mute it down, or or make a high volume. Project Manager: {gap} Are you not afraid that if you take your remote control you can move the slide and it could {gap} {disfmarker} the the volume can go up very quickly Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Ah, n. Project Manager: and it can {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: If it drops to the floor then it starts to scream {gap}. Project Manager: Yeah, also if y when you take the the remote control, for example on the table, you take it and you push the button and everything is very loud, and Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah, f It depends what what you feel about that. Project Manager: you have a heart attack {vocalsound}. Okay. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah but we can we can think of these things afterwards, but if {gap} you have some more notes on that. Project Manager: Yeah so you can {disfmarker} User Interface: Uh I {disfmarker} Yeah, Project Manager: Do you have something? User Interface: just a simple experience. I uh I prefer um remote control working with radio waves, because remote control working with infra-red rays you should you should you should keep it in a specific direction and then try it hard to tune {gap}. Project Manager: Yeah, that's true. Yeah without obstacles and {gap}. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Okay. Let's continue. Industrial Designer: Um. Project Manager: I have a meeting in five minutes, so maybe we should hurry. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: Um. So we will close uh this meeting. Industrial Designer: Okay, just a second. {gap} Project Manager: So we will have a next meeting in uh thirty minutes. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Um. Uh. The {disfmarker} So I will ask you to do some work. Uh the the interface interface developer will work on the on the design of the remote control, start to to have new idea and Industrial Designer: Which i which is Hamed, {gap}? Project Manager: read about {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: Mm. Marketing: He's the Industrial Designer? No, you're the Industrial Designer. Industrial Designer: Uh I am the Technical Designer, User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Oh. Industrial Designer: I dunno which one, uh v. Marketing: Yeah, Project Manager: Industry and {disfmarker} Oh. Marketing: I think that's the first. I_D_. Industrial Designer. User Interface: Uh-huh. Marketing: And the second one is the User Interface Designer. User Interface: Mm-hmm. Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: User Interf Okay. Marketing: And then last one's marketing, which is me. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Okay, so I'm the first one. Project Manager: So, um {disfmarker} Marketing: {gap} Project Manager: For the User Interface Designer, which is Hamed um, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: uh, you are going to work on the technical functions of the remote control. Industrial Designer: I see. User Interface: Okay. Project Manager: And for the Marketing uh Manager, I dunno, okay, which is Bob, uh you are going to try to to find the user requirements f uh for the remote control. Um, you will receive by email uh the specific instructions and uh by your personal coach. Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} Sign. Project Manager: Yep finished. So I see you in thirty minutes. Marketing: Great, okay. Project Manager: {gap} Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: Okay, thanks. Marketing: Thanks guys. Bye. User Interface: Bye. Project Manager: Thank you. Industrial Designer: {gap} Uh. {gap}

Interface developer was asked to work on the design of the remote control. User interface designer was asked to work on the technical functions of the remote control while marketing was responsible for finding the user requirements for the remote control.

tr-sq-643

tr-sq-643_0

Why does the industrial designer prefer a potential-meter for volume control? Industrial Designer: Now what. Project Manager:'Kay, hello everybody. Uh, I guess you all know what is it about, you all received the email, I guess. Uh, we are actually doing this meeting to start a new project which is about designing a remote control. So I'm going to be the project manager of this uh project. And uh so I'm {disfmarker} present myself. I'm Fabien Cardinaux and uh I I guess you can present yourself. So I dunno, you can starts. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay, so my name is Petre {gap}. You can call me Petre {gap}, or Peter if you like. I don't care {gap}. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Uh my name's Bob Mor. Project Manager: And you are? In the project? Industrial Designer: Uh, in the project I'm supposed to be the technic. Marketing: Oh, sorry. Project Manager: {gap} Marketing:'Kay. So my name's Bob Morris. I'm the Marketing Expert for this project. Industrial Designer: Bob, Marketing: Bob yeah. Industrial Designer: okay. User Interface: My name is Hamed Getabdar, and uh I'm going to be Interface Designer in this project. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: So, uh, so today we are doing a short meeting to present the project, so um We are gooding we are going to present the tool we are {vocalsound} we are going to use during all this project. We are talking about the project plan, and we are going to to discuss about st our first ideas and so on, and, yeah. So we have around twenty five minutes to do this meeting. Um. So what is the goal of this project? Is to design a new remote control. So it should be, of course, new and original, and um it should be trendy, and user friendly. That mean it's a very challenging project, and uh uh. So w it's {disfmarker} we will try to do our best, and hopefully come with something very new and that people want to buy. So, um {disfmarker} So what's uh what are we going to do during this all this project? So it's more like we are going to do inv individual work all in o in o our specialities and we are going to meet each other quite often to discuss and to find a good way. Um. Yeah and everything is {disfmarker} will be like this. Um so now we are going to to get used t to to the tools we are going to use all {disfmarker} during all this project. So we can try to use uh the whiteboard here. So {gap} uh. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: For example we can try to write what is our our favourite animal and write the f our favourite characteristics about it. Mm. Uh {vocalsound}. So uh {disfmarker} {gap} So I will ask you all to do the same. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Just to get used to the whiteboard. Industrial Designer: So probably I would try to try to draw the animal. Well sh should I draw the picture of the animal? Project Manager: Yeah, yeah, you can draw the picture, of course {vocalsound}. Industrial Designer: I I th I think I should. Marketing: Yeah go ahead. Industrial Designer: Okay, so. Um {vocalsound}. Okay, American, um. Um. I would use the bird. So I tried to sketch it out. I had to first uh write it down because I am not absolutely sure if I can draw it, but ah. Can you recognise it {vocalsound} as a bird? Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay {vocalsound} it's your turn to {disfmarker} Marketing: Okay, okay. {vocalsound} So I think my favourite animal would be a c a cat. Project Manager: Oh. Marketing: That's its head. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Um I probably like cats the most because they're cuddly and furry and uh playful. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {gap} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Okay. User Interface: I dunno if I should go with this {gap} {vocalsound}. Industrial Designer: Oh it's okay. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: Thanks. {vocalsound} User Interface: If it is enough line. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Maybe put it up User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm sorry. {vocalsound} Marketing: {disfmarker} Put it a Maybe put it on the desk or something. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I should get used to the tool, so. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh just wait {gap} a little bit. C could we put it here, to make it as straight as possible? User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ah probably not. User Interface: {vocalsound} They should be remote. Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay, it {disfmarker} it works like this. Marketing: Uh, that's better. User Interface: Okay, thanks. Marketing: Your lapel microphone's fallen off. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Are you left-handed? User Interface: No. Industrial Designer: Oh, pity {vocalsound}. User Interface: Okay. Should I clean? {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: Okay, I think like horses uh because they are strong and beautiful, so if I want to write it here, I think I can. {vocalsound} Oh {vocalsound}. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Never mind. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Ah, it's maybe better if you leave it. Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we should just continue. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah, don't worry about it. {vocalsound} User Interface: {gap} Project Manager: {gap}, no worry. Marketing: No. Industrial Designer: {gap} User Interface: Okay. Industrial Designer: You won't draw them, or? Project Manager: You can draw it, if you want. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: I dunno if I can. Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Just try. I would like to see how it looks like. User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} It may be like a cow or I dunno, whatever. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm not good very good in drawing. Okay, so this is very {vocalsound} {disfmarker} It's a bird, I think. I dunno what is it. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: No, I think it's clear. User Interface: {vocalsound} Four. Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm. Yeah. I'm shameful {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh that's good, it's good. Industrial Designer: It's okay. It's in it's indeed beautiful. Project Manager: Good. Marketing: Yeah, and strong. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} Okay. Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Bob. Have to remember it. Bob. Project Manager: So good um {disfmarker} So, let's talk about money. Uh we are going to to sell {disfmarker} we want to sell uh this remote control for twenty five Euro Euro. And uh our expected profit will be around fifty million Euro. And uh we are trying to to have a market all around the world. So {gap} n not only for Switzerland, but for the world. Uh. So, um. The {disfmarker} We expect a production cost of maximum uh twelve point fifty Euro. Industrial Designer: Per unit, I guess. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, of course. Industrial Designer: Y oh okay. Project Manager: Um, so we can start today to have a first idea of what we want to do what are our experiments with remote control, and any idea? So, if you have some experience, good or bad, with remote controls you can share it and say what you f what is your idea. Anything. Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: Well, from experience, um I've had remote controls in the past that have had very {disfmarker} they've had lots and lots of buttons and they've been very small, and it's been very hard to to to use, because there's so many buttons, and you know it's very hard to see which buttons do what, and the buttons are very small and very hard to press. Um and and normally you only every use, you know, on a T_V_ remote you only ever use, mostly, you know, f four or f six buttons. Um. Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: Oh. Marketing: So it's frustrated me in the past, th that. Industrial Designer: Okay, I have also some points uh. Maybe two points. Uh first would be that in current remote controls there is no back light {vocalsound}, so if you are if you are uh playing with this in the dark room it's it's probably worth to to have something like uh back light. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: And maybe it could be also dependant on the the amount of of light in the room, so that if if it's in the day it doesn't need to be back lighted because it works on the battery, so. So something like this. And the second thing, f second point from me would be that in a normal remote control there is uh {disfmarker} there are two buttons for volume control. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: But I prefer like a potential-meter or something like. Marketing: Ah, okay. Okay. Industrial Designer: You know, some slider or {disfmarker} Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: Not just two discrete buttons for volume, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Marketing: Okay, n {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: but something which {disfmarker} Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Marketing: Is that because the {disfmarker} of the discrete volume levels, or is that Industrial Designer: Yeah, but I can reach {disfmarker} In uh one second I can mute it down, or or make a high volume. Project Manager: {gap} Are you not afraid that if you take your remote control you can move the slide and it could {gap} {disfmarker} the the volume can go up very quickly Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Ah, n. Project Manager: and it can {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: If it drops to the floor then it starts to scream {gap}. Project Manager: Yeah, also if y when you take the the remote control, for example on the table, you take it and you push the button and everything is very loud, and Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah, f It depends what what you feel about that. Project Manager: you have a heart attack {vocalsound}. Okay. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah but we can we can think of these things afterwards, but if {gap} you have some more notes on that. Project Manager: Yeah so you can {disfmarker} User Interface: Uh I {disfmarker} Yeah, Project Manager: Do you have something? User Interface: just a simple experience. I uh I prefer um remote control working with radio waves, because remote control working with infra-red rays you should you should you should keep it in a specific direction and then try it hard to tune {gap}. Project Manager: Yeah, that's true. Yeah without obstacles and {gap}. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Okay. Let's continue. Industrial Designer: Um. Project Manager: I have a meeting in five minutes, so maybe we should hurry. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: Um. So we will close uh this meeting. Industrial Designer: Okay, just a second. {gap} Project Manager: So we will have a next meeting in uh thirty minutes. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Um. Uh. The {disfmarker} So I will ask you to do some work. Uh the the interface interface developer will work on the on the design of the remote control, start to to have new idea and Industrial Designer: Which i which is Hamed, {gap}? Project Manager: read about {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: Mm. Marketing: He's the Industrial Designer? No, you're the Industrial Designer. Industrial Designer: Uh I am the Technical Designer, User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Oh. Industrial Designer: I dunno which one, uh v. Marketing: Yeah, Project Manager: Industry and {disfmarker} Oh. Marketing: I think that's the first. I_D_. Industrial Designer. User Interface: Uh-huh. Marketing: And the second one is the User Interface Designer. User Interface: Mm-hmm. Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: User Interf Okay. Marketing: And then last one's marketing, which is me. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Okay, so I'm the first one. Project Manager: So, um {disfmarker} Marketing: {gap} Project Manager: For the User Interface Designer, which is Hamed um, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: uh, you are going to work on the technical functions of the remote control. Industrial Designer: I see. User Interface: Okay. Project Manager: And for the Marketing uh Manager, I dunno, okay, which is Bob, uh you are going to try to to find the user requirements f uh for the remote control. Um, you will receive by email uh the specific instructions and uh by your personal coach. Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} Sign. Project Manager: Yep finished. So I see you in thirty minutes. Marketing: Great, okay. Project Manager: {gap} Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: Okay, thanks. Marketing: Thanks guys. Bye. User Interface: Bye. Project Manager: Thank you. Industrial Designer: {gap} Uh. {gap}

Users can't change the volume rapidly by using two discrete buttons for volume. While by using a potential-meter or a slider, the user can mute it down or make a high volume in one second.

tr-sq-644

tr-sq-644_0

What is project manager's opinion towards the goal of the new remote control project? Industrial Designer: Now what. Project Manager:'Kay, hello everybody. Uh, I guess you all know what is it about, you all received the email, I guess. Uh, we are actually doing this meeting to start a new project which is about designing a remote control. So I'm going to be the project manager of this uh project. And uh so I'm {disfmarker} present myself. I'm Fabien Cardinaux and uh I I guess you can present yourself. So I dunno, you can starts. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay, so my name is Petre {gap}. You can call me Petre {gap}, or Peter if you like. I don't care {gap}. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Uh my name's Bob Mor. Project Manager: And you are? In the project? Industrial Designer: Uh, in the project I'm supposed to be the technic. Marketing: Oh, sorry. Project Manager: {gap} Marketing:'Kay. So my name's Bob Morris. I'm the Marketing Expert for this project. Industrial Designer: Bob, Marketing: Bob yeah. Industrial Designer: okay. User Interface: My name is Hamed Getabdar, and uh I'm going to be Interface Designer in this project. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: So, uh, so today we are doing a short meeting to present the project, so um We are gooding we are going to present the tool we are {vocalsound} we are going to use during all this project. We are talking about the project plan, and we are going to to discuss about st our first ideas and so on, and, yeah. So we have around twenty five minutes to do this meeting. Um. So what is the goal of this project? Is to design a new remote control. So it should be, of course, new and original, and um it should be trendy, and user friendly. That mean it's a very challenging project, and uh uh. So w it's {disfmarker} we will try to do our best, and hopefully come with something very new and that people want to buy. So, um {disfmarker} So what's uh what are we going to do during this all this project? So it's more like we are going to do inv individual work all in o in o our specialities and we are going to meet each other quite often to discuss and to find a good way. Um. Yeah and everything is {disfmarker} will be like this. Um so now we are going to to get used t to to the tools we are going to use all {disfmarker} during all this project. So we can try to use uh the whiteboard here. So {gap} uh. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: For example we can try to write what is our our favourite animal and write the f our favourite characteristics about it. Mm. Uh {vocalsound}. So uh {disfmarker} {gap} So I will ask you all to do the same. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Just to get used to the whiteboard. Industrial Designer: So probably I would try to try to draw the animal. Well sh should I draw the picture of the animal? Project Manager: Yeah, yeah, you can draw the picture, of course {vocalsound}. Industrial Designer: I I th I think I should. Marketing: Yeah go ahead. Industrial Designer: Okay, so. Um {vocalsound}. Okay, American, um. Um. I would use the bird. So I tried to sketch it out. I had to first uh write it down because I am not absolutely sure if I can draw it, but ah. Can you recognise it {vocalsound} as a bird? Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay {vocalsound} it's your turn to {disfmarker} Marketing: Okay, okay. {vocalsound} So I think my favourite animal would be a c a cat. Project Manager: Oh. Marketing: That's its head. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Um I probably like cats the most because they're cuddly and furry and uh playful. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {gap} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Okay. User Interface: I dunno if I should go with this {gap} {vocalsound}. Industrial Designer: Oh it's okay. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: Thanks. {vocalsound} User Interface: If it is enough line. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Maybe put it up User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm sorry. {vocalsound} Marketing: {disfmarker} Put it a Maybe put it on the desk or something. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I should get used to the tool, so. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh just wait {gap} a little bit. C could we put it here, to make it as straight as possible? User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ah probably not. User Interface: {vocalsound} They should be remote. Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay, it {disfmarker} it works like this. Marketing: Uh, that's better. User Interface: Okay, thanks. Marketing: Your lapel microphone's fallen off. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Are you left-handed? User Interface: No. Industrial Designer: Oh, pity {vocalsound}. User Interface: Okay. Should I clean? {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: Okay, I think like horses uh because they are strong and beautiful, so if I want to write it here, I think I can. {vocalsound} Oh {vocalsound}. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Never mind. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Ah, it's maybe better if you leave it. Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we should just continue. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah, don't worry about it. {vocalsound} User Interface: {gap} Project Manager: {gap}, no worry. Marketing: No. Industrial Designer: {gap} User Interface: Okay. Industrial Designer: You won't draw them, or? Project Manager: You can draw it, if you want. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: I dunno if I can. Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Just try. I would like to see how it looks like. User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} It may be like a cow or I dunno, whatever. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm not good very good in drawing. Okay, so this is very {vocalsound} {disfmarker} It's a bird, I think. I dunno what is it. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: No, I think it's clear. User Interface: {vocalsound} Four. Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm. Yeah. I'm shameful {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh that's good, it's good. Industrial Designer: It's okay. It's in it's indeed beautiful. Project Manager: Good. Marketing: Yeah, and strong. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} Okay. Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Bob. Have to remember it. Bob. Project Manager: So good um {disfmarker} So, let's talk about money. Uh we are going to to sell {disfmarker} we want to sell uh this remote control for twenty five Euro Euro. And uh our expected profit will be around fifty million Euro. And uh we are trying to to have a market all around the world. So {gap} n not only for Switzerland, but for the world. Uh. So, um. The {disfmarker} We expect a production cost of maximum uh twelve point fifty Euro. Industrial Designer: Per unit, I guess. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, of course. Industrial Designer: Y oh okay. Project Manager: Um, so we can start today to have a first idea of what we want to do what are our experiments with remote control, and any idea? So, if you have some experience, good or bad, with remote controls you can share it and say what you f what is your idea. Anything. Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: Well, from experience, um I've had remote controls in the past that have had very {disfmarker} they've had lots and lots of buttons and they've been very small, and it's been very hard to to to use, because there's so many buttons, and you know it's very hard to see which buttons do what, and the buttons are very small and very hard to press. Um and and normally you only every use, you know, on a T_V_ remote you only ever use, mostly, you know, f four or f six buttons. Um. Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: Oh. Marketing: So it's frustrated me in the past, th that. Industrial Designer: Okay, I have also some points uh. Maybe two points. Uh first would be that in current remote controls there is no back light {vocalsound}, so if you are if you are uh playing with this in the dark room it's it's probably worth to to have something like uh back light. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: And maybe it could be also dependant on the the amount of of light in the room, so that if if it's in the day it doesn't need to be back lighted because it works on the battery, so. So something like this. And the second thing, f second point from me would be that in a normal remote control there is uh {disfmarker} there are two buttons for volume control. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: But I prefer like a potential-meter or something like. Marketing: Ah, okay. Okay. Industrial Designer: You know, some slider or {disfmarker} Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: Not just two discrete buttons for volume, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Marketing: Okay, n {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: but something which {disfmarker} Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Marketing: Is that because the {disfmarker} of the discrete volume levels, or is that Industrial Designer: Yeah, but I can reach {disfmarker} In uh one second I can mute it down, or or make a high volume. Project Manager: {gap} Are you not afraid that if you take your remote control you can move the slide and it could {gap} {disfmarker} the the volume can go up very quickly Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Ah, n. Project Manager: and it can {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: If it drops to the floor then it starts to scream {gap}. Project Manager: Yeah, also if y when you take the the remote control, for example on the table, you take it and you push the button and everything is very loud, and Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah, f It depends what what you feel about that. Project Manager: you have a heart attack {vocalsound}. Okay. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah but we can we can think of these things afterwards, but if {gap} you have some more notes on that. Project Manager: Yeah so you can {disfmarker} User Interface: Uh I {disfmarker} Yeah, Project Manager: Do you have something? User Interface: just a simple experience. I uh I prefer um remote control working with radio waves, because remote control working with infra-red rays you should you should you should keep it in a specific direction and then try it hard to tune {gap}. Project Manager: Yeah, that's true. Yeah without obstacles and {gap}. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Okay. Let's continue. Industrial Designer: Um. Project Manager: I have a meeting in five minutes, so maybe we should hurry. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: Um. So we will close uh this meeting. Industrial Designer: Okay, just a second. {gap} Project Manager: So we will have a next meeting in uh thirty minutes. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Um. Uh. The {disfmarker} So I will ask you to do some work. Uh the the interface interface developer will work on the on the design of the remote control, start to to have new idea and Industrial Designer: Which i which is Hamed, {gap}? Project Manager: read about {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: Mm. Marketing: He's the Industrial Designer? No, you're the Industrial Designer. Industrial Designer: Uh I am the Technical Designer, User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Oh. Industrial Designer: I dunno which one, uh v. Marketing: Yeah, Project Manager: Industry and {disfmarker} Oh. Marketing: I think that's the first. I_D_. Industrial Designer. User Interface: Uh-huh. Marketing: And the second one is the User Interface Designer. User Interface: Mm-hmm. Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: User Interf Okay. Marketing: And then last one's marketing, which is me. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Okay, so I'm the first one. Project Manager: So, um {disfmarker} Marketing: {gap} Project Manager: For the User Interface Designer, which is Hamed um, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: uh, you are going to work on the technical functions of the remote control. Industrial Designer: I see. User Interface: Okay. Project Manager: And for the Marketing uh Manager, I dunno, okay, which is Bob, uh you are going to try to to find the user requirements f uh for the remote control. Um, you will receive by email uh the specific instructions and uh by your personal coach. Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} Sign. Project Manager: Yep finished. So I see you in thirty minutes. Marketing: Great, okay. Project Manager: {gap} Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: Okay, thanks. Marketing: Thanks guys. Bye. User Interface: Bye. Project Manager: Thank you. Industrial Designer: {gap} Uh. {gap}

The project manager considered that the goal of the new remote control project was to design a new and original remote control which is trendy and user-friendly. He wanted its price to be 25 Euro and it would be sold all over the world.

tr-sq-645

tr-sq-645_0

Summarize the features of remote control which left users with a bad experience. Industrial Designer: Now what. Project Manager:'Kay, hello everybody. Uh, I guess you all know what is it about, you all received the email, I guess. Uh, we are actually doing this meeting to start a new project which is about designing a remote control. So I'm going to be the project manager of this uh project. And uh so I'm {disfmarker} present myself. I'm Fabien Cardinaux and uh I I guess you can present yourself. So I dunno, you can starts. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay, so my name is Petre {gap}. You can call me Petre {gap}, or Peter if you like. I don't care {gap}. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Uh my name's Bob Mor. Project Manager: And you are? In the project? Industrial Designer: Uh, in the project I'm supposed to be the technic. Marketing: Oh, sorry. Project Manager: {gap} Marketing:'Kay. So my name's Bob Morris. I'm the Marketing Expert for this project. Industrial Designer: Bob, Marketing: Bob yeah. Industrial Designer: okay. User Interface: My name is Hamed Getabdar, and uh I'm going to be Interface Designer in this project. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: So, uh, so today we are doing a short meeting to present the project, so um We are gooding we are going to present the tool we are {vocalsound} we are going to use during all this project. We are talking about the project plan, and we are going to to discuss about st our first ideas and so on, and, yeah. So we have around twenty five minutes to do this meeting. Um. So what is the goal of this project? Is to design a new remote control. So it should be, of course, new and original, and um it should be trendy, and user friendly. That mean it's a very challenging project, and uh uh. So w it's {disfmarker} we will try to do our best, and hopefully come with something very new and that people want to buy. So, um {disfmarker} So what's uh what are we going to do during this all this project? So it's more like we are going to do inv individual work all in o in o our specialities and we are going to meet each other quite often to discuss and to find a good way. Um. Yeah and everything is {disfmarker} will be like this. Um so now we are going to to get used t to to the tools we are going to use all {disfmarker} during all this project. So we can try to use uh the whiteboard here. So {gap} uh. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: For example we can try to write what is our our favourite animal and write the f our favourite characteristics about it. Mm. Uh {vocalsound}. So uh {disfmarker} {gap} So I will ask you all to do the same. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Just to get used to the whiteboard. Industrial Designer: So probably I would try to try to draw the animal. Well sh should I draw the picture of the animal? Project Manager: Yeah, yeah, you can draw the picture, of course {vocalsound}. Industrial Designer: I I th I think I should. Marketing: Yeah go ahead. Industrial Designer: Okay, so. Um {vocalsound}. Okay, American, um. Um. I would use the bird. So I tried to sketch it out. I had to first uh write it down because I am not absolutely sure if I can draw it, but ah. Can you recognise it {vocalsound} as a bird? Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay {vocalsound} it's your turn to {disfmarker} Marketing: Okay, okay. {vocalsound} So I think my favourite animal would be a c a cat. Project Manager: Oh. Marketing: That's its head. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Um I probably like cats the most because they're cuddly and furry and uh playful. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {gap} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Okay. User Interface: I dunno if I should go with this {gap} {vocalsound}. Industrial Designer: Oh it's okay. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: Thanks. {vocalsound} User Interface: If it is enough line. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Maybe put it up User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm sorry. {vocalsound} Marketing: {disfmarker} Put it a Maybe put it on the desk or something. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I should get used to the tool, so. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh just wait {gap} a little bit. C could we put it here, to make it as straight as possible? User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ah probably not. User Interface: {vocalsound} They should be remote. Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay, it {disfmarker} it works like this. Marketing: Uh, that's better. User Interface: Okay, thanks. Marketing: Your lapel microphone's fallen off. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Are you left-handed? User Interface: No. Industrial Designer: Oh, pity {vocalsound}. User Interface: Okay. Should I clean? {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: Okay, I think like horses uh because they are strong and beautiful, so if I want to write it here, I think I can. {vocalsound} Oh {vocalsound}. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Never mind. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Ah, it's maybe better if you leave it. Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we should just continue. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah, don't worry about it. {vocalsound} User Interface: {gap} Project Manager: {gap}, no worry. Marketing: No. Industrial Designer: {gap} User Interface: Okay. Industrial Designer: You won't draw them, or? Project Manager: You can draw it, if you want. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: I dunno if I can. Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Just try. I would like to see how it looks like. User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} It may be like a cow or I dunno, whatever. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm not good very good in drawing. Okay, so this is very {vocalsound} {disfmarker} It's a bird, I think. I dunno what is it. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: No, I think it's clear. User Interface: {vocalsound} Four. Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm. Yeah. I'm shameful {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh that's good, it's good. Industrial Designer: It's okay. It's in it's indeed beautiful. Project Manager: Good. Marketing: Yeah, and strong. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} Okay. Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Bob. Have to remember it. Bob. Project Manager: So good um {disfmarker} So, let's talk about money. Uh we are going to to sell {disfmarker} we want to sell uh this remote control for twenty five Euro Euro. And uh our expected profit will be around fifty million Euro. And uh we are trying to to have a market all around the world. So {gap} n not only for Switzerland, but for the world. Uh. So, um. The {disfmarker} We expect a production cost of maximum uh twelve point fifty Euro. Industrial Designer: Per unit, I guess. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, of course. Industrial Designer: Y oh okay. Project Manager: Um, so we can start today to have a first idea of what we want to do what are our experiments with remote control, and any idea? So, if you have some experience, good or bad, with remote controls you can share it and say what you f what is your idea. Anything. Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: Well, from experience, um I've had remote controls in the past that have had very {disfmarker} they've had lots and lots of buttons and they've been very small, and it's been very hard to to to use, because there's so many buttons, and you know it's very hard to see which buttons do what, and the buttons are very small and very hard to press. Um and and normally you only every use, you know, on a T_V_ remote you only ever use, mostly, you know, f four or f six buttons. Um. Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: Oh. Marketing: So it's frustrated me in the past, th that. Industrial Designer: Okay, I have also some points uh. Maybe two points. Uh first would be that in current remote controls there is no back light {vocalsound}, so if you are if you are uh playing with this in the dark room it's it's probably worth to to have something like uh back light. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: And maybe it could be also dependant on the the amount of of light in the room, so that if if it's in the day it doesn't need to be back lighted because it works on the battery, so. So something like this. And the second thing, f second point from me would be that in a normal remote control there is uh {disfmarker} there are two buttons for volume control. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: But I prefer like a potential-meter or something like. Marketing: Ah, okay. Okay. Industrial Designer: You know, some slider or {disfmarker} Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: Not just two discrete buttons for volume, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Marketing: Okay, n {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: but something which {disfmarker} Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Marketing: Is that because the {disfmarker} of the discrete volume levels, or is that Industrial Designer: Yeah, but I can reach {disfmarker} In uh one second I can mute it down, or or make a high volume. Project Manager: {gap} Are you not afraid that if you take your remote control you can move the slide and it could {gap} {disfmarker} the the volume can go up very quickly Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Ah, n. Project Manager: and it can {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: If it drops to the floor then it starts to scream {gap}. Project Manager: Yeah, also if y when you take the the remote control, for example on the table, you take it and you push the button and everything is very loud, and Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah, f It depends what what you feel about that. Project Manager: you have a heart attack {vocalsound}. Okay. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah but we can we can think of these things afterwards, but if {gap} you have some more notes on that. Project Manager: Yeah so you can {disfmarker} User Interface: Uh I {disfmarker} Yeah, Project Manager: Do you have something? User Interface: just a simple experience. I uh I prefer um remote control working with radio waves, because remote control working with infra-red rays you should you should you should keep it in a specific direction and then try it hard to tune {gap}. Project Manager: Yeah, that's true. Yeah without obstacles and {gap}. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Okay. Let's continue. Industrial Designer: Um. Project Manager: I have a meeting in five minutes, so maybe we should hurry. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: Um. So we will close uh this meeting. Industrial Designer: Okay, just a second. {gap} Project Manager: So we will have a next meeting in uh thirty minutes. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Um. Uh. The {disfmarker} So I will ask you to do some work. Uh the the interface interface developer will work on the on the design of the remote control, start to to have new idea and Industrial Designer: Which i which is Hamed, {gap}? Project Manager: read about {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: Mm. Marketing: He's the Industrial Designer? No, you're the Industrial Designer. Industrial Designer: Uh I am the Technical Designer, User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Oh. Industrial Designer: I dunno which one, uh v. Marketing: Yeah, Project Manager: Industry and {disfmarker} Oh. Marketing: I think that's the first. I_D_. Industrial Designer. User Interface: Uh-huh. Marketing: And the second one is the User Interface Designer. User Interface: Mm-hmm. Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: User Interf Okay. Marketing: And then last one's marketing, which is me. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Okay, so I'm the first one. Project Manager: So, um {disfmarker} Marketing: {gap} Project Manager: For the User Interface Designer, which is Hamed um, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: uh, you are going to work on the technical functions of the remote control. Industrial Designer: I see. User Interface: Okay. Project Manager: And for the Marketing uh Manager, I dunno, okay, which is Bob, uh you are going to try to to find the user requirements f uh for the remote control. Um, you will receive by email uh the specific instructions and uh by your personal coach. Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} Sign. Project Manager: Yep finished. So I see you in thirty minutes. Marketing: Great, okay. Project Manager: {gap} Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: Okay, thanks. Marketing: Thanks guys. Bye. User Interface: Bye. Project Manager: Thank you. Industrial Designer: {gap} Uh. {gap}

When there are many buttons on the remote control, it's hard to see each buttons'function and it's hard to press small buttons. Remote control without backlight was inconvenient to use in a dark room. Remote control without a potential-meter for volume control couldn't be used to mute the TV down or make a high volume in a second. When using remote control working with infra-red rays, users should keep it in a specific direction and it's hard to tune.

tr-sq-646

tr-sq-646_0

Why did remote control with too many buttons frustrated marketing in the past? Industrial Designer: Now what. Project Manager:'Kay, hello everybody. Uh, I guess you all know what is it about, you all received the email, I guess. Uh, we are actually doing this meeting to start a new project which is about designing a remote control. So I'm going to be the project manager of this uh project. And uh so I'm {disfmarker} present myself. I'm Fabien Cardinaux and uh I I guess you can present yourself. So I dunno, you can starts. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay, so my name is Petre {gap}. You can call me Petre {gap}, or Peter if you like. I don't care {gap}. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Uh my name's Bob Mor. Project Manager: And you are? In the project? Industrial Designer: Uh, in the project I'm supposed to be the technic. Marketing: Oh, sorry. Project Manager: {gap} Marketing:'Kay. So my name's Bob Morris. I'm the Marketing Expert for this project. Industrial Designer: Bob, Marketing: Bob yeah. Industrial Designer: okay. User Interface: My name is Hamed Getabdar, and uh I'm going to be Interface Designer in this project. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: So, uh, so today we are doing a short meeting to present the project, so um We are gooding we are going to present the tool we are {vocalsound} we are going to use during all this project. We are talking about the project plan, and we are going to to discuss about st our first ideas and so on, and, yeah. So we have around twenty five minutes to do this meeting. Um. So what is the goal of this project? Is to design a new remote control. So it should be, of course, new and original, and um it should be trendy, and user friendly. That mean it's a very challenging project, and uh uh. So w it's {disfmarker} we will try to do our best, and hopefully come with something very new and that people want to buy. So, um {disfmarker} So what's uh what are we going to do during this all this project? So it's more like we are going to do inv individual work all in o in o our specialities and we are going to meet each other quite often to discuss and to find a good way. Um. Yeah and everything is {disfmarker} will be like this. Um so now we are going to to get used t to to the tools we are going to use all {disfmarker} during all this project. So we can try to use uh the whiteboard here. So {gap} uh. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: For example we can try to write what is our our favourite animal and write the f our favourite characteristics about it. Mm. Uh {vocalsound}. So uh {disfmarker} {gap} So I will ask you all to do the same. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Just to get used to the whiteboard. Industrial Designer: So probably I would try to try to draw the animal. Well sh should I draw the picture of the animal? Project Manager: Yeah, yeah, you can draw the picture, of course {vocalsound}. Industrial Designer: I I th I think I should. Marketing: Yeah go ahead. Industrial Designer: Okay, so. Um {vocalsound}. Okay, American, um. Um. I would use the bird. So I tried to sketch it out. I had to first uh write it down because I am not absolutely sure if I can draw it, but ah. Can you recognise it {vocalsound} as a bird? Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay {vocalsound} it's your turn to {disfmarker} Marketing: Okay, okay. {vocalsound} So I think my favourite animal would be a c a cat. Project Manager: Oh. Marketing: That's its head. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Um I probably like cats the most because they're cuddly and furry and uh playful. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {gap} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Okay. User Interface: I dunno if I should go with this {gap} {vocalsound}. Industrial Designer: Oh it's okay. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: Thanks. {vocalsound} User Interface: If it is enough line. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Maybe put it up User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm sorry. {vocalsound} Marketing: {disfmarker} Put it a Maybe put it on the desk or something. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I should get used to the tool, so. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh just wait {gap} a little bit. C could we put it here, to make it as straight as possible? User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ah probably not. User Interface: {vocalsound} They should be remote. Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay, it {disfmarker} it works like this. Marketing: Uh, that's better. User Interface: Okay, thanks. Marketing: Your lapel microphone's fallen off. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Are you left-handed? User Interface: No. Industrial Designer: Oh, pity {vocalsound}. User Interface: Okay. Should I clean? {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: Okay, I think like horses uh because they are strong and beautiful, so if I want to write it here, I think I can. {vocalsound} Oh {vocalsound}. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Never mind. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Ah, it's maybe better if you leave it. Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we should just continue. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah, don't worry about it. {vocalsound} User Interface: {gap} Project Manager: {gap}, no worry. Marketing: No. Industrial Designer: {gap} User Interface: Okay. Industrial Designer: You won't draw them, or? Project Manager: You can draw it, if you want. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: I dunno if I can. Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Just try. I would like to see how it looks like. User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} It may be like a cow or I dunno, whatever. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm not good very good in drawing. Okay, so this is very {vocalsound} {disfmarker} It's a bird, I think. I dunno what is it. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: No, I think it's clear. User Interface: {vocalsound} Four. Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm. Yeah. I'm shameful {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh that's good, it's good. Industrial Designer: It's okay. It's in it's indeed beautiful. Project Manager: Good. Marketing: Yeah, and strong. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} Okay. Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Bob. Have to remember it. Bob. Project Manager: So good um {disfmarker} So, let's talk about money. Uh we are going to to sell {disfmarker} we want to sell uh this remote control for twenty five Euro Euro. And uh our expected profit will be around fifty million Euro. And uh we are trying to to have a market all around the world. So {gap} n not only for Switzerland, but for the world. Uh. So, um. The {disfmarker} We expect a production cost of maximum uh twelve point fifty Euro. Industrial Designer: Per unit, I guess. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, of course. Industrial Designer: Y oh okay. Project Manager: Um, so we can start today to have a first idea of what we want to do what are our experiments with remote control, and any idea? So, if you have some experience, good or bad, with remote controls you can share it and say what you f what is your idea. Anything. Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: Well, from experience, um I've had remote controls in the past that have had very {disfmarker} they've had lots and lots of buttons and they've been very small, and it's been very hard to to to use, because there's so many buttons, and you know it's very hard to see which buttons do what, and the buttons are very small and very hard to press. Um and and normally you only every use, you know, on a T_V_ remote you only ever use, mostly, you know, f four or f six buttons. Um. Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: Oh. Marketing: So it's frustrated me in the past, th that. Industrial Designer: Okay, I have also some points uh. Maybe two points. Uh first would be that in current remote controls there is no back light {vocalsound}, so if you are if you are uh playing with this in the dark room it's it's probably worth to to have something like uh back light. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: And maybe it could be also dependant on the the amount of of light in the room, so that if if it's in the day it doesn't need to be back lighted because it works on the battery, so. So something like this. And the second thing, f second point from me would be that in a normal remote control there is uh {disfmarker} there are two buttons for volume control. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: But I prefer like a potential-meter or something like. Marketing: Ah, okay. Okay. Industrial Designer: You know, some slider or {disfmarker} Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: Not just two discrete buttons for volume, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Marketing: Okay, n {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: but something which {disfmarker} Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Marketing: Is that because the {disfmarker} of the discrete volume levels, or is that Industrial Designer: Yeah, but I can reach {disfmarker} In uh one second I can mute it down, or or make a high volume. Project Manager: {gap} Are you not afraid that if you take your remote control you can move the slide and it could {gap} {disfmarker} the the volume can go up very quickly Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Ah, n. Project Manager: and it can {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: If it drops to the floor then it starts to scream {gap}. Project Manager: Yeah, also if y when you take the the remote control, for example on the table, you take it and you push the button and everything is very loud, and Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah, f It depends what what you feel about that. Project Manager: you have a heart attack {vocalsound}. Okay. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah but we can we can think of these things afterwards, but if {gap} you have some more notes on that. Project Manager: Yeah so you can {disfmarker} User Interface: Uh I {disfmarker} Yeah, Project Manager: Do you have something? User Interface: just a simple experience. I uh I prefer um remote control working with radio waves, because remote control working with infra-red rays you should you should you should keep it in a specific direction and then try it hard to tune {gap}. Project Manager: Yeah, that's true. Yeah without obstacles and {gap}. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Okay. Let's continue. Industrial Designer: Um. Project Manager: I have a meeting in five minutes, so maybe we should hurry. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: Um. So we will close uh this meeting. Industrial Designer: Okay, just a second. {gap} Project Manager: So we will have a next meeting in uh thirty minutes. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Um. Uh. The {disfmarker} So I will ask you to do some work. Uh the the interface interface developer will work on the on the design of the remote control, start to to have new idea and Industrial Designer: Which i which is Hamed, {gap}? Project Manager: read about {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: Mm. Marketing: He's the Industrial Designer? No, you're the Industrial Designer. Industrial Designer: Uh I am the Technical Designer, User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Oh. Industrial Designer: I dunno which one, uh v. Marketing: Yeah, Project Manager: Industry and {disfmarker} Oh. Marketing: I think that's the first. I_D_. Industrial Designer. User Interface: Uh-huh. Marketing: And the second one is the User Interface Designer. User Interface: Mm-hmm. Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: User Interf Okay. Marketing: And then last one's marketing, which is me. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Okay, so I'm the first one. Project Manager: So, um {disfmarker} Marketing: {gap} Project Manager: For the User Interface Designer, which is Hamed um, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: uh, you are going to work on the technical functions of the remote control. Industrial Designer: I see. User Interface: Okay. Project Manager: And for the Marketing uh Manager, I dunno, okay, which is Bob, uh you are going to try to to find the user requirements f uh for the remote control. Um, you will receive by email uh the specific instructions and uh by your personal coach. Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} Sign. Project Manager: Yep finished. So I see you in thirty minutes. Marketing: Great, okay. Project Manager: {gap} Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: Okay, thanks. Marketing: Thanks guys. Bye. User Interface: Bye. Project Manager: Thank you. Industrial Designer: {gap} Uh. {gap}

Because it was hard to see which button did what when there were many buttons on the remote control. And the buttons were too small to press.

tr-gq-647

tr-gq-647_0

Summarize the whole meeting. Industrial Designer: Now what. Project Manager:'Kay, hello everybody. Uh, I guess you all know what is it about, you all received the email, I guess. Uh, we are actually doing this meeting to start a new project which is about designing a remote control. So I'm going to be the project manager of this uh project. And uh so I'm {disfmarker} present myself. I'm Fabien Cardinaux and uh I I guess you can present yourself. So I dunno, you can starts. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay, so my name is Petre {gap}. You can call me Petre {gap}, or Peter if you like. I don't care {gap}. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Uh my name's Bob Mor. Project Manager: And you are? In the project? Industrial Designer: Uh, in the project I'm supposed to be the technic. Marketing: Oh, sorry. Project Manager: {gap} Marketing:'Kay. So my name's Bob Morris. I'm the Marketing Expert for this project. Industrial Designer: Bob, Marketing: Bob yeah. Industrial Designer: okay. User Interface: My name is Hamed Getabdar, and uh I'm going to be Interface Designer in this project. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: So, uh, so today we are doing a short meeting to present the project, so um We are gooding we are going to present the tool we are {vocalsound} we are going to use during all this project. We are talking about the project plan, and we are going to to discuss about st our first ideas and so on, and, yeah. So we have around twenty five minutes to do this meeting. Um. So what is the goal of this project? Is to design a new remote control. So it should be, of course, new and original, and um it should be trendy, and user friendly. That mean it's a very challenging project, and uh uh. So w it's {disfmarker} we will try to do our best, and hopefully come with something very new and that people want to buy. So, um {disfmarker} So what's uh what are we going to do during this all this project? So it's more like we are going to do inv individual work all in o in o our specialities and we are going to meet each other quite often to discuss and to find a good way. Um. Yeah and everything is {disfmarker} will be like this. Um so now we are going to to get used t to to the tools we are going to use all {disfmarker} during all this project. So we can try to use uh the whiteboard here. So {gap} uh. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: For example we can try to write what is our our favourite animal and write the f our favourite characteristics about it. Mm. Uh {vocalsound}. So uh {disfmarker} {gap} So I will ask you all to do the same. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Just to get used to the whiteboard. Industrial Designer: So probably I would try to try to draw the animal. Well sh should I draw the picture of the animal? Project Manager: Yeah, yeah, you can draw the picture, of course {vocalsound}. Industrial Designer: I I th I think I should. Marketing: Yeah go ahead. Industrial Designer: Okay, so. Um {vocalsound}. Okay, American, um. Um. I would use the bird. So I tried to sketch it out. I had to first uh write it down because I am not absolutely sure if I can draw it, but ah. Can you recognise it {vocalsound} as a bird? Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay {vocalsound} it's your turn to {disfmarker} Marketing: Okay, okay. {vocalsound} So I think my favourite animal would be a c a cat. Project Manager: Oh. Marketing: That's its head. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Um I probably like cats the most because they're cuddly and furry and uh playful. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {gap} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Okay. User Interface: I dunno if I should go with this {gap} {vocalsound}. Industrial Designer: Oh it's okay. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: Thanks. {vocalsound} User Interface: If it is enough line. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Maybe put it up User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm sorry. {vocalsound} Marketing: {disfmarker} Put it a Maybe put it on the desk or something. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I should get used to the tool, so. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh just wait {gap} a little bit. C could we put it here, to make it as straight as possible? User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ah probably not. User Interface: {vocalsound} They should be remote. Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay, it {disfmarker} it works like this. Marketing: Uh, that's better. User Interface: Okay, thanks. Marketing: Your lapel microphone's fallen off. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Are you left-handed? User Interface: No. Industrial Designer: Oh, pity {vocalsound}. User Interface: Okay. Should I clean? {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: Okay, I think like horses uh because they are strong and beautiful, so if I want to write it here, I think I can. {vocalsound} Oh {vocalsound}. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Never mind. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Ah, it's maybe better if you leave it. Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we should just continue. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah, don't worry about it. {vocalsound} User Interface: {gap} Project Manager: {gap}, no worry. Marketing: No. Industrial Designer: {gap} User Interface: Okay. Industrial Designer: You won't draw them, or? Project Manager: You can draw it, if you want. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: I dunno if I can. Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Just try. I would like to see how it looks like. User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} It may be like a cow or I dunno, whatever. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm not good very good in drawing. Okay, so this is very {vocalsound} {disfmarker} It's a bird, I think. I dunno what is it. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: No, I think it's clear. User Interface: {vocalsound} Four. Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm. Yeah. I'm shameful {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh that's good, it's good. Industrial Designer: It's okay. It's in it's indeed beautiful. Project Manager: Good. Marketing: Yeah, and strong. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} Okay. Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Bob. Have to remember it. Bob. Project Manager: So good um {disfmarker} So, let's talk about money. Uh we are going to to sell {disfmarker} we want to sell uh this remote control for twenty five Euro Euro. And uh our expected profit will be around fifty million Euro. And uh we are trying to to have a market all around the world. So {gap} n not only for Switzerland, but for the world. Uh. So, um. The {disfmarker} We expect a production cost of maximum uh twelve point fifty Euro. Industrial Designer: Per unit, I guess. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, of course. Industrial Designer: Y oh okay. Project Manager: Um, so we can start today to have a first idea of what we want to do what are our experiments with remote control, and any idea? So, if you have some experience, good or bad, with remote controls you can share it and say what you f what is your idea. Anything. Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: Well, from experience, um I've had remote controls in the past that have had very {disfmarker} they've had lots and lots of buttons and they've been very small, and it's been very hard to to to use, because there's so many buttons, and you know it's very hard to see which buttons do what, and the buttons are very small and very hard to press. Um and and normally you only every use, you know, on a T_V_ remote you only ever use, mostly, you know, f four or f six buttons. Um. Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: Oh. Marketing: So it's frustrated me in the past, th that. Industrial Designer: Okay, I have also some points uh. Maybe two points. Uh first would be that in current remote controls there is no back light {vocalsound}, so if you are if you are uh playing with this in the dark room it's it's probably worth to to have something like uh back light. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: And maybe it could be also dependant on the the amount of of light in the room, so that if if it's in the day it doesn't need to be back lighted because it works on the battery, so. So something like this. And the second thing, f second point from me would be that in a normal remote control there is uh {disfmarker} there are two buttons for volume control. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: But I prefer like a potential-meter or something like. Marketing: Ah, okay. Okay. Industrial Designer: You know, some slider or {disfmarker} Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: Not just two discrete buttons for volume, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Marketing: Okay, n {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: but something which {disfmarker} Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Marketing: Is that because the {disfmarker} of the discrete volume levels, or is that Industrial Designer: Yeah, but I can reach {disfmarker} In uh one second I can mute it down, or or make a high volume. Project Manager: {gap} Are you not afraid that if you take your remote control you can move the slide and it could {gap} {disfmarker} the the volume can go up very quickly Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Ah, n. Project Manager: and it can {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: If it drops to the floor then it starts to scream {gap}. Project Manager: Yeah, also if y when you take the the remote control, for example on the table, you take it and you push the button and everything is very loud, and Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah, f It depends what what you feel about that. Project Manager: you have a heart attack {vocalsound}. Okay. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah but we can we can think of these things afterwards, but if {gap} you have some more notes on that. Project Manager: Yeah so you can {disfmarker} User Interface: Uh I {disfmarker} Yeah, Project Manager: Do you have something? User Interface: just a simple experience. I uh I prefer um remote control working with radio waves, because remote control working with infra-red rays you should you should you should keep it in a specific direction and then try it hard to tune {gap}. Project Manager: Yeah, that's true. Yeah without obstacles and {gap}. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Okay. Let's continue. Industrial Designer: Um. Project Manager: I have a meeting in five minutes, so maybe we should hurry. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager: Um. So we will close uh this meeting. Industrial Designer: Okay, just a second. {gap} Project Manager: So we will have a next meeting in uh thirty minutes. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Um. Uh. The {disfmarker} So I will ask you to do some work. Uh the the interface interface developer will work on the on the design of the remote control, start to to have new idea and Industrial Designer: Which i which is Hamed, {gap}? Project Manager: read about {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: Mm. Marketing: He's the Industrial Designer? No, you're the Industrial Designer. Industrial Designer: Uh I am the Technical Designer, User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Oh. Industrial Designer: I dunno which one, uh v. Marketing: Yeah, Project Manager: Industry and {disfmarker} Oh. Marketing: I think that's the first. I_D_. Industrial Designer. User Interface: Uh-huh. Marketing: And the second one is the User Interface Designer. User Interface: Mm-hmm. Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: User Interf Okay. Marketing: And then last one's marketing, which is me. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Okay, so I'm the first one. Project Manager: So, um {disfmarker} Marketing: {gap} Project Manager: For the User Interface Designer, which is Hamed um, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: uh, you are going to work on the technical functions of the remote control. Industrial Designer: I see. User Interface: Okay. Project Manager: And for the Marketing uh Manager, I dunno, okay, which is Bob, uh you are going to try to to find the user requirements f uh for the remote control. Um, you will receive by email uh the specific instructions and uh by your personal coach. Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} Sign. Project Manager: Yep finished. So I see you in thirty minutes. Marketing: Great, okay. Project Manager: {gap} Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: Okay, thanks. Marketing: Thanks guys. Bye. User Interface: Bye. Project Manager: Thank you. Industrial Designer: {gap} Uh. {gap}

Project manager asked team members to present themselves. After that, project manager announced that the goal of the project was to design a new, trendy and user-friendly remote control, which would be sold all over the world. Project manager wanted to sell this remote control for twenty five Euro and expected profit would be around fifty million Euro. Then team members were asked to get used to the whiteboard by writing down their favourite animals. Besides, they were also asked to share their ideas and good or bad experiences about remote controls. From their point of view, remote controls with too many buttons or without backlight are hard to use. A potential-meter for volume control was also necessary. Remote control working with radio waves was better than that working with infra-red rays. At the end of the meeting, project manager had assigned tasks to team members.

tr-sq-648

tr-sq-648_0

Summarize the discussion on the tax return Professor E: Let's see. Test? Test? Yeah. OK. Grad A: Hello? PhD B: Channel one. Grad A: Hello? PhD C: Test. Professor E: I was saying Hynek'll be here next week, uh, Wednesday through Friday {disfmarker} uh, through Saturday, and, um, I won't be here Thursday and Friday. But my suggestion is that, uh, at least for this meeting, people should go ahead, uh, cuz Hynek will be here, and, you know, we don't have any Czech accent yet, uh, {vocalsound} as far as I know, so {disfmarker} There we go. PhD F: OK. Professor E: Um. So other than reading digits, what's our agenda? PhD F: I don't really have, uh, anything new. Been working on {pause} Meeting Recorder stuff. So. Professor E: OK. Um. Do you think that would be the case for next week also? Or is {disfmarker} is, uh {disfmarker}? What's your projection on {disfmarker}? PhD F: Um. Professor E: Cuz the one thing {disfmarker} the one thing that seems to me we really should try, if you hadn't tried it before, because it hadn't occurred to me {disfmarker} it was sort of an obvious thing {disfmarker} is, um, adjusting the, uh, sca the scaling and, uh, insertion penalty sorta stuff. PhD F: I did play with that, actually, a little bit. Um. What happens is, uh, {vocalsound} when you get to the noisy stuff, you start getting lots of insertions. Professor E: Right. PhD F: And, um, so I've tried playing around a little bit with, um, the insertion penalties and things like that. Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: Um. I mean, it {disfmarker} it didn't make a whole lot of difference. Like for the well - matched case, it seemed like it was pretty good. Um. {vocalsound} I could do more playing with that, though. And, uh {disfmarker} Professor E: But you were looking at mel cepstrum. PhD F: and see. Yes. Professor E: Right. PhD F: Oh, you're talking about for th {vocalsound} for our features. Professor E: Right. So, I mean, i it it's not the direction that you were working with that we were saying what's the {disfmarker} uh, what's the best you can do with {disfmarker} with mel cepstrum. But, they raised a very valid point, PhD F: Mmm. Professor E: which, I guess {disfmarker} So, to first order {disfmarker} I mean, you have other things you were gonna do, but to first order, I would say that the conclusion is that if you, um, do, uh, some monkeying around with, uh, the exact HTK training and @ @ {comment} with, uh, you know, how many states and so forth, that it {disfmarker} it doesn't particularly improve the performance. In other words, that even though it sounds pretty dumb, just applying the same number of states to everything, more or less, no matter what language, isn't so bad. Right? And I guess you hadn't gotten to all the experiments you wanted to do with number of Gaussians, PhD F: Right. Professor E: but, um, let's just {disfmarker} If we had to {disfmarker} if we had to draw a conclusion on the information we have so far, we'd say something like that. Right? PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Uh, so the next question to ask, which is I think the one that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that Andreas was dre addressing himself to in the lunch meeting, is, um, we're not supposed to adjust the back - end, but anybody using the system would. PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: So, if you were just adjusting the back - end, how much better would you do, uh, in noise? Uh, because the language scaling and insertion penalties and so forth are probably set to be about right for mel cepstrum. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But, um, they're probably not at all set right for these things, particularly these things that look over, uh, larger time windows, in one way or another with {disfmarker} with LDA and KLT and neural nets and {vocalsound} all these things. In the fa past we've always found that we had to increase the insertion penalty to {disfmarker} to correspond to such things. So, I think that's, uh, @ @ {comment} that's kind of a first - order thing that {disfmarker} that we should try. PhD F: So for th so the experiment is to, um, run our front - end like normal, with the default, uh, insertion penalties and so forth, and then tweak that a little bit and see how much of a difference it makes Professor E: So by" our front - end" I mean take, you know, the Aurora - two s take some version that Stephane has that is, you know, our current best version of something. PhD F: if we were {disfmarker} Mm - hmm. Professor E: Um. I mean, y don't wanna do this over a hundred different things that they've tried but, you know, for some version that you say is a good one. You know? Um. How {disfmarker} how much, uh, does it improve if you actually adjust that? PhD F: OK. Professor E: But it is interesting. You say you {disfmarker} you have for the noisy {disfmarker} How about for the {disfmarker} for the mismatched or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or the {disfmarker} or the medium mismatched conditions? Have you {disfmarker}? When you adjusted those numbers for mel cepstrum, did it {disfmarker}? PhD F: Uh, I {disfmarker} I don't remember off the top of my head. Um. Yeah. I didn't even write them down. I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't remember. I would need to {disfmarker} Well, I did write down, um {disfmarker} So, when I was doing {disfmarker} I just wrote down some numbers for the well - matched case. Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: Um. Looking at the {disfmarker} I wrote down what the deletions, substitutions, and insertions were, uh, for different numbers of states per phone. Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: Um, but, uh, that {disfmarker} that's all I wrote down. Professor E: OK. PhD F: So. I {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} Yeah. I would need to do that. Professor E: OK. So {disfmarker} PhD F: I can do that for next week. Professor E: Yeah. And, um {disfmarker} Yeah. Also, eh, eh, sometimes if you run behind on some of these things, maybe we can get someone else to do it and you can supervise or something. But {disfmarker} but I think it would be {disfmarker} it'd be good to know that. PhD F: OK. I just need to get, um, {vocalsound} front - end, uh, stuff from you PhD B: Hmm. PhD F: or you point me to some files {pause} that you've already calculated. PhD B: Yeah. Alright. Professor E: OK. Uh. PhD F: I probably will have time to do that and time to play a little bit with the silence model. Professor E: Mm - hmm. PhD F: So maybe I can have that for next week when Hynek's here. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. Cuz, I mean, the {disfmarker} the other {disfmarker} That, in fact, might have been part of what, uh, the difference was {disfmarker} at least part of it that {disfmarker} that we were seeing. Remember we were seeing the SRI system was so much better than the tandem system. PhD F: Hmm. Professor E: Part of it might just be that the SRI system, they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they always adjust these things to be sort of optimized, PhD F: Is there {disfmarker}? Professor E: and {disfmarker} PhD F: I wonder if there's anything that we could do {vocalsound} to the front - end that would affect the insertion {disfmarker} Professor E: Yes. I think you can. PhD F: What could you do? Professor E: Well, um {disfmarker} uh, part of what's going on, um, is the, uh, the range of values. So, if you have something that has a much smaller range or a much larger range, and taking the appropriate root. PhD F: Oh. Mm - hmm. Professor E: You know? If something is kind of like the equivalent of a bunch of probabilities multiplied together, you can take a root of some sort. If it's like seven probabilities together, you can take the seventh root of it or something, or if it's in the log domain, divide it by seven. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But {disfmarker} but, um, that has a similar effect because it changes the scale of the numbers {disfmarker} of the differences between different candidates from the acoustic model PhD F: Oh, right. Professor E: as opposed to what's coming from the language model. PhD F: So that w Right. So, in effect, that's changing the value of your insertion penalty. Professor E: Yeah. I mean, it's more directly like the {disfmarker} the language scaling or the, uh {disfmarker} the model scaling or acoustic scaling, PhD F: That's interesting. Professor E: but you know that those things have kind of a similar effect to the insertion penalty PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: anyway. They're a slightly different way of {disfmarker} of handling it. PhD F: Right. Professor E: So, um {disfmarker} PhD F: So if we know what the insertion penalty is, then we can get an idea about what range our number should be in, Professor E: I think so. PhD F: so that they {pause} match with that. Professor E: Yeah. Yeah. So that's why I think that's another reason other than curiosity as to why i it would in fact be kinda neat to find out if we're way off. I mean, the other thing is, are aren't we seeing {disfmarker}? Y y PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: I'm sure you've already looked at this bu in these noisy cases, are {disfmarker}? We are seeing lots of insertions. Right? The insertion number is quite high? PhD B: Yeah. Professor E: I know the VAD takes pre care of part of that, PhD F: Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Professor E: but {disfmarker} PhD F: I've seen that with the mel cepstrum. I don't {disfmarker} I don't know about {pause} the Aurora front - end, but {disfmarker} PhD B: I think it's much more balanced with, uh {disfmarker} when the front - end is more robust. Yeah. I could look at it {disfmarker} at this. Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. Wha - what's a typical number? PhD B: I don't {disfmarker} I don't know. Professor E: Do we {disfmarker}? Oh, you {disfmarker} oh, you don't know. PhD B: I don't have this in {disfmarker} Professor E: OK. I'm sure it's more balanced, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: but it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it wouldn't surprise me if there's still {disfmarker} PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: I mean, in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the old systems we used to do, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} uh, I remember numbers kind of like insertions being half the number of deletions, as being {disfmarker} and both numbers being {disfmarker} tend to be on the small side comparing to {disfmarker} to, uh, substitutions. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD F: Well, this {disfmarker} the whole problem with insertions was what I think, um, we talked about when the guy from OGI came down {pause} that one time and {disfmarker} and that was when people were saying, well we should have a, uh, uh, voice activity detector {disfmarker} Professor E: Right. PhD F: that, because all that stuff {comment} that we're getting thr the silence that's getting through is causing insertions. So. PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: Right. PhD F: I'll bet you there's still a lot {vocalsound} of insertions. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. And it may be less of a critical thing. I mean, the fact that some get by may be less of a critical thing if you, uh, get things in the right range. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, I mean, the insertions is {disfmarker} is a symptom. It's a symptom that there's something, uh, wrong with the range. PhD F: Right. Professor E: But there's {disfmarker} uh, your {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} your substitutions tend to go up as well. So, uh, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that, PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: uh, the most obvious thing is just the insertions, @ @. But {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} um. If you're operating in the wrong range {disfmarker} I mean, that's why just in general, if you {vocalsound} change what these {disfmarker} these penalties and scaling factors are, you reach some point that's a {disfmarker} that's a minimum. So. Um. Um. We do have to do well over a range of different conditions, some of which are noisier than others. Um. But, um, I think we may get a better handle on that if we {disfmarker} if we see {disfmarker} Um, I mean we ca it's if we actually could pick a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a more stable value for the range of these features, it, um, uh, could {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} Even though it's {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's true that in a real situation you can in fact adjust the {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these scaling factors in the back - end, and it's ar artificial here that we're not adjusting those, you certainly don't wanna be adjusting those all the time. And if you have a nice front - end that's in roughly the right range {disfmarker} PhD F: Hmm. Professor E: I remember after we got our stuff more or less together in the previous systems we built, that we tended to set those scaling factors at kind of a standard level, and we would rarely adjust them again, even though you could get a {disfmarker} PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: for an evaluation you can get an extra point or something if you tweaked it a little bit. But, once we knew what rou roughly the right operating range was, it was pretty stable, and {disfmarker} Uh, we might just not even be in the right operating range. PhD F: So, would the {disfmarker}? Uh, would a good idea be to try to map it into the same range that you get in the well - matched case? So, if we computed what the range was in well - matched, and then when we get our noisy conditions out we try to make it have the same range as {disfmarker}? Professor E: No. You don't wanna change it for different conditions. No. No. I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} What {disfmarker} what I'm saying {disfmarker} PhD F: Oh, I wasn't suggesting change it for different conditions. I was just saying that when we pick a range, we {disfmarker} we wanna pick a range that we map our numbers into {disfmarker} Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: we should probably pick it based on the range that we get in the well - matched case. Otherwise, I mean, what range are we gonna choose to {disfmarker} to map everything into? Professor E: Well. It depends how much we wanna do gamesmanship and how much we wanna do {disfmarker} I mean, i if he it {disfmarker} to me, actually, even if you wanna be {disfmarker} play on the gamesmanship side, it can be kinda tricky. So, I mean, what you would do is set the {disfmarker} set the scaling factors, uh, so that you got the best number for this point four five times the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know, and so on. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But they might change that {disfmarker} those weightings. PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: Um. So {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} I just sorta think we need to explore the space. Just take a look at it a little bit. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: And we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we may just find that {disfmarker} that we're way off. PhD F: OK. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Maybe we're not. You know? As for these other things, it may turn out that, uh, {vocalsound} it's kind of reasonable. But then {disfmarker} I mean, Andreas gave a very reasonable response, and he's probably not gonna be the only one who's gonna say this in the future {disfmarker} of, you know, people {disfmarker} people within this tight - knit community who are doing this evaluation {vocalsound} are accepting, uh, more or less, that these are the rules. But, people outside of it who look in at the broader picture are certainly gonna say" Well, wait a minute. You're doing all this standing on your head, uh, on the front - end, PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: when all you could do is just adjust this in the back - end with one s one knob." PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: And so we have to at least, I think, determine that that's not true, which would be OK, or determine that it is true, in which case we want to adjust that and then continue with {disfmarker} with what we're doing. And as you say {disfmarker} as you point out {disfmarker} finding ways to then compensate for that in the front - end {vocalsound} also then becomes a priority for this particular test, PhD F: Right. Professor E: and saying you don't have to do that. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So. OK. So, uh {disfmarker} What's new with you? PhD B: Uh. So there's nothing {pause} new. Um. Professor E: Uh, what's old with you that's developed? PhD B: I'm sorry? Professor E: You {disfmarker} OK. What's old with you that has developed over the last week or two? PhD B: Mmm. Well, so we've been mainly working on the report and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} Yeah. PhD F: Mainly working on what? PhD B: On the report {pause} of the work that was already done. PhD F: Oh. PhD B: Um. Mm - hmm. That's all. PhD F: How about that {disfmarker}? Any - anything new on the thing that, uh, you were working on with the, uh {disfmarker}? PhD C: I don't have results yet. PhD F: No results? Yeah. Professor E: What was that? PhD F: The {disfmarker} the, uh, Grad A: Voicing thing. PhD F: voicing detector. Professor E: I mean, what what's {disfmarker} what's going on now? What are you {pause} doing? PhD C: Uh, to try to found, nnn, robust feature for detect between voice and unvoice. And we {disfmarker} w we try to use {vocalsound} the variance {vocalsound} of the es difference between the FFT spectrum and mel filter bank spectrum. Professor E: Yeah. PhD C: Uh, also the {disfmarker} another parameter is {disfmarker} relates with the auto - correlation function. Professor E: Uh - huh. PhD C: R - ze energy and the variance a also of the auto - correlation function. Professor E: Uh - huh. So, that's {disfmarker} Yeah. That's what you were describing, I guess, a week or two ago. PhD C: Yeah. But we don't have res we don't have result of the AURO for Aurora yet. Professor E: So. PhD C: We need to train the neural network Professor E: Mm - hmm. PhD C: and {disfmarker} Professor E: So you're training neural networks now? PhD C: No, not yet. Professor E: So, what {disfmarker} wha {vocalsound} wh wha what what's going on? PhD C: Well, we work in the report, too, because we have a lot of result, Professor E: Uh - huh. PhD C: they are very dispersed, and was necessary to {disfmarker} to look in all the directory to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to give some more structure. PhD B: Yea Professor E: So. B So {disfmarker} Yeah. I if I can summarize, basically what's going on is that you're going over a lot of material that you have generated in furious fashion, f generating many results and doing many experiments and trying to pull it together into some coherent form to be able to see wha see what happens. PhD C: Hm - hmm. PhD B: Uh, y yeah. Basically we we've stopped, uh, experimenting, Professor E: Yes? PhD B: I mean. We're just writing some kind of technical report. And {disfmarker} PhD F: Is this a report that's for Aurora? Or is it just like a tech report for ICSI, PhD C: No. PhD B: Yeah. PhD C: For ICSI. PhD F: or {disfmarker}? Ah. I see. PhD B: Yeah. PhD C: Just summary of the experiment and the conclusion and something like that. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: OK. So, my suggestion, though, is that you {disfmarker} you not necessarily finish that. But that you put it all together so that it's {disfmarker} you've got {disfmarker} you've got a clearer structure to it. You know what things are, you have things documented, you've looked things up that you needed to look up. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So that, you know {disfmarker} so that such a thing can be written. And, um {disfmarker} When {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when do you leave again? PhD C: Uh, in July. First of July. Professor E: First of July? OK. And that you figure on actually finishing it in {disfmarker} in June. Because, you know, you're gonna have another bunch of results to fit in there anyway. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor E: And right now it's kind of important that we actually go forward with experiments. PhD C: It's not. Professor E: So {disfmarker} so, I {disfmarker} I think it's good to pause, and to gather everything together and make sure it's in good shape, so that other people can get access to it and so that it can go into a report in June. But I think {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to really work on {disfmarker} on fine - tuning the report n at this point is {disfmarker} is probably bad timing, I {disfmarker} I {pause} think. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Well, we didn't {disfmarker} we just planned to work on it one week on this report, not {disfmarker} no more, anyway. Um. Professor E: But you ma you may really wanna add other things later anyway PhD B: Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor E: because you {disfmarker} PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: There's more to go? PhD B: Yeah. Well, so I don't know. There are small things that we started to {disfmarker} to do. But {disfmarker} PhD F: Are you discovering anything, uh, that makes you scratch your head as you write this report, like why did we do that, or why didn't we do this, PhD B: Uh. PhD F: or {disfmarker}? PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. And {disfmarker} Actually, there were some tables that were also with partial results. We just noticed that, wh while gathering the result that for some conditions we didn't have everything. PhD F: Mmm. PhD B: But anyway. Um. Yeah, yeah. We have, yeah, extracted actually the noises from {pause} the SpeechDat - Car. And so, we can train neural network with speech and these noises. Um. It's difficult to say what it will give, because when we look at the Aurora {disfmarker} the TI - digits experiments, um, they have these three conditions that have different noises, and apparently this system perform as well on the seen noises {disfmarker} on the unseen noises and on the seen noises. But, I think this is something we have to try anyway. So {disfmarker} adding the noises from {disfmarker} from the SpeechDat - Car. Um. Professor E: That's {disfmarker} that's, uh {disfmarker} that's permitted? PhD B: Uh. Well, OGI does {disfmarker} did that. Um. At some point they did that for {disfmarker} for the voice activity detector. PhD C: Uh, for a v VAD. PhD B: Right? Um. PhD F: Could you say it again? What {disfmarker} what exactly did they do? PhD B: They used some parts of the, um, Italian database to train the voice activity detector, I think. It {disfmarker} Professor E: Yeah. I guess the thing is {disfmarker} Yeah. I guess that's a matter of interpretation. The rules as I understand it, is that in principle the Italian and the Spanish and the English {disfmarker} no, Italian and the Finnish and the English? {disfmarker} were development data PhD B: Yeah. And Spanish, yeah. Professor E: on which you could adjust things. And the {disfmarker} and the German and Danish were the evaluation data. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: And then when they finally actually evaluated things they used everything. PhD B: Yeah. That's right. Uh {disfmarker} Professor E: So {disfmarker} Uh, and it is true that the performance, uh, on the German was {disfmarker} I mean, even though the improvement wasn't so good, the pre the raw performance was really pretty good. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So {disfmarker} And, uh, it {disfmarker} it doesn't appear that there's strong evidence that even though things were somewhat tuned on those three or four languages, that {disfmarker} that going to a different language really hurt you. And the noises were not exactly the same. Right? Because it was taken from a different, uh {disfmarker} I mean they were different drives. PhD B: Different cars. Yeah. Professor E: I mean, it was {disfmarker} it was actual different cars and so on. PhD B: Yeah. Professor E: So. Um, it's somewhat tuned. It's tuned more than, you know, a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: You'd really like to have something that needed no particular noise at all, maybe just some white noise or something like that a at most. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But that's not really what this contest is. So. Um, I guess it's OK. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: That's something I'd like to understand before we actually use something from it, PhD F: I think it's {disfmarker} Professor E: because it would {disfmarker} PhD F: it's probably something that, mmm, the {disfmarker} you know, the, uh, experiment designers didn't really think about, because I think most people aren't doing trained systems, or, you know, uh, systems that are like ours, where you actually use the data to build models. I mean, they just {pause} doing signal - processing. PhD B: Yeah. Professor E: Well, it's true, PhD F: So. Professor E: except that, uh, that's what we used in Aurora one, and then they designed the things for Aurora - two knowing that we were doing that. PhD F: Yeah. That's true. Professor E: Um. PhD F: And they didn't forbid us {disfmarker} right? {disfmarker} to build models on the data? Professor E: No. But, I think {disfmarker} I think that it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it probably would be the case that if, say, we trained on Italian, uh, data and then, uh, we tested on Danish data and it did terribly, uh, that {disfmarker} that it would look bad. And I think someone would notice and would say" Well, look. This is not generalizing." I would hope tha I would hope they would. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Um. But, uh, it's true. You know, maybe there's parameters that other people have used {disfmarker} you know, th that they have tuned in some way for other things. So it's {disfmarker} it's, uh {disfmarker} We should {disfmarker} we should {disfmarker} Maybe {disfmarker} that's maybe a topic {disfmarker} Especially if you talk with him when I'm not here, that's a topic you should discuss with Hynek PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: to, you know, double check it's OK. PhD F: Do we know anything about {pause} the speakers for each of the, uh, training utterances? PhD B: What do you mean? We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} PhD F: Do you have speaker information? Professor E: Social security number PhD F: That would be good. PhD B: Like, we have {pause} male, female, PhD C: Hmm. PhD F: Bank PIN. PhD B: at least. PhD F: Just male f female? PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: What kind of information do you mean? PhD F: Well, I was thinking about things like, you know, gender, uh {disfmarker} you know, gender - specific nets and, uh, vocal tract length normalization. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD F: Things like that. I d I don't {disfmarker} I didn't know what information we have about the speakers that we could try to take advantage of. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Hmm. Uh. Right. I mean, again, i if you had the whole system you were optimizing, that would be easy to see. But if you're {vocalsound} supposedly just using a fixed back - end and you're just coming up with a feature vector, w w I'm not sure {disfmarker} I mean, having the two nets {disfmarker} Suppose you detected that it was male, it was female {disfmarker} you come up with different {disfmarker} PhD F: Well, you could put them both in as separate streams or something. Uh. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Maybe. PhD F: I don't know. I was just wondering if there was other information we could exploit. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Hmm. Yeah, it's an interesting thought. Maybe having something along the {disfmarker} I mean, you can't really do vocal tract normalization. But something that had some of that effect PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: being applied to the data in some way. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Um. PhD B: Do you have something simple in mind for {disfmarker} I mean, vocal tract length normalization? PhD F: Uh no. I hadn't {disfmarker} I hadn't thought {disfmarker} it was {disfmarker} thought too much about it, really. It just {disfmarker} something that popped into my head just now. And so I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean, you could maybe use the ideas {disfmarker} a similar {pause} idea to what they do in vocal tract length normalization. You know, you have some sort of a, uh, general speech model, you know, maybe just a mixture of Gaussians that you evaluate every utterance against, and then you see where each, you know, utterance {disfmarker} like, the likelihood of each utterance. You divide the {disfmarker} the range of the likelihoods up into discrete bins and then each bin's got some knob {disfmarker} uh, setting. Professor E: Yeah. But just listen to yourself. I mean, that uh really doesn't sound like a real - time thing with less than two hundred milliseconds, uh, latency that {disfmarker} and where you're not adjusting the statistical engine at all. PhD F: Yeah. Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD F: Yeah. That's true. Professor E: You know, that just {disfmarker} PhD F: Right. PhD B: Hmm. Professor E: I mean {disfmarker} Yeah. PhD F: Could be expensive. Professor E: No. Well not just expensive. I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't see how you could possibly do it. You can't look at the whole utterance and do anything. You know, you can only {disfmarker} Right? PhD F: Oh, Professor E: Each frame comes in and it's gotta go out the other end. PhD F: right. Professor E: So, uh {disfmarker} PhD F: Right. So whatever it was, it would have to be uh sort of on a per frame basis. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. I mean, you can do, um {disfmarker} Fairly quickly you can do male female {disfmarker} f male female stuff. PhD F: Yeah. Yeah. Professor E: But as far as, I mean {disfmarker} Like I thought BBN did a thing with, uh, uh, vocal tract normalization a ways back. Maybe other people did too. With {disfmarker} with, uh, uh, l trying to identify third formant {disfmarker} average third formant {disfmarker} {vocalsound} using that as an indicator of {disfmarker} PhD F: I don't know. Professor E: So. You know, third formant {disfmarker} I if you imagine that to first order what happens with, uh, changing vocal tract is that, uh, the formants get moved out by some proportion {disfmarker} PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, if you had a first formant that was one hundred hertz before, if the fifty {disfmarker} if the vocal tract is fifty percent shorter, then it would be out at seven fifty hertz, and so on. So, that's a move of two hundred fifty hertz. Whereas the third formant which might have started off at twenty - five hundred hertz, you know, might be out to thirty - seven fifty, you know so it's at {disfmarker} So, although, you frequently get less distinct higher formants, it's still {disfmarker} third formant's kind of a reasonable compromise, and {disfmarker} PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, I think, eh, if I recall correctly, they did something like that. And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} PhD F: Hmm. Professor E: But {disfmarker} Um, that doesn't work for just having one frame or something. PhD F: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: You know? That's more like looking at third formant over {disfmarker} over a turn or something like that, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: and {disfmarker} PhD F: Right. Professor E: Um. So. But on the other hand, male female is a {disfmarker} is a {disfmarker} is a much simpler categorization than figuring out a {disfmarker} a factor to, uh, squish or expand the {disfmarker} the spectrum. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, um. Y you could imagine that {disfmarker} I mean, just like we're saying voiced - unvoiced is good to know {disfmarker} uh, male female is good to know also. Um. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But, you'd have to figure out a way to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to, uh, incorporate it on the fly. Uh, I mean, I guess, as you say, one thing you could do is simply, uh, have the {disfmarker} the male and female output vectors {disfmarker} you know, tr nets trained only on males and n trained only on females or {disfmarker} or, uh, you know. But {disfmarker} Um. I don't know if that would really help, because you already have males and females and it's mm - hmm putting into one net. So is it {disfmarker}? PhD F: Is it balanced, um, in terms of gender {disfmarker} the data? PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: Do you know? PhD B: Almost, yeah. PhD F: Hmm. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Hmm. OK. Y you're {disfmarker} you were saying before {disfmarker}? PhD B: Uh. Yeah. So, this noise, um {disfmarker} Yeah. The MSG {disfmarker} Um. Mmm. There is something {disfmarker} perhaps, I could spend some days to look at this thing, cuz it seems that when we train networks on {disfmarker} let's say, on TIMIT with MSG features, they {disfmarker} they look as good as networks trained on PLP. But, um, when they are used on {disfmarker} on the SpeechDat - Car data, it's not the case {disfmarker} oh, well. The MSG features are much worse, and so maybe they're, um, less {disfmarker} more sensitive to different recording conditions, or {disfmarker} Shou Professor E: Shouldn't be. They should be less so. PhD B: Yeah. But {disfmarker} Professor E: R right? PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: Wh -? But let me ask you this. What {disfmarker} what's the, um {disfmarker}? Do you kno recall if the insertions were {disfmarker} were higher with MSG? PhD B: I don't know. I cannot tell. But {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the error rate is higher. So, I don Professor E: Yeah. But you should always look at insertions, deletions, and substitutions. PhD B: Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor E: So {disfmarker} PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: so, uh {disfmarker} MSG is very, very dif Eh, PLP is very much like mel cepstrum. MSG is very different from both of them. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, if it's very different, then this is the sort of thing {disfmarker} I mean I'm really glad Andreas brought this point up. I {pause} sort of had forgotten to discuss it. Um. You always have to look at how this {disfmarker} uh, these adjustments, uh, affect things. And even though we're not allowed to do that, again we maybe could reflect that back to our use of the features. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So if it {disfmarker} if in fact, uh {disfmarker} The problem might be that the range of the MSG features is quite different than the range of the PLP or mel cepstrum. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor E: And you might wanna change that. PhD B: But {disfmarker} Yeah. But, it's d it's after {disfmarker} Well, it's tandem features, so {disfmarker} Mmm. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. We {disfmarker} we have estimation of post posteriors with PLP and with MSG as input, Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: so I don Well. I don't know. Professor E: That means they're between zero and one. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But i it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it doesn't necessarily {disfmarker} You know, they could be, um {disfmarker} Do - doesn't tell you what the variance of the things is. PhD B: Mmm. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Right? Cuz if you're taking the log of these things, it could be, uh {disfmarker} Knowing what the sum of the probabilities are, doesn't tell you what the sum of the logs are. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Professor E: So. PhD B: Yeah. So we should look at the likelihood, or {disfmarker} or what? Or {disfmarker} well, at the log, perhaps, and {disfmarker} Professor E: Yeah. Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Or what {disfmarker} you know, what you're uh {disfmarker} the thing you're actually looking at. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So your {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} the values that are {disfmarker} are actually being fed into HTK. PhD B: Mm - hmm. But {disfmarker} Professor E: What do they look like? PhD F: No And so th the, uh {disfmarker} for the tandem system, the values that come out of the net don't go through the sigmoid. Right? They're sort of the pre - nonlinearity values? PhD B: Yes. Professor E: Right. So they're {pause} kinda like log probabilities is what I was saying. PhD F: And those {disfmarker} OK. And tho that's what goes {pause} into {pause} HTK? Professor E: Uh, almost. But then you actually do a KLT on them. PhD F: OK. Professor E: Um. They aren't normalized after that, are they? PhD B: Mmm. No, they are not {disfmarker} no. Professor E: No. OK. So, um. Right. So the question is {disfmarker} Yeah. Whatever they are at that point, um, are they something for which taking a square root or cube root or fourth root or something like that is {disfmarker} is gonna be a good or a bad thing? So. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Uh, and that's something that nothing {disfmarker} nothing else after that is gonna {disfmarker} Uh, things are gonna scale it {disfmarker} Uh, you know, subtract things from it, scale it from it, but nothing will have that same effect. Um. So. Um. Anyway, eh {disfmarker} PhD F: Yeah. Cuz if {disfmarker} if the log probs that are coming out of the MSG are really big, the standard {pause} insertion penalty is gonna have very little effect Professor E: Well, the {disfmarker} Right. PhD F: compared to, you know, a smaller set of log probs. Professor E: Yeah. No. Again you don't really {pause} look at that. It's something {disfmarker} that, and then it's going through this transformation that's probably pretty close to {disfmarker} It's, eh, whatever the KLT is doing. But it's probably pretty close to what a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a discrete cosine transformation is doing. PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: But still it's {disfmarker} it's not gonna probably radically change the scale of things. I would think. And, uh {disfmarker} Yeah. It may be entirely off and {disfmarker} and it may be {disfmarker} at the very least it may be quite different for MSG than it is for mel cepstrum or PLP. So that would be {disfmarker} So the first thing I'd look at without adjusting anything would just be to go back to the experiment and look at the, uh, substitutions, insertions, and deletions. And if the {disfmarker} if the, uh {disfmarker} i if there's a fairly large effect of the difference, say, uh, uh, the r ratio between insertions and deletions for the two cases then that would be, uh, an indicator that it might {disfmarker} might be in that direction. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Yeah. But, Professor E: Anything else? PhD B: my {disfmarker} my point was more that it {disfmarker} it works sometimes and {disfmarker} but sometimes it doesn't work. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: So. Professor E: Well. PhD B: And it works on TI - digits and on SpeechDat - Car it doesn't work, and {disfmarker} Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Well. Professor E: But, you know, some problems are harder than others, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Professor E: and {disfmarker} And, uh, sometimes, you know, there's enough evidence for something to work and then it's harder, it breaks. You know, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: so it's {disfmarker} But it {disfmarker} but, um, i it {disfmarker} it could be that when you say it works maybe we could be doing much better, even in TI - digits. Right? PhD B: Yeah. Yeah, sure. Professor E: So. PhD B: Uh. Professor E: Hmm? Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Well, there is also the spectral subtraction, which, um {disfmarker} I think maybe we should, uh, try to integrate it in {disfmarker} in our system. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mmm. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Right. PhD B: But, Professor E: O PhD B: I think that would involve to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to mmm {vocalsound} use a big {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} al already a big bunch of the system of Ericsson. Because he has spectral subtraction, then it's followed by, {vocalsound} um, other kind of processing that's {disfmarker} are dependent on the {disfmarker} uh, if it's speech or noi or silence. Professor E: Mm - hmm. PhD B: And there is this kind of spectral flattening after {disfmarker} if it's silence, and {disfmarker} and s I {disfmarker} I think it's important, um, {vocalsound} to reduce this musical noise and this {disfmarker} this increase of variance during silence portions. So. Well. This was in this would involve to take almost everything from {disfmarker} from the {disfmarker} this proposal and {disfmarker} and then just add some kind of on - line normalization in {disfmarker} in the neural network. Mmm. Professor E: OK. Well, this'll be, I think, something for discussion with Hynek next week. PhD B: Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. OK. Right. So. How are, uh, uh {disfmarker} how are things going with what you're doing? Grad D: Oh. Well, um, I took a lot of time just getting my taxes out of the way {disfmarker} multi - national taxes. So, I'm {disfmarker} I'm starting to write code now for my work but I don't have any results yet. Um, i it would be good for me to talk to Hynek, I think, when he's here. Professor E: Yeah. Grad D: Do you know what his schedule will be like? Professor E: Uh, he'll be around for three days. Grad D: OK. So, y Professor E: Uh, we'll have a lot of time. Grad D: OK. Professor E: So, uh {disfmarker} Um. I'll, uh {disfmarker} You know, he's {disfmarker} he'll {disfmarker} he'll be talking with everybody in this room So. PhD F: But you said you won't {disfmarker} you won't be here next Thursday? Professor E: Not Thursday and Friday. Yeah. Cuz I will be at faculty retreat. PhD F: Hmm. Professor E: So. I'll try to {vocalsound} connect with him and people as {disfmarker} as I can on {disfmarker} on Wednesday. But {disfmarker} Um. Oh, how'd taxes go? Taxes go OK? Grad D: Mmm. Yeah. Professor E: Yeah. Oh, good. Yeah. Yeah. That's just {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} that's one of the big advantages of not making much money is {vocalsound} the taxes are easier. Yeah. PhD F: Unless you're getting money in two countries. Professor E: I think you are. Aren't you? PhD F: They both want their cut. PhD B: Hmm. Grad D: Hmm. Yeah. PhD F: Right? Professor E: Yeah. Yeah. Huh. Canada w Canada wants a cut? Grad D: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Have to do {disfmarker} So you {disfmarker} you have to do two returns? Grad D: Mmm. W uh, for two thousand I did. Yeah. Professor E: Oh, oh. Yeah. For tw That's right, ju PhD F: But not for this next year? Professor E: Two thousand. Yeah. Probably not this next year, I guess. Grad D: Ye Professor E: Yeah. Grad D: Um. Professor E: Yeah. Grad D: Uh, I'll {disfmarker} I'll still have a bit of Canadian income but it'll be less complicated because I will not be a {disfmarker} considered a resident of Canada anymore, so I won't have to declare my American income on my Canadian return. Professor E: OK. Alright. Uh. Barry, do you wanna {pause} say something about your stuff here? Grad A: Oh, um. Right. I {pause} just, um, continuing looking at, uh, ph uh, phonetic events, and, uh, this Tuesday gonna be, uh, meeting with John Ohala with Chuck to talk some more about these, uh, ph um, phonetic events. Um, came up with, uh, a plan of attack, uh, gonna execute, and um {disfmarker} Yeah. It's {disfmarker} that's pretty much it. Professor E: Oh, well. No Um, why don't you say something about what it is? Grad A: Oh, you {disfmarker} oh, you want {disfmarker} you want details. Hmm. OK. Professor E: Well, we're all gathered here together. I thought we'd, you know {disfmarker} Grad A: I was hoping I could wave my hands. Um. So, um. So, once wa I {disfmarker} I was thinking getting {disfmarker} getting us a set of acoustic events to {disfmarker} um, to be able to distinguish between, uh, phones and words and stuff. And {vocalsound} um, once we {disfmarker} we would figure out a set of these events that can be, you know, um, hand - labeled or {disfmarker} or derived, uh, from h the hand - labeled phone targets. Um, we could take these events and, um, {vocalsound} do some cheating experiments, um, where we feed, um, these events into {pause} an SRI system, um, eh, and evaluate its performance on a Switchboard task. Uh, yeah. Grad D: Hey, Barry? Can you give an example of an event? Grad A: Yeah. Sure. Um, I {disfmarker} I can give you an example of {pause} twenty - odd events. Um {disfmarker} So, he In this paper, um, it's talking about phoneme recognition using acoustic events. So, things like frication or, uh, nasality. Professor E: Whose paper is it? Grad A: Um, this is a paper by Hubener and Cardson {pause} Benson {disfmarker} Bernds - Berndsen. Professor E: Yeah. Huh. From, uh, University of Hamburg and Bielefeld. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor E: OK. Grad A: Um. PhD F: Yeah. I think the {disfmarker} just to expand a little bit on the idea of acoustic event. Grad A: Mm - hmm. PhD F: There's, um {disfmarker} in my mind, anyways, there's a difference between, um, acoustic features and acoustic events. And I think of acoustic features as being, um, things that linguists talk about, like, um {disfmarker} Professor E: So, stuff that's not based on data. PhD F: Stuff that's not based on data, necessarily. Professor E: Yeah. Oh, OK. Yeah. Yeah, OK. PhD F: Right. That's not based on, you know, acoustic data. So they talk about features for phones, like, uh, its height, Grad A: Yeah. PhD F: its tenseness, laxness, things like that, Grad A: Mm - hmm. PhD F: which may or may not be all that easy to measure in the acoustic signal. Versus an acoustic event, which is just {nonvocalsound} some {nonvocalsound} something in the acoustic signal {nonvocalsound} that is fairly easy to measure. Um. So it's, um {disfmarker} it's a little different, in {disfmarker} at least in my mind. Professor E: I mean, when we did the SPAM work {disfmarker} I mean, there we had {disfmarker} we had this notion of an, uh, auditory {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} auditory event. Grad A: Good. That's great. Professor E: And, uh, um, called them" avents" , uh, uh, uh, with an A at the front. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Uh. And the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the idea was something that occurred that is important to a bunch of neurons somewhere. So. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Um. A sudden change or a relatively rapid change in some spectral characteristic will {disfmarker} will do sort of this. I mean, there's certainly a bunch of {disfmarker} a bunch of places where you know that neurons are gonna fire because something novel has happened. That was {disfmarker} that was the main thing that we were focusing on there. But there's certainly other things beyond what we talked about there that aren't just sort of rapid changes, but {disfmarker} PhD F: It's kinda like the difference between top - down and bottom - up. Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: I think of the acoustic {disfmarker} you know, phonetic features as being top - down. You know, you look at the phone and you say this phone is supposed to be {disfmarker} you know, have this feature, this feature, and this feature. Whether tha those features show up in the acoustic signal is sort of irrelevant. Whereas, an acoustic event goes the other way. Here's the signal. Here's some event. Grad A: Mm - hmm. PhD F: What {disfmarker}? And then that {disfmarker} you know, that may map to this phone sometimes, and sometimes it may not. It just depen maybe depends on the context, things like that. Professor E: Mm - hmm. PhD F: And so it's sort of a different way of looking. Professor E: Mm - hmm. Grad A: Yeah. So. Yeah. Grad D: OK. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Um {disfmarker} Using these {disfmarker} these events, um, you know, we can {disfmarker} we can perform these {disfmarker} these, uh, cheating experiments. See how {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how good they are, um, in, um {disfmarker} in terms of phoneme recognition or word recognition. And, um {disfmarker} and then from that point on, I would, uh, s design robust event detectors, um, in a similar, um, wa spirit that Saul has done w uh, with his graphical models, and this {disfmarker} this probabilistic AND - OR model that he uses. Um, eh, try to extend it to, um {disfmarker} to account for other {disfmarker} other phenomena like, um, CMR co - modulation release. And, um {disfmarker} and maybe also investigate ways to {disfmarker} to modify the structure of these models, um, in a data - driven way, uh, similar to the way that, uh, Jeff {disfmarker} Jeff, uh, Bilmes did his work. Um, and while I'm {disfmarker} I'm doing these, um, event detectors, you know, I can ma mea measure my progress by comparing, um, the error rates in clean and noisy conditions to something like, uh, neural nets. Um, and {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so, once we have these {disfmarker} these, uh, event detectors, um, we could put them together and {disfmarker} and feed the outputs of the event detectors into {disfmarker} into the SRI, um, HMM {disfmarker} HMM system, and, um {disfmarker} and test it on {disfmarker} on Switchboard or, um, maybe even Aurora stuff. And, that's pretty much the {disfmarker} the big picture of {disfmarker} of um, the plan. Professor E: By the way, um, there's, uh, a couple people who are gonna be here {disfmarker} I forget if I already told you this, but, a couple people who are gonna be here for six months. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Uh {disfmarker} uh, there's a Professor Kollmeier, uh, from Germany who's, uh, uh, quite big in the, uh, hearing - aid signal - processing area and, um, Michael Kleinschmidt, who's worked with him, who also looks at {vocalsound} auditory properties inspired by various, uh, brain function things. Grad A: Hmm. Professor E: So, um, um, I think they'll be interesting to talk to, in this sort of issue as these detectors are {disfmarker} are, uh, developing. Grad A: Hmm. OK. Professor E: So, he looks at interesting {disfmarker} interesting things in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} different ways of looking at spectra in order to {disfmarker} to get various speech properties out. So. Grad A: OK. Professor E: OK. Well, short meeting, but that's OK. And, uh, we might as well do our digits. And like I say, I {disfmarker} I encourage you to go ahead and meet, uh, next week with, uh, uh, Hynek. Alright, I'll {disfmarker} I'll start. It's, uh, one thirty - five. seventeen OK

Grad D was focused on filing his taxes. He explained to the team that he had both Canadian and US income, so he had to file taxes in both countries for the preceding year.

tr-sq-649

tr-sq-649_0

What did Grad D think about the tax return? Professor E: Let's see. Test? Test? Yeah. OK. Grad A: Hello? PhD B: Channel one. Grad A: Hello? PhD C: Test. Professor E: I was saying Hynek'll be here next week, uh, Wednesday through Friday {disfmarker} uh, through Saturday, and, um, I won't be here Thursday and Friday. But my suggestion is that, uh, at least for this meeting, people should go ahead, uh, cuz Hynek will be here, and, you know, we don't have any Czech accent yet, uh, {vocalsound} as far as I know, so {disfmarker} There we go. PhD F: OK. Professor E: Um. So other than reading digits, what's our agenda? PhD F: I don't really have, uh, anything new. Been working on {pause} Meeting Recorder stuff. So. Professor E: OK. Um. Do you think that would be the case for next week also? Or is {disfmarker} is, uh {disfmarker}? What's your projection on {disfmarker}? PhD F: Um. Professor E: Cuz the one thing {disfmarker} the one thing that seems to me we really should try, if you hadn't tried it before, because it hadn't occurred to me {disfmarker} it was sort of an obvious thing {disfmarker} is, um, adjusting the, uh, sca the scaling and, uh, insertion penalty sorta stuff. PhD F: I did play with that, actually, a little bit. Um. What happens is, uh, {vocalsound} when you get to the noisy stuff, you start getting lots of insertions. Professor E: Right. PhD F: And, um, so I've tried playing around a little bit with, um, the insertion penalties and things like that. Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: Um. I mean, it {disfmarker} it didn't make a whole lot of difference. Like for the well - matched case, it seemed like it was pretty good. Um. {vocalsound} I could do more playing with that, though. And, uh {disfmarker} Professor E: But you were looking at mel cepstrum. PhD F: and see. Yes. Professor E: Right. PhD F: Oh, you're talking about for th {vocalsound} for our features. Professor E: Right. So, I mean, i it it's not the direction that you were working with that we were saying what's the {disfmarker} uh, what's the best you can do with {disfmarker} with mel cepstrum. But, they raised a very valid point, PhD F: Mmm. Professor E: which, I guess {disfmarker} So, to first order {disfmarker} I mean, you have other things you were gonna do, but to first order, I would say that the conclusion is that if you, um, do, uh, some monkeying around with, uh, the exact HTK training and @ @ {comment} with, uh, you know, how many states and so forth, that it {disfmarker} it doesn't particularly improve the performance. In other words, that even though it sounds pretty dumb, just applying the same number of states to everything, more or less, no matter what language, isn't so bad. Right? And I guess you hadn't gotten to all the experiments you wanted to do with number of Gaussians, PhD F: Right. Professor E: but, um, let's just {disfmarker} If we had to {disfmarker} if we had to draw a conclusion on the information we have so far, we'd say something like that. Right? PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Uh, so the next question to ask, which is I think the one that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that Andreas was dre addressing himself to in the lunch meeting, is, um, we're not supposed to adjust the back - end, but anybody using the system would. PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: So, if you were just adjusting the back - end, how much better would you do, uh, in noise? Uh, because the language scaling and insertion penalties and so forth are probably set to be about right for mel cepstrum. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But, um, they're probably not at all set right for these things, particularly these things that look over, uh, larger time windows, in one way or another with {disfmarker} with LDA and KLT and neural nets and {vocalsound} all these things. In the fa past we've always found that we had to increase the insertion penalty to {disfmarker} to correspond to such things. So, I think that's, uh, @ @ {comment} that's kind of a first - order thing that {disfmarker} that we should try. PhD F: So for th so the experiment is to, um, run our front - end like normal, with the default, uh, insertion penalties and so forth, and then tweak that a little bit and see how much of a difference it makes Professor E: So by" our front - end" I mean take, you know, the Aurora - two s take some version that Stephane has that is, you know, our current best version of something. PhD F: if we were {disfmarker} Mm - hmm. Professor E: Um. I mean, y don't wanna do this over a hundred different things that they've tried but, you know, for some version that you say is a good one. You know? Um. How {disfmarker} how much, uh, does it improve if you actually adjust that? PhD F: OK. Professor E: But it is interesting. You say you {disfmarker} you have for the noisy {disfmarker} How about for the {disfmarker} for the mismatched or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or the {disfmarker} or the medium mismatched conditions? Have you {disfmarker}? When you adjusted those numbers for mel cepstrum, did it {disfmarker}? PhD F: Uh, I {disfmarker} I don't remember off the top of my head. Um. Yeah. I didn't even write them down. I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't remember. I would need to {disfmarker} Well, I did write down, um {disfmarker} So, when I was doing {disfmarker} I just wrote down some numbers for the well - matched case. Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: Um. Looking at the {disfmarker} I wrote down what the deletions, substitutions, and insertions were, uh, for different numbers of states per phone. Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: Um, but, uh, that {disfmarker} that's all I wrote down. Professor E: OK. PhD F: So. I {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} Yeah. I would need to do that. Professor E: OK. So {disfmarker} PhD F: I can do that for next week. Professor E: Yeah. And, um {disfmarker} Yeah. Also, eh, eh, sometimes if you run behind on some of these things, maybe we can get someone else to do it and you can supervise or something. But {disfmarker} but I think it would be {disfmarker} it'd be good to know that. PhD F: OK. I just need to get, um, {vocalsound} front - end, uh, stuff from you PhD B: Hmm. PhD F: or you point me to some files {pause} that you've already calculated. PhD B: Yeah. Alright. Professor E: OK. Uh. PhD F: I probably will have time to do that and time to play a little bit with the silence model. Professor E: Mm - hmm. PhD F: So maybe I can have that for next week when Hynek's here. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. Cuz, I mean, the {disfmarker} the other {disfmarker} That, in fact, might have been part of what, uh, the difference was {disfmarker} at least part of it that {disfmarker} that we were seeing. Remember we were seeing the SRI system was so much better than the tandem system. PhD F: Hmm. Professor E: Part of it might just be that the SRI system, they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they always adjust these things to be sort of optimized, PhD F: Is there {disfmarker}? Professor E: and {disfmarker} PhD F: I wonder if there's anything that we could do {vocalsound} to the front - end that would affect the insertion {disfmarker} Professor E: Yes. I think you can. PhD F: What could you do? Professor E: Well, um {disfmarker} uh, part of what's going on, um, is the, uh, the range of values. So, if you have something that has a much smaller range or a much larger range, and taking the appropriate root. PhD F: Oh. Mm - hmm. Professor E: You know? If something is kind of like the equivalent of a bunch of probabilities multiplied together, you can take a root of some sort. If it's like seven probabilities together, you can take the seventh root of it or something, or if it's in the log domain, divide it by seven. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But {disfmarker} but, um, that has a similar effect because it changes the scale of the numbers {disfmarker} of the differences between different candidates from the acoustic model PhD F: Oh, right. Professor E: as opposed to what's coming from the language model. PhD F: So that w Right. So, in effect, that's changing the value of your insertion penalty. Professor E: Yeah. I mean, it's more directly like the {disfmarker} the language scaling or the, uh {disfmarker} the model scaling or acoustic scaling, PhD F: That's interesting. Professor E: but you know that those things have kind of a similar effect to the insertion penalty PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: anyway. They're a slightly different way of {disfmarker} of handling it. PhD F: Right. Professor E: So, um {disfmarker} PhD F: So if we know what the insertion penalty is, then we can get an idea about what range our number should be in, Professor E: I think so. PhD F: so that they {pause} match with that. Professor E: Yeah. Yeah. So that's why I think that's another reason other than curiosity as to why i it would in fact be kinda neat to find out if we're way off. I mean, the other thing is, are aren't we seeing {disfmarker}? Y y PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: I'm sure you've already looked at this bu in these noisy cases, are {disfmarker}? We are seeing lots of insertions. Right? The insertion number is quite high? PhD B: Yeah. Professor E: I know the VAD takes pre care of part of that, PhD F: Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Professor E: but {disfmarker} PhD F: I've seen that with the mel cepstrum. I don't {disfmarker} I don't know about {pause} the Aurora front - end, but {disfmarker} PhD B: I think it's much more balanced with, uh {disfmarker} when the front - end is more robust. Yeah. I could look at it {disfmarker} at this. Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. Wha - what's a typical number? PhD B: I don't {disfmarker} I don't know. Professor E: Do we {disfmarker}? Oh, you {disfmarker} oh, you don't know. PhD B: I don't have this in {disfmarker} Professor E: OK. I'm sure it's more balanced, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: but it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it wouldn't surprise me if there's still {disfmarker} PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: I mean, in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the old systems we used to do, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} uh, I remember numbers kind of like insertions being half the number of deletions, as being {disfmarker} and both numbers being {disfmarker} tend to be on the small side comparing to {disfmarker} to, uh, substitutions. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD F: Well, this {disfmarker} the whole problem with insertions was what I think, um, we talked about when the guy from OGI came down {pause} that one time and {disfmarker} and that was when people were saying, well we should have a, uh, uh, voice activity detector {disfmarker} Professor E: Right. PhD F: that, because all that stuff {comment} that we're getting thr the silence that's getting through is causing insertions. So. PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: Right. PhD F: I'll bet you there's still a lot {vocalsound} of insertions. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. And it may be less of a critical thing. I mean, the fact that some get by may be less of a critical thing if you, uh, get things in the right range. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, I mean, the insertions is {disfmarker} is a symptom. It's a symptom that there's something, uh, wrong with the range. PhD F: Right. Professor E: But there's {disfmarker} uh, your {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} your substitutions tend to go up as well. So, uh, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that, PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: uh, the most obvious thing is just the insertions, @ @. But {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} um. If you're operating in the wrong range {disfmarker} I mean, that's why just in general, if you {vocalsound} change what these {disfmarker} these penalties and scaling factors are, you reach some point that's a {disfmarker} that's a minimum. So. Um. Um. We do have to do well over a range of different conditions, some of which are noisier than others. Um. But, um, I think we may get a better handle on that if we {disfmarker} if we see {disfmarker} Um, I mean we ca it's if we actually could pick a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a more stable value for the range of these features, it, um, uh, could {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} Even though it's {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's true that in a real situation you can in fact adjust the {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these scaling factors in the back - end, and it's ar artificial here that we're not adjusting those, you certainly don't wanna be adjusting those all the time. And if you have a nice front - end that's in roughly the right range {disfmarker} PhD F: Hmm. Professor E: I remember after we got our stuff more or less together in the previous systems we built, that we tended to set those scaling factors at kind of a standard level, and we would rarely adjust them again, even though you could get a {disfmarker} PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: for an evaluation you can get an extra point or something if you tweaked it a little bit. But, once we knew what rou roughly the right operating range was, it was pretty stable, and {disfmarker} Uh, we might just not even be in the right operating range. PhD F: So, would the {disfmarker}? Uh, would a good idea be to try to map it into the same range that you get in the well - matched case? So, if we computed what the range was in well - matched, and then when we get our noisy conditions out we try to make it have the same range as {disfmarker}? Professor E: No. You don't wanna change it for different conditions. No. No. I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} What {disfmarker} what I'm saying {disfmarker} PhD F: Oh, I wasn't suggesting change it for different conditions. I was just saying that when we pick a range, we {disfmarker} we wanna pick a range that we map our numbers into {disfmarker} Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: we should probably pick it based on the range that we get in the well - matched case. Otherwise, I mean, what range are we gonna choose to {disfmarker} to map everything into? Professor E: Well. It depends how much we wanna do gamesmanship and how much we wanna do {disfmarker} I mean, i if he it {disfmarker} to me, actually, even if you wanna be {disfmarker} play on the gamesmanship side, it can be kinda tricky. So, I mean, what you would do is set the {disfmarker} set the scaling factors, uh, so that you got the best number for this point four five times the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know, and so on. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But they might change that {disfmarker} those weightings. PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: Um. So {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} I just sorta think we need to explore the space. Just take a look at it a little bit. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: And we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we may just find that {disfmarker} that we're way off. PhD F: OK. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Maybe we're not. You know? As for these other things, it may turn out that, uh, {vocalsound} it's kind of reasonable. But then {disfmarker} I mean, Andreas gave a very reasonable response, and he's probably not gonna be the only one who's gonna say this in the future {disfmarker} of, you know, people {disfmarker} people within this tight - knit community who are doing this evaluation {vocalsound} are accepting, uh, more or less, that these are the rules. But, people outside of it who look in at the broader picture are certainly gonna say" Well, wait a minute. You're doing all this standing on your head, uh, on the front - end, PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: when all you could do is just adjust this in the back - end with one s one knob." PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: And so we have to at least, I think, determine that that's not true, which would be OK, or determine that it is true, in which case we want to adjust that and then continue with {disfmarker} with what we're doing. And as you say {disfmarker} as you point out {disfmarker} finding ways to then compensate for that in the front - end {vocalsound} also then becomes a priority for this particular test, PhD F: Right. Professor E: and saying you don't have to do that. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So. OK. So, uh {disfmarker} What's new with you? PhD B: Uh. So there's nothing {pause} new. Um. Professor E: Uh, what's old with you that's developed? PhD B: I'm sorry? Professor E: You {disfmarker} OK. What's old with you that has developed over the last week or two? PhD B: Mmm. Well, so we've been mainly working on the report and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} Yeah. PhD F: Mainly working on what? PhD B: On the report {pause} of the work that was already done. PhD F: Oh. PhD B: Um. Mm - hmm. That's all. PhD F: How about that {disfmarker}? Any - anything new on the thing that, uh, you were working on with the, uh {disfmarker}? PhD C: I don't have results yet. PhD F: No results? Yeah. Professor E: What was that? PhD F: The {disfmarker} the, uh, Grad A: Voicing thing. PhD F: voicing detector. Professor E: I mean, what what's {disfmarker} what's going on now? What are you {pause} doing? PhD C: Uh, to try to found, nnn, robust feature for detect between voice and unvoice. And we {disfmarker} w we try to use {vocalsound} the variance {vocalsound} of the es difference between the FFT spectrum and mel filter bank spectrum. Professor E: Yeah. PhD C: Uh, also the {disfmarker} another parameter is {disfmarker} relates with the auto - correlation function. Professor E: Uh - huh. PhD C: R - ze energy and the variance a also of the auto - correlation function. Professor E: Uh - huh. So, that's {disfmarker} Yeah. That's what you were describing, I guess, a week or two ago. PhD C: Yeah. But we don't have res we don't have result of the AURO for Aurora yet. Professor E: So. PhD C: We need to train the neural network Professor E: Mm - hmm. PhD C: and {disfmarker} Professor E: So you're training neural networks now? PhD C: No, not yet. Professor E: So, what {disfmarker} wha {vocalsound} wh wha what what's going on? PhD C: Well, we work in the report, too, because we have a lot of result, Professor E: Uh - huh. PhD C: they are very dispersed, and was necessary to {disfmarker} to look in all the directory to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to give some more structure. PhD B: Yea Professor E: So. B So {disfmarker} Yeah. I if I can summarize, basically what's going on is that you're going over a lot of material that you have generated in furious fashion, f generating many results and doing many experiments and trying to pull it together into some coherent form to be able to see wha see what happens. PhD C: Hm - hmm. PhD B: Uh, y yeah. Basically we we've stopped, uh, experimenting, Professor E: Yes? PhD B: I mean. We're just writing some kind of technical report. And {disfmarker} PhD F: Is this a report that's for Aurora? Or is it just like a tech report for ICSI, PhD C: No. PhD B: Yeah. PhD C: For ICSI. PhD F: or {disfmarker}? Ah. I see. PhD B: Yeah. PhD C: Just summary of the experiment and the conclusion and something like that. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: OK. So, my suggestion, though, is that you {disfmarker} you not necessarily finish that. But that you put it all together so that it's {disfmarker} you've got {disfmarker} you've got a clearer structure to it. You know what things are, you have things documented, you've looked things up that you needed to look up. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So that, you know {disfmarker} so that such a thing can be written. And, um {disfmarker} When {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when do you leave again? PhD C: Uh, in July. First of July. Professor E: First of July? OK. And that you figure on actually finishing it in {disfmarker} in June. Because, you know, you're gonna have another bunch of results to fit in there anyway. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor E: And right now it's kind of important that we actually go forward with experiments. PhD C: It's not. Professor E: So {disfmarker} so, I {disfmarker} I think it's good to pause, and to gather everything together and make sure it's in good shape, so that other people can get access to it and so that it can go into a report in June. But I think {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to really work on {disfmarker} on fine - tuning the report n at this point is {disfmarker} is probably bad timing, I {disfmarker} I {pause} think. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Well, we didn't {disfmarker} we just planned to work on it one week on this report, not {disfmarker} no more, anyway. Um. Professor E: But you ma you may really wanna add other things later anyway PhD B: Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor E: because you {disfmarker} PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: There's more to go? PhD B: Yeah. Well, so I don't know. There are small things that we started to {disfmarker} to do. But {disfmarker} PhD F: Are you discovering anything, uh, that makes you scratch your head as you write this report, like why did we do that, or why didn't we do this, PhD B: Uh. PhD F: or {disfmarker}? PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. And {disfmarker} Actually, there were some tables that were also with partial results. We just noticed that, wh while gathering the result that for some conditions we didn't have everything. PhD F: Mmm. PhD B: But anyway. Um. Yeah, yeah. We have, yeah, extracted actually the noises from {pause} the SpeechDat - Car. And so, we can train neural network with speech and these noises. Um. It's difficult to say what it will give, because when we look at the Aurora {disfmarker} the TI - digits experiments, um, they have these three conditions that have different noises, and apparently this system perform as well on the seen noises {disfmarker} on the unseen noises and on the seen noises. But, I think this is something we have to try anyway. So {disfmarker} adding the noises from {disfmarker} from the SpeechDat - Car. Um. Professor E: That's {disfmarker} that's, uh {disfmarker} that's permitted? PhD B: Uh. Well, OGI does {disfmarker} did that. Um. At some point they did that for {disfmarker} for the voice activity detector. PhD C: Uh, for a v VAD. PhD B: Right? Um. PhD F: Could you say it again? What {disfmarker} what exactly did they do? PhD B: They used some parts of the, um, Italian database to train the voice activity detector, I think. It {disfmarker} Professor E: Yeah. I guess the thing is {disfmarker} Yeah. I guess that's a matter of interpretation. The rules as I understand it, is that in principle the Italian and the Spanish and the English {disfmarker} no, Italian and the Finnish and the English? {disfmarker} were development data PhD B: Yeah. And Spanish, yeah. Professor E: on which you could adjust things. And the {disfmarker} and the German and Danish were the evaluation data. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: And then when they finally actually evaluated things they used everything. PhD B: Yeah. That's right. Uh {disfmarker} Professor E: So {disfmarker} Uh, and it is true that the performance, uh, on the German was {disfmarker} I mean, even though the improvement wasn't so good, the pre the raw performance was really pretty good. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So {disfmarker} And, uh, it {disfmarker} it doesn't appear that there's strong evidence that even though things were somewhat tuned on those three or four languages, that {disfmarker} that going to a different language really hurt you. And the noises were not exactly the same. Right? Because it was taken from a different, uh {disfmarker} I mean they were different drives. PhD B: Different cars. Yeah. Professor E: I mean, it was {disfmarker} it was actual different cars and so on. PhD B: Yeah. Professor E: So. Um, it's somewhat tuned. It's tuned more than, you know, a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: You'd really like to have something that needed no particular noise at all, maybe just some white noise or something like that a at most. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But that's not really what this contest is. So. Um, I guess it's OK. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: That's something I'd like to understand before we actually use something from it, PhD F: I think it's {disfmarker} Professor E: because it would {disfmarker} PhD F: it's probably something that, mmm, the {disfmarker} you know, the, uh, experiment designers didn't really think about, because I think most people aren't doing trained systems, or, you know, uh, systems that are like ours, where you actually use the data to build models. I mean, they just {pause} doing signal - processing. PhD B: Yeah. Professor E: Well, it's true, PhD F: So. Professor E: except that, uh, that's what we used in Aurora one, and then they designed the things for Aurora - two knowing that we were doing that. PhD F: Yeah. That's true. Professor E: Um. PhD F: And they didn't forbid us {disfmarker} right? {disfmarker} to build models on the data? Professor E: No. But, I think {disfmarker} I think that it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it probably would be the case that if, say, we trained on Italian, uh, data and then, uh, we tested on Danish data and it did terribly, uh, that {disfmarker} that it would look bad. And I think someone would notice and would say" Well, look. This is not generalizing." I would hope tha I would hope they would. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Um. But, uh, it's true. You know, maybe there's parameters that other people have used {disfmarker} you know, th that they have tuned in some way for other things. So it's {disfmarker} it's, uh {disfmarker} We should {disfmarker} we should {disfmarker} Maybe {disfmarker} that's maybe a topic {disfmarker} Especially if you talk with him when I'm not here, that's a topic you should discuss with Hynek PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: to, you know, double check it's OK. PhD F: Do we know anything about {pause} the speakers for each of the, uh, training utterances? PhD B: What do you mean? We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} PhD F: Do you have speaker information? Professor E: Social security number PhD F: That would be good. PhD B: Like, we have {pause} male, female, PhD C: Hmm. PhD F: Bank PIN. PhD B: at least. PhD F: Just male f female? PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: What kind of information do you mean? PhD F: Well, I was thinking about things like, you know, gender, uh {disfmarker} you know, gender - specific nets and, uh, vocal tract length normalization. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD F: Things like that. I d I don't {disfmarker} I didn't know what information we have about the speakers that we could try to take advantage of. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Hmm. Uh. Right. I mean, again, i if you had the whole system you were optimizing, that would be easy to see. But if you're {vocalsound} supposedly just using a fixed back - end and you're just coming up with a feature vector, w w I'm not sure {disfmarker} I mean, having the two nets {disfmarker} Suppose you detected that it was male, it was female {disfmarker} you come up with different {disfmarker} PhD F: Well, you could put them both in as separate streams or something. Uh. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Maybe. PhD F: I don't know. I was just wondering if there was other information we could exploit. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Hmm. Yeah, it's an interesting thought. Maybe having something along the {disfmarker} I mean, you can't really do vocal tract normalization. But something that had some of that effect PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: being applied to the data in some way. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Um. PhD B: Do you have something simple in mind for {disfmarker} I mean, vocal tract length normalization? PhD F: Uh no. I hadn't {disfmarker} I hadn't thought {disfmarker} it was {disfmarker} thought too much about it, really. It just {disfmarker} something that popped into my head just now. And so I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean, you could maybe use the ideas {disfmarker} a similar {pause} idea to what they do in vocal tract length normalization. You know, you have some sort of a, uh, general speech model, you know, maybe just a mixture of Gaussians that you evaluate every utterance against, and then you see where each, you know, utterance {disfmarker} like, the likelihood of each utterance. You divide the {disfmarker} the range of the likelihoods up into discrete bins and then each bin's got some knob {disfmarker} uh, setting. Professor E: Yeah. But just listen to yourself. I mean, that uh really doesn't sound like a real - time thing with less than two hundred milliseconds, uh, latency that {disfmarker} and where you're not adjusting the statistical engine at all. PhD F: Yeah. Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD F: Yeah. That's true. Professor E: You know, that just {disfmarker} PhD F: Right. PhD B: Hmm. Professor E: I mean {disfmarker} Yeah. PhD F: Could be expensive. Professor E: No. Well not just expensive. I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't see how you could possibly do it. You can't look at the whole utterance and do anything. You know, you can only {disfmarker} Right? PhD F: Oh, Professor E: Each frame comes in and it's gotta go out the other end. PhD F: right. Professor E: So, uh {disfmarker} PhD F: Right. So whatever it was, it would have to be uh sort of on a per frame basis. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. I mean, you can do, um {disfmarker} Fairly quickly you can do male female {disfmarker} f male female stuff. PhD F: Yeah. Yeah. Professor E: But as far as, I mean {disfmarker} Like I thought BBN did a thing with, uh, uh, vocal tract normalization a ways back. Maybe other people did too. With {disfmarker} with, uh, uh, l trying to identify third formant {disfmarker} average third formant {disfmarker} {vocalsound} using that as an indicator of {disfmarker} PhD F: I don't know. Professor E: So. You know, third formant {disfmarker} I if you imagine that to first order what happens with, uh, changing vocal tract is that, uh, the formants get moved out by some proportion {disfmarker} PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, if you had a first formant that was one hundred hertz before, if the fifty {disfmarker} if the vocal tract is fifty percent shorter, then it would be out at seven fifty hertz, and so on. So, that's a move of two hundred fifty hertz. Whereas the third formant which might have started off at twenty - five hundred hertz, you know, might be out to thirty - seven fifty, you know so it's at {disfmarker} So, although, you frequently get less distinct higher formants, it's still {disfmarker} third formant's kind of a reasonable compromise, and {disfmarker} PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, I think, eh, if I recall correctly, they did something like that. And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} PhD F: Hmm. Professor E: But {disfmarker} Um, that doesn't work for just having one frame or something. PhD F: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: You know? That's more like looking at third formant over {disfmarker} over a turn or something like that, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: and {disfmarker} PhD F: Right. Professor E: Um. So. But on the other hand, male female is a {disfmarker} is a {disfmarker} is a much simpler categorization than figuring out a {disfmarker} a factor to, uh, squish or expand the {disfmarker} the spectrum. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, um. Y you could imagine that {disfmarker} I mean, just like we're saying voiced - unvoiced is good to know {disfmarker} uh, male female is good to know also. Um. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But, you'd have to figure out a way to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to, uh, incorporate it on the fly. Uh, I mean, I guess, as you say, one thing you could do is simply, uh, have the {disfmarker} the male and female output vectors {disfmarker} you know, tr nets trained only on males and n trained only on females or {disfmarker} or, uh, you know. But {disfmarker} Um. I don't know if that would really help, because you already have males and females and it's mm - hmm putting into one net. So is it {disfmarker}? PhD F: Is it balanced, um, in terms of gender {disfmarker} the data? PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: Do you know? PhD B: Almost, yeah. PhD F: Hmm. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Hmm. OK. Y you're {disfmarker} you were saying before {disfmarker}? PhD B: Uh. Yeah. So, this noise, um {disfmarker} Yeah. The MSG {disfmarker} Um. Mmm. There is something {disfmarker} perhaps, I could spend some days to look at this thing, cuz it seems that when we train networks on {disfmarker} let's say, on TIMIT with MSG features, they {disfmarker} they look as good as networks trained on PLP. But, um, when they are used on {disfmarker} on the SpeechDat - Car data, it's not the case {disfmarker} oh, well. The MSG features are much worse, and so maybe they're, um, less {disfmarker} more sensitive to different recording conditions, or {disfmarker} Shou Professor E: Shouldn't be. They should be less so. PhD B: Yeah. But {disfmarker} Professor E: R right? PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: Wh -? But let me ask you this. What {disfmarker} what's the, um {disfmarker}? Do you kno recall if the insertions were {disfmarker} were higher with MSG? PhD B: I don't know. I cannot tell. But {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the error rate is higher. So, I don Professor E: Yeah. But you should always look at insertions, deletions, and substitutions. PhD B: Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor E: So {disfmarker} PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: so, uh {disfmarker} MSG is very, very dif Eh, PLP is very much like mel cepstrum. MSG is very different from both of them. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, if it's very different, then this is the sort of thing {disfmarker} I mean I'm really glad Andreas brought this point up. I {pause} sort of had forgotten to discuss it. Um. You always have to look at how this {disfmarker} uh, these adjustments, uh, affect things. And even though we're not allowed to do that, again we maybe could reflect that back to our use of the features. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So if it {disfmarker} if in fact, uh {disfmarker} The problem might be that the range of the MSG features is quite different than the range of the PLP or mel cepstrum. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor E: And you might wanna change that. PhD B: But {disfmarker} Yeah. But, it's d it's after {disfmarker} Well, it's tandem features, so {disfmarker} Mmm. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. We {disfmarker} we have estimation of post posteriors with PLP and with MSG as input, Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: so I don Well. I don't know. Professor E: That means they're between zero and one. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But i it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it doesn't necessarily {disfmarker} You know, they could be, um {disfmarker} Do - doesn't tell you what the variance of the things is. PhD B: Mmm. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Right? Cuz if you're taking the log of these things, it could be, uh {disfmarker} Knowing what the sum of the probabilities are, doesn't tell you what the sum of the logs are. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Professor E: So. PhD B: Yeah. So we should look at the likelihood, or {disfmarker} or what? Or {disfmarker} well, at the log, perhaps, and {disfmarker} Professor E: Yeah. Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Or what {disfmarker} you know, what you're uh {disfmarker} the thing you're actually looking at. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So your {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} the values that are {disfmarker} are actually being fed into HTK. PhD B: Mm - hmm. But {disfmarker} Professor E: What do they look like? PhD F: No And so th the, uh {disfmarker} for the tandem system, the values that come out of the net don't go through the sigmoid. Right? They're sort of the pre - nonlinearity values? PhD B: Yes. Professor E: Right. So they're {pause} kinda like log probabilities is what I was saying. PhD F: And those {disfmarker} OK. And tho that's what goes {pause} into {pause} HTK? Professor E: Uh, almost. But then you actually do a KLT on them. PhD F: OK. Professor E: Um. They aren't normalized after that, are they? PhD B: Mmm. No, they are not {disfmarker} no. Professor E: No. OK. So, um. Right. So the question is {disfmarker} Yeah. Whatever they are at that point, um, are they something for which taking a square root or cube root or fourth root or something like that is {disfmarker} is gonna be a good or a bad thing? So. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Uh, and that's something that nothing {disfmarker} nothing else after that is gonna {disfmarker} Uh, things are gonna scale it {disfmarker} Uh, you know, subtract things from it, scale it from it, but nothing will have that same effect. Um. So. Um. Anyway, eh {disfmarker} PhD F: Yeah. Cuz if {disfmarker} if the log probs that are coming out of the MSG are really big, the standard {pause} insertion penalty is gonna have very little effect Professor E: Well, the {disfmarker} Right. PhD F: compared to, you know, a smaller set of log probs. Professor E: Yeah. No. Again you don't really {pause} look at that. It's something {disfmarker} that, and then it's going through this transformation that's probably pretty close to {disfmarker} It's, eh, whatever the KLT is doing. But it's probably pretty close to what a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a discrete cosine transformation is doing. PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: But still it's {disfmarker} it's not gonna probably radically change the scale of things. I would think. And, uh {disfmarker} Yeah. It may be entirely off and {disfmarker} and it may be {disfmarker} at the very least it may be quite different for MSG than it is for mel cepstrum or PLP. So that would be {disfmarker} So the first thing I'd look at without adjusting anything would just be to go back to the experiment and look at the, uh, substitutions, insertions, and deletions. And if the {disfmarker} if the, uh {disfmarker} i if there's a fairly large effect of the difference, say, uh, uh, the r ratio between insertions and deletions for the two cases then that would be, uh, an indicator that it might {disfmarker} might be in that direction. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Yeah. But, Professor E: Anything else? PhD B: my {disfmarker} my point was more that it {disfmarker} it works sometimes and {disfmarker} but sometimes it doesn't work. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: So. Professor E: Well. PhD B: And it works on TI - digits and on SpeechDat - Car it doesn't work, and {disfmarker} Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Well. Professor E: But, you know, some problems are harder than others, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Professor E: and {disfmarker} And, uh, sometimes, you know, there's enough evidence for something to work and then it's harder, it breaks. You know, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: so it's {disfmarker} But it {disfmarker} but, um, i it {disfmarker} it could be that when you say it works maybe we could be doing much better, even in TI - digits. Right? PhD B: Yeah. Yeah, sure. Professor E: So. PhD B: Uh. Professor E: Hmm? Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Well, there is also the spectral subtraction, which, um {disfmarker} I think maybe we should, uh, try to integrate it in {disfmarker} in our system. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mmm. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Right. PhD B: But, Professor E: O PhD B: I think that would involve to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to mmm {vocalsound} use a big {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} al already a big bunch of the system of Ericsson. Because he has spectral subtraction, then it's followed by, {vocalsound} um, other kind of processing that's {disfmarker} are dependent on the {disfmarker} uh, if it's speech or noi or silence. Professor E: Mm - hmm. PhD B: And there is this kind of spectral flattening after {disfmarker} if it's silence, and {disfmarker} and s I {disfmarker} I think it's important, um, {vocalsound} to reduce this musical noise and this {disfmarker} this increase of variance during silence portions. So. Well. This was in this would involve to take almost everything from {disfmarker} from the {disfmarker} this proposal and {disfmarker} and then just add some kind of on - line normalization in {disfmarker} in the neural network. Mmm. Professor E: OK. Well, this'll be, I think, something for discussion with Hynek next week. PhD B: Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. OK. Right. So. How are, uh, uh {disfmarker} how are things going with what you're doing? Grad D: Oh. Well, um, I took a lot of time just getting my taxes out of the way {disfmarker} multi - national taxes. So, I'm {disfmarker} I'm starting to write code now for my work but I don't have any results yet. Um, i it would be good for me to talk to Hynek, I think, when he's here. Professor E: Yeah. Grad D: Do you know what his schedule will be like? Professor E: Uh, he'll be around for three days. Grad D: OK. So, y Professor E: Uh, we'll have a lot of time. Grad D: OK. Professor E: So, uh {disfmarker} Um. I'll, uh {disfmarker} You know, he's {disfmarker} he'll {disfmarker} he'll be talking with everybody in this room So. PhD F: But you said you won't {disfmarker} you won't be here next Thursday? Professor E: Not Thursday and Friday. Yeah. Cuz I will be at faculty retreat. PhD F: Hmm. Professor E: So. I'll try to {vocalsound} connect with him and people as {disfmarker} as I can on {disfmarker} on Wednesday. But {disfmarker} Um. Oh, how'd taxes go? Taxes go OK? Grad D: Mmm. Yeah. Professor E: Yeah. Oh, good. Yeah. Yeah. That's just {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} that's one of the big advantages of not making much money is {vocalsound} the taxes are easier. Yeah. PhD F: Unless you're getting money in two countries. Professor E: I think you are. Aren't you? PhD F: They both want their cut. PhD B: Hmm. Grad D: Hmm. Yeah. PhD F: Right? Professor E: Yeah. Yeah. Huh. Canada w Canada wants a cut? Grad D: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Have to do {disfmarker} So you {disfmarker} you have to do two returns? Grad D: Mmm. W uh, for two thousand I did. Yeah. Professor E: Oh, oh. Yeah. For tw That's right, ju PhD F: But not for this next year? Professor E: Two thousand. Yeah. Probably not this next year, I guess. Grad D: Ye Professor E: Yeah. Grad D: Um. Professor E: Yeah. Grad D: Uh, I'll {disfmarker} I'll still have a bit of Canadian income but it'll be less complicated because I will not be a {disfmarker} considered a resident of Canada anymore, so I won't have to declare my American income on my Canadian return. Professor E: OK. Alright. Uh. Barry, do you wanna {pause} say something about your stuff here? Grad A: Oh, um. Right. I {pause} just, um, continuing looking at, uh, ph uh, phonetic events, and, uh, this Tuesday gonna be, uh, meeting with John Ohala with Chuck to talk some more about these, uh, ph um, phonetic events. Um, came up with, uh, a plan of attack, uh, gonna execute, and um {disfmarker} Yeah. It's {disfmarker} that's pretty much it. Professor E: Oh, well. No Um, why don't you say something about what it is? Grad A: Oh, you {disfmarker} oh, you want {disfmarker} you want details. Hmm. OK. Professor E: Well, we're all gathered here together. I thought we'd, you know {disfmarker} Grad A: I was hoping I could wave my hands. Um. So, um. So, once wa I {disfmarker} I was thinking getting {disfmarker} getting us a set of acoustic events to {disfmarker} um, to be able to distinguish between, uh, phones and words and stuff. And {vocalsound} um, once we {disfmarker} we would figure out a set of these events that can be, you know, um, hand - labeled or {disfmarker} or derived, uh, from h the hand - labeled phone targets. Um, we could take these events and, um, {vocalsound} do some cheating experiments, um, where we feed, um, these events into {pause} an SRI system, um, eh, and evaluate its performance on a Switchboard task. Uh, yeah. Grad D: Hey, Barry? Can you give an example of an event? Grad A: Yeah. Sure. Um, I {disfmarker} I can give you an example of {pause} twenty - odd events. Um {disfmarker} So, he In this paper, um, it's talking about phoneme recognition using acoustic events. So, things like frication or, uh, nasality. Professor E: Whose paper is it? Grad A: Um, this is a paper by Hubener and Cardson {pause} Benson {disfmarker} Bernds - Berndsen. Professor E: Yeah. Huh. From, uh, University of Hamburg and Bielefeld. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor E: OK. Grad A: Um. PhD F: Yeah. I think the {disfmarker} just to expand a little bit on the idea of acoustic event. Grad A: Mm - hmm. PhD F: There's, um {disfmarker} in my mind, anyways, there's a difference between, um, acoustic features and acoustic events. And I think of acoustic features as being, um, things that linguists talk about, like, um {disfmarker} Professor E: So, stuff that's not based on data. PhD F: Stuff that's not based on data, necessarily. Professor E: Yeah. Oh, OK. Yeah. Yeah, OK. PhD F: Right. That's not based on, you know, acoustic data. So they talk about features for phones, like, uh, its height, Grad A: Yeah. PhD F: its tenseness, laxness, things like that, Grad A: Mm - hmm. PhD F: which may or may not be all that easy to measure in the acoustic signal. Versus an acoustic event, which is just {nonvocalsound} some {nonvocalsound} something in the acoustic signal {nonvocalsound} that is fairly easy to measure. Um. So it's, um {disfmarker} it's a little different, in {disfmarker} at least in my mind. Professor E: I mean, when we did the SPAM work {disfmarker} I mean, there we had {disfmarker} we had this notion of an, uh, auditory {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} auditory event. Grad A: Good. That's great. Professor E: And, uh, um, called them" avents" , uh, uh, uh, with an A at the front. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Uh. And the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the idea was something that occurred that is important to a bunch of neurons somewhere. So. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Um. A sudden change or a relatively rapid change in some spectral characteristic will {disfmarker} will do sort of this. I mean, there's certainly a bunch of {disfmarker} a bunch of places where you know that neurons are gonna fire because something novel has happened. That was {disfmarker} that was the main thing that we were focusing on there. But there's certainly other things beyond what we talked about there that aren't just sort of rapid changes, but {disfmarker} PhD F: It's kinda like the difference between top - down and bottom - up. Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: I think of the acoustic {disfmarker} you know, phonetic features as being top - down. You know, you look at the phone and you say this phone is supposed to be {disfmarker} you know, have this feature, this feature, and this feature. Whether tha those features show up in the acoustic signal is sort of irrelevant. Whereas, an acoustic event goes the other way. Here's the signal. Here's some event. Grad A: Mm - hmm. PhD F: What {disfmarker}? And then that {disfmarker} you know, that may map to this phone sometimes, and sometimes it may not. It just depen maybe depends on the context, things like that. Professor E: Mm - hmm. PhD F: And so it's sort of a different way of looking. Professor E: Mm - hmm. Grad A: Yeah. So. Yeah. Grad D: OK. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Um {disfmarker} Using these {disfmarker} these events, um, you know, we can {disfmarker} we can perform these {disfmarker} these, uh, cheating experiments. See how {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how good they are, um, in, um {disfmarker} in terms of phoneme recognition or word recognition. And, um {disfmarker} and then from that point on, I would, uh, s design robust event detectors, um, in a similar, um, wa spirit that Saul has done w uh, with his graphical models, and this {disfmarker} this probabilistic AND - OR model that he uses. Um, eh, try to extend it to, um {disfmarker} to account for other {disfmarker} other phenomena like, um, CMR co - modulation release. And, um {disfmarker} and maybe also investigate ways to {disfmarker} to modify the structure of these models, um, in a data - driven way, uh, similar to the way that, uh, Jeff {disfmarker} Jeff, uh, Bilmes did his work. Um, and while I'm {disfmarker} I'm doing these, um, event detectors, you know, I can ma mea measure my progress by comparing, um, the error rates in clean and noisy conditions to something like, uh, neural nets. Um, and {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so, once we have these {disfmarker} these, uh, event detectors, um, we could put them together and {disfmarker} and feed the outputs of the event detectors into {disfmarker} into the SRI, um, HMM {disfmarker} HMM system, and, um {disfmarker} and test it on {disfmarker} on Switchboard or, um, maybe even Aurora stuff. And, that's pretty much the {disfmarker} the big picture of {disfmarker} of um, the plan. Professor E: By the way, um, there's, uh, a couple people who are gonna be here {disfmarker} I forget if I already told you this, but, a couple people who are gonna be here for six months. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Uh {disfmarker} uh, there's a Professor Kollmeier, uh, from Germany who's, uh, uh, quite big in the, uh, hearing - aid signal - processing area and, um, Michael Kleinschmidt, who's worked with him, who also looks at {vocalsound} auditory properties inspired by various, uh, brain function things. Grad A: Hmm. Professor E: So, um, um, I think they'll be interesting to talk to, in this sort of issue as these detectors are {disfmarker} are, uh, developing. Grad A: Hmm. OK. Professor E: So, he looks at interesting {disfmarker} interesting things in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} different ways of looking at spectra in order to {disfmarker} to get various speech properties out. So. Grad A: OK. Professor E: OK. Well, short meeting, but that's OK. And, uh, we might as well do our digits. And like I say, I {disfmarker} I encourage you to go ahead and meet, uh, next week with, uh, uh, Hynek. Alright, I'll {disfmarker} I'll start. It's, uh, one thirty - five. seventeen OK

Grad D thought that his tax returns were taking too much time. He had started writing code for his work, however. He was expecting that his taxes would be easier next year, since he would not have to declare his Canadian income.

tr-sq-650

tr-sq-650_0

What did the professor think about the tax return? Professor E: Let's see. Test? Test? Yeah. OK. Grad A: Hello? PhD B: Channel one. Grad A: Hello? PhD C: Test. Professor E: I was saying Hynek'll be here next week, uh, Wednesday through Friday {disfmarker} uh, through Saturday, and, um, I won't be here Thursday and Friday. But my suggestion is that, uh, at least for this meeting, people should go ahead, uh, cuz Hynek will be here, and, you know, we don't have any Czech accent yet, uh, {vocalsound} as far as I know, so {disfmarker} There we go. PhD F: OK. Professor E: Um. So other than reading digits, what's our agenda? PhD F: I don't really have, uh, anything new. Been working on {pause} Meeting Recorder stuff. So. Professor E: OK. Um. Do you think that would be the case for next week also? Or is {disfmarker} is, uh {disfmarker}? What's your projection on {disfmarker}? PhD F: Um. Professor E: Cuz the one thing {disfmarker} the one thing that seems to me we really should try, if you hadn't tried it before, because it hadn't occurred to me {disfmarker} it was sort of an obvious thing {disfmarker} is, um, adjusting the, uh, sca the scaling and, uh, insertion penalty sorta stuff. PhD F: I did play with that, actually, a little bit. Um. What happens is, uh, {vocalsound} when you get to the noisy stuff, you start getting lots of insertions. Professor E: Right. PhD F: And, um, so I've tried playing around a little bit with, um, the insertion penalties and things like that. Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: Um. I mean, it {disfmarker} it didn't make a whole lot of difference. Like for the well - matched case, it seemed like it was pretty good. Um. {vocalsound} I could do more playing with that, though. And, uh {disfmarker} Professor E: But you were looking at mel cepstrum. PhD F: and see. Yes. Professor E: Right. PhD F: Oh, you're talking about for th {vocalsound} for our features. Professor E: Right. So, I mean, i it it's not the direction that you were working with that we were saying what's the {disfmarker} uh, what's the best you can do with {disfmarker} with mel cepstrum. But, they raised a very valid point, PhD F: Mmm. Professor E: which, I guess {disfmarker} So, to first order {disfmarker} I mean, you have other things you were gonna do, but to first order, I would say that the conclusion is that if you, um, do, uh, some monkeying around with, uh, the exact HTK training and @ @ {comment} with, uh, you know, how many states and so forth, that it {disfmarker} it doesn't particularly improve the performance. In other words, that even though it sounds pretty dumb, just applying the same number of states to everything, more or less, no matter what language, isn't so bad. Right? And I guess you hadn't gotten to all the experiments you wanted to do with number of Gaussians, PhD F: Right. Professor E: but, um, let's just {disfmarker} If we had to {disfmarker} if we had to draw a conclusion on the information we have so far, we'd say something like that. Right? PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Uh, so the next question to ask, which is I think the one that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that Andreas was dre addressing himself to in the lunch meeting, is, um, we're not supposed to adjust the back - end, but anybody using the system would. PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: So, if you were just adjusting the back - end, how much better would you do, uh, in noise? Uh, because the language scaling and insertion penalties and so forth are probably set to be about right for mel cepstrum. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But, um, they're probably not at all set right for these things, particularly these things that look over, uh, larger time windows, in one way or another with {disfmarker} with LDA and KLT and neural nets and {vocalsound} all these things. In the fa past we've always found that we had to increase the insertion penalty to {disfmarker} to correspond to such things. So, I think that's, uh, @ @ {comment} that's kind of a first - order thing that {disfmarker} that we should try. PhD F: So for th so the experiment is to, um, run our front - end like normal, with the default, uh, insertion penalties and so forth, and then tweak that a little bit and see how much of a difference it makes Professor E: So by" our front - end" I mean take, you know, the Aurora - two s take some version that Stephane has that is, you know, our current best version of something. PhD F: if we were {disfmarker} Mm - hmm. Professor E: Um. I mean, y don't wanna do this over a hundred different things that they've tried but, you know, for some version that you say is a good one. You know? Um. How {disfmarker} how much, uh, does it improve if you actually adjust that? PhD F: OK. Professor E: But it is interesting. You say you {disfmarker} you have for the noisy {disfmarker} How about for the {disfmarker} for the mismatched or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or the {disfmarker} or the medium mismatched conditions? Have you {disfmarker}? When you adjusted those numbers for mel cepstrum, did it {disfmarker}? PhD F: Uh, I {disfmarker} I don't remember off the top of my head. Um. Yeah. I didn't even write them down. I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't remember. I would need to {disfmarker} Well, I did write down, um {disfmarker} So, when I was doing {disfmarker} I just wrote down some numbers for the well - matched case. Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: Um. Looking at the {disfmarker} I wrote down what the deletions, substitutions, and insertions were, uh, for different numbers of states per phone. Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: Um, but, uh, that {disfmarker} that's all I wrote down. Professor E: OK. PhD F: So. I {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} Yeah. I would need to do that. Professor E: OK. So {disfmarker} PhD F: I can do that for next week. Professor E: Yeah. And, um {disfmarker} Yeah. Also, eh, eh, sometimes if you run behind on some of these things, maybe we can get someone else to do it and you can supervise or something. But {disfmarker} but I think it would be {disfmarker} it'd be good to know that. PhD F: OK. I just need to get, um, {vocalsound} front - end, uh, stuff from you PhD B: Hmm. PhD F: or you point me to some files {pause} that you've already calculated. PhD B: Yeah. Alright. Professor E: OK. Uh. PhD F: I probably will have time to do that and time to play a little bit with the silence model. Professor E: Mm - hmm. PhD F: So maybe I can have that for next week when Hynek's here. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. Cuz, I mean, the {disfmarker} the other {disfmarker} That, in fact, might have been part of what, uh, the difference was {disfmarker} at least part of it that {disfmarker} that we were seeing. Remember we were seeing the SRI system was so much better than the tandem system. PhD F: Hmm. Professor E: Part of it might just be that the SRI system, they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they always adjust these things to be sort of optimized, PhD F: Is there {disfmarker}? Professor E: and {disfmarker} PhD F: I wonder if there's anything that we could do {vocalsound} to the front - end that would affect the insertion {disfmarker} Professor E: Yes. I think you can. PhD F: What could you do? Professor E: Well, um {disfmarker} uh, part of what's going on, um, is the, uh, the range of values. So, if you have something that has a much smaller range or a much larger range, and taking the appropriate root. PhD F: Oh. Mm - hmm. Professor E: You know? If something is kind of like the equivalent of a bunch of probabilities multiplied together, you can take a root of some sort. If it's like seven probabilities together, you can take the seventh root of it or something, or if it's in the log domain, divide it by seven. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But {disfmarker} but, um, that has a similar effect because it changes the scale of the numbers {disfmarker} of the differences between different candidates from the acoustic model PhD F: Oh, right. Professor E: as opposed to what's coming from the language model. PhD F: So that w Right. So, in effect, that's changing the value of your insertion penalty. Professor E: Yeah. I mean, it's more directly like the {disfmarker} the language scaling or the, uh {disfmarker} the model scaling or acoustic scaling, PhD F: That's interesting. Professor E: but you know that those things have kind of a similar effect to the insertion penalty PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: anyway. They're a slightly different way of {disfmarker} of handling it. PhD F: Right. Professor E: So, um {disfmarker} PhD F: So if we know what the insertion penalty is, then we can get an idea about what range our number should be in, Professor E: I think so. PhD F: so that they {pause} match with that. Professor E: Yeah. Yeah. So that's why I think that's another reason other than curiosity as to why i it would in fact be kinda neat to find out if we're way off. I mean, the other thing is, are aren't we seeing {disfmarker}? Y y PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: I'm sure you've already looked at this bu in these noisy cases, are {disfmarker}? We are seeing lots of insertions. Right? The insertion number is quite high? PhD B: Yeah. Professor E: I know the VAD takes pre care of part of that, PhD F: Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Professor E: but {disfmarker} PhD F: I've seen that with the mel cepstrum. I don't {disfmarker} I don't know about {pause} the Aurora front - end, but {disfmarker} PhD B: I think it's much more balanced with, uh {disfmarker} when the front - end is more robust. Yeah. I could look at it {disfmarker} at this. Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. Wha - what's a typical number? PhD B: I don't {disfmarker} I don't know. Professor E: Do we {disfmarker}? Oh, you {disfmarker} oh, you don't know. PhD B: I don't have this in {disfmarker} Professor E: OK. I'm sure it's more balanced, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: but it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it wouldn't surprise me if there's still {disfmarker} PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: I mean, in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the old systems we used to do, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} uh, I remember numbers kind of like insertions being half the number of deletions, as being {disfmarker} and both numbers being {disfmarker} tend to be on the small side comparing to {disfmarker} to, uh, substitutions. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD F: Well, this {disfmarker} the whole problem with insertions was what I think, um, we talked about when the guy from OGI came down {pause} that one time and {disfmarker} and that was when people were saying, well we should have a, uh, uh, voice activity detector {disfmarker} Professor E: Right. PhD F: that, because all that stuff {comment} that we're getting thr the silence that's getting through is causing insertions. So. PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: Right. PhD F: I'll bet you there's still a lot {vocalsound} of insertions. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. And it may be less of a critical thing. I mean, the fact that some get by may be less of a critical thing if you, uh, get things in the right range. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, I mean, the insertions is {disfmarker} is a symptom. It's a symptom that there's something, uh, wrong with the range. PhD F: Right. Professor E: But there's {disfmarker} uh, your {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} your substitutions tend to go up as well. So, uh, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that, PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: uh, the most obvious thing is just the insertions, @ @. But {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} um. If you're operating in the wrong range {disfmarker} I mean, that's why just in general, if you {vocalsound} change what these {disfmarker} these penalties and scaling factors are, you reach some point that's a {disfmarker} that's a minimum. So. Um. Um. We do have to do well over a range of different conditions, some of which are noisier than others. Um. But, um, I think we may get a better handle on that if we {disfmarker} if we see {disfmarker} Um, I mean we ca it's if we actually could pick a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a more stable value for the range of these features, it, um, uh, could {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} Even though it's {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's true that in a real situation you can in fact adjust the {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these scaling factors in the back - end, and it's ar artificial here that we're not adjusting those, you certainly don't wanna be adjusting those all the time. And if you have a nice front - end that's in roughly the right range {disfmarker} PhD F: Hmm. Professor E: I remember after we got our stuff more or less together in the previous systems we built, that we tended to set those scaling factors at kind of a standard level, and we would rarely adjust them again, even though you could get a {disfmarker} PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: for an evaluation you can get an extra point or something if you tweaked it a little bit. But, once we knew what rou roughly the right operating range was, it was pretty stable, and {disfmarker} Uh, we might just not even be in the right operating range. PhD F: So, would the {disfmarker}? Uh, would a good idea be to try to map it into the same range that you get in the well - matched case? So, if we computed what the range was in well - matched, and then when we get our noisy conditions out we try to make it have the same range as {disfmarker}? Professor E: No. You don't wanna change it for different conditions. No. No. I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} What {disfmarker} what I'm saying {disfmarker} PhD F: Oh, I wasn't suggesting change it for different conditions. I was just saying that when we pick a range, we {disfmarker} we wanna pick a range that we map our numbers into {disfmarker} Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: we should probably pick it based on the range that we get in the well - matched case. Otherwise, I mean, what range are we gonna choose to {disfmarker} to map everything into? Professor E: Well. It depends how much we wanna do gamesmanship and how much we wanna do {disfmarker} I mean, i if he it {disfmarker} to me, actually, even if you wanna be {disfmarker} play on the gamesmanship side, it can be kinda tricky. So, I mean, what you would do is set the {disfmarker} set the scaling factors, uh, so that you got the best number for this point four five times the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know, and so on. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But they might change that {disfmarker} those weightings. PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: Um. So {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} I just sorta think we need to explore the space. Just take a look at it a little bit. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: And we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we may just find that {disfmarker} that we're way off. PhD F: OK. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Maybe we're not. You know? As for these other things, it may turn out that, uh, {vocalsound} it's kind of reasonable. But then {disfmarker} I mean, Andreas gave a very reasonable response, and he's probably not gonna be the only one who's gonna say this in the future {disfmarker} of, you know, people {disfmarker} people within this tight - knit community who are doing this evaluation {vocalsound} are accepting, uh, more or less, that these are the rules. But, people outside of it who look in at the broader picture are certainly gonna say" Well, wait a minute. You're doing all this standing on your head, uh, on the front - end, PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: when all you could do is just adjust this in the back - end with one s one knob." PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: And so we have to at least, I think, determine that that's not true, which would be OK, or determine that it is true, in which case we want to adjust that and then continue with {disfmarker} with what we're doing. And as you say {disfmarker} as you point out {disfmarker} finding ways to then compensate for that in the front - end {vocalsound} also then becomes a priority for this particular test, PhD F: Right. Professor E: and saying you don't have to do that. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So. OK. So, uh {disfmarker} What's new with you? PhD B: Uh. So there's nothing {pause} new. Um. Professor E: Uh, what's old with you that's developed? PhD B: I'm sorry? Professor E: You {disfmarker} OK. What's old with you that has developed over the last week or two? PhD B: Mmm. Well, so we've been mainly working on the report and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} Yeah. PhD F: Mainly working on what? PhD B: On the report {pause} of the work that was already done. PhD F: Oh. PhD B: Um. Mm - hmm. That's all. PhD F: How about that {disfmarker}? Any - anything new on the thing that, uh, you were working on with the, uh {disfmarker}? PhD C: I don't have results yet. PhD F: No results? Yeah. Professor E: What was that? PhD F: The {disfmarker} the, uh, Grad A: Voicing thing. PhD F: voicing detector. Professor E: I mean, what what's {disfmarker} what's going on now? What are you {pause} doing? PhD C: Uh, to try to found, nnn, robust feature for detect between voice and unvoice. And we {disfmarker} w we try to use {vocalsound} the variance {vocalsound} of the es difference between the FFT spectrum and mel filter bank spectrum. Professor E: Yeah. PhD C: Uh, also the {disfmarker} another parameter is {disfmarker} relates with the auto - correlation function. Professor E: Uh - huh. PhD C: R - ze energy and the variance a also of the auto - correlation function. Professor E: Uh - huh. So, that's {disfmarker} Yeah. That's what you were describing, I guess, a week or two ago. PhD C: Yeah. But we don't have res we don't have result of the AURO for Aurora yet. Professor E: So. PhD C: We need to train the neural network Professor E: Mm - hmm. PhD C: and {disfmarker} Professor E: So you're training neural networks now? PhD C: No, not yet. Professor E: So, what {disfmarker} wha {vocalsound} wh wha what what's going on? PhD C: Well, we work in the report, too, because we have a lot of result, Professor E: Uh - huh. PhD C: they are very dispersed, and was necessary to {disfmarker} to look in all the directory to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to give some more structure. PhD B: Yea Professor E: So. B So {disfmarker} Yeah. I if I can summarize, basically what's going on is that you're going over a lot of material that you have generated in furious fashion, f generating many results and doing many experiments and trying to pull it together into some coherent form to be able to see wha see what happens. PhD C: Hm - hmm. PhD B: Uh, y yeah. Basically we we've stopped, uh, experimenting, Professor E: Yes? PhD B: I mean. We're just writing some kind of technical report. And {disfmarker} PhD F: Is this a report that's for Aurora? Or is it just like a tech report for ICSI, PhD C: No. PhD B: Yeah. PhD C: For ICSI. PhD F: or {disfmarker}? Ah. I see. PhD B: Yeah. PhD C: Just summary of the experiment and the conclusion and something like that. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: OK. So, my suggestion, though, is that you {disfmarker} you not necessarily finish that. But that you put it all together so that it's {disfmarker} you've got {disfmarker} you've got a clearer structure to it. You know what things are, you have things documented, you've looked things up that you needed to look up. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So that, you know {disfmarker} so that such a thing can be written. And, um {disfmarker} When {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when do you leave again? PhD C: Uh, in July. First of July. Professor E: First of July? OK. And that you figure on actually finishing it in {disfmarker} in June. Because, you know, you're gonna have another bunch of results to fit in there anyway. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor E: And right now it's kind of important that we actually go forward with experiments. PhD C: It's not. Professor E: So {disfmarker} so, I {disfmarker} I think it's good to pause, and to gather everything together and make sure it's in good shape, so that other people can get access to it and so that it can go into a report in June. But I think {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to really work on {disfmarker} on fine - tuning the report n at this point is {disfmarker} is probably bad timing, I {disfmarker} I {pause} think. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Well, we didn't {disfmarker} we just planned to work on it one week on this report, not {disfmarker} no more, anyway. Um. Professor E: But you ma you may really wanna add other things later anyway PhD B: Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor E: because you {disfmarker} PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: There's more to go? PhD B: Yeah. Well, so I don't know. There are small things that we started to {disfmarker} to do. But {disfmarker} PhD F: Are you discovering anything, uh, that makes you scratch your head as you write this report, like why did we do that, or why didn't we do this, PhD B: Uh. PhD F: or {disfmarker}? PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. And {disfmarker} Actually, there were some tables that were also with partial results. We just noticed that, wh while gathering the result that for some conditions we didn't have everything. PhD F: Mmm. PhD B: But anyway. Um. Yeah, yeah. We have, yeah, extracted actually the noises from {pause} the SpeechDat - Car. And so, we can train neural network with speech and these noises. Um. It's difficult to say what it will give, because when we look at the Aurora {disfmarker} the TI - digits experiments, um, they have these three conditions that have different noises, and apparently this system perform as well on the seen noises {disfmarker} on the unseen noises and on the seen noises. But, I think this is something we have to try anyway. So {disfmarker} adding the noises from {disfmarker} from the SpeechDat - Car. Um. Professor E: That's {disfmarker} that's, uh {disfmarker} that's permitted? PhD B: Uh. Well, OGI does {disfmarker} did that. Um. At some point they did that for {disfmarker} for the voice activity detector. PhD C: Uh, for a v VAD. PhD B: Right? Um. PhD F: Could you say it again? What {disfmarker} what exactly did they do? PhD B: They used some parts of the, um, Italian database to train the voice activity detector, I think. It {disfmarker} Professor E: Yeah. I guess the thing is {disfmarker} Yeah. I guess that's a matter of interpretation. The rules as I understand it, is that in principle the Italian and the Spanish and the English {disfmarker} no, Italian and the Finnish and the English? {disfmarker} were development data PhD B: Yeah. And Spanish, yeah. Professor E: on which you could adjust things. And the {disfmarker} and the German and Danish were the evaluation data. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: And then when they finally actually evaluated things they used everything. PhD B: Yeah. That's right. Uh {disfmarker} Professor E: So {disfmarker} Uh, and it is true that the performance, uh, on the German was {disfmarker} I mean, even though the improvement wasn't so good, the pre the raw performance was really pretty good. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So {disfmarker} And, uh, it {disfmarker} it doesn't appear that there's strong evidence that even though things were somewhat tuned on those three or four languages, that {disfmarker} that going to a different language really hurt you. And the noises were not exactly the same. Right? Because it was taken from a different, uh {disfmarker} I mean they were different drives. PhD B: Different cars. Yeah. Professor E: I mean, it was {disfmarker} it was actual different cars and so on. PhD B: Yeah. Professor E: So. Um, it's somewhat tuned. It's tuned more than, you know, a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: You'd really like to have something that needed no particular noise at all, maybe just some white noise or something like that a at most. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But that's not really what this contest is. So. Um, I guess it's OK. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: That's something I'd like to understand before we actually use something from it, PhD F: I think it's {disfmarker} Professor E: because it would {disfmarker} PhD F: it's probably something that, mmm, the {disfmarker} you know, the, uh, experiment designers didn't really think about, because I think most people aren't doing trained systems, or, you know, uh, systems that are like ours, where you actually use the data to build models. I mean, they just {pause} doing signal - processing. PhD B: Yeah. Professor E: Well, it's true, PhD F: So. Professor E: except that, uh, that's what we used in Aurora one, and then they designed the things for Aurora - two knowing that we were doing that. PhD F: Yeah. That's true. Professor E: Um. PhD F: And they didn't forbid us {disfmarker} right? {disfmarker} to build models on the data? Professor E: No. But, I think {disfmarker} I think that it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it probably would be the case that if, say, we trained on Italian, uh, data and then, uh, we tested on Danish data and it did terribly, uh, that {disfmarker} that it would look bad. And I think someone would notice and would say" Well, look. This is not generalizing." I would hope tha I would hope they would. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Um. But, uh, it's true. You know, maybe there's parameters that other people have used {disfmarker} you know, th that they have tuned in some way for other things. So it's {disfmarker} it's, uh {disfmarker} We should {disfmarker} we should {disfmarker} Maybe {disfmarker} that's maybe a topic {disfmarker} Especially if you talk with him when I'm not here, that's a topic you should discuss with Hynek PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: to, you know, double check it's OK. PhD F: Do we know anything about {pause} the speakers for each of the, uh, training utterances? PhD B: What do you mean? We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} PhD F: Do you have speaker information? Professor E: Social security number PhD F: That would be good. PhD B: Like, we have {pause} male, female, PhD C: Hmm. PhD F: Bank PIN. PhD B: at least. PhD F: Just male f female? PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: What kind of information do you mean? PhD F: Well, I was thinking about things like, you know, gender, uh {disfmarker} you know, gender - specific nets and, uh, vocal tract length normalization. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD F: Things like that. I d I don't {disfmarker} I didn't know what information we have about the speakers that we could try to take advantage of. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Hmm. Uh. Right. I mean, again, i if you had the whole system you were optimizing, that would be easy to see. But if you're {vocalsound} supposedly just using a fixed back - end and you're just coming up with a feature vector, w w I'm not sure {disfmarker} I mean, having the two nets {disfmarker} Suppose you detected that it was male, it was female {disfmarker} you come up with different {disfmarker} PhD F: Well, you could put them both in as separate streams or something. Uh. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Maybe. PhD F: I don't know. I was just wondering if there was other information we could exploit. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Hmm. Yeah, it's an interesting thought. Maybe having something along the {disfmarker} I mean, you can't really do vocal tract normalization. But something that had some of that effect PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: being applied to the data in some way. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Um. PhD B: Do you have something simple in mind for {disfmarker} I mean, vocal tract length normalization? PhD F: Uh no. I hadn't {disfmarker} I hadn't thought {disfmarker} it was {disfmarker} thought too much about it, really. It just {disfmarker} something that popped into my head just now. And so I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean, you could maybe use the ideas {disfmarker} a similar {pause} idea to what they do in vocal tract length normalization. You know, you have some sort of a, uh, general speech model, you know, maybe just a mixture of Gaussians that you evaluate every utterance against, and then you see where each, you know, utterance {disfmarker} like, the likelihood of each utterance. You divide the {disfmarker} the range of the likelihoods up into discrete bins and then each bin's got some knob {disfmarker} uh, setting. Professor E: Yeah. But just listen to yourself. I mean, that uh really doesn't sound like a real - time thing with less than two hundred milliseconds, uh, latency that {disfmarker} and where you're not adjusting the statistical engine at all. PhD F: Yeah. Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD F: Yeah. That's true. Professor E: You know, that just {disfmarker} PhD F: Right. PhD B: Hmm. Professor E: I mean {disfmarker} Yeah. PhD F: Could be expensive. Professor E: No. Well not just expensive. I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't see how you could possibly do it. You can't look at the whole utterance and do anything. You know, you can only {disfmarker} Right? PhD F: Oh, Professor E: Each frame comes in and it's gotta go out the other end. PhD F: right. Professor E: So, uh {disfmarker} PhD F: Right. So whatever it was, it would have to be uh sort of on a per frame basis. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. I mean, you can do, um {disfmarker} Fairly quickly you can do male female {disfmarker} f male female stuff. PhD F: Yeah. Yeah. Professor E: But as far as, I mean {disfmarker} Like I thought BBN did a thing with, uh, uh, vocal tract normalization a ways back. Maybe other people did too. With {disfmarker} with, uh, uh, l trying to identify third formant {disfmarker} average third formant {disfmarker} {vocalsound} using that as an indicator of {disfmarker} PhD F: I don't know. Professor E: So. You know, third formant {disfmarker} I if you imagine that to first order what happens with, uh, changing vocal tract is that, uh, the formants get moved out by some proportion {disfmarker} PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, if you had a first formant that was one hundred hertz before, if the fifty {disfmarker} if the vocal tract is fifty percent shorter, then it would be out at seven fifty hertz, and so on. So, that's a move of two hundred fifty hertz. Whereas the third formant which might have started off at twenty - five hundred hertz, you know, might be out to thirty - seven fifty, you know so it's at {disfmarker} So, although, you frequently get less distinct higher formants, it's still {disfmarker} third formant's kind of a reasonable compromise, and {disfmarker} PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, I think, eh, if I recall correctly, they did something like that. And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} PhD F: Hmm. Professor E: But {disfmarker} Um, that doesn't work for just having one frame or something. PhD F: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: You know? That's more like looking at third formant over {disfmarker} over a turn or something like that, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: and {disfmarker} PhD F: Right. Professor E: Um. So. But on the other hand, male female is a {disfmarker} is a {disfmarker} is a much simpler categorization than figuring out a {disfmarker} a factor to, uh, squish or expand the {disfmarker} the spectrum. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, um. Y you could imagine that {disfmarker} I mean, just like we're saying voiced - unvoiced is good to know {disfmarker} uh, male female is good to know also. Um. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But, you'd have to figure out a way to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to, uh, incorporate it on the fly. Uh, I mean, I guess, as you say, one thing you could do is simply, uh, have the {disfmarker} the male and female output vectors {disfmarker} you know, tr nets trained only on males and n trained only on females or {disfmarker} or, uh, you know. But {disfmarker} Um. I don't know if that would really help, because you already have males and females and it's mm - hmm putting into one net. So is it {disfmarker}? PhD F: Is it balanced, um, in terms of gender {disfmarker} the data? PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: Do you know? PhD B: Almost, yeah. PhD F: Hmm. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Hmm. OK. Y you're {disfmarker} you were saying before {disfmarker}? PhD B: Uh. Yeah. So, this noise, um {disfmarker} Yeah. The MSG {disfmarker} Um. Mmm. There is something {disfmarker} perhaps, I could spend some days to look at this thing, cuz it seems that when we train networks on {disfmarker} let's say, on TIMIT with MSG features, they {disfmarker} they look as good as networks trained on PLP. But, um, when they are used on {disfmarker} on the SpeechDat - Car data, it's not the case {disfmarker} oh, well. The MSG features are much worse, and so maybe they're, um, less {disfmarker} more sensitive to different recording conditions, or {disfmarker} Shou Professor E: Shouldn't be. They should be less so. PhD B: Yeah. But {disfmarker} Professor E: R right? PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: Wh -? But let me ask you this. What {disfmarker} what's the, um {disfmarker}? Do you kno recall if the insertions were {disfmarker} were higher with MSG? PhD B: I don't know. I cannot tell. But {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the error rate is higher. So, I don Professor E: Yeah. But you should always look at insertions, deletions, and substitutions. PhD B: Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor E: So {disfmarker} PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: so, uh {disfmarker} MSG is very, very dif Eh, PLP is very much like mel cepstrum. MSG is very different from both of them. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, if it's very different, then this is the sort of thing {disfmarker} I mean I'm really glad Andreas brought this point up. I {pause} sort of had forgotten to discuss it. Um. You always have to look at how this {disfmarker} uh, these adjustments, uh, affect things. And even though we're not allowed to do that, again we maybe could reflect that back to our use of the features. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So if it {disfmarker} if in fact, uh {disfmarker} The problem might be that the range of the MSG features is quite different than the range of the PLP or mel cepstrum. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor E: And you might wanna change that. PhD B: But {disfmarker} Yeah. But, it's d it's after {disfmarker} Well, it's tandem features, so {disfmarker} Mmm. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. We {disfmarker} we have estimation of post posteriors with PLP and with MSG as input, Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: so I don Well. I don't know. Professor E: That means they're between zero and one. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But i it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it doesn't necessarily {disfmarker} You know, they could be, um {disfmarker} Do - doesn't tell you what the variance of the things is. PhD B: Mmm. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Right? Cuz if you're taking the log of these things, it could be, uh {disfmarker} Knowing what the sum of the probabilities are, doesn't tell you what the sum of the logs are. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Professor E: So. PhD B: Yeah. So we should look at the likelihood, or {disfmarker} or what? Or {disfmarker} well, at the log, perhaps, and {disfmarker} Professor E: Yeah. Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Or what {disfmarker} you know, what you're uh {disfmarker} the thing you're actually looking at. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So your {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} the values that are {disfmarker} are actually being fed into HTK. PhD B: Mm - hmm. But {disfmarker} Professor E: What do they look like? PhD F: No And so th the, uh {disfmarker} for the tandem system, the values that come out of the net don't go through the sigmoid. Right? They're sort of the pre - nonlinearity values? PhD B: Yes. Professor E: Right. So they're {pause} kinda like log probabilities is what I was saying. PhD F: And those {disfmarker} OK. And tho that's what goes {pause} into {pause} HTK? Professor E: Uh, almost. But then you actually do a KLT on them. PhD F: OK. Professor E: Um. They aren't normalized after that, are they? PhD B: Mmm. No, they are not {disfmarker} no. Professor E: No. OK. So, um. Right. So the question is {disfmarker} Yeah. Whatever they are at that point, um, are they something for which taking a square root or cube root or fourth root or something like that is {disfmarker} is gonna be a good or a bad thing? So. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Uh, and that's something that nothing {disfmarker} nothing else after that is gonna {disfmarker} Uh, things are gonna scale it {disfmarker} Uh, you know, subtract things from it, scale it from it, but nothing will have that same effect. Um. So. Um. Anyway, eh {disfmarker} PhD F: Yeah. Cuz if {disfmarker} if the log probs that are coming out of the MSG are really big, the standard {pause} insertion penalty is gonna have very little effect Professor E: Well, the {disfmarker} Right. PhD F: compared to, you know, a smaller set of log probs. Professor E: Yeah. No. Again you don't really {pause} look at that. It's something {disfmarker} that, and then it's going through this transformation that's probably pretty close to {disfmarker} It's, eh, whatever the KLT is doing. But it's probably pretty close to what a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a discrete cosine transformation is doing. PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: But still it's {disfmarker} it's not gonna probably radically change the scale of things. I would think. And, uh {disfmarker} Yeah. It may be entirely off and {disfmarker} and it may be {disfmarker} at the very least it may be quite different for MSG than it is for mel cepstrum or PLP. So that would be {disfmarker} So the first thing I'd look at without adjusting anything would just be to go back to the experiment and look at the, uh, substitutions, insertions, and deletions. And if the {disfmarker} if the, uh {disfmarker} i if there's a fairly large effect of the difference, say, uh, uh, the r ratio between insertions and deletions for the two cases then that would be, uh, an indicator that it might {disfmarker} might be in that direction. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Yeah. But, Professor E: Anything else? PhD B: my {disfmarker} my point was more that it {disfmarker} it works sometimes and {disfmarker} but sometimes it doesn't work. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: So. Professor E: Well. PhD B: And it works on TI - digits and on SpeechDat - Car it doesn't work, and {disfmarker} Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Well. Professor E: But, you know, some problems are harder than others, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Professor E: and {disfmarker} And, uh, sometimes, you know, there's enough evidence for something to work and then it's harder, it breaks. You know, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: so it's {disfmarker} But it {disfmarker} but, um, i it {disfmarker} it could be that when you say it works maybe we could be doing much better, even in TI - digits. Right? PhD B: Yeah. Yeah, sure. Professor E: So. PhD B: Uh. Professor E: Hmm? Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Well, there is also the spectral subtraction, which, um {disfmarker} I think maybe we should, uh, try to integrate it in {disfmarker} in our system. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mmm. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Right. PhD B: But, Professor E: O PhD B: I think that would involve to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to mmm {vocalsound} use a big {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} al already a big bunch of the system of Ericsson. Because he has spectral subtraction, then it's followed by, {vocalsound} um, other kind of processing that's {disfmarker} are dependent on the {disfmarker} uh, if it's speech or noi or silence. Professor E: Mm - hmm. PhD B: And there is this kind of spectral flattening after {disfmarker} if it's silence, and {disfmarker} and s I {disfmarker} I think it's important, um, {vocalsound} to reduce this musical noise and this {disfmarker} this increase of variance during silence portions. So. Well. This was in this would involve to take almost everything from {disfmarker} from the {disfmarker} this proposal and {disfmarker} and then just add some kind of on - line normalization in {disfmarker} in the neural network. Mmm. Professor E: OK. Well, this'll be, I think, something for discussion with Hynek next week. PhD B: Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. OK. Right. So. How are, uh, uh {disfmarker} how are things going with what you're doing? Grad D: Oh. Well, um, I took a lot of time just getting my taxes out of the way {disfmarker} multi - national taxes. So, I'm {disfmarker} I'm starting to write code now for my work but I don't have any results yet. Um, i it would be good for me to talk to Hynek, I think, when he's here. Professor E: Yeah. Grad D: Do you know what his schedule will be like? Professor E: Uh, he'll be around for three days. Grad D: OK. So, y Professor E: Uh, we'll have a lot of time. Grad D: OK. Professor E: So, uh {disfmarker} Um. I'll, uh {disfmarker} You know, he's {disfmarker} he'll {disfmarker} he'll be talking with everybody in this room So. PhD F: But you said you won't {disfmarker} you won't be here next Thursday? Professor E: Not Thursday and Friday. Yeah. Cuz I will be at faculty retreat. PhD F: Hmm. Professor E: So. I'll try to {vocalsound} connect with him and people as {disfmarker} as I can on {disfmarker} on Wednesday. But {disfmarker} Um. Oh, how'd taxes go? Taxes go OK? Grad D: Mmm. Yeah. Professor E: Yeah. Oh, good. Yeah. Yeah. That's just {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} that's one of the big advantages of not making much money is {vocalsound} the taxes are easier. Yeah. PhD F: Unless you're getting money in two countries. Professor E: I think you are. Aren't you? PhD F: They both want their cut. PhD B: Hmm. Grad D: Hmm. Yeah. PhD F: Right? Professor E: Yeah. Yeah. Huh. Canada w Canada wants a cut? Grad D: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Have to do {disfmarker} So you {disfmarker} you have to do two returns? Grad D: Mmm. W uh, for two thousand I did. Yeah. Professor E: Oh, oh. Yeah. For tw That's right, ju PhD F: But not for this next year? Professor E: Two thousand. Yeah. Probably not this next year, I guess. Grad D: Ye Professor E: Yeah. Grad D: Um. Professor E: Yeah. Grad D: Uh, I'll {disfmarker} I'll still have a bit of Canadian income but it'll be less complicated because I will not be a {disfmarker} considered a resident of Canada anymore, so I won't have to declare my American income on my Canadian return. Professor E: OK. Alright. Uh. Barry, do you wanna {pause} say something about your stuff here? Grad A: Oh, um. Right. I {pause} just, um, continuing looking at, uh, ph uh, phonetic events, and, uh, this Tuesday gonna be, uh, meeting with John Ohala with Chuck to talk some more about these, uh, ph um, phonetic events. Um, came up with, uh, a plan of attack, uh, gonna execute, and um {disfmarker} Yeah. It's {disfmarker} that's pretty much it. Professor E: Oh, well. No Um, why don't you say something about what it is? Grad A: Oh, you {disfmarker} oh, you want {disfmarker} you want details. Hmm. OK. Professor E: Well, we're all gathered here together. I thought we'd, you know {disfmarker} Grad A: I was hoping I could wave my hands. Um. So, um. So, once wa I {disfmarker} I was thinking getting {disfmarker} getting us a set of acoustic events to {disfmarker} um, to be able to distinguish between, uh, phones and words and stuff. And {vocalsound} um, once we {disfmarker} we would figure out a set of these events that can be, you know, um, hand - labeled or {disfmarker} or derived, uh, from h the hand - labeled phone targets. Um, we could take these events and, um, {vocalsound} do some cheating experiments, um, where we feed, um, these events into {pause} an SRI system, um, eh, and evaluate its performance on a Switchboard task. Uh, yeah. Grad D: Hey, Barry? Can you give an example of an event? Grad A: Yeah. Sure. Um, I {disfmarker} I can give you an example of {pause} twenty - odd events. Um {disfmarker} So, he In this paper, um, it's talking about phoneme recognition using acoustic events. So, things like frication or, uh, nasality. Professor E: Whose paper is it? Grad A: Um, this is a paper by Hubener and Cardson {pause} Benson {disfmarker} Bernds - Berndsen. Professor E: Yeah. Huh. From, uh, University of Hamburg and Bielefeld. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor E: OK. Grad A: Um. PhD F: Yeah. I think the {disfmarker} just to expand a little bit on the idea of acoustic event. Grad A: Mm - hmm. PhD F: There's, um {disfmarker} in my mind, anyways, there's a difference between, um, acoustic features and acoustic events. And I think of acoustic features as being, um, things that linguists talk about, like, um {disfmarker} Professor E: So, stuff that's not based on data. PhD F: Stuff that's not based on data, necessarily. Professor E: Yeah. Oh, OK. Yeah. Yeah, OK. PhD F: Right. That's not based on, you know, acoustic data. So they talk about features for phones, like, uh, its height, Grad A: Yeah. PhD F: its tenseness, laxness, things like that, Grad A: Mm - hmm. PhD F: which may or may not be all that easy to measure in the acoustic signal. Versus an acoustic event, which is just {nonvocalsound} some {nonvocalsound} something in the acoustic signal {nonvocalsound} that is fairly easy to measure. Um. So it's, um {disfmarker} it's a little different, in {disfmarker} at least in my mind. Professor E: I mean, when we did the SPAM work {disfmarker} I mean, there we had {disfmarker} we had this notion of an, uh, auditory {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} auditory event. Grad A: Good. That's great. Professor E: And, uh, um, called them" avents" , uh, uh, uh, with an A at the front. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Uh. And the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the idea was something that occurred that is important to a bunch of neurons somewhere. So. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Um. A sudden change or a relatively rapid change in some spectral characteristic will {disfmarker} will do sort of this. I mean, there's certainly a bunch of {disfmarker} a bunch of places where you know that neurons are gonna fire because something novel has happened. That was {disfmarker} that was the main thing that we were focusing on there. But there's certainly other things beyond what we talked about there that aren't just sort of rapid changes, but {disfmarker} PhD F: It's kinda like the difference between top - down and bottom - up. Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: I think of the acoustic {disfmarker} you know, phonetic features as being top - down. You know, you look at the phone and you say this phone is supposed to be {disfmarker} you know, have this feature, this feature, and this feature. Whether tha those features show up in the acoustic signal is sort of irrelevant. Whereas, an acoustic event goes the other way. Here's the signal. Here's some event. Grad A: Mm - hmm. PhD F: What {disfmarker}? And then that {disfmarker} you know, that may map to this phone sometimes, and sometimes it may not. It just depen maybe depends on the context, things like that. Professor E: Mm - hmm. PhD F: And so it's sort of a different way of looking. Professor E: Mm - hmm. Grad A: Yeah. So. Yeah. Grad D: OK. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Um {disfmarker} Using these {disfmarker} these events, um, you know, we can {disfmarker} we can perform these {disfmarker} these, uh, cheating experiments. See how {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how good they are, um, in, um {disfmarker} in terms of phoneme recognition or word recognition. And, um {disfmarker} and then from that point on, I would, uh, s design robust event detectors, um, in a similar, um, wa spirit that Saul has done w uh, with his graphical models, and this {disfmarker} this probabilistic AND - OR model that he uses. Um, eh, try to extend it to, um {disfmarker} to account for other {disfmarker} other phenomena like, um, CMR co - modulation release. And, um {disfmarker} and maybe also investigate ways to {disfmarker} to modify the structure of these models, um, in a data - driven way, uh, similar to the way that, uh, Jeff {disfmarker} Jeff, uh, Bilmes did his work. Um, and while I'm {disfmarker} I'm doing these, um, event detectors, you know, I can ma mea measure my progress by comparing, um, the error rates in clean and noisy conditions to something like, uh, neural nets. Um, and {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so, once we have these {disfmarker} these, uh, event detectors, um, we could put them together and {disfmarker} and feed the outputs of the event detectors into {disfmarker} into the SRI, um, HMM {disfmarker} HMM system, and, um {disfmarker} and test it on {disfmarker} on Switchboard or, um, maybe even Aurora stuff. And, that's pretty much the {disfmarker} the big picture of {disfmarker} of um, the plan. Professor E: By the way, um, there's, uh, a couple people who are gonna be here {disfmarker} I forget if I already told you this, but, a couple people who are gonna be here for six months. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Uh {disfmarker} uh, there's a Professor Kollmeier, uh, from Germany who's, uh, uh, quite big in the, uh, hearing - aid signal - processing area and, um, Michael Kleinschmidt, who's worked with him, who also looks at {vocalsound} auditory properties inspired by various, uh, brain function things. Grad A: Hmm. Professor E: So, um, um, I think they'll be interesting to talk to, in this sort of issue as these detectors are {disfmarker} are, uh, developing. Grad A: Hmm. OK. Professor E: So, he looks at interesting {disfmarker} interesting things in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} different ways of looking at spectra in order to {disfmarker} to get various speech properties out. So. Grad A: OK. Professor E: OK. Well, short meeting, but that's OK. And, uh, we might as well do our digits. And like I say, I {disfmarker} I encourage you to go ahead and meet, uh, next week with, uh, uh, Hynek. Alright, I'll {disfmarker} I'll start. It's, uh, one thirty - five. seventeen OK

The professor initially suggested that not making too much money made taxes easier. He learned that Canada wants taxes from Grad D. He also wanted to know if the same would hold for the coming year.

tr-sq-651

tr-sq-651_0

Summarize the discussion about acoustic events Professor E: Let's see. Test? Test? Yeah. OK. Grad A: Hello? PhD B: Channel one. Grad A: Hello? PhD C: Test. Professor E: I was saying Hynek'll be here next week, uh, Wednesday through Friday {disfmarker} uh, through Saturday, and, um, I won't be here Thursday and Friday. But my suggestion is that, uh, at least for this meeting, people should go ahead, uh, cuz Hynek will be here, and, you know, we don't have any Czech accent yet, uh, {vocalsound} as far as I know, so {disfmarker} There we go. PhD F: OK. Professor E: Um. So other than reading digits, what's our agenda? PhD F: I don't really have, uh, anything new. Been working on {pause} Meeting Recorder stuff. So. Professor E: OK. Um. Do you think that would be the case for next week also? Or is {disfmarker} is, uh {disfmarker}? What's your projection on {disfmarker}? PhD F: Um. Professor E: Cuz the one thing {disfmarker} the one thing that seems to me we really should try, if you hadn't tried it before, because it hadn't occurred to me {disfmarker} it was sort of an obvious thing {disfmarker} is, um, adjusting the, uh, sca the scaling and, uh, insertion penalty sorta stuff. PhD F: I did play with that, actually, a little bit. Um. What happens is, uh, {vocalsound} when you get to the noisy stuff, you start getting lots of insertions. Professor E: Right. PhD F: And, um, so I've tried playing around a little bit with, um, the insertion penalties and things like that. Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: Um. I mean, it {disfmarker} it didn't make a whole lot of difference. Like for the well - matched case, it seemed like it was pretty good. Um. {vocalsound} I could do more playing with that, though. And, uh {disfmarker} Professor E: But you were looking at mel cepstrum. PhD F: and see. Yes. Professor E: Right. PhD F: Oh, you're talking about for th {vocalsound} for our features. Professor E: Right. So, I mean, i it it's not the direction that you were working with that we were saying what's the {disfmarker} uh, what's the best you can do with {disfmarker} with mel cepstrum. But, they raised a very valid point, PhD F: Mmm. Professor E: which, I guess {disfmarker} So, to first order {disfmarker} I mean, you have other things you were gonna do, but to first order, I would say that the conclusion is that if you, um, do, uh, some monkeying around with, uh, the exact HTK training and @ @ {comment} with, uh, you know, how many states and so forth, that it {disfmarker} it doesn't particularly improve the performance. In other words, that even though it sounds pretty dumb, just applying the same number of states to everything, more or less, no matter what language, isn't so bad. Right? And I guess you hadn't gotten to all the experiments you wanted to do with number of Gaussians, PhD F: Right. Professor E: but, um, let's just {disfmarker} If we had to {disfmarker} if we had to draw a conclusion on the information we have so far, we'd say something like that. Right? PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Uh, so the next question to ask, which is I think the one that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that Andreas was dre addressing himself to in the lunch meeting, is, um, we're not supposed to adjust the back - end, but anybody using the system would. PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: So, if you were just adjusting the back - end, how much better would you do, uh, in noise? Uh, because the language scaling and insertion penalties and so forth are probably set to be about right for mel cepstrum. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But, um, they're probably not at all set right for these things, particularly these things that look over, uh, larger time windows, in one way or another with {disfmarker} with LDA and KLT and neural nets and {vocalsound} all these things. In the fa past we've always found that we had to increase the insertion penalty to {disfmarker} to correspond to such things. So, I think that's, uh, @ @ {comment} that's kind of a first - order thing that {disfmarker} that we should try. PhD F: So for th so the experiment is to, um, run our front - end like normal, with the default, uh, insertion penalties and so forth, and then tweak that a little bit and see how much of a difference it makes Professor E: So by" our front - end" I mean take, you know, the Aurora - two s take some version that Stephane has that is, you know, our current best version of something. PhD F: if we were {disfmarker} Mm - hmm. Professor E: Um. I mean, y don't wanna do this over a hundred different things that they've tried but, you know, for some version that you say is a good one. You know? Um. How {disfmarker} how much, uh, does it improve if you actually adjust that? PhD F: OK. Professor E: But it is interesting. You say you {disfmarker} you have for the noisy {disfmarker} How about for the {disfmarker} for the mismatched or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or the {disfmarker} or the medium mismatched conditions? Have you {disfmarker}? When you adjusted those numbers for mel cepstrum, did it {disfmarker}? PhD F: Uh, I {disfmarker} I don't remember off the top of my head. Um. Yeah. I didn't even write them down. I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't remember. I would need to {disfmarker} Well, I did write down, um {disfmarker} So, when I was doing {disfmarker} I just wrote down some numbers for the well - matched case. Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: Um. Looking at the {disfmarker} I wrote down what the deletions, substitutions, and insertions were, uh, for different numbers of states per phone. Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: Um, but, uh, that {disfmarker} that's all I wrote down. Professor E: OK. PhD F: So. I {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} Yeah. I would need to do that. Professor E: OK. So {disfmarker} PhD F: I can do that for next week. Professor E: Yeah. And, um {disfmarker} Yeah. Also, eh, eh, sometimes if you run behind on some of these things, maybe we can get someone else to do it and you can supervise or something. But {disfmarker} but I think it would be {disfmarker} it'd be good to know that. PhD F: OK. I just need to get, um, {vocalsound} front - end, uh, stuff from you PhD B: Hmm. PhD F: or you point me to some files {pause} that you've already calculated. PhD B: Yeah. Alright. Professor E: OK. Uh. PhD F: I probably will have time to do that and time to play a little bit with the silence model. Professor E: Mm - hmm. PhD F: So maybe I can have that for next week when Hynek's here. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. Cuz, I mean, the {disfmarker} the other {disfmarker} That, in fact, might have been part of what, uh, the difference was {disfmarker} at least part of it that {disfmarker} that we were seeing. Remember we were seeing the SRI system was so much better than the tandem system. PhD F: Hmm. Professor E: Part of it might just be that the SRI system, they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they always adjust these things to be sort of optimized, PhD F: Is there {disfmarker}? Professor E: and {disfmarker} PhD F: I wonder if there's anything that we could do {vocalsound} to the front - end that would affect the insertion {disfmarker} Professor E: Yes. I think you can. PhD F: What could you do? Professor E: Well, um {disfmarker} uh, part of what's going on, um, is the, uh, the range of values. So, if you have something that has a much smaller range or a much larger range, and taking the appropriate root. PhD F: Oh. Mm - hmm. Professor E: You know? If something is kind of like the equivalent of a bunch of probabilities multiplied together, you can take a root of some sort. If it's like seven probabilities together, you can take the seventh root of it or something, or if it's in the log domain, divide it by seven. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But {disfmarker} but, um, that has a similar effect because it changes the scale of the numbers {disfmarker} of the differences between different candidates from the acoustic model PhD F: Oh, right. Professor E: as opposed to what's coming from the language model. PhD F: So that w Right. So, in effect, that's changing the value of your insertion penalty. Professor E: Yeah. I mean, it's more directly like the {disfmarker} the language scaling or the, uh {disfmarker} the model scaling or acoustic scaling, PhD F: That's interesting. Professor E: but you know that those things have kind of a similar effect to the insertion penalty PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: anyway. They're a slightly different way of {disfmarker} of handling it. PhD F: Right. Professor E: So, um {disfmarker} PhD F: So if we know what the insertion penalty is, then we can get an idea about what range our number should be in, Professor E: I think so. PhD F: so that they {pause} match with that. Professor E: Yeah. Yeah. So that's why I think that's another reason other than curiosity as to why i it would in fact be kinda neat to find out if we're way off. I mean, the other thing is, are aren't we seeing {disfmarker}? Y y PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: I'm sure you've already looked at this bu in these noisy cases, are {disfmarker}? We are seeing lots of insertions. Right? The insertion number is quite high? PhD B: Yeah. Professor E: I know the VAD takes pre care of part of that, PhD F: Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Professor E: but {disfmarker} PhD F: I've seen that with the mel cepstrum. I don't {disfmarker} I don't know about {pause} the Aurora front - end, but {disfmarker} PhD B: I think it's much more balanced with, uh {disfmarker} when the front - end is more robust. Yeah. I could look at it {disfmarker} at this. Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. Wha - what's a typical number? PhD B: I don't {disfmarker} I don't know. Professor E: Do we {disfmarker}? Oh, you {disfmarker} oh, you don't know. PhD B: I don't have this in {disfmarker} Professor E: OK. I'm sure it's more balanced, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: but it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it wouldn't surprise me if there's still {disfmarker} PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: I mean, in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the old systems we used to do, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} uh, I remember numbers kind of like insertions being half the number of deletions, as being {disfmarker} and both numbers being {disfmarker} tend to be on the small side comparing to {disfmarker} to, uh, substitutions. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD F: Well, this {disfmarker} the whole problem with insertions was what I think, um, we talked about when the guy from OGI came down {pause} that one time and {disfmarker} and that was when people were saying, well we should have a, uh, uh, voice activity detector {disfmarker} Professor E: Right. PhD F: that, because all that stuff {comment} that we're getting thr the silence that's getting through is causing insertions. So. PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: Right. PhD F: I'll bet you there's still a lot {vocalsound} of insertions. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. And it may be less of a critical thing. I mean, the fact that some get by may be less of a critical thing if you, uh, get things in the right range. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, I mean, the insertions is {disfmarker} is a symptom. It's a symptom that there's something, uh, wrong with the range. PhD F: Right. Professor E: But there's {disfmarker} uh, your {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} your substitutions tend to go up as well. So, uh, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that, PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: uh, the most obvious thing is just the insertions, @ @. But {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} um. If you're operating in the wrong range {disfmarker} I mean, that's why just in general, if you {vocalsound} change what these {disfmarker} these penalties and scaling factors are, you reach some point that's a {disfmarker} that's a minimum. So. Um. Um. We do have to do well over a range of different conditions, some of which are noisier than others. Um. But, um, I think we may get a better handle on that if we {disfmarker} if we see {disfmarker} Um, I mean we ca it's if we actually could pick a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a more stable value for the range of these features, it, um, uh, could {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} Even though it's {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's true that in a real situation you can in fact adjust the {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these scaling factors in the back - end, and it's ar artificial here that we're not adjusting those, you certainly don't wanna be adjusting those all the time. And if you have a nice front - end that's in roughly the right range {disfmarker} PhD F: Hmm. Professor E: I remember after we got our stuff more or less together in the previous systems we built, that we tended to set those scaling factors at kind of a standard level, and we would rarely adjust them again, even though you could get a {disfmarker} PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: for an evaluation you can get an extra point or something if you tweaked it a little bit. But, once we knew what rou roughly the right operating range was, it was pretty stable, and {disfmarker} Uh, we might just not even be in the right operating range. PhD F: So, would the {disfmarker}? Uh, would a good idea be to try to map it into the same range that you get in the well - matched case? So, if we computed what the range was in well - matched, and then when we get our noisy conditions out we try to make it have the same range as {disfmarker}? Professor E: No. You don't wanna change it for different conditions. No. No. I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} What {disfmarker} what I'm saying {disfmarker} PhD F: Oh, I wasn't suggesting change it for different conditions. I was just saying that when we pick a range, we {disfmarker} we wanna pick a range that we map our numbers into {disfmarker} Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: we should probably pick it based on the range that we get in the well - matched case. Otherwise, I mean, what range are we gonna choose to {disfmarker} to map everything into? Professor E: Well. It depends how much we wanna do gamesmanship and how much we wanna do {disfmarker} I mean, i if he it {disfmarker} to me, actually, even if you wanna be {disfmarker} play on the gamesmanship side, it can be kinda tricky. So, I mean, what you would do is set the {disfmarker} set the scaling factors, uh, so that you got the best number for this point four five times the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know, and so on. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But they might change that {disfmarker} those weightings. PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: Um. So {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} I just sorta think we need to explore the space. Just take a look at it a little bit. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: And we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we may just find that {disfmarker} that we're way off. PhD F: OK. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Maybe we're not. You know? As for these other things, it may turn out that, uh, {vocalsound} it's kind of reasonable. But then {disfmarker} I mean, Andreas gave a very reasonable response, and he's probably not gonna be the only one who's gonna say this in the future {disfmarker} of, you know, people {disfmarker} people within this tight - knit community who are doing this evaluation {vocalsound} are accepting, uh, more or less, that these are the rules. But, people outside of it who look in at the broader picture are certainly gonna say" Well, wait a minute. You're doing all this standing on your head, uh, on the front - end, PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: when all you could do is just adjust this in the back - end with one s one knob." PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: And so we have to at least, I think, determine that that's not true, which would be OK, or determine that it is true, in which case we want to adjust that and then continue with {disfmarker} with what we're doing. And as you say {disfmarker} as you point out {disfmarker} finding ways to then compensate for that in the front - end {vocalsound} also then becomes a priority for this particular test, PhD F: Right. Professor E: and saying you don't have to do that. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So. OK. So, uh {disfmarker} What's new with you? PhD B: Uh. So there's nothing {pause} new. Um. Professor E: Uh, what's old with you that's developed? PhD B: I'm sorry? Professor E: You {disfmarker} OK. What's old with you that has developed over the last week or two? PhD B: Mmm. Well, so we've been mainly working on the report and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} Yeah. PhD F: Mainly working on what? PhD B: On the report {pause} of the work that was already done. PhD F: Oh. PhD B: Um. Mm - hmm. That's all. PhD F: How about that {disfmarker}? Any - anything new on the thing that, uh, you were working on with the, uh {disfmarker}? PhD C: I don't have results yet. PhD F: No results? Yeah. Professor E: What was that? PhD F: The {disfmarker} the, uh, Grad A: Voicing thing. PhD F: voicing detector. Professor E: I mean, what what's {disfmarker} what's going on now? What are you {pause} doing? PhD C: Uh, to try to found, nnn, robust feature for detect between voice and unvoice. And we {disfmarker} w we try to use {vocalsound} the variance {vocalsound} of the es difference between the FFT spectrum and mel filter bank spectrum. Professor E: Yeah. PhD C: Uh, also the {disfmarker} another parameter is {disfmarker} relates with the auto - correlation function. Professor E: Uh - huh. PhD C: R - ze energy and the variance a also of the auto - correlation function. Professor E: Uh - huh. So, that's {disfmarker} Yeah. That's what you were describing, I guess, a week or two ago. PhD C: Yeah. But we don't have res we don't have result of the AURO for Aurora yet. Professor E: So. PhD C: We need to train the neural network Professor E: Mm - hmm. PhD C: and {disfmarker} Professor E: So you're training neural networks now? PhD C: No, not yet. Professor E: So, what {disfmarker} wha {vocalsound} wh wha what what's going on? PhD C: Well, we work in the report, too, because we have a lot of result, Professor E: Uh - huh. PhD C: they are very dispersed, and was necessary to {disfmarker} to look in all the directory to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to give some more structure. PhD B: Yea Professor E: So. B So {disfmarker} Yeah. I if I can summarize, basically what's going on is that you're going over a lot of material that you have generated in furious fashion, f generating many results and doing many experiments and trying to pull it together into some coherent form to be able to see wha see what happens. PhD C: Hm - hmm. PhD B: Uh, y yeah. Basically we we've stopped, uh, experimenting, Professor E: Yes? PhD B: I mean. We're just writing some kind of technical report. And {disfmarker} PhD F: Is this a report that's for Aurora? Or is it just like a tech report for ICSI, PhD C: No. PhD B: Yeah. PhD C: For ICSI. PhD F: or {disfmarker}? Ah. I see. PhD B: Yeah. PhD C: Just summary of the experiment and the conclusion and something like that. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: OK. So, my suggestion, though, is that you {disfmarker} you not necessarily finish that. But that you put it all together so that it's {disfmarker} you've got {disfmarker} you've got a clearer structure to it. You know what things are, you have things documented, you've looked things up that you needed to look up. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So that, you know {disfmarker} so that such a thing can be written. And, um {disfmarker} When {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when do you leave again? PhD C: Uh, in July. First of July. Professor E: First of July? OK. And that you figure on actually finishing it in {disfmarker} in June. Because, you know, you're gonna have another bunch of results to fit in there anyway. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor E: And right now it's kind of important that we actually go forward with experiments. PhD C: It's not. Professor E: So {disfmarker} so, I {disfmarker} I think it's good to pause, and to gather everything together and make sure it's in good shape, so that other people can get access to it and so that it can go into a report in June. But I think {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to really work on {disfmarker} on fine - tuning the report n at this point is {disfmarker} is probably bad timing, I {disfmarker} I {pause} think. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Well, we didn't {disfmarker} we just planned to work on it one week on this report, not {disfmarker} no more, anyway. Um. Professor E: But you ma you may really wanna add other things later anyway PhD B: Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor E: because you {disfmarker} PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: There's more to go? PhD B: Yeah. Well, so I don't know. There are small things that we started to {disfmarker} to do. But {disfmarker} PhD F: Are you discovering anything, uh, that makes you scratch your head as you write this report, like why did we do that, or why didn't we do this, PhD B: Uh. PhD F: or {disfmarker}? PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. And {disfmarker} Actually, there were some tables that were also with partial results. We just noticed that, wh while gathering the result that for some conditions we didn't have everything. PhD F: Mmm. PhD B: But anyway. Um. Yeah, yeah. We have, yeah, extracted actually the noises from {pause} the SpeechDat - Car. And so, we can train neural network with speech and these noises. Um. It's difficult to say what it will give, because when we look at the Aurora {disfmarker} the TI - digits experiments, um, they have these three conditions that have different noises, and apparently this system perform as well on the seen noises {disfmarker} on the unseen noises and on the seen noises. But, I think this is something we have to try anyway. So {disfmarker} adding the noises from {disfmarker} from the SpeechDat - Car. Um. Professor E: That's {disfmarker} that's, uh {disfmarker} that's permitted? PhD B: Uh. Well, OGI does {disfmarker} did that. Um. At some point they did that for {disfmarker} for the voice activity detector. PhD C: Uh, for a v VAD. PhD B: Right? Um. PhD F: Could you say it again? What {disfmarker} what exactly did they do? PhD B: They used some parts of the, um, Italian database to train the voice activity detector, I think. It {disfmarker} Professor E: Yeah. I guess the thing is {disfmarker} Yeah. I guess that's a matter of interpretation. The rules as I understand it, is that in principle the Italian and the Spanish and the English {disfmarker} no, Italian and the Finnish and the English? {disfmarker} were development data PhD B: Yeah. And Spanish, yeah. Professor E: on which you could adjust things. And the {disfmarker} and the German and Danish were the evaluation data. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: And then when they finally actually evaluated things they used everything. PhD B: Yeah. That's right. Uh {disfmarker} Professor E: So {disfmarker} Uh, and it is true that the performance, uh, on the German was {disfmarker} I mean, even though the improvement wasn't so good, the pre the raw performance was really pretty good. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So {disfmarker} And, uh, it {disfmarker} it doesn't appear that there's strong evidence that even though things were somewhat tuned on those three or four languages, that {disfmarker} that going to a different language really hurt you. And the noises were not exactly the same. Right? Because it was taken from a different, uh {disfmarker} I mean they were different drives. PhD B: Different cars. Yeah. Professor E: I mean, it was {disfmarker} it was actual different cars and so on. PhD B: Yeah. Professor E: So. Um, it's somewhat tuned. It's tuned more than, you know, a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: You'd really like to have something that needed no particular noise at all, maybe just some white noise or something like that a at most. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But that's not really what this contest is. So. Um, I guess it's OK. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: That's something I'd like to understand before we actually use something from it, PhD F: I think it's {disfmarker} Professor E: because it would {disfmarker} PhD F: it's probably something that, mmm, the {disfmarker} you know, the, uh, experiment designers didn't really think about, because I think most people aren't doing trained systems, or, you know, uh, systems that are like ours, where you actually use the data to build models. I mean, they just {pause} doing signal - processing. PhD B: Yeah. Professor E: Well, it's true, PhD F: So. Professor E: except that, uh, that's what we used in Aurora one, and then they designed the things for Aurora - two knowing that we were doing that. PhD F: Yeah. That's true. Professor E: Um. PhD F: And they didn't forbid us {disfmarker} right? {disfmarker} to build models on the data? Professor E: No. But, I think {disfmarker} I think that it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it probably would be the case that if, say, we trained on Italian, uh, data and then, uh, we tested on Danish data and it did terribly, uh, that {disfmarker} that it would look bad. And I think someone would notice and would say" Well, look. This is not generalizing." I would hope tha I would hope they would. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Um. But, uh, it's true. You know, maybe there's parameters that other people have used {disfmarker} you know, th that they have tuned in some way for other things. So it's {disfmarker} it's, uh {disfmarker} We should {disfmarker} we should {disfmarker} Maybe {disfmarker} that's maybe a topic {disfmarker} Especially if you talk with him when I'm not here, that's a topic you should discuss with Hynek PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: to, you know, double check it's OK. PhD F: Do we know anything about {pause} the speakers for each of the, uh, training utterances? PhD B: What do you mean? We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} PhD F: Do you have speaker information? Professor E: Social security number PhD F: That would be good. PhD B: Like, we have {pause} male, female, PhD C: Hmm. PhD F: Bank PIN. PhD B: at least. PhD F: Just male f female? PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: What kind of information do you mean? PhD F: Well, I was thinking about things like, you know, gender, uh {disfmarker} you know, gender - specific nets and, uh, vocal tract length normalization. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD F: Things like that. I d I don't {disfmarker} I didn't know what information we have about the speakers that we could try to take advantage of. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Hmm. Uh. Right. I mean, again, i if you had the whole system you were optimizing, that would be easy to see. But if you're {vocalsound} supposedly just using a fixed back - end and you're just coming up with a feature vector, w w I'm not sure {disfmarker} I mean, having the two nets {disfmarker} Suppose you detected that it was male, it was female {disfmarker} you come up with different {disfmarker} PhD F: Well, you could put them both in as separate streams or something. Uh. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Maybe. PhD F: I don't know. I was just wondering if there was other information we could exploit. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Hmm. Yeah, it's an interesting thought. Maybe having something along the {disfmarker} I mean, you can't really do vocal tract normalization. But something that had some of that effect PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: being applied to the data in some way. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Um. PhD B: Do you have something simple in mind for {disfmarker} I mean, vocal tract length normalization? PhD F: Uh no. I hadn't {disfmarker} I hadn't thought {disfmarker} it was {disfmarker} thought too much about it, really. It just {disfmarker} something that popped into my head just now. And so I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean, you could maybe use the ideas {disfmarker} a similar {pause} idea to what they do in vocal tract length normalization. You know, you have some sort of a, uh, general speech model, you know, maybe just a mixture of Gaussians that you evaluate every utterance against, and then you see where each, you know, utterance {disfmarker} like, the likelihood of each utterance. You divide the {disfmarker} the range of the likelihoods up into discrete bins and then each bin's got some knob {disfmarker} uh, setting. Professor E: Yeah. But just listen to yourself. I mean, that uh really doesn't sound like a real - time thing with less than two hundred milliseconds, uh, latency that {disfmarker} and where you're not adjusting the statistical engine at all. PhD F: Yeah. Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD F: Yeah. That's true. Professor E: You know, that just {disfmarker} PhD F: Right. PhD B: Hmm. Professor E: I mean {disfmarker} Yeah. PhD F: Could be expensive. Professor E: No. Well not just expensive. I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't see how you could possibly do it. You can't look at the whole utterance and do anything. You know, you can only {disfmarker} Right? PhD F: Oh, Professor E: Each frame comes in and it's gotta go out the other end. PhD F: right. Professor E: So, uh {disfmarker} PhD F: Right. So whatever it was, it would have to be uh sort of on a per frame basis. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. I mean, you can do, um {disfmarker} Fairly quickly you can do male female {disfmarker} f male female stuff. PhD F: Yeah. Yeah. Professor E: But as far as, I mean {disfmarker} Like I thought BBN did a thing with, uh, uh, vocal tract normalization a ways back. Maybe other people did too. With {disfmarker} with, uh, uh, l trying to identify third formant {disfmarker} average third formant {disfmarker} {vocalsound} using that as an indicator of {disfmarker} PhD F: I don't know. Professor E: So. You know, third formant {disfmarker} I if you imagine that to first order what happens with, uh, changing vocal tract is that, uh, the formants get moved out by some proportion {disfmarker} PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, if you had a first formant that was one hundred hertz before, if the fifty {disfmarker} if the vocal tract is fifty percent shorter, then it would be out at seven fifty hertz, and so on. So, that's a move of two hundred fifty hertz. Whereas the third formant which might have started off at twenty - five hundred hertz, you know, might be out to thirty - seven fifty, you know so it's at {disfmarker} So, although, you frequently get less distinct higher formants, it's still {disfmarker} third formant's kind of a reasonable compromise, and {disfmarker} PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, I think, eh, if I recall correctly, they did something like that. And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} PhD F: Hmm. Professor E: But {disfmarker} Um, that doesn't work for just having one frame or something. PhD F: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: You know? That's more like looking at third formant over {disfmarker} over a turn or something like that, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: and {disfmarker} PhD F: Right. Professor E: Um. So. But on the other hand, male female is a {disfmarker} is a {disfmarker} is a much simpler categorization than figuring out a {disfmarker} a factor to, uh, squish or expand the {disfmarker} the spectrum. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, um. Y you could imagine that {disfmarker} I mean, just like we're saying voiced - unvoiced is good to know {disfmarker} uh, male female is good to know also. Um. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But, you'd have to figure out a way to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to, uh, incorporate it on the fly. Uh, I mean, I guess, as you say, one thing you could do is simply, uh, have the {disfmarker} the male and female output vectors {disfmarker} you know, tr nets trained only on males and n trained only on females or {disfmarker} or, uh, you know. But {disfmarker} Um. I don't know if that would really help, because you already have males and females and it's mm - hmm putting into one net. So is it {disfmarker}? PhD F: Is it balanced, um, in terms of gender {disfmarker} the data? PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: Do you know? PhD B: Almost, yeah. PhD F: Hmm. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Hmm. OK. Y you're {disfmarker} you were saying before {disfmarker}? PhD B: Uh. Yeah. So, this noise, um {disfmarker} Yeah. The MSG {disfmarker} Um. Mmm. There is something {disfmarker} perhaps, I could spend some days to look at this thing, cuz it seems that when we train networks on {disfmarker} let's say, on TIMIT with MSG features, they {disfmarker} they look as good as networks trained on PLP. But, um, when they are used on {disfmarker} on the SpeechDat - Car data, it's not the case {disfmarker} oh, well. The MSG features are much worse, and so maybe they're, um, less {disfmarker} more sensitive to different recording conditions, or {disfmarker} Shou Professor E: Shouldn't be. They should be less so. PhD B: Yeah. But {disfmarker} Professor E: R right? PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: Wh -? But let me ask you this. What {disfmarker} what's the, um {disfmarker}? Do you kno recall if the insertions were {disfmarker} were higher with MSG? PhD B: I don't know. I cannot tell. But {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the error rate is higher. So, I don Professor E: Yeah. But you should always look at insertions, deletions, and substitutions. PhD B: Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor E: So {disfmarker} PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: so, uh {disfmarker} MSG is very, very dif Eh, PLP is very much like mel cepstrum. MSG is very different from both of them. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, if it's very different, then this is the sort of thing {disfmarker} I mean I'm really glad Andreas brought this point up. I {pause} sort of had forgotten to discuss it. Um. You always have to look at how this {disfmarker} uh, these adjustments, uh, affect things. And even though we're not allowed to do that, again we maybe could reflect that back to our use of the features. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So if it {disfmarker} if in fact, uh {disfmarker} The problem might be that the range of the MSG features is quite different than the range of the PLP or mel cepstrum. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor E: And you might wanna change that. PhD B: But {disfmarker} Yeah. But, it's d it's after {disfmarker} Well, it's tandem features, so {disfmarker} Mmm. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. We {disfmarker} we have estimation of post posteriors with PLP and with MSG as input, Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: so I don Well. I don't know. Professor E: That means they're between zero and one. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But i it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it doesn't necessarily {disfmarker} You know, they could be, um {disfmarker} Do - doesn't tell you what the variance of the things is. PhD B: Mmm. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Right? Cuz if you're taking the log of these things, it could be, uh {disfmarker} Knowing what the sum of the probabilities are, doesn't tell you what the sum of the logs are. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Professor E: So. PhD B: Yeah. So we should look at the likelihood, or {disfmarker} or what? Or {disfmarker} well, at the log, perhaps, and {disfmarker} Professor E: Yeah. Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Or what {disfmarker} you know, what you're uh {disfmarker} the thing you're actually looking at. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So your {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} the values that are {disfmarker} are actually being fed into HTK. PhD B: Mm - hmm. But {disfmarker} Professor E: What do they look like? PhD F: No And so th the, uh {disfmarker} for the tandem system, the values that come out of the net don't go through the sigmoid. Right? They're sort of the pre - nonlinearity values? PhD B: Yes. Professor E: Right. So they're {pause} kinda like log probabilities is what I was saying. PhD F: And those {disfmarker} OK. And tho that's what goes {pause} into {pause} HTK? Professor E: Uh, almost. But then you actually do a KLT on them. PhD F: OK. Professor E: Um. They aren't normalized after that, are they? PhD B: Mmm. No, they are not {disfmarker} no. Professor E: No. OK. So, um. Right. So the question is {disfmarker} Yeah. Whatever they are at that point, um, are they something for which taking a square root or cube root or fourth root or something like that is {disfmarker} is gonna be a good or a bad thing? So. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Uh, and that's something that nothing {disfmarker} nothing else after that is gonna {disfmarker} Uh, things are gonna scale it {disfmarker} Uh, you know, subtract things from it, scale it from it, but nothing will have that same effect. Um. So. Um. Anyway, eh {disfmarker} PhD F: Yeah. Cuz if {disfmarker} if the log probs that are coming out of the MSG are really big, the standard {pause} insertion penalty is gonna have very little effect Professor E: Well, the {disfmarker} Right. PhD F: compared to, you know, a smaller set of log probs. Professor E: Yeah. No. Again you don't really {pause} look at that. It's something {disfmarker} that, and then it's going through this transformation that's probably pretty close to {disfmarker} It's, eh, whatever the KLT is doing. But it's probably pretty close to what a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a discrete cosine transformation is doing. PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: But still it's {disfmarker} it's not gonna probably radically change the scale of things. I would think. And, uh {disfmarker} Yeah. It may be entirely off and {disfmarker} and it may be {disfmarker} at the very least it may be quite different for MSG than it is for mel cepstrum or PLP. So that would be {disfmarker} So the first thing I'd look at without adjusting anything would just be to go back to the experiment and look at the, uh, substitutions, insertions, and deletions. And if the {disfmarker} if the, uh {disfmarker} i if there's a fairly large effect of the difference, say, uh, uh, the r ratio between insertions and deletions for the two cases then that would be, uh, an indicator that it might {disfmarker} might be in that direction. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Yeah. But, Professor E: Anything else? PhD B: my {disfmarker} my point was more that it {disfmarker} it works sometimes and {disfmarker} but sometimes it doesn't work. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: So. Professor E: Well. PhD B: And it works on TI - digits and on SpeechDat - Car it doesn't work, and {disfmarker} Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Well. Professor E: But, you know, some problems are harder than others, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Professor E: and {disfmarker} And, uh, sometimes, you know, there's enough evidence for something to work and then it's harder, it breaks. You know, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: so it's {disfmarker} But it {disfmarker} but, um, i it {disfmarker} it could be that when you say it works maybe we could be doing much better, even in TI - digits. Right? PhD B: Yeah. Yeah, sure. Professor E: So. PhD B: Uh. Professor E: Hmm? Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Well, there is also the spectral subtraction, which, um {disfmarker} I think maybe we should, uh, try to integrate it in {disfmarker} in our system. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mmm. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Right. PhD B: But, Professor E: O PhD B: I think that would involve to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to mmm {vocalsound} use a big {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} al already a big bunch of the system of Ericsson. Because he has spectral subtraction, then it's followed by, {vocalsound} um, other kind of processing that's {disfmarker} are dependent on the {disfmarker} uh, if it's speech or noi or silence. Professor E: Mm - hmm. PhD B: And there is this kind of spectral flattening after {disfmarker} if it's silence, and {disfmarker} and s I {disfmarker} I think it's important, um, {vocalsound} to reduce this musical noise and this {disfmarker} this increase of variance during silence portions. So. Well. This was in this would involve to take almost everything from {disfmarker} from the {disfmarker} this proposal and {disfmarker} and then just add some kind of on - line normalization in {disfmarker} in the neural network. Mmm. Professor E: OK. Well, this'll be, I think, something for discussion with Hynek next week. PhD B: Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. OK. Right. So. How are, uh, uh {disfmarker} how are things going with what you're doing? Grad D: Oh. Well, um, I took a lot of time just getting my taxes out of the way {disfmarker} multi - national taxes. So, I'm {disfmarker} I'm starting to write code now for my work but I don't have any results yet. Um, i it would be good for me to talk to Hynek, I think, when he's here. Professor E: Yeah. Grad D: Do you know what his schedule will be like? Professor E: Uh, he'll be around for three days. Grad D: OK. So, y Professor E: Uh, we'll have a lot of time. Grad D: OK. Professor E: So, uh {disfmarker} Um. I'll, uh {disfmarker} You know, he's {disfmarker} he'll {disfmarker} he'll be talking with everybody in this room So. PhD F: But you said you won't {disfmarker} you won't be here next Thursday? Professor E: Not Thursday and Friday. Yeah. Cuz I will be at faculty retreat. PhD F: Hmm. Professor E: So. I'll try to {vocalsound} connect with him and people as {disfmarker} as I can on {disfmarker} on Wednesday. But {disfmarker} Um. Oh, how'd taxes go? Taxes go OK? Grad D: Mmm. Yeah. Professor E: Yeah. Oh, good. Yeah. Yeah. That's just {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} that's one of the big advantages of not making much money is {vocalsound} the taxes are easier. Yeah. PhD F: Unless you're getting money in two countries. Professor E: I think you are. Aren't you? PhD F: They both want their cut. PhD B: Hmm. Grad D: Hmm. Yeah. PhD F: Right? Professor E: Yeah. Yeah. Huh. Canada w Canada wants a cut? Grad D: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Have to do {disfmarker} So you {disfmarker} you have to do two returns? Grad D: Mmm. W uh, for two thousand I did. Yeah. Professor E: Oh, oh. Yeah. For tw That's right, ju PhD F: But not for this next year? Professor E: Two thousand. Yeah. Probably not this next year, I guess. Grad D: Ye Professor E: Yeah. Grad D: Um. Professor E: Yeah. Grad D: Uh, I'll {disfmarker} I'll still have a bit of Canadian income but it'll be less complicated because I will not be a {disfmarker} considered a resident of Canada anymore, so I won't have to declare my American income on my Canadian return. Professor E: OK. Alright. Uh. Barry, do you wanna {pause} say something about your stuff here? Grad A: Oh, um. Right. I {pause} just, um, continuing looking at, uh, ph uh, phonetic events, and, uh, this Tuesday gonna be, uh, meeting with John Ohala with Chuck to talk some more about these, uh, ph um, phonetic events. Um, came up with, uh, a plan of attack, uh, gonna execute, and um {disfmarker} Yeah. It's {disfmarker} that's pretty much it. Professor E: Oh, well. No Um, why don't you say something about what it is? Grad A: Oh, you {disfmarker} oh, you want {disfmarker} you want details. Hmm. OK. Professor E: Well, we're all gathered here together. I thought we'd, you know {disfmarker} Grad A: I was hoping I could wave my hands. Um. So, um. So, once wa I {disfmarker} I was thinking getting {disfmarker} getting us a set of acoustic events to {disfmarker} um, to be able to distinguish between, uh, phones and words and stuff. And {vocalsound} um, once we {disfmarker} we would figure out a set of these events that can be, you know, um, hand - labeled or {disfmarker} or derived, uh, from h the hand - labeled phone targets. Um, we could take these events and, um, {vocalsound} do some cheating experiments, um, where we feed, um, these events into {pause} an SRI system, um, eh, and evaluate its performance on a Switchboard task. Uh, yeah. Grad D: Hey, Barry? Can you give an example of an event? Grad A: Yeah. Sure. Um, I {disfmarker} I can give you an example of {pause} twenty - odd events. Um {disfmarker} So, he In this paper, um, it's talking about phoneme recognition using acoustic events. So, things like frication or, uh, nasality. Professor E: Whose paper is it? Grad A: Um, this is a paper by Hubener and Cardson {pause} Benson {disfmarker} Bernds - Berndsen. Professor E: Yeah. Huh. From, uh, University of Hamburg and Bielefeld. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor E: OK. Grad A: Um. PhD F: Yeah. I think the {disfmarker} just to expand a little bit on the idea of acoustic event. Grad A: Mm - hmm. PhD F: There's, um {disfmarker} in my mind, anyways, there's a difference between, um, acoustic features and acoustic events. And I think of acoustic features as being, um, things that linguists talk about, like, um {disfmarker} Professor E: So, stuff that's not based on data. PhD F: Stuff that's not based on data, necessarily. Professor E: Yeah. Oh, OK. Yeah. Yeah, OK. PhD F: Right. That's not based on, you know, acoustic data. So they talk about features for phones, like, uh, its height, Grad A: Yeah. PhD F: its tenseness, laxness, things like that, Grad A: Mm - hmm. PhD F: which may or may not be all that easy to measure in the acoustic signal. Versus an acoustic event, which is just {nonvocalsound} some {nonvocalsound} something in the acoustic signal {nonvocalsound} that is fairly easy to measure. Um. So it's, um {disfmarker} it's a little different, in {disfmarker} at least in my mind. Professor E: I mean, when we did the SPAM work {disfmarker} I mean, there we had {disfmarker} we had this notion of an, uh, auditory {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} auditory event. Grad A: Good. That's great. Professor E: And, uh, um, called them" avents" , uh, uh, uh, with an A at the front. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Uh. And the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the idea was something that occurred that is important to a bunch of neurons somewhere. So. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Um. A sudden change or a relatively rapid change in some spectral characteristic will {disfmarker} will do sort of this. I mean, there's certainly a bunch of {disfmarker} a bunch of places where you know that neurons are gonna fire because something novel has happened. That was {disfmarker} that was the main thing that we were focusing on there. But there's certainly other things beyond what we talked about there that aren't just sort of rapid changes, but {disfmarker} PhD F: It's kinda like the difference between top - down and bottom - up. Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: I think of the acoustic {disfmarker} you know, phonetic features as being top - down. You know, you look at the phone and you say this phone is supposed to be {disfmarker} you know, have this feature, this feature, and this feature. Whether tha those features show up in the acoustic signal is sort of irrelevant. Whereas, an acoustic event goes the other way. Here's the signal. Here's some event. Grad A: Mm - hmm. PhD F: What {disfmarker}? And then that {disfmarker} you know, that may map to this phone sometimes, and sometimes it may not. It just depen maybe depends on the context, things like that. Professor E: Mm - hmm. PhD F: And so it's sort of a different way of looking. Professor E: Mm - hmm. Grad A: Yeah. So. Yeah. Grad D: OK. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Um {disfmarker} Using these {disfmarker} these events, um, you know, we can {disfmarker} we can perform these {disfmarker} these, uh, cheating experiments. See how {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how good they are, um, in, um {disfmarker} in terms of phoneme recognition or word recognition. And, um {disfmarker} and then from that point on, I would, uh, s design robust event detectors, um, in a similar, um, wa spirit that Saul has done w uh, with his graphical models, and this {disfmarker} this probabilistic AND - OR model that he uses. Um, eh, try to extend it to, um {disfmarker} to account for other {disfmarker} other phenomena like, um, CMR co - modulation release. And, um {disfmarker} and maybe also investigate ways to {disfmarker} to modify the structure of these models, um, in a data - driven way, uh, similar to the way that, uh, Jeff {disfmarker} Jeff, uh, Bilmes did his work. Um, and while I'm {disfmarker} I'm doing these, um, event detectors, you know, I can ma mea measure my progress by comparing, um, the error rates in clean and noisy conditions to something like, uh, neural nets. Um, and {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so, once we have these {disfmarker} these, uh, event detectors, um, we could put them together and {disfmarker} and feed the outputs of the event detectors into {disfmarker} into the SRI, um, HMM {disfmarker} HMM system, and, um {disfmarker} and test it on {disfmarker} on Switchboard or, um, maybe even Aurora stuff. And, that's pretty much the {disfmarker} the big picture of {disfmarker} of um, the plan. Professor E: By the way, um, there's, uh, a couple people who are gonna be here {disfmarker} I forget if I already told you this, but, a couple people who are gonna be here for six months. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Uh {disfmarker} uh, there's a Professor Kollmeier, uh, from Germany who's, uh, uh, quite big in the, uh, hearing - aid signal - processing area and, um, Michael Kleinschmidt, who's worked with him, who also looks at {vocalsound} auditory properties inspired by various, uh, brain function things. Grad A: Hmm. Professor E: So, um, um, I think they'll be interesting to talk to, in this sort of issue as these detectors are {disfmarker} are, uh, developing. Grad A: Hmm. OK. Professor E: So, he looks at interesting {disfmarker} interesting things in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} different ways of looking at spectra in order to {disfmarker} to get various speech properties out. So. Grad A: OK. Professor E: OK. Well, short meeting, but that's OK. And, uh, we might as well do our digits. And like I say, I {disfmarker} I encourage you to go ahead and meet, uh, next week with, uh, uh, Hynek. Alright, I'll {disfmarker} I'll start. It's, uh, one thirty - five. seventeen OK

Grad A explained that he was trying to collect a set of acoustic events to help distinguish between various linguistic features. The team distinguished between acoustic features and acoustic events. Acoustic events were a feature of the acoustic signal that could be derived from the data.

tr-sq-652

tr-sq-652_0

What did PhD F think about acoustic events? Professor E: Let's see. Test? Test? Yeah. OK. Grad A: Hello? PhD B: Channel one. Grad A: Hello? PhD C: Test. Professor E: I was saying Hynek'll be here next week, uh, Wednesday through Friday {disfmarker} uh, through Saturday, and, um, I won't be here Thursday and Friday. But my suggestion is that, uh, at least for this meeting, people should go ahead, uh, cuz Hynek will be here, and, you know, we don't have any Czech accent yet, uh, {vocalsound} as far as I know, so {disfmarker} There we go. PhD F: OK. Professor E: Um. So other than reading digits, what's our agenda? PhD F: I don't really have, uh, anything new. Been working on {pause} Meeting Recorder stuff. So. Professor E: OK. Um. Do you think that would be the case for next week also? Or is {disfmarker} is, uh {disfmarker}? What's your projection on {disfmarker}? PhD F: Um. Professor E: Cuz the one thing {disfmarker} the one thing that seems to me we really should try, if you hadn't tried it before, because it hadn't occurred to me {disfmarker} it was sort of an obvious thing {disfmarker} is, um, adjusting the, uh, sca the scaling and, uh, insertion penalty sorta stuff. PhD F: I did play with that, actually, a little bit. Um. What happens is, uh, {vocalsound} when you get to the noisy stuff, you start getting lots of insertions. Professor E: Right. PhD F: And, um, so I've tried playing around a little bit with, um, the insertion penalties and things like that. Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: Um. I mean, it {disfmarker} it didn't make a whole lot of difference. Like for the well - matched case, it seemed like it was pretty good. Um. {vocalsound} I could do more playing with that, though. And, uh {disfmarker} Professor E: But you were looking at mel cepstrum. PhD F: and see. Yes. Professor E: Right. PhD F: Oh, you're talking about for th {vocalsound} for our features. Professor E: Right. So, I mean, i it it's not the direction that you were working with that we were saying what's the {disfmarker} uh, what's the best you can do with {disfmarker} with mel cepstrum. But, they raised a very valid point, PhD F: Mmm. Professor E: which, I guess {disfmarker} So, to first order {disfmarker} I mean, you have other things you were gonna do, but to first order, I would say that the conclusion is that if you, um, do, uh, some monkeying around with, uh, the exact HTK training and @ @ {comment} with, uh, you know, how many states and so forth, that it {disfmarker} it doesn't particularly improve the performance. In other words, that even though it sounds pretty dumb, just applying the same number of states to everything, more or less, no matter what language, isn't so bad. Right? And I guess you hadn't gotten to all the experiments you wanted to do with number of Gaussians, PhD F: Right. Professor E: but, um, let's just {disfmarker} If we had to {disfmarker} if we had to draw a conclusion on the information we have so far, we'd say something like that. Right? PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Uh, so the next question to ask, which is I think the one that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that Andreas was dre addressing himself to in the lunch meeting, is, um, we're not supposed to adjust the back - end, but anybody using the system would. PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: So, if you were just adjusting the back - end, how much better would you do, uh, in noise? Uh, because the language scaling and insertion penalties and so forth are probably set to be about right for mel cepstrum. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But, um, they're probably not at all set right for these things, particularly these things that look over, uh, larger time windows, in one way or another with {disfmarker} with LDA and KLT and neural nets and {vocalsound} all these things. In the fa past we've always found that we had to increase the insertion penalty to {disfmarker} to correspond to such things. So, I think that's, uh, @ @ {comment} that's kind of a first - order thing that {disfmarker} that we should try. PhD F: So for th so the experiment is to, um, run our front - end like normal, with the default, uh, insertion penalties and so forth, and then tweak that a little bit and see how much of a difference it makes Professor E: So by" our front - end" I mean take, you know, the Aurora - two s take some version that Stephane has that is, you know, our current best version of something. PhD F: if we were {disfmarker} Mm - hmm. Professor E: Um. I mean, y don't wanna do this over a hundred different things that they've tried but, you know, for some version that you say is a good one. You know? Um. How {disfmarker} how much, uh, does it improve if you actually adjust that? PhD F: OK. Professor E: But it is interesting. You say you {disfmarker} you have for the noisy {disfmarker} How about for the {disfmarker} for the mismatched or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or the {disfmarker} or the medium mismatched conditions? Have you {disfmarker}? When you adjusted those numbers for mel cepstrum, did it {disfmarker}? PhD F: Uh, I {disfmarker} I don't remember off the top of my head. Um. Yeah. I didn't even write them down. I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't remember. I would need to {disfmarker} Well, I did write down, um {disfmarker} So, when I was doing {disfmarker} I just wrote down some numbers for the well - matched case. Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: Um. Looking at the {disfmarker} I wrote down what the deletions, substitutions, and insertions were, uh, for different numbers of states per phone. Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: Um, but, uh, that {disfmarker} that's all I wrote down. Professor E: OK. PhD F: So. I {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} Yeah. I would need to do that. Professor E: OK. So {disfmarker} PhD F: I can do that for next week. Professor E: Yeah. And, um {disfmarker} Yeah. Also, eh, eh, sometimes if you run behind on some of these things, maybe we can get someone else to do it and you can supervise or something. But {disfmarker} but I think it would be {disfmarker} it'd be good to know that. PhD F: OK. I just need to get, um, {vocalsound} front - end, uh, stuff from you PhD B: Hmm. PhD F: or you point me to some files {pause} that you've already calculated. PhD B: Yeah. Alright. Professor E: OK. Uh. PhD F: I probably will have time to do that and time to play a little bit with the silence model. Professor E: Mm - hmm. PhD F: So maybe I can have that for next week when Hynek's here. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. Cuz, I mean, the {disfmarker} the other {disfmarker} That, in fact, might have been part of what, uh, the difference was {disfmarker} at least part of it that {disfmarker} that we were seeing. Remember we were seeing the SRI system was so much better than the tandem system. PhD F: Hmm. Professor E: Part of it might just be that the SRI system, they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they always adjust these things to be sort of optimized, PhD F: Is there {disfmarker}? Professor E: and {disfmarker} PhD F: I wonder if there's anything that we could do {vocalsound} to the front - end that would affect the insertion {disfmarker} Professor E: Yes. I think you can. PhD F: What could you do? Professor E: Well, um {disfmarker} uh, part of what's going on, um, is the, uh, the range of values. So, if you have something that has a much smaller range or a much larger range, and taking the appropriate root. PhD F: Oh. Mm - hmm. Professor E: You know? If something is kind of like the equivalent of a bunch of probabilities multiplied together, you can take a root of some sort. If it's like seven probabilities together, you can take the seventh root of it or something, or if it's in the log domain, divide it by seven. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But {disfmarker} but, um, that has a similar effect because it changes the scale of the numbers {disfmarker} of the differences between different candidates from the acoustic model PhD F: Oh, right. Professor E: as opposed to what's coming from the language model. PhD F: So that w Right. So, in effect, that's changing the value of your insertion penalty. Professor E: Yeah. I mean, it's more directly like the {disfmarker} the language scaling or the, uh {disfmarker} the model scaling or acoustic scaling, PhD F: That's interesting. Professor E: but you know that those things have kind of a similar effect to the insertion penalty PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: anyway. They're a slightly different way of {disfmarker} of handling it. PhD F: Right. Professor E: So, um {disfmarker} PhD F: So if we know what the insertion penalty is, then we can get an idea about what range our number should be in, Professor E: I think so. PhD F: so that they {pause} match with that. Professor E: Yeah. Yeah. So that's why I think that's another reason other than curiosity as to why i it would in fact be kinda neat to find out if we're way off. I mean, the other thing is, are aren't we seeing {disfmarker}? Y y PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: I'm sure you've already looked at this bu in these noisy cases, are {disfmarker}? We are seeing lots of insertions. Right? The insertion number is quite high? PhD B: Yeah. Professor E: I know the VAD takes pre care of part of that, PhD F: Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Professor E: but {disfmarker} PhD F: I've seen that with the mel cepstrum. I don't {disfmarker} I don't know about {pause} the Aurora front - end, but {disfmarker} PhD B: I think it's much more balanced with, uh {disfmarker} when the front - end is more robust. Yeah. I could look at it {disfmarker} at this. Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. Wha - what's a typical number? PhD B: I don't {disfmarker} I don't know. Professor E: Do we {disfmarker}? Oh, you {disfmarker} oh, you don't know. PhD B: I don't have this in {disfmarker} Professor E: OK. I'm sure it's more balanced, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: but it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it wouldn't surprise me if there's still {disfmarker} PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: I mean, in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the old systems we used to do, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} uh, I remember numbers kind of like insertions being half the number of deletions, as being {disfmarker} and both numbers being {disfmarker} tend to be on the small side comparing to {disfmarker} to, uh, substitutions. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD F: Well, this {disfmarker} the whole problem with insertions was what I think, um, we talked about when the guy from OGI came down {pause} that one time and {disfmarker} and that was when people were saying, well we should have a, uh, uh, voice activity detector {disfmarker} Professor E: Right. PhD F: that, because all that stuff {comment} that we're getting thr the silence that's getting through is causing insertions. So. PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: Right. PhD F: I'll bet you there's still a lot {vocalsound} of insertions. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. And it may be less of a critical thing. I mean, the fact that some get by may be less of a critical thing if you, uh, get things in the right range. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, I mean, the insertions is {disfmarker} is a symptom. It's a symptom that there's something, uh, wrong with the range. PhD F: Right. Professor E: But there's {disfmarker} uh, your {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} your substitutions tend to go up as well. So, uh, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that, PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: uh, the most obvious thing is just the insertions, @ @. But {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} um. If you're operating in the wrong range {disfmarker} I mean, that's why just in general, if you {vocalsound} change what these {disfmarker} these penalties and scaling factors are, you reach some point that's a {disfmarker} that's a minimum. So. Um. Um. We do have to do well over a range of different conditions, some of which are noisier than others. Um. But, um, I think we may get a better handle on that if we {disfmarker} if we see {disfmarker} Um, I mean we ca it's if we actually could pick a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a more stable value for the range of these features, it, um, uh, could {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} Even though it's {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's true that in a real situation you can in fact adjust the {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these scaling factors in the back - end, and it's ar artificial here that we're not adjusting those, you certainly don't wanna be adjusting those all the time. And if you have a nice front - end that's in roughly the right range {disfmarker} PhD F: Hmm. Professor E: I remember after we got our stuff more or less together in the previous systems we built, that we tended to set those scaling factors at kind of a standard level, and we would rarely adjust them again, even though you could get a {disfmarker} PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: for an evaluation you can get an extra point or something if you tweaked it a little bit. But, once we knew what rou roughly the right operating range was, it was pretty stable, and {disfmarker} Uh, we might just not even be in the right operating range. PhD F: So, would the {disfmarker}? Uh, would a good idea be to try to map it into the same range that you get in the well - matched case? So, if we computed what the range was in well - matched, and then when we get our noisy conditions out we try to make it have the same range as {disfmarker}? Professor E: No. You don't wanna change it for different conditions. No. No. I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} What {disfmarker} what I'm saying {disfmarker} PhD F: Oh, I wasn't suggesting change it for different conditions. I was just saying that when we pick a range, we {disfmarker} we wanna pick a range that we map our numbers into {disfmarker} Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: we should probably pick it based on the range that we get in the well - matched case. Otherwise, I mean, what range are we gonna choose to {disfmarker} to map everything into? Professor E: Well. It depends how much we wanna do gamesmanship and how much we wanna do {disfmarker} I mean, i if he it {disfmarker} to me, actually, even if you wanna be {disfmarker} play on the gamesmanship side, it can be kinda tricky. So, I mean, what you would do is set the {disfmarker} set the scaling factors, uh, so that you got the best number for this point four five times the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know, and so on. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But they might change that {disfmarker} those weightings. PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: Um. So {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} I just sorta think we need to explore the space. Just take a look at it a little bit. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: And we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we may just find that {disfmarker} that we're way off. PhD F: OK. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Maybe we're not. You know? As for these other things, it may turn out that, uh, {vocalsound} it's kind of reasonable. But then {disfmarker} I mean, Andreas gave a very reasonable response, and he's probably not gonna be the only one who's gonna say this in the future {disfmarker} of, you know, people {disfmarker} people within this tight - knit community who are doing this evaluation {vocalsound} are accepting, uh, more or less, that these are the rules. But, people outside of it who look in at the broader picture are certainly gonna say" Well, wait a minute. You're doing all this standing on your head, uh, on the front - end, PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: when all you could do is just adjust this in the back - end with one s one knob." PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: And so we have to at least, I think, determine that that's not true, which would be OK, or determine that it is true, in which case we want to adjust that and then continue with {disfmarker} with what we're doing. And as you say {disfmarker} as you point out {disfmarker} finding ways to then compensate for that in the front - end {vocalsound} also then becomes a priority for this particular test, PhD F: Right. Professor E: and saying you don't have to do that. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So. OK. So, uh {disfmarker} What's new with you? PhD B: Uh. So there's nothing {pause} new. Um. Professor E: Uh, what's old with you that's developed? PhD B: I'm sorry? Professor E: You {disfmarker} OK. What's old with you that has developed over the last week or two? PhD B: Mmm. Well, so we've been mainly working on the report and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} Yeah. PhD F: Mainly working on what? PhD B: On the report {pause} of the work that was already done. PhD F: Oh. PhD B: Um. Mm - hmm. That's all. PhD F: How about that {disfmarker}? Any - anything new on the thing that, uh, you were working on with the, uh {disfmarker}? PhD C: I don't have results yet. PhD F: No results? Yeah. Professor E: What was that? PhD F: The {disfmarker} the, uh, Grad A: Voicing thing. PhD F: voicing detector. Professor E: I mean, what what's {disfmarker} what's going on now? What are you {pause} doing? PhD C: Uh, to try to found, nnn, robust feature for detect between voice and unvoice. And we {disfmarker} w we try to use {vocalsound} the variance {vocalsound} of the es difference between the FFT spectrum and mel filter bank spectrum. Professor E: Yeah. PhD C: Uh, also the {disfmarker} another parameter is {disfmarker} relates with the auto - correlation function. Professor E: Uh - huh. PhD C: R - ze energy and the variance a also of the auto - correlation function. Professor E: Uh - huh. So, that's {disfmarker} Yeah. That's what you were describing, I guess, a week or two ago. PhD C: Yeah. But we don't have res we don't have result of the AURO for Aurora yet. Professor E: So. PhD C: We need to train the neural network Professor E: Mm - hmm. PhD C: and {disfmarker} Professor E: So you're training neural networks now? PhD C: No, not yet. Professor E: So, what {disfmarker} wha {vocalsound} wh wha what what's going on? PhD C: Well, we work in the report, too, because we have a lot of result, Professor E: Uh - huh. PhD C: they are very dispersed, and was necessary to {disfmarker} to look in all the directory to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to give some more structure. PhD B: Yea Professor E: So. B So {disfmarker} Yeah. I if I can summarize, basically what's going on is that you're going over a lot of material that you have generated in furious fashion, f generating many results and doing many experiments and trying to pull it together into some coherent form to be able to see wha see what happens. PhD C: Hm - hmm. PhD B: Uh, y yeah. Basically we we've stopped, uh, experimenting, Professor E: Yes? PhD B: I mean. We're just writing some kind of technical report. And {disfmarker} PhD F: Is this a report that's for Aurora? Or is it just like a tech report for ICSI, PhD C: No. PhD B: Yeah. PhD C: For ICSI. PhD F: or {disfmarker}? Ah. I see. PhD B: Yeah. PhD C: Just summary of the experiment and the conclusion and something like that. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: OK. So, my suggestion, though, is that you {disfmarker} you not necessarily finish that. But that you put it all together so that it's {disfmarker} you've got {disfmarker} you've got a clearer structure to it. You know what things are, you have things documented, you've looked things up that you needed to look up. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So that, you know {disfmarker} so that such a thing can be written. And, um {disfmarker} When {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when do you leave again? PhD C: Uh, in July. First of July. Professor E: First of July? OK. And that you figure on actually finishing it in {disfmarker} in June. Because, you know, you're gonna have another bunch of results to fit in there anyway. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor E: And right now it's kind of important that we actually go forward with experiments. PhD C: It's not. Professor E: So {disfmarker} so, I {disfmarker} I think it's good to pause, and to gather everything together and make sure it's in good shape, so that other people can get access to it and so that it can go into a report in June. But I think {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to really work on {disfmarker} on fine - tuning the report n at this point is {disfmarker} is probably bad timing, I {disfmarker} I {pause} think. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Well, we didn't {disfmarker} we just planned to work on it one week on this report, not {disfmarker} no more, anyway. Um. Professor E: But you ma you may really wanna add other things later anyway PhD B: Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor E: because you {disfmarker} PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: There's more to go? PhD B: Yeah. Well, so I don't know. There are small things that we started to {disfmarker} to do. But {disfmarker} PhD F: Are you discovering anything, uh, that makes you scratch your head as you write this report, like why did we do that, or why didn't we do this, PhD B: Uh. PhD F: or {disfmarker}? PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. And {disfmarker} Actually, there were some tables that were also with partial results. We just noticed that, wh while gathering the result that for some conditions we didn't have everything. PhD F: Mmm. PhD B: But anyway. Um. Yeah, yeah. We have, yeah, extracted actually the noises from {pause} the SpeechDat - Car. And so, we can train neural network with speech and these noises. Um. It's difficult to say what it will give, because when we look at the Aurora {disfmarker} the TI - digits experiments, um, they have these three conditions that have different noises, and apparently this system perform as well on the seen noises {disfmarker} on the unseen noises and on the seen noises. But, I think this is something we have to try anyway. So {disfmarker} adding the noises from {disfmarker} from the SpeechDat - Car. Um. Professor E: That's {disfmarker} that's, uh {disfmarker} that's permitted? PhD B: Uh. Well, OGI does {disfmarker} did that. Um. At some point they did that for {disfmarker} for the voice activity detector. PhD C: Uh, for a v VAD. PhD B: Right? Um. PhD F: Could you say it again? What {disfmarker} what exactly did they do? PhD B: They used some parts of the, um, Italian database to train the voice activity detector, I think. It {disfmarker} Professor E: Yeah. I guess the thing is {disfmarker} Yeah. I guess that's a matter of interpretation. The rules as I understand it, is that in principle the Italian and the Spanish and the English {disfmarker} no, Italian and the Finnish and the English? {disfmarker} were development data PhD B: Yeah. And Spanish, yeah. Professor E: on which you could adjust things. And the {disfmarker} and the German and Danish were the evaluation data. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: And then when they finally actually evaluated things they used everything. PhD B: Yeah. That's right. Uh {disfmarker} Professor E: So {disfmarker} Uh, and it is true that the performance, uh, on the German was {disfmarker} I mean, even though the improvement wasn't so good, the pre the raw performance was really pretty good. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So {disfmarker} And, uh, it {disfmarker} it doesn't appear that there's strong evidence that even though things were somewhat tuned on those three or four languages, that {disfmarker} that going to a different language really hurt you. And the noises were not exactly the same. Right? Because it was taken from a different, uh {disfmarker} I mean they were different drives. PhD B: Different cars. Yeah. Professor E: I mean, it was {disfmarker} it was actual different cars and so on. PhD B: Yeah. Professor E: So. Um, it's somewhat tuned. It's tuned more than, you know, a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: You'd really like to have something that needed no particular noise at all, maybe just some white noise or something like that a at most. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But that's not really what this contest is. So. Um, I guess it's OK. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: That's something I'd like to understand before we actually use something from it, PhD F: I think it's {disfmarker} Professor E: because it would {disfmarker} PhD F: it's probably something that, mmm, the {disfmarker} you know, the, uh, experiment designers didn't really think about, because I think most people aren't doing trained systems, or, you know, uh, systems that are like ours, where you actually use the data to build models. I mean, they just {pause} doing signal - processing. PhD B: Yeah. Professor E: Well, it's true, PhD F: So. Professor E: except that, uh, that's what we used in Aurora one, and then they designed the things for Aurora - two knowing that we were doing that. PhD F: Yeah. That's true. Professor E: Um. PhD F: And they didn't forbid us {disfmarker} right? {disfmarker} to build models on the data? Professor E: No. But, I think {disfmarker} I think that it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it probably would be the case that if, say, we trained on Italian, uh, data and then, uh, we tested on Danish data and it did terribly, uh, that {disfmarker} that it would look bad. And I think someone would notice and would say" Well, look. This is not generalizing." I would hope tha I would hope they would. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Um. But, uh, it's true. You know, maybe there's parameters that other people have used {disfmarker} you know, th that they have tuned in some way for other things. So it's {disfmarker} it's, uh {disfmarker} We should {disfmarker} we should {disfmarker} Maybe {disfmarker} that's maybe a topic {disfmarker} Especially if you talk with him when I'm not here, that's a topic you should discuss with Hynek PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: to, you know, double check it's OK. PhD F: Do we know anything about {pause} the speakers for each of the, uh, training utterances? PhD B: What do you mean? We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} PhD F: Do you have speaker information? Professor E: Social security number PhD F: That would be good. PhD B: Like, we have {pause} male, female, PhD C: Hmm. PhD F: Bank PIN. PhD B: at least. PhD F: Just male f female? PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: What kind of information do you mean? PhD F: Well, I was thinking about things like, you know, gender, uh {disfmarker} you know, gender - specific nets and, uh, vocal tract length normalization. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD F: Things like that. I d I don't {disfmarker} I didn't know what information we have about the speakers that we could try to take advantage of. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Hmm. Uh. Right. I mean, again, i if you had the whole system you were optimizing, that would be easy to see. But if you're {vocalsound} supposedly just using a fixed back - end and you're just coming up with a feature vector, w w I'm not sure {disfmarker} I mean, having the two nets {disfmarker} Suppose you detected that it was male, it was female {disfmarker} you come up with different {disfmarker} PhD F: Well, you could put them both in as separate streams or something. Uh. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Maybe. PhD F: I don't know. I was just wondering if there was other information we could exploit. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Hmm. Yeah, it's an interesting thought. Maybe having something along the {disfmarker} I mean, you can't really do vocal tract normalization. But something that had some of that effect PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: being applied to the data in some way. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Um. PhD B: Do you have something simple in mind for {disfmarker} I mean, vocal tract length normalization? PhD F: Uh no. I hadn't {disfmarker} I hadn't thought {disfmarker} it was {disfmarker} thought too much about it, really. It just {disfmarker} something that popped into my head just now. And so I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean, you could maybe use the ideas {disfmarker} a similar {pause} idea to what they do in vocal tract length normalization. You know, you have some sort of a, uh, general speech model, you know, maybe just a mixture of Gaussians that you evaluate every utterance against, and then you see where each, you know, utterance {disfmarker} like, the likelihood of each utterance. You divide the {disfmarker} the range of the likelihoods up into discrete bins and then each bin's got some knob {disfmarker} uh, setting. Professor E: Yeah. But just listen to yourself. I mean, that uh really doesn't sound like a real - time thing with less than two hundred milliseconds, uh, latency that {disfmarker} and where you're not adjusting the statistical engine at all. PhD F: Yeah. Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD F: Yeah. That's true. Professor E: You know, that just {disfmarker} PhD F: Right. PhD B: Hmm. Professor E: I mean {disfmarker} Yeah. PhD F: Could be expensive. Professor E: No. Well not just expensive. I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't see how you could possibly do it. You can't look at the whole utterance and do anything. You know, you can only {disfmarker} Right? PhD F: Oh, Professor E: Each frame comes in and it's gotta go out the other end. PhD F: right. Professor E: So, uh {disfmarker} PhD F: Right. So whatever it was, it would have to be uh sort of on a per frame basis. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. I mean, you can do, um {disfmarker} Fairly quickly you can do male female {disfmarker} f male female stuff. PhD F: Yeah. Yeah. Professor E: But as far as, I mean {disfmarker} Like I thought BBN did a thing with, uh, uh, vocal tract normalization a ways back. Maybe other people did too. With {disfmarker} with, uh, uh, l trying to identify third formant {disfmarker} average third formant {disfmarker} {vocalsound} using that as an indicator of {disfmarker} PhD F: I don't know. Professor E: So. You know, third formant {disfmarker} I if you imagine that to first order what happens with, uh, changing vocal tract is that, uh, the formants get moved out by some proportion {disfmarker} PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, if you had a first formant that was one hundred hertz before, if the fifty {disfmarker} if the vocal tract is fifty percent shorter, then it would be out at seven fifty hertz, and so on. So, that's a move of two hundred fifty hertz. Whereas the third formant which might have started off at twenty - five hundred hertz, you know, might be out to thirty - seven fifty, you know so it's at {disfmarker} So, although, you frequently get less distinct higher formants, it's still {disfmarker} third formant's kind of a reasonable compromise, and {disfmarker} PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, I think, eh, if I recall correctly, they did something like that. And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} PhD F: Hmm. Professor E: But {disfmarker} Um, that doesn't work for just having one frame or something. PhD F: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: You know? That's more like looking at third formant over {disfmarker} over a turn or something like that, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: and {disfmarker} PhD F: Right. Professor E: Um. So. But on the other hand, male female is a {disfmarker} is a {disfmarker} is a much simpler categorization than figuring out a {disfmarker} a factor to, uh, squish or expand the {disfmarker} the spectrum. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, um. Y you could imagine that {disfmarker} I mean, just like we're saying voiced - unvoiced is good to know {disfmarker} uh, male female is good to know also. Um. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But, you'd have to figure out a way to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to, uh, incorporate it on the fly. Uh, I mean, I guess, as you say, one thing you could do is simply, uh, have the {disfmarker} the male and female output vectors {disfmarker} you know, tr nets trained only on males and n trained only on females or {disfmarker} or, uh, you know. But {disfmarker} Um. I don't know if that would really help, because you already have males and females and it's mm - hmm putting into one net. So is it {disfmarker}? PhD F: Is it balanced, um, in terms of gender {disfmarker} the data? PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: Do you know? PhD B: Almost, yeah. PhD F: Hmm. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Hmm. OK. Y you're {disfmarker} you were saying before {disfmarker}? PhD B: Uh. Yeah. So, this noise, um {disfmarker} Yeah. The MSG {disfmarker} Um. Mmm. There is something {disfmarker} perhaps, I could spend some days to look at this thing, cuz it seems that when we train networks on {disfmarker} let's say, on TIMIT with MSG features, they {disfmarker} they look as good as networks trained on PLP. But, um, when they are used on {disfmarker} on the SpeechDat - Car data, it's not the case {disfmarker} oh, well. The MSG features are much worse, and so maybe they're, um, less {disfmarker} more sensitive to different recording conditions, or {disfmarker} Shou Professor E: Shouldn't be. They should be less so. PhD B: Yeah. But {disfmarker} Professor E: R right? PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: Wh -? But let me ask you this. What {disfmarker} what's the, um {disfmarker}? Do you kno recall if the insertions were {disfmarker} were higher with MSG? PhD B: I don't know. I cannot tell. But {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the error rate is higher. So, I don Professor E: Yeah. But you should always look at insertions, deletions, and substitutions. PhD B: Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor E: So {disfmarker} PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: so, uh {disfmarker} MSG is very, very dif Eh, PLP is very much like mel cepstrum. MSG is very different from both of them. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, if it's very different, then this is the sort of thing {disfmarker} I mean I'm really glad Andreas brought this point up. I {pause} sort of had forgotten to discuss it. Um. You always have to look at how this {disfmarker} uh, these adjustments, uh, affect things. And even though we're not allowed to do that, again we maybe could reflect that back to our use of the features. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So if it {disfmarker} if in fact, uh {disfmarker} The problem might be that the range of the MSG features is quite different than the range of the PLP or mel cepstrum. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor E: And you might wanna change that. PhD B: But {disfmarker} Yeah. But, it's d it's after {disfmarker} Well, it's tandem features, so {disfmarker} Mmm. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. We {disfmarker} we have estimation of post posteriors with PLP and with MSG as input, Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: so I don Well. I don't know. Professor E: That means they're between zero and one. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But i it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it doesn't necessarily {disfmarker} You know, they could be, um {disfmarker} Do - doesn't tell you what the variance of the things is. PhD B: Mmm. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Right? Cuz if you're taking the log of these things, it could be, uh {disfmarker} Knowing what the sum of the probabilities are, doesn't tell you what the sum of the logs are. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Professor E: So. PhD B: Yeah. So we should look at the likelihood, or {disfmarker} or what? Or {disfmarker} well, at the log, perhaps, and {disfmarker} Professor E: Yeah. Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Or what {disfmarker} you know, what you're uh {disfmarker} the thing you're actually looking at. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So your {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} the values that are {disfmarker} are actually being fed into HTK. PhD B: Mm - hmm. But {disfmarker} Professor E: What do they look like? PhD F: No And so th the, uh {disfmarker} for the tandem system, the values that come out of the net don't go through the sigmoid. Right? They're sort of the pre - nonlinearity values? PhD B: Yes. Professor E: Right. So they're {pause} kinda like log probabilities is what I was saying. PhD F: And those {disfmarker} OK. And tho that's what goes {pause} into {pause} HTK? Professor E: Uh, almost. But then you actually do a KLT on them. PhD F: OK. Professor E: Um. They aren't normalized after that, are they? PhD B: Mmm. No, they are not {disfmarker} no. Professor E: No. OK. So, um. Right. So the question is {disfmarker} Yeah. Whatever they are at that point, um, are they something for which taking a square root or cube root or fourth root or something like that is {disfmarker} is gonna be a good or a bad thing? So. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Uh, and that's something that nothing {disfmarker} nothing else after that is gonna {disfmarker} Uh, things are gonna scale it {disfmarker} Uh, you know, subtract things from it, scale it from it, but nothing will have that same effect. Um. So. Um. Anyway, eh {disfmarker} PhD F: Yeah. Cuz if {disfmarker} if the log probs that are coming out of the MSG are really big, the standard {pause} insertion penalty is gonna have very little effect Professor E: Well, the {disfmarker} Right. PhD F: compared to, you know, a smaller set of log probs. Professor E: Yeah. No. Again you don't really {pause} look at that. It's something {disfmarker} that, and then it's going through this transformation that's probably pretty close to {disfmarker} It's, eh, whatever the KLT is doing. But it's probably pretty close to what a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a discrete cosine transformation is doing. PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: But still it's {disfmarker} it's not gonna probably radically change the scale of things. I would think. And, uh {disfmarker} Yeah. It may be entirely off and {disfmarker} and it may be {disfmarker} at the very least it may be quite different for MSG than it is for mel cepstrum or PLP. So that would be {disfmarker} So the first thing I'd look at without adjusting anything would just be to go back to the experiment and look at the, uh, substitutions, insertions, and deletions. And if the {disfmarker} if the, uh {disfmarker} i if there's a fairly large effect of the difference, say, uh, uh, the r ratio between insertions and deletions for the two cases then that would be, uh, an indicator that it might {disfmarker} might be in that direction. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Yeah. But, Professor E: Anything else? PhD B: my {disfmarker} my point was more that it {disfmarker} it works sometimes and {disfmarker} but sometimes it doesn't work. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: So. Professor E: Well. PhD B: And it works on TI - digits and on SpeechDat - Car it doesn't work, and {disfmarker} Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Well. Professor E: But, you know, some problems are harder than others, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Professor E: and {disfmarker} And, uh, sometimes, you know, there's enough evidence for something to work and then it's harder, it breaks. You know, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: so it's {disfmarker} But it {disfmarker} but, um, i it {disfmarker} it could be that when you say it works maybe we could be doing much better, even in TI - digits. Right? PhD B: Yeah. Yeah, sure. Professor E: So. PhD B: Uh. Professor E: Hmm? Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Well, there is also the spectral subtraction, which, um {disfmarker} I think maybe we should, uh, try to integrate it in {disfmarker} in our system. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mmm. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Right. PhD B: But, Professor E: O PhD B: I think that would involve to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to mmm {vocalsound} use a big {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} al already a big bunch of the system of Ericsson. Because he has spectral subtraction, then it's followed by, {vocalsound} um, other kind of processing that's {disfmarker} are dependent on the {disfmarker} uh, if it's speech or noi or silence. Professor E: Mm - hmm. PhD B: And there is this kind of spectral flattening after {disfmarker} if it's silence, and {disfmarker} and s I {disfmarker} I think it's important, um, {vocalsound} to reduce this musical noise and this {disfmarker} this increase of variance during silence portions. So. Well. This was in this would involve to take almost everything from {disfmarker} from the {disfmarker} this proposal and {disfmarker} and then just add some kind of on - line normalization in {disfmarker} in the neural network. Mmm. Professor E: OK. Well, this'll be, I think, something for discussion with Hynek next week. PhD B: Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. OK. Right. So. How are, uh, uh {disfmarker} how are things going with what you're doing? Grad D: Oh. Well, um, I took a lot of time just getting my taxes out of the way {disfmarker} multi - national taxes. So, I'm {disfmarker} I'm starting to write code now for my work but I don't have any results yet. Um, i it would be good for me to talk to Hynek, I think, when he's here. Professor E: Yeah. Grad D: Do you know what his schedule will be like? Professor E: Uh, he'll be around for three days. Grad D: OK. So, y Professor E: Uh, we'll have a lot of time. Grad D: OK. Professor E: So, uh {disfmarker} Um. I'll, uh {disfmarker} You know, he's {disfmarker} he'll {disfmarker} he'll be talking with everybody in this room So. PhD F: But you said you won't {disfmarker} you won't be here next Thursday? Professor E: Not Thursday and Friday. Yeah. Cuz I will be at faculty retreat. PhD F: Hmm. Professor E: So. I'll try to {vocalsound} connect with him and people as {disfmarker} as I can on {disfmarker} on Wednesday. But {disfmarker} Um. Oh, how'd taxes go? Taxes go OK? Grad D: Mmm. Yeah. Professor E: Yeah. Oh, good. Yeah. Yeah. That's just {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} that's one of the big advantages of not making much money is {vocalsound} the taxes are easier. Yeah. PhD F: Unless you're getting money in two countries. Professor E: I think you are. Aren't you? PhD F: They both want their cut. PhD B: Hmm. Grad D: Hmm. Yeah. PhD F: Right? Professor E: Yeah. Yeah. Huh. Canada w Canada wants a cut? Grad D: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Have to do {disfmarker} So you {disfmarker} you have to do two returns? Grad D: Mmm. W uh, for two thousand I did. Yeah. Professor E: Oh, oh. Yeah. For tw That's right, ju PhD F: But not for this next year? Professor E: Two thousand. Yeah. Probably not this next year, I guess. Grad D: Ye Professor E: Yeah. Grad D: Um. Professor E: Yeah. Grad D: Uh, I'll {disfmarker} I'll still have a bit of Canadian income but it'll be less complicated because I will not be a {disfmarker} considered a resident of Canada anymore, so I won't have to declare my American income on my Canadian return. Professor E: OK. Alright. Uh. Barry, do you wanna {pause} say something about your stuff here? Grad A: Oh, um. Right. I {pause} just, um, continuing looking at, uh, ph uh, phonetic events, and, uh, this Tuesday gonna be, uh, meeting with John Ohala with Chuck to talk some more about these, uh, ph um, phonetic events. Um, came up with, uh, a plan of attack, uh, gonna execute, and um {disfmarker} Yeah. It's {disfmarker} that's pretty much it. Professor E: Oh, well. No Um, why don't you say something about what it is? Grad A: Oh, you {disfmarker} oh, you want {disfmarker} you want details. Hmm. OK. Professor E: Well, we're all gathered here together. I thought we'd, you know {disfmarker} Grad A: I was hoping I could wave my hands. Um. So, um. So, once wa I {disfmarker} I was thinking getting {disfmarker} getting us a set of acoustic events to {disfmarker} um, to be able to distinguish between, uh, phones and words and stuff. And {vocalsound} um, once we {disfmarker} we would figure out a set of these events that can be, you know, um, hand - labeled or {disfmarker} or derived, uh, from h the hand - labeled phone targets. Um, we could take these events and, um, {vocalsound} do some cheating experiments, um, where we feed, um, these events into {pause} an SRI system, um, eh, and evaluate its performance on a Switchboard task. Uh, yeah. Grad D: Hey, Barry? Can you give an example of an event? Grad A: Yeah. Sure. Um, I {disfmarker} I can give you an example of {pause} twenty - odd events. Um {disfmarker} So, he In this paper, um, it's talking about phoneme recognition using acoustic events. So, things like frication or, uh, nasality. Professor E: Whose paper is it? Grad A: Um, this is a paper by Hubener and Cardson {pause} Benson {disfmarker} Bernds - Berndsen. Professor E: Yeah. Huh. From, uh, University of Hamburg and Bielefeld. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor E: OK. Grad A: Um. PhD F: Yeah. I think the {disfmarker} just to expand a little bit on the idea of acoustic event. Grad A: Mm - hmm. PhD F: There's, um {disfmarker} in my mind, anyways, there's a difference between, um, acoustic features and acoustic events. And I think of acoustic features as being, um, things that linguists talk about, like, um {disfmarker} Professor E: So, stuff that's not based on data. PhD F: Stuff that's not based on data, necessarily. Professor E: Yeah. Oh, OK. Yeah. Yeah, OK. PhD F: Right. That's not based on, you know, acoustic data. So they talk about features for phones, like, uh, its height, Grad A: Yeah. PhD F: its tenseness, laxness, things like that, Grad A: Mm - hmm. PhD F: which may or may not be all that easy to measure in the acoustic signal. Versus an acoustic event, which is just {nonvocalsound} some {nonvocalsound} something in the acoustic signal {nonvocalsound} that is fairly easy to measure. Um. So it's, um {disfmarker} it's a little different, in {disfmarker} at least in my mind. Professor E: I mean, when we did the SPAM work {disfmarker} I mean, there we had {disfmarker} we had this notion of an, uh, auditory {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} auditory event. Grad A: Good. That's great. Professor E: And, uh, um, called them" avents" , uh, uh, uh, with an A at the front. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Uh. And the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the idea was something that occurred that is important to a bunch of neurons somewhere. So. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Um. A sudden change or a relatively rapid change in some spectral characteristic will {disfmarker} will do sort of this. I mean, there's certainly a bunch of {disfmarker} a bunch of places where you know that neurons are gonna fire because something novel has happened. That was {disfmarker} that was the main thing that we were focusing on there. But there's certainly other things beyond what we talked about there that aren't just sort of rapid changes, but {disfmarker} PhD F: It's kinda like the difference between top - down and bottom - up. Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: I think of the acoustic {disfmarker} you know, phonetic features as being top - down. You know, you look at the phone and you say this phone is supposed to be {disfmarker} you know, have this feature, this feature, and this feature. Whether tha those features show up in the acoustic signal is sort of irrelevant. Whereas, an acoustic event goes the other way. Here's the signal. Here's some event. Grad A: Mm - hmm. PhD F: What {disfmarker}? And then that {disfmarker} you know, that may map to this phone sometimes, and sometimes it may not. It just depen maybe depends on the context, things like that. Professor E: Mm - hmm. PhD F: And so it's sort of a different way of looking. Professor E: Mm - hmm. Grad A: Yeah. So. Yeah. Grad D: OK. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Um {disfmarker} Using these {disfmarker} these events, um, you know, we can {disfmarker} we can perform these {disfmarker} these, uh, cheating experiments. See how {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how good they are, um, in, um {disfmarker} in terms of phoneme recognition or word recognition. And, um {disfmarker} and then from that point on, I would, uh, s design robust event detectors, um, in a similar, um, wa spirit that Saul has done w uh, with his graphical models, and this {disfmarker} this probabilistic AND - OR model that he uses. Um, eh, try to extend it to, um {disfmarker} to account for other {disfmarker} other phenomena like, um, CMR co - modulation release. And, um {disfmarker} and maybe also investigate ways to {disfmarker} to modify the structure of these models, um, in a data - driven way, uh, similar to the way that, uh, Jeff {disfmarker} Jeff, uh, Bilmes did his work. Um, and while I'm {disfmarker} I'm doing these, um, event detectors, you know, I can ma mea measure my progress by comparing, um, the error rates in clean and noisy conditions to something like, uh, neural nets. Um, and {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so, once we have these {disfmarker} these, uh, event detectors, um, we could put them together and {disfmarker} and feed the outputs of the event detectors into {disfmarker} into the SRI, um, HMM {disfmarker} HMM system, and, um {disfmarker} and test it on {disfmarker} on Switchboard or, um, maybe even Aurora stuff. And, that's pretty much the {disfmarker} the big picture of {disfmarker} of um, the plan. Professor E: By the way, um, there's, uh, a couple people who are gonna be here {disfmarker} I forget if I already told you this, but, a couple people who are gonna be here for six months. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Uh {disfmarker} uh, there's a Professor Kollmeier, uh, from Germany who's, uh, uh, quite big in the, uh, hearing - aid signal - processing area and, um, Michael Kleinschmidt, who's worked with him, who also looks at {vocalsound} auditory properties inspired by various, uh, brain function things. Grad A: Hmm. Professor E: So, um, um, I think they'll be interesting to talk to, in this sort of issue as these detectors are {disfmarker} are, uh, developing. Grad A: Hmm. OK. Professor E: So, he looks at interesting {disfmarker} interesting things in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} different ways of looking at spectra in order to {disfmarker} to get various speech properties out. So. Grad A: OK. Professor E: OK. Well, short meeting, but that's OK. And, uh, we might as well do our digits. And like I say, I {disfmarker} I encourage you to go ahead and meet, uh, next week with, uh, uh, Hynek. Alright, I'll {disfmarker} I'll start. It's, uh, one thirty - five. seventeen OK

PhD F explained the difference between acoustic features and acoustic events. Acoustic features are what linguists talk about whereas acoustic events are measurable properties of the acoustic signal, like its height.

tr-sq-653

tr-sq-653_0

What did the professor think about acoustic events? Professor E: Let's see. Test? Test? Yeah. OK. Grad A: Hello? PhD B: Channel one. Grad A: Hello? PhD C: Test. Professor E: I was saying Hynek'll be here next week, uh, Wednesday through Friday {disfmarker} uh, through Saturday, and, um, I won't be here Thursday and Friday. But my suggestion is that, uh, at least for this meeting, people should go ahead, uh, cuz Hynek will be here, and, you know, we don't have any Czech accent yet, uh, {vocalsound} as far as I know, so {disfmarker} There we go. PhD F: OK. Professor E: Um. So other than reading digits, what's our agenda? PhD F: I don't really have, uh, anything new. Been working on {pause} Meeting Recorder stuff. So. Professor E: OK. Um. Do you think that would be the case for next week also? Or is {disfmarker} is, uh {disfmarker}? What's your projection on {disfmarker}? PhD F: Um. Professor E: Cuz the one thing {disfmarker} the one thing that seems to me we really should try, if you hadn't tried it before, because it hadn't occurred to me {disfmarker} it was sort of an obvious thing {disfmarker} is, um, adjusting the, uh, sca the scaling and, uh, insertion penalty sorta stuff. PhD F: I did play with that, actually, a little bit. Um. What happens is, uh, {vocalsound} when you get to the noisy stuff, you start getting lots of insertions. Professor E: Right. PhD F: And, um, so I've tried playing around a little bit with, um, the insertion penalties and things like that. Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: Um. I mean, it {disfmarker} it didn't make a whole lot of difference. Like for the well - matched case, it seemed like it was pretty good. Um. {vocalsound} I could do more playing with that, though. And, uh {disfmarker} Professor E: But you were looking at mel cepstrum. PhD F: and see. Yes. Professor E: Right. PhD F: Oh, you're talking about for th {vocalsound} for our features. Professor E: Right. So, I mean, i it it's not the direction that you were working with that we were saying what's the {disfmarker} uh, what's the best you can do with {disfmarker} with mel cepstrum. But, they raised a very valid point, PhD F: Mmm. Professor E: which, I guess {disfmarker} So, to first order {disfmarker} I mean, you have other things you were gonna do, but to first order, I would say that the conclusion is that if you, um, do, uh, some monkeying around with, uh, the exact HTK training and @ @ {comment} with, uh, you know, how many states and so forth, that it {disfmarker} it doesn't particularly improve the performance. In other words, that even though it sounds pretty dumb, just applying the same number of states to everything, more or less, no matter what language, isn't so bad. Right? And I guess you hadn't gotten to all the experiments you wanted to do with number of Gaussians, PhD F: Right. Professor E: but, um, let's just {disfmarker} If we had to {disfmarker} if we had to draw a conclusion on the information we have so far, we'd say something like that. Right? PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Uh, so the next question to ask, which is I think the one that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that Andreas was dre addressing himself to in the lunch meeting, is, um, we're not supposed to adjust the back - end, but anybody using the system would. PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: So, if you were just adjusting the back - end, how much better would you do, uh, in noise? Uh, because the language scaling and insertion penalties and so forth are probably set to be about right for mel cepstrum. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But, um, they're probably not at all set right for these things, particularly these things that look over, uh, larger time windows, in one way or another with {disfmarker} with LDA and KLT and neural nets and {vocalsound} all these things. In the fa past we've always found that we had to increase the insertion penalty to {disfmarker} to correspond to such things. So, I think that's, uh, @ @ {comment} that's kind of a first - order thing that {disfmarker} that we should try. PhD F: So for th so the experiment is to, um, run our front - end like normal, with the default, uh, insertion penalties and so forth, and then tweak that a little bit and see how much of a difference it makes Professor E: So by" our front - end" I mean take, you know, the Aurora - two s take some version that Stephane has that is, you know, our current best version of something. PhD F: if we were {disfmarker} Mm - hmm. Professor E: Um. I mean, y don't wanna do this over a hundred different things that they've tried but, you know, for some version that you say is a good one. You know? Um. How {disfmarker} how much, uh, does it improve if you actually adjust that? PhD F: OK. Professor E: But it is interesting. You say you {disfmarker} you have for the noisy {disfmarker} How about for the {disfmarker} for the mismatched or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or the {disfmarker} or the medium mismatched conditions? Have you {disfmarker}? When you adjusted those numbers for mel cepstrum, did it {disfmarker}? PhD F: Uh, I {disfmarker} I don't remember off the top of my head. Um. Yeah. I didn't even write them down. I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't remember. I would need to {disfmarker} Well, I did write down, um {disfmarker} So, when I was doing {disfmarker} I just wrote down some numbers for the well - matched case. Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: Um. Looking at the {disfmarker} I wrote down what the deletions, substitutions, and insertions were, uh, for different numbers of states per phone. Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: Um, but, uh, that {disfmarker} that's all I wrote down. Professor E: OK. PhD F: So. I {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} Yeah. I would need to do that. Professor E: OK. So {disfmarker} PhD F: I can do that for next week. Professor E: Yeah. And, um {disfmarker} Yeah. Also, eh, eh, sometimes if you run behind on some of these things, maybe we can get someone else to do it and you can supervise or something. But {disfmarker} but I think it would be {disfmarker} it'd be good to know that. PhD F: OK. I just need to get, um, {vocalsound} front - end, uh, stuff from you PhD B: Hmm. PhD F: or you point me to some files {pause} that you've already calculated. PhD B: Yeah. Alright. Professor E: OK. Uh. PhD F: I probably will have time to do that and time to play a little bit with the silence model. Professor E: Mm - hmm. PhD F: So maybe I can have that for next week when Hynek's here. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. Cuz, I mean, the {disfmarker} the other {disfmarker} That, in fact, might have been part of what, uh, the difference was {disfmarker} at least part of it that {disfmarker} that we were seeing. Remember we were seeing the SRI system was so much better than the tandem system. PhD F: Hmm. Professor E: Part of it might just be that the SRI system, they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they always adjust these things to be sort of optimized, PhD F: Is there {disfmarker}? Professor E: and {disfmarker} PhD F: I wonder if there's anything that we could do {vocalsound} to the front - end that would affect the insertion {disfmarker} Professor E: Yes. I think you can. PhD F: What could you do? Professor E: Well, um {disfmarker} uh, part of what's going on, um, is the, uh, the range of values. So, if you have something that has a much smaller range or a much larger range, and taking the appropriate root. PhD F: Oh. Mm - hmm. Professor E: You know? If something is kind of like the equivalent of a bunch of probabilities multiplied together, you can take a root of some sort. If it's like seven probabilities together, you can take the seventh root of it or something, or if it's in the log domain, divide it by seven. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But {disfmarker} but, um, that has a similar effect because it changes the scale of the numbers {disfmarker} of the differences between different candidates from the acoustic model PhD F: Oh, right. Professor E: as opposed to what's coming from the language model. PhD F: So that w Right. So, in effect, that's changing the value of your insertion penalty. Professor E: Yeah. I mean, it's more directly like the {disfmarker} the language scaling or the, uh {disfmarker} the model scaling or acoustic scaling, PhD F: That's interesting. Professor E: but you know that those things have kind of a similar effect to the insertion penalty PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: anyway. They're a slightly different way of {disfmarker} of handling it. PhD F: Right. Professor E: So, um {disfmarker} PhD F: So if we know what the insertion penalty is, then we can get an idea about what range our number should be in, Professor E: I think so. PhD F: so that they {pause} match with that. Professor E: Yeah. Yeah. So that's why I think that's another reason other than curiosity as to why i it would in fact be kinda neat to find out if we're way off. I mean, the other thing is, are aren't we seeing {disfmarker}? Y y PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: I'm sure you've already looked at this bu in these noisy cases, are {disfmarker}? We are seeing lots of insertions. Right? The insertion number is quite high? PhD B: Yeah. Professor E: I know the VAD takes pre care of part of that, PhD F: Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Professor E: but {disfmarker} PhD F: I've seen that with the mel cepstrum. I don't {disfmarker} I don't know about {pause} the Aurora front - end, but {disfmarker} PhD B: I think it's much more balanced with, uh {disfmarker} when the front - end is more robust. Yeah. I could look at it {disfmarker} at this. Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. Wha - what's a typical number? PhD B: I don't {disfmarker} I don't know. Professor E: Do we {disfmarker}? Oh, you {disfmarker} oh, you don't know. PhD B: I don't have this in {disfmarker} Professor E: OK. I'm sure it's more balanced, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: but it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it wouldn't surprise me if there's still {disfmarker} PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: I mean, in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the old systems we used to do, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} uh, I remember numbers kind of like insertions being half the number of deletions, as being {disfmarker} and both numbers being {disfmarker} tend to be on the small side comparing to {disfmarker} to, uh, substitutions. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD F: Well, this {disfmarker} the whole problem with insertions was what I think, um, we talked about when the guy from OGI came down {pause} that one time and {disfmarker} and that was when people were saying, well we should have a, uh, uh, voice activity detector {disfmarker} Professor E: Right. PhD F: that, because all that stuff {comment} that we're getting thr the silence that's getting through is causing insertions. So. PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: Right. PhD F: I'll bet you there's still a lot {vocalsound} of insertions. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. And it may be less of a critical thing. I mean, the fact that some get by may be less of a critical thing if you, uh, get things in the right range. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, I mean, the insertions is {disfmarker} is a symptom. It's a symptom that there's something, uh, wrong with the range. PhD F: Right. Professor E: But there's {disfmarker} uh, your {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} your substitutions tend to go up as well. So, uh, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that, PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: uh, the most obvious thing is just the insertions, @ @. But {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} um. If you're operating in the wrong range {disfmarker} I mean, that's why just in general, if you {vocalsound} change what these {disfmarker} these penalties and scaling factors are, you reach some point that's a {disfmarker} that's a minimum. So. Um. Um. We do have to do well over a range of different conditions, some of which are noisier than others. Um. But, um, I think we may get a better handle on that if we {disfmarker} if we see {disfmarker} Um, I mean we ca it's if we actually could pick a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a more stable value for the range of these features, it, um, uh, could {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} Even though it's {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's true that in a real situation you can in fact adjust the {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these scaling factors in the back - end, and it's ar artificial here that we're not adjusting those, you certainly don't wanna be adjusting those all the time. And if you have a nice front - end that's in roughly the right range {disfmarker} PhD F: Hmm. Professor E: I remember after we got our stuff more or less together in the previous systems we built, that we tended to set those scaling factors at kind of a standard level, and we would rarely adjust them again, even though you could get a {disfmarker} PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: for an evaluation you can get an extra point or something if you tweaked it a little bit. But, once we knew what rou roughly the right operating range was, it was pretty stable, and {disfmarker} Uh, we might just not even be in the right operating range. PhD F: So, would the {disfmarker}? Uh, would a good idea be to try to map it into the same range that you get in the well - matched case? So, if we computed what the range was in well - matched, and then when we get our noisy conditions out we try to make it have the same range as {disfmarker}? Professor E: No. You don't wanna change it for different conditions. No. No. I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} What {disfmarker} what I'm saying {disfmarker} PhD F: Oh, I wasn't suggesting change it for different conditions. I was just saying that when we pick a range, we {disfmarker} we wanna pick a range that we map our numbers into {disfmarker} Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: we should probably pick it based on the range that we get in the well - matched case. Otherwise, I mean, what range are we gonna choose to {disfmarker} to map everything into? Professor E: Well. It depends how much we wanna do gamesmanship and how much we wanna do {disfmarker} I mean, i if he it {disfmarker} to me, actually, even if you wanna be {disfmarker} play on the gamesmanship side, it can be kinda tricky. So, I mean, what you would do is set the {disfmarker} set the scaling factors, uh, so that you got the best number for this point four five times the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know, and so on. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But they might change that {disfmarker} those weightings. PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: Um. So {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} I just sorta think we need to explore the space. Just take a look at it a little bit. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: And we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we may just find that {disfmarker} that we're way off. PhD F: OK. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Maybe we're not. You know? As for these other things, it may turn out that, uh, {vocalsound} it's kind of reasonable. But then {disfmarker} I mean, Andreas gave a very reasonable response, and he's probably not gonna be the only one who's gonna say this in the future {disfmarker} of, you know, people {disfmarker} people within this tight - knit community who are doing this evaluation {vocalsound} are accepting, uh, more or less, that these are the rules. But, people outside of it who look in at the broader picture are certainly gonna say" Well, wait a minute. You're doing all this standing on your head, uh, on the front - end, PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: when all you could do is just adjust this in the back - end with one s one knob." PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: And so we have to at least, I think, determine that that's not true, which would be OK, or determine that it is true, in which case we want to adjust that and then continue with {disfmarker} with what we're doing. And as you say {disfmarker} as you point out {disfmarker} finding ways to then compensate for that in the front - end {vocalsound} also then becomes a priority for this particular test, PhD F: Right. Professor E: and saying you don't have to do that. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So. OK. So, uh {disfmarker} What's new with you? PhD B: Uh. So there's nothing {pause} new. Um. Professor E: Uh, what's old with you that's developed? PhD B: I'm sorry? Professor E: You {disfmarker} OK. What's old with you that has developed over the last week or two? PhD B: Mmm. Well, so we've been mainly working on the report and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} Yeah. PhD F: Mainly working on what? PhD B: On the report {pause} of the work that was already done. PhD F: Oh. PhD B: Um. Mm - hmm. That's all. PhD F: How about that {disfmarker}? Any - anything new on the thing that, uh, you were working on with the, uh {disfmarker}? PhD C: I don't have results yet. PhD F: No results? Yeah. Professor E: What was that? PhD F: The {disfmarker} the, uh, Grad A: Voicing thing. PhD F: voicing detector. Professor E: I mean, what what's {disfmarker} what's going on now? What are you {pause} doing? PhD C: Uh, to try to found, nnn, robust feature for detect between voice and unvoice. And we {disfmarker} w we try to use {vocalsound} the variance {vocalsound} of the es difference between the FFT spectrum and mel filter bank spectrum. Professor E: Yeah. PhD C: Uh, also the {disfmarker} another parameter is {disfmarker} relates with the auto - correlation function. Professor E: Uh - huh. PhD C: R - ze energy and the variance a also of the auto - correlation function. Professor E: Uh - huh. So, that's {disfmarker} Yeah. That's what you were describing, I guess, a week or two ago. PhD C: Yeah. But we don't have res we don't have result of the AURO for Aurora yet. Professor E: So. PhD C: We need to train the neural network Professor E: Mm - hmm. PhD C: and {disfmarker} Professor E: So you're training neural networks now? PhD C: No, not yet. Professor E: So, what {disfmarker} wha {vocalsound} wh wha what what's going on? PhD C: Well, we work in the report, too, because we have a lot of result, Professor E: Uh - huh. PhD C: they are very dispersed, and was necessary to {disfmarker} to look in all the directory to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to give some more structure. PhD B: Yea Professor E: So. B So {disfmarker} Yeah. I if I can summarize, basically what's going on is that you're going over a lot of material that you have generated in furious fashion, f generating many results and doing many experiments and trying to pull it together into some coherent form to be able to see wha see what happens. PhD C: Hm - hmm. PhD B: Uh, y yeah. Basically we we've stopped, uh, experimenting, Professor E: Yes? PhD B: I mean. We're just writing some kind of technical report. And {disfmarker} PhD F: Is this a report that's for Aurora? Or is it just like a tech report for ICSI, PhD C: No. PhD B: Yeah. PhD C: For ICSI. PhD F: or {disfmarker}? Ah. I see. PhD B: Yeah. PhD C: Just summary of the experiment and the conclusion and something like that. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: OK. So, my suggestion, though, is that you {disfmarker} you not necessarily finish that. But that you put it all together so that it's {disfmarker} you've got {disfmarker} you've got a clearer structure to it. You know what things are, you have things documented, you've looked things up that you needed to look up. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So that, you know {disfmarker} so that such a thing can be written. And, um {disfmarker} When {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when do you leave again? PhD C: Uh, in July. First of July. Professor E: First of July? OK. And that you figure on actually finishing it in {disfmarker} in June. Because, you know, you're gonna have another bunch of results to fit in there anyway. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor E: And right now it's kind of important that we actually go forward with experiments. PhD C: It's not. Professor E: So {disfmarker} so, I {disfmarker} I think it's good to pause, and to gather everything together and make sure it's in good shape, so that other people can get access to it and so that it can go into a report in June. But I think {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to really work on {disfmarker} on fine - tuning the report n at this point is {disfmarker} is probably bad timing, I {disfmarker} I {pause} think. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Well, we didn't {disfmarker} we just planned to work on it one week on this report, not {disfmarker} no more, anyway. Um. Professor E: But you ma you may really wanna add other things later anyway PhD B: Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor E: because you {disfmarker} PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: There's more to go? PhD B: Yeah. Well, so I don't know. There are small things that we started to {disfmarker} to do. But {disfmarker} PhD F: Are you discovering anything, uh, that makes you scratch your head as you write this report, like why did we do that, or why didn't we do this, PhD B: Uh. PhD F: or {disfmarker}? PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. And {disfmarker} Actually, there were some tables that were also with partial results. We just noticed that, wh while gathering the result that for some conditions we didn't have everything. PhD F: Mmm. PhD B: But anyway. Um. Yeah, yeah. We have, yeah, extracted actually the noises from {pause} the SpeechDat - Car. And so, we can train neural network with speech and these noises. Um. It's difficult to say what it will give, because when we look at the Aurora {disfmarker} the TI - digits experiments, um, they have these three conditions that have different noises, and apparently this system perform as well on the seen noises {disfmarker} on the unseen noises and on the seen noises. But, I think this is something we have to try anyway. So {disfmarker} adding the noises from {disfmarker} from the SpeechDat - Car. Um. Professor E: That's {disfmarker} that's, uh {disfmarker} that's permitted? PhD B: Uh. Well, OGI does {disfmarker} did that. Um. At some point they did that for {disfmarker} for the voice activity detector. PhD C: Uh, for a v VAD. PhD B: Right? Um. PhD F: Could you say it again? What {disfmarker} what exactly did they do? PhD B: They used some parts of the, um, Italian database to train the voice activity detector, I think. It {disfmarker} Professor E: Yeah. I guess the thing is {disfmarker} Yeah. I guess that's a matter of interpretation. The rules as I understand it, is that in principle the Italian and the Spanish and the English {disfmarker} no, Italian and the Finnish and the English? {disfmarker} were development data PhD B: Yeah. And Spanish, yeah. Professor E: on which you could adjust things. And the {disfmarker} and the German and Danish were the evaluation data. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: And then when they finally actually evaluated things they used everything. PhD B: Yeah. That's right. Uh {disfmarker} Professor E: So {disfmarker} Uh, and it is true that the performance, uh, on the German was {disfmarker} I mean, even though the improvement wasn't so good, the pre the raw performance was really pretty good. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So {disfmarker} And, uh, it {disfmarker} it doesn't appear that there's strong evidence that even though things were somewhat tuned on those three or four languages, that {disfmarker} that going to a different language really hurt you. And the noises were not exactly the same. Right? Because it was taken from a different, uh {disfmarker} I mean they were different drives. PhD B: Different cars. Yeah. Professor E: I mean, it was {disfmarker} it was actual different cars and so on. PhD B: Yeah. Professor E: So. Um, it's somewhat tuned. It's tuned more than, you know, a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: You'd really like to have something that needed no particular noise at all, maybe just some white noise or something like that a at most. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But that's not really what this contest is. So. Um, I guess it's OK. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: That's something I'd like to understand before we actually use something from it, PhD F: I think it's {disfmarker} Professor E: because it would {disfmarker} PhD F: it's probably something that, mmm, the {disfmarker} you know, the, uh, experiment designers didn't really think about, because I think most people aren't doing trained systems, or, you know, uh, systems that are like ours, where you actually use the data to build models. I mean, they just {pause} doing signal - processing. PhD B: Yeah. Professor E: Well, it's true, PhD F: So. Professor E: except that, uh, that's what we used in Aurora one, and then they designed the things for Aurora - two knowing that we were doing that. PhD F: Yeah. That's true. Professor E: Um. PhD F: And they didn't forbid us {disfmarker} right? {disfmarker} to build models on the data? Professor E: No. But, I think {disfmarker} I think that it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it probably would be the case that if, say, we trained on Italian, uh, data and then, uh, we tested on Danish data and it did terribly, uh, that {disfmarker} that it would look bad. And I think someone would notice and would say" Well, look. This is not generalizing." I would hope tha I would hope they would. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Um. But, uh, it's true. You know, maybe there's parameters that other people have used {disfmarker} you know, th that they have tuned in some way for other things. So it's {disfmarker} it's, uh {disfmarker} We should {disfmarker} we should {disfmarker} Maybe {disfmarker} that's maybe a topic {disfmarker} Especially if you talk with him when I'm not here, that's a topic you should discuss with Hynek PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: to, you know, double check it's OK. PhD F: Do we know anything about {pause} the speakers for each of the, uh, training utterances? PhD B: What do you mean? We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} PhD F: Do you have speaker information? Professor E: Social security number PhD F: That would be good. PhD B: Like, we have {pause} male, female, PhD C: Hmm. PhD F: Bank PIN. PhD B: at least. PhD F: Just male f female? PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: What kind of information do you mean? PhD F: Well, I was thinking about things like, you know, gender, uh {disfmarker} you know, gender - specific nets and, uh, vocal tract length normalization. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD F: Things like that. I d I don't {disfmarker} I didn't know what information we have about the speakers that we could try to take advantage of. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Hmm. Uh. Right. I mean, again, i if you had the whole system you were optimizing, that would be easy to see. But if you're {vocalsound} supposedly just using a fixed back - end and you're just coming up with a feature vector, w w I'm not sure {disfmarker} I mean, having the two nets {disfmarker} Suppose you detected that it was male, it was female {disfmarker} you come up with different {disfmarker} PhD F: Well, you could put them both in as separate streams or something. Uh. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Maybe. PhD F: I don't know. I was just wondering if there was other information we could exploit. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Hmm. Yeah, it's an interesting thought. Maybe having something along the {disfmarker} I mean, you can't really do vocal tract normalization. But something that had some of that effect PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: being applied to the data in some way. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Um. PhD B: Do you have something simple in mind for {disfmarker} I mean, vocal tract length normalization? PhD F: Uh no. I hadn't {disfmarker} I hadn't thought {disfmarker} it was {disfmarker} thought too much about it, really. It just {disfmarker} something that popped into my head just now. And so I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean, you could maybe use the ideas {disfmarker} a similar {pause} idea to what they do in vocal tract length normalization. You know, you have some sort of a, uh, general speech model, you know, maybe just a mixture of Gaussians that you evaluate every utterance against, and then you see where each, you know, utterance {disfmarker} like, the likelihood of each utterance. You divide the {disfmarker} the range of the likelihoods up into discrete bins and then each bin's got some knob {disfmarker} uh, setting. Professor E: Yeah. But just listen to yourself. I mean, that uh really doesn't sound like a real - time thing with less than two hundred milliseconds, uh, latency that {disfmarker} and where you're not adjusting the statistical engine at all. PhD F: Yeah. Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD F: Yeah. That's true. Professor E: You know, that just {disfmarker} PhD F: Right. PhD B: Hmm. Professor E: I mean {disfmarker} Yeah. PhD F: Could be expensive. Professor E: No. Well not just expensive. I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't see how you could possibly do it. You can't look at the whole utterance and do anything. You know, you can only {disfmarker} Right? PhD F: Oh, Professor E: Each frame comes in and it's gotta go out the other end. PhD F: right. Professor E: So, uh {disfmarker} PhD F: Right. So whatever it was, it would have to be uh sort of on a per frame basis. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. I mean, you can do, um {disfmarker} Fairly quickly you can do male female {disfmarker} f male female stuff. PhD F: Yeah. Yeah. Professor E: But as far as, I mean {disfmarker} Like I thought BBN did a thing with, uh, uh, vocal tract normalization a ways back. Maybe other people did too. With {disfmarker} with, uh, uh, l trying to identify third formant {disfmarker} average third formant {disfmarker} {vocalsound} using that as an indicator of {disfmarker} PhD F: I don't know. Professor E: So. You know, third formant {disfmarker} I if you imagine that to first order what happens with, uh, changing vocal tract is that, uh, the formants get moved out by some proportion {disfmarker} PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, if you had a first formant that was one hundred hertz before, if the fifty {disfmarker} if the vocal tract is fifty percent shorter, then it would be out at seven fifty hertz, and so on. So, that's a move of two hundred fifty hertz. Whereas the third formant which might have started off at twenty - five hundred hertz, you know, might be out to thirty - seven fifty, you know so it's at {disfmarker} So, although, you frequently get less distinct higher formants, it's still {disfmarker} third formant's kind of a reasonable compromise, and {disfmarker} PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, I think, eh, if I recall correctly, they did something like that. And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} PhD F: Hmm. Professor E: But {disfmarker} Um, that doesn't work for just having one frame or something. PhD F: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: You know? That's more like looking at third formant over {disfmarker} over a turn or something like that, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: and {disfmarker} PhD F: Right. Professor E: Um. So. But on the other hand, male female is a {disfmarker} is a {disfmarker} is a much simpler categorization than figuring out a {disfmarker} a factor to, uh, squish or expand the {disfmarker} the spectrum. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, um. Y you could imagine that {disfmarker} I mean, just like we're saying voiced - unvoiced is good to know {disfmarker} uh, male female is good to know also. Um. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But, you'd have to figure out a way to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to, uh, incorporate it on the fly. Uh, I mean, I guess, as you say, one thing you could do is simply, uh, have the {disfmarker} the male and female output vectors {disfmarker} you know, tr nets trained only on males and n trained only on females or {disfmarker} or, uh, you know. But {disfmarker} Um. I don't know if that would really help, because you already have males and females and it's mm - hmm putting into one net. So is it {disfmarker}? PhD F: Is it balanced, um, in terms of gender {disfmarker} the data? PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: Do you know? PhD B: Almost, yeah. PhD F: Hmm. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Hmm. OK. Y you're {disfmarker} you were saying before {disfmarker}? PhD B: Uh. Yeah. So, this noise, um {disfmarker} Yeah. The MSG {disfmarker} Um. Mmm. There is something {disfmarker} perhaps, I could spend some days to look at this thing, cuz it seems that when we train networks on {disfmarker} let's say, on TIMIT with MSG features, they {disfmarker} they look as good as networks trained on PLP. But, um, when they are used on {disfmarker} on the SpeechDat - Car data, it's not the case {disfmarker} oh, well. The MSG features are much worse, and so maybe they're, um, less {disfmarker} more sensitive to different recording conditions, or {disfmarker} Shou Professor E: Shouldn't be. They should be less so. PhD B: Yeah. But {disfmarker} Professor E: R right? PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: Wh -? But let me ask you this. What {disfmarker} what's the, um {disfmarker}? Do you kno recall if the insertions were {disfmarker} were higher with MSG? PhD B: I don't know. I cannot tell. But {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the error rate is higher. So, I don Professor E: Yeah. But you should always look at insertions, deletions, and substitutions. PhD B: Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor E: So {disfmarker} PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: so, uh {disfmarker} MSG is very, very dif Eh, PLP is very much like mel cepstrum. MSG is very different from both of them. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, if it's very different, then this is the sort of thing {disfmarker} I mean I'm really glad Andreas brought this point up. I {pause} sort of had forgotten to discuss it. Um. You always have to look at how this {disfmarker} uh, these adjustments, uh, affect things. And even though we're not allowed to do that, again we maybe could reflect that back to our use of the features. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So if it {disfmarker} if in fact, uh {disfmarker} The problem might be that the range of the MSG features is quite different than the range of the PLP or mel cepstrum. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor E: And you might wanna change that. PhD B: But {disfmarker} Yeah. But, it's d it's after {disfmarker} Well, it's tandem features, so {disfmarker} Mmm. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. We {disfmarker} we have estimation of post posteriors with PLP and with MSG as input, Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: so I don Well. I don't know. Professor E: That means they're between zero and one. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But i it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it doesn't necessarily {disfmarker} You know, they could be, um {disfmarker} Do - doesn't tell you what the variance of the things is. PhD B: Mmm. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Right? Cuz if you're taking the log of these things, it could be, uh {disfmarker} Knowing what the sum of the probabilities are, doesn't tell you what the sum of the logs are. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Professor E: So. PhD B: Yeah. So we should look at the likelihood, or {disfmarker} or what? Or {disfmarker} well, at the log, perhaps, and {disfmarker} Professor E: Yeah. Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Or what {disfmarker} you know, what you're uh {disfmarker} the thing you're actually looking at. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So your {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} the values that are {disfmarker} are actually being fed into HTK. PhD B: Mm - hmm. But {disfmarker} Professor E: What do they look like? PhD F: No And so th the, uh {disfmarker} for the tandem system, the values that come out of the net don't go through the sigmoid. Right? They're sort of the pre - nonlinearity values? PhD B: Yes. Professor E: Right. So they're {pause} kinda like log probabilities is what I was saying. PhD F: And those {disfmarker} OK. And tho that's what goes {pause} into {pause} HTK? Professor E: Uh, almost. But then you actually do a KLT on them. PhD F: OK. Professor E: Um. They aren't normalized after that, are they? PhD B: Mmm. No, they are not {disfmarker} no. Professor E: No. OK. So, um. Right. So the question is {disfmarker} Yeah. Whatever they are at that point, um, are they something for which taking a square root or cube root or fourth root or something like that is {disfmarker} is gonna be a good or a bad thing? So. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Uh, and that's something that nothing {disfmarker} nothing else after that is gonna {disfmarker} Uh, things are gonna scale it {disfmarker} Uh, you know, subtract things from it, scale it from it, but nothing will have that same effect. Um. So. Um. Anyway, eh {disfmarker} PhD F: Yeah. Cuz if {disfmarker} if the log probs that are coming out of the MSG are really big, the standard {pause} insertion penalty is gonna have very little effect Professor E: Well, the {disfmarker} Right. PhD F: compared to, you know, a smaller set of log probs. Professor E: Yeah. No. Again you don't really {pause} look at that. It's something {disfmarker} that, and then it's going through this transformation that's probably pretty close to {disfmarker} It's, eh, whatever the KLT is doing. But it's probably pretty close to what a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a discrete cosine transformation is doing. PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: But still it's {disfmarker} it's not gonna probably radically change the scale of things. I would think. And, uh {disfmarker} Yeah. It may be entirely off and {disfmarker} and it may be {disfmarker} at the very least it may be quite different for MSG than it is for mel cepstrum or PLP. So that would be {disfmarker} So the first thing I'd look at without adjusting anything would just be to go back to the experiment and look at the, uh, substitutions, insertions, and deletions. And if the {disfmarker} if the, uh {disfmarker} i if there's a fairly large effect of the difference, say, uh, uh, the r ratio between insertions and deletions for the two cases then that would be, uh, an indicator that it might {disfmarker} might be in that direction. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Yeah. But, Professor E: Anything else? PhD B: my {disfmarker} my point was more that it {disfmarker} it works sometimes and {disfmarker} but sometimes it doesn't work. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: So. Professor E: Well. PhD B: And it works on TI - digits and on SpeechDat - Car it doesn't work, and {disfmarker} Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Well. Professor E: But, you know, some problems are harder than others, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Professor E: and {disfmarker} And, uh, sometimes, you know, there's enough evidence for something to work and then it's harder, it breaks. You know, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: so it's {disfmarker} But it {disfmarker} but, um, i it {disfmarker} it could be that when you say it works maybe we could be doing much better, even in TI - digits. Right? PhD B: Yeah. Yeah, sure. Professor E: So. PhD B: Uh. Professor E: Hmm? Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Well, there is also the spectral subtraction, which, um {disfmarker} I think maybe we should, uh, try to integrate it in {disfmarker} in our system. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mmm. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Right. PhD B: But, Professor E: O PhD B: I think that would involve to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to mmm {vocalsound} use a big {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} al already a big bunch of the system of Ericsson. Because he has spectral subtraction, then it's followed by, {vocalsound} um, other kind of processing that's {disfmarker} are dependent on the {disfmarker} uh, if it's speech or noi or silence. Professor E: Mm - hmm. PhD B: And there is this kind of spectral flattening after {disfmarker} if it's silence, and {disfmarker} and s I {disfmarker} I think it's important, um, {vocalsound} to reduce this musical noise and this {disfmarker} this increase of variance during silence portions. So. Well. This was in this would involve to take almost everything from {disfmarker} from the {disfmarker} this proposal and {disfmarker} and then just add some kind of on - line normalization in {disfmarker} in the neural network. Mmm. Professor E: OK. Well, this'll be, I think, something for discussion with Hynek next week. PhD B: Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. OK. Right. So. How are, uh, uh {disfmarker} how are things going with what you're doing? Grad D: Oh. Well, um, I took a lot of time just getting my taxes out of the way {disfmarker} multi - national taxes. So, I'm {disfmarker} I'm starting to write code now for my work but I don't have any results yet. Um, i it would be good for me to talk to Hynek, I think, when he's here. Professor E: Yeah. Grad D: Do you know what his schedule will be like? Professor E: Uh, he'll be around for three days. Grad D: OK. So, y Professor E: Uh, we'll have a lot of time. Grad D: OK. Professor E: So, uh {disfmarker} Um. I'll, uh {disfmarker} You know, he's {disfmarker} he'll {disfmarker} he'll be talking with everybody in this room So. PhD F: But you said you won't {disfmarker} you won't be here next Thursday? Professor E: Not Thursday and Friday. Yeah. Cuz I will be at faculty retreat. PhD F: Hmm. Professor E: So. I'll try to {vocalsound} connect with him and people as {disfmarker} as I can on {disfmarker} on Wednesday. But {disfmarker} Um. Oh, how'd taxes go? Taxes go OK? Grad D: Mmm. Yeah. Professor E: Yeah. Oh, good. Yeah. Yeah. That's just {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} that's one of the big advantages of not making much money is {vocalsound} the taxes are easier. Yeah. PhD F: Unless you're getting money in two countries. Professor E: I think you are. Aren't you? PhD F: They both want their cut. PhD B: Hmm. Grad D: Hmm. Yeah. PhD F: Right? Professor E: Yeah. Yeah. Huh. Canada w Canada wants a cut? Grad D: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Have to do {disfmarker} So you {disfmarker} you have to do two returns? Grad D: Mmm. W uh, for two thousand I did. Yeah. Professor E: Oh, oh. Yeah. For tw That's right, ju PhD F: But not for this next year? Professor E: Two thousand. Yeah. Probably not this next year, I guess. Grad D: Ye Professor E: Yeah. Grad D: Um. Professor E: Yeah. Grad D: Uh, I'll {disfmarker} I'll still have a bit of Canadian income but it'll be less complicated because I will not be a {disfmarker} considered a resident of Canada anymore, so I won't have to declare my American income on my Canadian return. Professor E: OK. Alright. Uh. Barry, do you wanna {pause} say something about your stuff here? Grad A: Oh, um. Right. I {pause} just, um, continuing looking at, uh, ph uh, phonetic events, and, uh, this Tuesday gonna be, uh, meeting with John Ohala with Chuck to talk some more about these, uh, ph um, phonetic events. Um, came up with, uh, a plan of attack, uh, gonna execute, and um {disfmarker} Yeah. It's {disfmarker} that's pretty much it. Professor E: Oh, well. No Um, why don't you say something about what it is? Grad A: Oh, you {disfmarker} oh, you want {disfmarker} you want details. Hmm. OK. Professor E: Well, we're all gathered here together. I thought we'd, you know {disfmarker} Grad A: I was hoping I could wave my hands. Um. So, um. So, once wa I {disfmarker} I was thinking getting {disfmarker} getting us a set of acoustic events to {disfmarker} um, to be able to distinguish between, uh, phones and words and stuff. And {vocalsound} um, once we {disfmarker} we would figure out a set of these events that can be, you know, um, hand - labeled or {disfmarker} or derived, uh, from h the hand - labeled phone targets. Um, we could take these events and, um, {vocalsound} do some cheating experiments, um, where we feed, um, these events into {pause} an SRI system, um, eh, and evaluate its performance on a Switchboard task. Uh, yeah. Grad D: Hey, Barry? Can you give an example of an event? Grad A: Yeah. Sure. Um, I {disfmarker} I can give you an example of {pause} twenty - odd events. Um {disfmarker} So, he In this paper, um, it's talking about phoneme recognition using acoustic events. So, things like frication or, uh, nasality. Professor E: Whose paper is it? Grad A: Um, this is a paper by Hubener and Cardson {pause} Benson {disfmarker} Bernds - Berndsen. Professor E: Yeah. Huh. From, uh, University of Hamburg and Bielefeld. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor E: OK. Grad A: Um. PhD F: Yeah. I think the {disfmarker} just to expand a little bit on the idea of acoustic event. Grad A: Mm - hmm. PhD F: There's, um {disfmarker} in my mind, anyways, there's a difference between, um, acoustic features and acoustic events. And I think of acoustic features as being, um, things that linguists talk about, like, um {disfmarker} Professor E: So, stuff that's not based on data. PhD F: Stuff that's not based on data, necessarily. Professor E: Yeah. Oh, OK. Yeah. Yeah, OK. PhD F: Right. That's not based on, you know, acoustic data. So they talk about features for phones, like, uh, its height, Grad A: Yeah. PhD F: its tenseness, laxness, things like that, Grad A: Mm - hmm. PhD F: which may or may not be all that easy to measure in the acoustic signal. Versus an acoustic event, which is just {nonvocalsound} some {nonvocalsound} something in the acoustic signal {nonvocalsound} that is fairly easy to measure. Um. So it's, um {disfmarker} it's a little different, in {disfmarker} at least in my mind. Professor E: I mean, when we did the SPAM work {disfmarker} I mean, there we had {disfmarker} we had this notion of an, uh, auditory {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} auditory event. Grad A: Good. That's great. Professor E: And, uh, um, called them" avents" , uh, uh, uh, with an A at the front. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Uh. And the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the idea was something that occurred that is important to a bunch of neurons somewhere. So. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Um. A sudden change or a relatively rapid change in some spectral characteristic will {disfmarker} will do sort of this. I mean, there's certainly a bunch of {disfmarker} a bunch of places where you know that neurons are gonna fire because something novel has happened. That was {disfmarker} that was the main thing that we were focusing on there. But there's certainly other things beyond what we talked about there that aren't just sort of rapid changes, but {disfmarker} PhD F: It's kinda like the difference between top - down and bottom - up. Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: I think of the acoustic {disfmarker} you know, phonetic features as being top - down. You know, you look at the phone and you say this phone is supposed to be {disfmarker} you know, have this feature, this feature, and this feature. Whether tha those features show up in the acoustic signal is sort of irrelevant. Whereas, an acoustic event goes the other way. Here's the signal. Here's some event. Grad A: Mm - hmm. PhD F: What {disfmarker}? And then that {disfmarker} you know, that may map to this phone sometimes, and sometimes it may not. It just depen maybe depends on the context, things like that. Professor E: Mm - hmm. PhD F: And so it's sort of a different way of looking. Professor E: Mm - hmm. Grad A: Yeah. So. Yeah. Grad D: OK. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Um {disfmarker} Using these {disfmarker} these events, um, you know, we can {disfmarker} we can perform these {disfmarker} these, uh, cheating experiments. See how {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how good they are, um, in, um {disfmarker} in terms of phoneme recognition or word recognition. And, um {disfmarker} and then from that point on, I would, uh, s design robust event detectors, um, in a similar, um, wa spirit that Saul has done w uh, with his graphical models, and this {disfmarker} this probabilistic AND - OR model that he uses. Um, eh, try to extend it to, um {disfmarker} to account for other {disfmarker} other phenomena like, um, CMR co - modulation release. And, um {disfmarker} and maybe also investigate ways to {disfmarker} to modify the structure of these models, um, in a data - driven way, uh, similar to the way that, uh, Jeff {disfmarker} Jeff, uh, Bilmes did his work. Um, and while I'm {disfmarker} I'm doing these, um, event detectors, you know, I can ma mea measure my progress by comparing, um, the error rates in clean and noisy conditions to something like, uh, neural nets. Um, and {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so, once we have these {disfmarker} these, uh, event detectors, um, we could put them together and {disfmarker} and feed the outputs of the event detectors into {disfmarker} into the SRI, um, HMM {disfmarker} HMM system, and, um {disfmarker} and test it on {disfmarker} on Switchboard or, um, maybe even Aurora stuff. And, that's pretty much the {disfmarker} the big picture of {disfmarker} of um, the plan. Professor E: By the way, um, there's, uh, a couple people who are gonna be here {disfmarker} I forget if I already told you this, but, a couple people who are gonna be here for six months. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Uh {disfmarker} uh, there's a Professor Kollmeier, uh, from Germany who's, uh, uh, quite big in the, uh, hearing - aid signal - processing area and, um, Michael Kleinschmidt, who's worked with him, who also looks at {vocalsound} auditory properties inspired by various, uh, brain function things. Grad A: Hmm. Professor E: So, um, um, I think they'll be interesting to talk to, in this sort of issue as these detectors are {disfmarker} are, uh, developing. Grad A: Hmm. OK. Professor E: So, he looks at interesting {disfmarker} interesting things in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} different ways of looking at spectra in order to {disfmarker} to get various speech properties out. So. Grad A: OK. Professor E: OK. Well, short meeting, but that's OK. And, uh, we might as well do our digits. And like I say, I {disfmarker} I encourage you to go ahead and meet, uh, next week with, uh, uh, Hynek. Alright, I'll {disfmarker} I'll start. It's, uh, one thirty - five. seventeen OK

The professor recalled that the SPAM work had something similar to acoustic events, auditory events. He also informed the team that Professors Kollmeier and Professor Kleinschmidt will be visiting for six months, and they may know more about this topic.

tr-gq-654

tr-gq-654_0

Summarize the meeting Professor E: Let's see. Test? Test? Yeah. OK. Grad A: Hello? PhD B: Channel one. Grad A: Hello? PhD C: Test. Professor E: I was saying Hynek'll be here next week, uh, Wednesday through Friday {disfmarker} uh, through Saturday, and, um, I won't be here Thursday and Friday. But my suggestion is that, uh, at least for this meeting, people should go ahead, uh, cuz Hynek will be here, and, you know, we don't have any Czech accent yet, uh, {vocalsound} as far as I know, so {disfmarker} There we go. PhD F: OK. Professor E: Um. So other than reading digits, what's our agenda? PhD F: I don't really have, uh, anything new. Been working on {pause} Meeting Recorder stuff. So. Professor E: OK. Um. Do you think that would be the case for next week also? Or is {disfmarker} is, uh {disfmarker}? What's your projection on {disfmarker}? PhD F: Um. Professor E: Cuz the one thing {disfmarker} the one thing that seems to me we really should try, if you hadn't tried it before, because it hadn't occurred to me {disfmarker} it was sort of an obvious thing {disfmarker} is, um, adjusting the, uh, sca the scaling and, uh, insertion penalty sorta stuff. PhD F: I did play with that, actually, a little bit. Um. What happens is, uh, {vocalsound} when you get to the noisy stuff, you start getting lots of insertions. Professor E: Right. PhD F: And, um, so I've tried playing around a little bit with, um, the insertion penalties and things like that. Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: Um. I mean, it {disfmarker} it didn't make a whole lot of difference. Like for the well - matched case, it seemed like it was pretty good. Um. {vocalsound} I could do more playing with that, though. And, uh {disfmarker} Professor E: But you were looking at mel cepstrum. PhD F: and see. Yes. Professor E: Right. PhD F: Oh, you're talking about for th {vocalsound} for our features. Professor E: Right. So, I mean, i it it's not the direction that you were working with that we were saying what's the {disfmarker} uh, what's the best you can do with {disfmarker} with mel cepstrum. But, they raised a very valid point, PhD F: Mmm. Professor E: which, I guess {disfmarker} So, to first order {disfmarker} I mean, you have other things you were gonna do, but to first order, I would say that the conclusion is that if you, um, do, uh, some monkeying around with, uh, the exact HTK training and @ @ {comment} with, uh, you know, how many states and so forth, that it {disfmarker} it doesn't particularly improve the performance. In other words, that even though it sounds pretty dumb, just applying the same number of states to everything, more or less, no matter what language, isn't so bad. Right? And I guess you hadn't gotten to all the experiments you wanted to do with number of Gaussians, PhD F: Right. Professor E: but, um, let's just {disfmarker} If we had to {disfmarker} if we had to draw a conclusion on the information we have so far, we'd say something like that. Right? PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Uh, so the next question to ask, which is I think the one that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that Andreas was dre addressing himself to in the lunch meeting, is, um, we're not supposed to adjust the back - end, but anybody using the system would. PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: So, if you were just adjusting the back - end, how much better would you do, uh, in noise? Uh, because the language scaling and insertion penalties and so forth are probably set to be about right for mel cepstrum. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But, um, they're probably not at all set right for these things, particularly these things that look over, uh, larger time windows, in one way or another with {disfmarker} with LDA and KLT and neural nets and {vocalsound} all these things. In the fa past we've always found that we had to increase the insertion penalty to {disfmarker} to correspond to such things. So, I think that's, uh, @ @ {comment} that's kind of a first - order thing that {disfmarker} that we should try. PhD F: So for th so the experiment is to, um, run our front - end like normal, with the default, uh, insertion penalties and so forth, and then tweak that a little bit and see how much of a difference it makes Professor E: So by" our front - end" I mean take, you know, the Aurora - two s take some version that Stephane has that is, you know, our current best version of something. PhD F: if we were {disfmarker} Mm - hmm. Professor E: Um. I mean, y don't wanna do this over a hundred different things that they've tried but, you know, for some version that you say is a good one. You know? Um. How {disfmarker} how much, uh, does it improve if you actually adjust that? PhD F: OK. Professor E: But it is interesting. You say you {disfmarker} you have for the noisy {disfmarker} How about for the {disfmarker} for the mismatched or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or the {disfmarker} or the medium mismatched conditions? Have you {disfmarker}? When you adjusted those numbers for mel cepstrum, did it {disfmarker}? PhD F: Uh, I {disfmarker} I don't remember off the top of my head. Um. Yeah. I didn't even write them down. I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't remember. I would need to {disfmarker} Well, I did write down, um {disfmarker} So, when I was doing {disfmarker} I just wrote down some numbers for the well - matched case. Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: Um. Looking at the {disfmarker} I wrote down what the deletions, substitutions, and insertions were, uh, for different numbers of states per phone. Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: Um, but, uh, that {disfmarker} that's all I wrote down. Professor E: OK. PhD F: So. I {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} Yeah. I would need to do that. Professor E: OK. So {disfmarker} PhD F: I can do that for next week. Professor E: Yeah. And, um {disfmarker} Yeah. Also, eh, eh, sometimes if you run behind on some of these things, maybe we can get someone else to do it and you can supervise or something. But {disfmarker} but I think it would be {disfmarker} it'd be good to know that. PhD F: OK. I just need to get, um, {vocalsound} front - end, uh, stuff from you PhD B: Hmm. PhD F: or you point me to some files {pause} that you've already calculated. PhD B: Yeah. Alright. Professor E: OK. Uh. PhD F: I probably will have time to do that and time to play a little bit with the silence model. Professor E: Mm - hmm. PhD F: So maybe I can have that for next week when Hynek's here. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. Cuz, I mean, the {disfmarker} the other {disfmarker} That, in fact, might have been part of what, uh, the difference was {disfmarker} at least part of it that {disfmarker} that we were seeing. Remember we were seeing the SRI system was so much better than the tandem system. PhD F: Hmm. Professor E: Part of it might just be that the SRI system, they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they always adjust these things to be sort of optimized, PhD F: Is there {disfmarker}? Professor E: and {disfmarker} PhD F: I wonder if there's anything that we could do {vocalsound} to the front - end that would affect the insertion {disfmarker} Professor E: Yes. I think you can. PhD F: What could you do? Professor E: Well, um {disfmarker} uh, part of what's going on, um, is the, uh, the range of values. So, if you have something that has a much smaller range or a much larger range, and taking the appropriate root. PhD F: Oh. Mm - hmm. Professor E: You know? If something is kind of like the equivalent of a bunch of probabilities multiplied together, you can take a root of some sort. If it's like seven probabilities together, you can take the seventh root of it or something, or if it's in the log domain, divide it by seven. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But {disfmarker} but, um, that has a similar effect because it changes the scale of the numbers {disfmarker} of the differences between different candidates from the acoustic model PhD F: Oh, right. Professor E: as opposed to what's coming from the language model. PhD F: So that w Right. So, in effect, that's changing the value of your insertion penalty. Professor E: Yeah. I mean, it's more directly like the {disfmarker} the language scaling or the, uh {disfmarker} the model scaling or acoustic scaling, PhD F: That's interesting. Professor E: but you know that those things have kind of a similar effect to the insertion penalty PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: anyway. They're a slightly different way of {disfmarker} of handling it. PhD F: Right. Professor E: So, um {disfmarker} PhD F: So if we know what the insertion penalty is, then we can get an idea about what range our number should be in, Professor E: I think so. PhD F: so that they {pause} match with that. Professor E: Yeah. Yeah. So that's why I think that's another reason other than curiosity as to why i it would in fact be kinda neat to find out if we're way off. I mean, the other thing is, are aren't we seeing {disfmarker}? Y y PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: I'm sure you've already looked at this bu in these noisy cases, are {disfmarker}? We are seeing lots of insertions. Right? The insertion number is quite high? PhD B: Yeah. Professor E: I know the VAD takes pre care of part of that, PhD F: Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Professor E: but {disfmarker} PhD F: I've seen that with the mel cepstrum. I don't {disfmarker} I don't know about {pause} the Aurora front - end, but {disfmarker} PhD B: I think it's much more balanced with, uh {disfmarker} when the front - end is more robust. Yeah. I could look at it {disfmarker} at this. Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. Wha - what's a typical number? PhD B: I don't {disfmarker} I don't know. Professor E: Do we {disfmarker}? Oh, you {disfmarker} oh, you don't know. PhD B: I don't have this in {disfmarker} Professor E: OK. I'm sure it's more balanced, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: but it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it wouldn't surprise me if there's still {disfmarker} PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: I mean, in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the old systems we used to do, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} uh, I remember numbers kind of like insertions being half the number of deletions, as being {disfmarker} and both numbers being {disfmarker} tend to be on the small side comparing to {disfmarker} to, uh, substitutions. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD F: Well, this {disfmarker} the whole problem with insertions was what I think, um, we talked about when the guy from OGI came down {pause} that one time and {disfmarker} and that was when people were saying, well we should have a, uh, uh, voice activity detector {disfmarker} Professor E: Right. PhD F: that, because all that stuff {comment} that we're getting thr the silence that's getting through is causing insertions. So. PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: Right. PhD F: I'll bet you there's still a lot {vocalsound} of insertions. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. And it may be less of a critical thing. I mean, the fact that some get by may be less of a critical thing if you, uh, get things in the right range. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, I mean, the insertions is {disfmarker} is a symptom. It's a symptom that there's something, uh, wrong with the range. PhD F: Right. Professor E: But there's {disfmarker} uh, your {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} your substitutions tend to go up as well. So, uh, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that, PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: uh, the most obvious thing is just the insertions, @ @. But {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} um. If you're operating in the wrong range {disfmarker} I mean, that's why just in general, if you {vocalsound} change what these {disfmarker} these penalties and scaling factors are, you reach some point that's a {disfmarker} that's a minimum. So. Um. Um. We do have to do well over a range of different conditions, some of which are noisier than others. Um. But, um, I think we may get a better handle on that if we {disfmarker} if we see {disfmarker} Um, I mean we ca it's if we actually could pick a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a more stable value for the range of these features, it, um, uh, could {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} Even though it's {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's true that in a real situation you can in fact adjust the {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these scaling factors in the back - end, and it's ar artificial here that we're not adjusting those, you certainly don't wanna be adjusting those all the time. And if you have a nice front - end that's in roughly the right range {disfmarker} PhD F: Hmm. Professor E: I remember after we got our stuff more or less together in the previous systems we built, that we tended to set those scaling factors at kind of a standard level, and we would rarely adjust them again, even though you could get a {disfmarker} PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: for an evaluation you can get an extra point or something if you tweaked it a little bit. But, once we knew what rou roughly the right operating range was, it was pretty stable, and {disfmarker} Uh, we might just not even be in the right operating range. PhD F: So, would the {disfmarker}? Uh, would a good idea be to try to map it into the same range that you get in the well - matched case? So, if we computed what the range was in well - matched, and then when we get our noisy conditions out we try to make it have the same range as {disfmarker}? Professor E: No. You don't wanna change it for different conditions. No. No. I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} What {disfmarker} what I'm saying {disfmarker} PhD F: Oh, I wasn't suggesting change it for different conditions. I was just saying that when we pick a range, we {disfmarker} we wanna pick a range that we map our numbers into {disfmarker} Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: we should probably pick it based on the range that we get in the well - matched case. Otherwise, I mean, what range are we gonna choose to {disfmarker} to map everything into? Professor E: Well. It depends how much we wanna do gamesmanship and how much we wanna do {disfmarker} I mean, i if he it {disfmarker} to me, actually, even if you wanna be {disfmarker} play on the gamesmanship side, it can be kinda tricky. So, I mean, what you would do is set the {disfmarker} set the scaling factors, uh, so that you got the best number for this point four five times the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know, and so on. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But they might change that {disfmarker} those weightings. PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: Um. So {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} I just sorta think we need to explore the space. Just take a look at it a little bit. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: And we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we may just find that {disfmarker} that we're way off. PhD F: OK. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Maybe we're not. You know? As for these other things, it may turn out that, uh, {vocalsound} it's kind of reasonable. But then {disfmarker} I mean, Andreas gave a very reasonable response, and he's probably not gonna be the only one who's gonna say this in the future {disfmarker} of, you know, people {disfmarker} people within this tight - knit community who are doing this evaluation {vocalsound} are accepting, uh, more or less, that these are the rules. But, people outside of it who look in at the broader picture are certainly gonna say" Well, wait a minute. You're doing all this standing on your head, uh, on the front - end, PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: when all you could do is just adjust this in the back - end with one s one knob." PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: And so we have to at least, I think, determine that that's not true, which would be OK, or determine that it is true, in which case we want to adjust that and then continue with {disfmarker} with what we're doing. And as you say {disfmarker} as you point out {disfmarker} finding ways to then compensate for that in the front - end {vocalsound} also then becomes a priority for this particular test, PhD F: Right. Professor E: and saying you don't have to do that. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So. OK. So, uh {disfmarker} What's new with you? PhD B: Uh. So there's nothing {pause} new. Um. Professor E: Uh, what's old with you that's developed? PhD B: I'm sorry? Professor E: You {disfmarker} OK. What's old with you that has developed over the last week or two? PhD B: Mmm. Well, so we've been mainly working on the report and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} Yeah. PhD F: Mainly working on what? PhD B: On the report {pause} of the work that was already done. PhD F: Oh. PhD B: Um. Mm - hmm. That's all. PhD F: How about that {disfmarker}? Any - anything new on the thing that, uh, you were working on with the, uh {disfmarker}? PhD C: I don't have results yet. PhD F: No results? Yeah. Professor E: What was that? PhD F: The {disfmarker} the, uh, Grad A: Voicing thing. PhD F: voicing detector. Professor E: I mean, what what's {disfmarker} what's going on now? What are you {pause} doing? PhD C: Uh, to try to found, nnn, robust feature for detect between voice and unvoice. And we {disfmarker} w we try to use {vocalsound} the variance {vocalsound} of the es difference between the FFT spectrum and mel filter bank spectrum. Professor E: Yeah. PhD C: Uh, also the {disfmarker} another parameter is {disfmarker} relates with the auto - correlation function. Professor E: Uh - huh. PhD C: R - ze energy and the variance a also of the auto - correlation function. Professor E: Uh - huh. So, that's {disfmarker} Yeah. That's what you were describing, I guess, a week or two ago. PhD C: Yeah. But we don't have res we don't have result of the AURO for Aurora yet. Professor E: So. PhD C: We need to train the neural network Professor E: Mm - hmm. PhD C: and {disfmarker} Professor E: So you're training neural networks now? PhD C: No, not yet. Professor E: So, what {disfmarker} wha {vocalsound} wh wha what what's going on? PhD C: Well, we work in the report, too, because we have a lot of result, Professor E: Uh - huh. PhD C: they are very dispersed, and was necessary to {disfmarker} to look in all the directory to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to give some more structure. PhD B: Yea Professor E: So. B So {disfmarker} Yeah. I if I can summarize, basically what's going on is that you're going over a lot of material that you have generated in furious fashion, f generating many results and doing many experiments and trying to pull it together into some coherent form to be able to see wha see what happens. PhD C: Hm - hmm. PhD B: Uh, y yeah. Basically we we've stopped, uh, experimenting, Professor E: Yes? PhD B: I mean. We're just writing some kind of technical report. And {disfmarker} PhD F: Is this a report that's for Aurora? Or is it just like a tech report for ICSI, PhD C: No. PhD B: Yeah. PhD C: For ICSI. PhD F: or {disfmarker}? Ah. I see. PhD B: Yeah. PhD C: Just summary of the experiment and the conclusion and something like that. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: OK. So, my suggestion, though, is that you {disfmarker} you not necessarily finish that. But that you put it all together so that it's {disfmarker} you've got {disfmarker} you've got a clearer structure to it. You know what things are, you have things documented, you've looked things up that you needed to look up. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So that, you know {disfmarker} so that such a thing can be written. And, um {disfmarker} When {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when do you leave again? PhD C: Uh, in July. First of July. Professor E: First of July? OK. And that you figure on actually finishing it in {disfmarker} in June. Because, you know, you're gonna have another bunch of results to fit in there anyway. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Professor E: And right now it's kind of important that we actually go forward with experiments. PhD C: It's not. Professor E: So {disfmarker} so, I {disfmarker} I think it's good to pause, and to gather everything together and make sure it's in good shape, so that other people can get access to it and so that it can go into a report in June. But I think {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to really work on {disfmarker} on fine - tuning the report n at this point is {disfmarker} is probably bad timing, I {disfmarker} I {pause} think. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Well, we didn't {disfmarker} we just planned to work on it one week on this report, not {disfmarker} no more, anyway. Um. Professor E: But you ma you may really wanna add other things later anyway PhD B: Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor E: because you {disfmarker} PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: There's more to go? PhD B: Yeah. Well, so I don't know. There are small things that we started to {disfmarker} to do. But {disfmarker} PhD F: Are you discovering anything, uh, that makes you scratch your head as you write this report, like why did we do that, or why didn't we do this, PhD B: Uh. PhD F: or {disfmarker}? PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. And {disfmarker} Actually, there were some tables that were also with partial results. We just noticed that, wh while gathering the result that for some conditions we didn't have everything. PhD F: Mmm. PhD B: But anyway. Um. Yeah, yeah. We have, yeah, extracted actually the noises from {pause} the SpeechDat - Car. And so, we can train neural network with speech and these noises. Um. It's difficult to say what it will give, because when we look at the Aurora {disfmarker} the TI - digits experiments, um, they have these three conditions that have different noises, and apparently this system perform as well on the seen noises {disfmarker} on the unseen noises and on the seen noises. But, I think this is something we have to try anyway. So {disfmarker} adding the noises from {disfmarker} from the SpeechDat - Car. Um. Professor E: That's {disfmarker} that's, uh {disfmarker} that's permitted? PhD B: Uh. Well, OGI does {disfmarker} did that. Um. At some point they did that for {disfmarker} for the voice activity detector. PhD C: Uh, for a v VAD. PhD B: Right? Um. PhD F: Could you say it again? What {disfmarker} what exactly did they do? PhD B: They used some parts of the, um, Italian database to train the voice activity detector, I think. It {disfmarker} Professor E: Yeah. I guess the thing is {disfmarker} Yeah. I guess that's a matter of interpretation. The rules as I understand it, is that in principle the Italian and the Spanish and the English {disfmarker} no, Italian and the Finnish and the English? {disfmarker} were development data PhD B: Yeah. And Spanish, yeah. Professor E: on which you could adjust things. And the {disfmarker} and the German and Danish were the evaluation data. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: And then when they finally actually evaluated things they used everything. PhD B: Yeah. That's right. Uh {disfmarker} Professor E: So {disfmarker} Uh, and it is true that the performance, uh, on the German was {disfmarker} I mean, even though the improvement wasn't so good, the pre the raw performance was really pretty good. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So {disfmarker} And, uh, it {disfmarker} it doesn't appear that there's strong evidence that even though things were somewhat tuned on those three or four languages, that {disfmarker} that going to a different language really hurt you. And the noises were not exactly the same. Right? Because it was taken from a different, uh {disfmarker} I mean they were different drives. PhD B: Different cars. Yeah. Professor E: I mean, it was {disfmarker} it was actual different cars and so on. PhD B: Yeah. Professor E: So. Um, it's somewhat tuned. It's tuned more than, you know, a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: You'd really like to have something that needed no particular noise at all, maybe just some white noise or something like that a at most. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But that's not really what this contest is. So. Um, I guess it's OK. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: That's something I'd like to understand before we actually use something from it, PhD F: I think it's {disfmarker} Professor E: because it would {disfmarker} PhD F: it's probably something that, mmm, the {disfmarker} you know, the, uh, experiment designers didn't really think about, because I think most people aren't doing trained systems, or, you know, uh, systems that are like ours, where you actually use the data to build models. I mean, they just {pause} doing signal - processing. PhD B: Yeah. Professor E: Well, it's true, PhD F: So. Professor E: except that, uh, that's what we used in Aurora one, and then they designed the things for Aurora - two knowing that we were doing that. PhD F: Yeah. That's true. Professor E: Um. PhD F: And they didn't forbid us {disfmarker} right? {disfmarker} to build models on the data? Professor E: No. But, I think {disfmarker} I think that it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it probably would be the case that if, say, we trained on Italian, uh, data and then, uh, we tested on Danish data and it did terribly, uh, that {disfmarker} that it would look bad. And I think someone would notice and would say" Well, look. This is not generalizing." I would hope tha I would hope they would. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Um. But, uh, it's true. You know, maybe there's parameters that other people have used {disfmarker} you know, th that they have tuned in some way for other things. So it's {disfmarker} it's, uh {disfmarker} We should {disfmarker} we should {disfmarker} Maybe {disfmarker} that's maybe a topic {disfmarker} Especially if you talk with him when I'm not here, that's a topic you should discuss with Hynek PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: to, you know, double check it's OK. PhD F: Do we know anything about {pause} the speakers for each of the, uh, training utterances? PhD B: What do you mean? We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} PhD F: Do you have speaker information? Professor E: Social security number PhD F: That would be good. PhD B: Like, we have {pause} male, female, PhD C: Hmm. PhD F: Bank PIN. PhD B: at least. PhD F: Just male f female? PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: What kind of information do you mean? PhD F: Well, I was thinking about things like, you know, gender, uh {disfmarker} you know, gender - specific nets and, uh, vocal tract length normalization. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD F: Things like that. I d I don't {disfmarker} I didn't know what information we have about the speakers that we could try to take advantage of. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Hmm. Uh. Right. I mean, again, i if you had the whole system you were optimizing, that would be easy to see. But if you're {vocalsound} supposedly just using a fixed back - end and you're just coming up with a feature vector, w w I'm not sure {disfmarker} I mean, having the two nets {disfmarker} Suppose you detected that it was male, it was female {disfmarker} you come up with different {disfmarker} PhD F: Well, you could put them both in as separate streams or something. Uh. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Maybe. PhD F: I don't know. I was just wondering if there was other information we could exploit. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Hmm. Yeah, it's an interesting thought. Maybe having something along the {disfmarker} I mean, you can't really do vocal tract normalization. But something that had some of that effect PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: being applied to the data in some way. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Um. PhD B: Do you have something simple in mind for {disfmarker} I mean, vocal tract length normalization? PhD F: Uh no. I hadn't {disfmarker} I hadn't thought {disfmarker} it was {disfmarker} thought too much about it, really. It just {disfmarker} something that popped into my head just now. And so I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean, you could maybe use the ideas {disfmarker} a similar {pause} idea to what they do in vocal tract length normalization. You know, you have some sort of a, uh, general speech model, you know, maybe just a mixture of Gaussians that you evaluate every utterance against, and then you see where each, you know, utterance {disfmarker} like, the likelihood of each utterance. You divide the {disfmarker} the range of the likelihoods up into discrete bins and then each bin's got some knob {disfmarker} uh, setting. Professor E: Yeah. But just listen to yourself. I mean, that uh really doesn't sound like a real - time thing with less than two hundred milliseconds, uh, latency that {disfmarker} and where you're not adjusting the statistical engine at all. PhD F: Yeah. Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD F: Yeah. That's true. Professor E: You know, that just {disfmarker} PhD F: Right. PhD B: Hmm. Professor E: I mean {disfmarker} Yeah. PhD F: Could be expensive. Professor E: No. Well not just expensive. I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't see how you could possibly do it. You can't look at the whole utterance and do anything. You know, you can only {disfmarker} Right? PhD F: Oh, Professor E: Each frame comes in and it's gotta go out the other end. PhD F: right. Professor E: So, uh {disfmarker} PhD F: Right. So whatever it was, it would have to be uh sort of on a per frame basis. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. I mean, you can do, um {disfmarker} Fairly quickly you can do male female {disfmarker} f male female stuff. PhD F: Yeah. Yeah. Professor E: But as far as, I mean {disfmarker} Like I thought BBN did a thing with, uh, uh, vocal tract normalization a ways back. Maybe other people did too. With {disfmarker} with, uh, uh, l trying to identify third formant {disfmarker} average third formant {disfmarker} {vocalsound} using that as an indicator of {disfmarker} PhD F: I don't know. Professor E: So. You know, third formant {disfmarker} I if you imagine that to first order what happens with, uh, changing vocal tract is that, uh, the formants get moved out by some proportion {disfmarker} PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, if you had a first formant that was one hundred hertz before, if the fifty {disfmarker} if the vocal tract is fifty percent shorter, then it would be out at seven fifty hertz, and so on. So, that's a move of two hundred fifty hertz. Whereas the third formant which might have started off at twenty - five hundred hertz, you know, might be out to thirty - seven fifty, you know so it's at {disfmarker} So, although, you frequently get less distinct higher formants, it's still {disfmarker} third formant's kind of a reasonable compromise, and {disfmarker} PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, I think, eh, if I recall correctly, they did something like that. And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} PhD F: Hmm. Professor E: But {disfmarker} Um, that doesn't work for just having one frame or something. PhD F: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: You know? That's more like looking at third formant over {disfmarker} over a turn or something like that, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: and {disfmarker} PhD F: Right. Professor E: Um. So. But on the other hand, male female is a {disfmarker} is a {disfmarker} is a much simpler categorization than figuring out a {disfmarker} a factor to, uh, squish or expand the {disfmarker} the spectrum. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, um. Y you could imagine that {disfmarker} I mean, just like we're saying voiced - unvoiced is good to know {disfmarker} uh, male female is good to know also. Um. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But, you'd have to figure out a way to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to, uh, incorporate it on the fly. Uh, I mean, I guess, as you say, one thing you could do is simply, uh, have the {disfmarker} the male and female output vectors {disfmarker} you know, tr nets trained only on males and n trained only on females or {disfmarker} or, uh, you know. But {disfmarker} Um. I don't know if that would really help, because you already have males and females and it's mm - hmm putting into one net. So is it {disfmarker}? PhD F: Is it balanced, um, in terms of gender {disfmarker} the data? PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: Do you know? PhD B: Almost, yeah. PhD F: Hmm. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Hmm. OK. Y you're {disfmarker} you were saying before {disfmarker}? PhD B: Uh. Yeah. So, this noise, um {disfmarker} Yeah. The MSG {disfmarker} Um. Mmm. There is something {disfmarker} perhaps, I could spend some days to look at this thing, cuz it seems that when we train networks on {disfmarker} let's say, on TIMIT with MSG features, they {disfmarker} they look as good as networks trained on PLP. But, um, when they are used on {disfmarker} on the SpeechDat - Car data, it's not the case {disfmarker} oh, well. The MSG features are much worse, and so maybe they're, um, less {disfmarker} more sensitive to different recording conditions, or {disfmarker} Shou Professor E: Shouldn't be. They should be less so. PhD B: Yeah. But {disfmarker} Professor E: R right? PhD B: Mmm. Professor E: Wh -? But let me ask you this. What {disfmarker} what's the, um {disfmarker}? Do you kno recall if the insertions were {disfmarker} were higher with MSG? PhD B: I don't know. I cannot tell. But {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the error rate is higher. So, I don Professor E: Yeah. But you should always look at insertions, deletions, and substitutions. PhD B: Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor E: So {disfmarker} PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: so, uh {disfmarker} MSG is very, very dif Eh, PLP is very much like mel cepstrum. MSG is very different from both of them. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So, if it's very different, then this is the sort of thing {disfmarker} I mean I'm really glad Andreas brought this point up. I {pause} sort of had forgotten to discuss it. Um. You always have to look at how this {disfmarker} uh, these adjustments, uh, affect things. And even though we're not allowed to do that, again we maybe could reflect that back to our use of the features. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So if it {disfmarker} if in fact, uh {disfmarker} The problem might be that the range of the MSG features is quite different than the range of the PLP or mel cepstrum. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor E: And you might wanna change that. PhD B: But {disfmarker} Yeah. But, it's d it's after {disfmarker} Well, it's tandem features, so {disfmarker} Mmm. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. We {disfmarker} we have estimation of post posteriors with PLP and with MSG as input, Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: so I don Well. I don't know. Professor E: That means they're between zero and one. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: But i it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it doesn't necessarily {disfmarker} You know, they could be, um {disfmarker} Do - doesn't tell you what the variance of the things is. PhD B: Mmm. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Right? Cuz if you're taking the log of these things, it could be, uh {disfmarker} Knowing what the sum of the probabilities are, doesn't tell you what the sum of the logs are. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Professor E: So. PhD B: Yeah. So we should look at the likelihood, or {disfmarker} or what? Or {disfmarker} well, at the log, perhaps, and {disfmarker} Professor E: Yeah. Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Or what {disfmarker} you know, what you're uh {disfmarker} the thing you're actually looking at. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: So your {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} the values that are {disfmarker} are actually being fed into HTK. PhD B: Mm - hmm. But {disfmarker} Professor E: What do they look like? PhD F: No And so th the, uh {disfmarker} for the tandem system, the values that come out of the net don't go through the sigmoid. Right? They're sort of the pre - nonlinearity values? PhD B: Yes. Professor E: Right. So they're {pause} kinda like log probabilities is what I was saying. PhD F: And those {disfmarker} OK. And tho that's what goes {pause} into {pause} HTK? Professor E: Uh, almost. But then you actually do a KLT on them. PhD F: OK. Professor E: Um. They aren't normalized after that, are they? PhD B: Mmm. No, they are not {disfmarker} no. Professor E: No. OK. So, um. Right. So the question is {disfmarker} Yeah. Whatever they are at that point, um, are they something for which taking a square root or cube root or fourth root or something like that is {disfmarker} is gonna be a good or a bad thing? So. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Uh, and that's something that nothing {disfmarker} nothing else after that is gonna {disfmarker} Uh, things are gonna scale it {disfmarker} Uh, you know, subtract things from it, scale it from it, but nothing will have that same effect. Um. So. Um. Anyway, eh {disfmarker} PhD F: Yeah. Cuz if {disfmarker} if the log probs that are coming out of the MSG are really big, the standard {pause} insertion penalty is gonna have very little effect Professor E: Well, the {disfmarker} Right. PhD F: compared to, you know, a smaller set of log probs. Professor E: Yeah. No. Again you don't really {pause} look at that. It's something {disfmarker} that, and then it's going through this transformation that's probably pretty close to {disfmarker} It's, eh, whatever the KLT is doing. But it's probably pretty close to what a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a discrete cosine transformation is doing. PhD F: Yeah. Professor E: But still it's {disfmarker} it's not gonna probably radically change the scale of things. I would think. And, uh {disfmarker} Yeah. It may be entirely off and {disfmarker} and it may be {disfmarker} at the very least it may be quite different for MSG than it is for mel cepstrum or PLP. So that would be {disfmarker} So the first thing I'd look at without adjusting anything would just be to go back to the experiment and look at the, uh, substitutions, insertions, and deletions. And if the {disfmarker} if the, uh {disfmarker} i if there's a fairly large effect of the difference, say, uh, uh, the r ratio between insertions and deletions for the two cases then that would be, uh, an indicator that it might {disfmarker} might be in that direction. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Yeah. But, Professor E: Anything else? PhD B: my {disfmarker} my point was more that it {disfmarker} it works sometimes and {disfmarker} but sometimes it doesn't work. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: So. Professor E: Well. PhD B: And it works on TI - digits and on SpeechDat - Car it doesn't work, and {disfmarker} Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Well. Professor E: But, you know, some problems are harder than others, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Professor E: and {disfmarker} And, uh, sometimes, you know, there's enough evidence for something to work and then it's harder, it breaks. You know, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor E: so it's {disfmarker} But it {disfmarker} but, um, i it {disfmarker} it could be that when you say it works maybe we could be doing much better, even in TI - digits. Right? PhD B: Yeah. Yeah, sure. Professor E: So. PhD B: Uh. Professor E: Hmm? Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Well, there is also the spectral subtraction, which, um {disfmarker} I think maybe we should, uh, try to integrate it in {disfmarker} in our system. Professor E: Yeah. PhD B: Mmm. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Right. PhD B: But, Professor E: O PhD B: I think that would involve to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to mmm {vocalsound} use a big {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} al already a big bunch of the system of Ericsson. Because he has spectral subtraction, then it's followed by, {vocalsound} um, other kind of processing that's {disfmarker} are dependent on the {disfmarker} uh, if it's speech or noi or silence. Professor E: Mm - hmm. PhD B: And there is this kind of spectral flattening after {disfmarker} if it's silence, and {disfmarker} and s I {disfmarker} I think it's important, um, {vocalsound} to reduce this musical noise and this {disfmarker} this increase of variance during silence portions. So. Well. This was in this would involve to take almost everything from {disfmarker} from the {disfmarker} this proposal and {disfmarker} and then just add some kind of on - line normalization in {disfmarker} in the neural network. Mmm. Professor E: OK. Well, this'll be, I think, something for discussion with Hynek next week. PhD B: Yeah. Mm - hmm. Professor E: Yeah. OK. Right. So. How are, uh, uh {disfmarker} how are things going with what you're doing? Grad D: Oh. Well, um, I took a lot of time just getting my taxes out of the way {disfmarker} multi - national taxes. So, I'm {disfmarker} I'm starting to write code now for my work but I don't have any results yet. Um, i it would be good for me to talk to Hynek, I think, when he's here. Professor E: Yeah. Grad D: Do you know what his schedule will be like? Professor E: Uh, he'll be around for three days. Grad D: OK. So, y Professor E: Uh, we'll have a lot of time. Grad D: OK. Professor E: So, uh {disfmarker} Um. I'll, uh {disfmarker} You know, he's {disfmarker} he'll {disfmarker} he'll be talking with everybody in this room So. PhD F: But you said you won't {disfmarker} you won't be here next Thursday? Professor E: Not Thursday and Friday. Yeah. Cuz I will be at faculty retreat. PhD F: Hmm. Professor E: So. I'll try to {vocalsound} connect with him and people as {disfmarker} as I can on {disfmarker} on Wednesday. But {disfmarker} Um. Oh, how'd taxes go? Taxes go OK? Grad D: Mmm. Yeah. Professor E: Yeah. Oh, good. Yeah. Yeah. That's just {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} that's one of the big advantages of not making much money is {vocalsound} the taxes are easier. Yeah. PhD F: Unless you're getting money in two countries. Professor E: I think you are. Aren't you? PhD F: They both want their cut. PhD B: Hmm. Grad D: Hmm. Yeah. PhD F: Right? Professor E: Yeah. Yeah. Huh. Canada w Canada wants a cut? Grad D: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Have to do {disfmarker} So you {disfmarker} you have to do two returns? Grad D: Mmm. W uh, for two thousand I did. Yeah. Professor E: Oh, oh. Yeah. For tw That's right, ju PhD F: But not for this next year? Professor E: Two thousand. Yeah. Probably not this next year, I guess. Grad D: Ye Professor E: Yeah. Grad D: Um. Professor E: Yeah. Grad D: Uh, I'll {disfmarker} I'll still have a bit of Canadian income but it'll be less complicated because I will not be a {disfmarker} considered a resident of Canada anymore, so I won't have to declare my American income on my Canadian return. Professor E: OK. Alright. Uh. Barry, do you wanna {pause} say something about your stuff here? Grad A: Oh, um. Right. I {pause} just, um, continuing looking at, uh, ph uh, phonetic events, and, uh, this Tuesday gonna be, uh, meeting with John Ohala with Chuck to talk some more about these, uh, ph um, phonetic events. Um, came up with, uh, a plan of attack, uh, gonna execute, and um {disfmarker} Yeah. It's {disfmarker} that's pretty much it. Professor E: Oh, well. No Um, why don't you say something about what it is? Grad A: Oh, you {disfmarker} oh, you want {disfmarker} you want details. Hmm. OK. Professor E: Well, we're all gathered here together. I thought we'd, you know {disfmarker} Grad A: I was hoping I could wave my hands. Um. So, um. So, once wa I {disfmarker} I was thinking getting {disfmarker} getting us a set of acoustic events to {disfmarker} um, to be able to distinguish between, uh, phones and words and stuff. And {vocalsound} um, once we {disfmarker} we would figure out a set of these events that can be, you know, um, hand - labeled or {disfmarker} or derived, uh, from h the hand - labeled phone targets. Um, we could take these events and, um, {vocalsound} do some cheating experiments, um, where we feed, um, these events into {pause} an SRI system, um, eh, and evaluate its performance on a Switchboard task. Uh, yeah. Grad D: Hey, Barry? Can you give an example of an event? Grad A: Yeah. Sure. Um, I {disfmarker} I can give you an example of {pause} twenty - odd events. Um {disfmarker} So, he In this paper, um, it's talking about phoneme recognition using acoustic events. So, things like frication or, uh, nasality. Professor E: Whose paper is it? Grad A: Um, this is a paper by Hubener and Cardson {pause} Benson {disfmarker} Bernds - Berndsen. Professor E: Yeah. Huh. From, uh, University of Hamburg and Bielefeld. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor E: OK. Grad A: Um. PhD F: Yeah. I think the {disfmarker} just to expand a little bit on the idea of acoustic event. Grad A: Mm - hmm. PhD F: There's, um {disfmarker} in my mind, anyways, there's a difference between, um, acoustic features and acoustic events. And I think of acoustic features as being, um, things that linguists talk about, like, um {disfmarker} Professor E: So, stuff that's not based on data. PhD F: Stuff that's not based on data, necessarily. Professor E: Yeah. Oh, OK. Yeah. Yeah, OK. PhD F: Right. That's not based on, you know, acoustic data. So they talk about features for phones, like, uh, its height, Grad A: Yeah. PhD F: its tenseness, laxness, things like that, Grad A: Mm - hmm. PhD F: which may or may not be all that easy to measure in the acoustic signal. Versus an acoustic event, which is just {nonvocalsound} some {nonvocalsound} something in the acoustic signal {nonvocalsound} that is fairly easy to measure. Um. So it's, um {disfmarker} it's a little different, in {disfmarker} at least in my mind. Professor E: I mean, when we did the SPAM work {disfmarker} I mean, there we had {disfmarker} we had this notion of an, uh, auditory {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} auditory event. Grad A: Good. That's great. Professor E: And, uh, um, called them" avents" , uh, uh, uh, with an A at the front. PhD F: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Uh. And the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the idea was something that occurred that is important to a bunch of neurons somewhere. So. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Um. A sudden change or a relatively rapid change in some spectral characteristic will {disfmarker} will do sort of this. I mean, there's certainly a bunch of {disfmarker} a bunch of places where you know that neurons are gonna fire because something novel has happened. That was {disfmarker} that was the main thing that we were focusing on there. But there's certainly other things beyond what we talked about there that aren't just sort of rapid changes, but {disfmarker} PhD F: It's kinda like the difference between top - down and bottom - up. Professor E: Yeah. PhD F: I think of the acoustic {disfmarker} you know, phonetic features as being top - down. You know, you look at the phone and you say this phone is supposed to be {disfmarker} you know, have this feature, this feature, and this feature. Whether tha those features show up in the acoustic signal is sort of irrelevant. Whereas, an acoustic event goes the other way. Here's the signal. Here's some event. Grad A: Mm - hmm. PhD F: What {disfmarker}? And then that {disfmarker} you know, that may map to this phone sometimes, and sometimes it may not. It just depen maybe depends on the context, things like that. Professor E: Mm - hmm. PhD F: And so it's sort of a different way of looking. Professor E: Mm - hmm. Grad A: Yeah. So. Yeah. Grad D: OK. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Um {disfmarker} Using these {disfmarker} these events, um, you know, we can {disfmarker} we can perform these {disfmarker} these, uh, cheating experiments. See how {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how good they are, um, in, um {disfmarker} in terms of phoneme recognition or word recognition. And, um {disfmarker} and then from that point on, I would, uh, s design robust event detectors, um, in a similar, um, wa spirit that Saul has done w uh, with his graphical models, and this {disfmarker} this probabilistic AND - OR model that he uses. Um, eh, try to extend it to, um {disfmarker} to account for other {disfmarker} other phenomena like, um, CMR co - modulation release. And, um {disfmarker} and maybe also investigate ways to {disfmarker} to modify the structure of these models, um, in a data - driven way, uh, similar to the way that, uh, Jeff {disfmarker} Jeff, uh, Bilmes did his work. Um, and while I'm {disfmarker} I'm doing these, um, event detectors, you know, I can ma mea measure my progress by comparing, um, the error rates in clean and noisy conditions to something like, uh, neural nets. Um, and {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so, once we have these {disfmarker} these, uh, event detectors, um, we could put them together and {disfmarker} and feed the outputs of the event detectors into {disfmarker} into the SRI, um, HMM {disfmarker} HMM system, and, um {disfmarker} and test it on {disfmarker} on Switchboard or, um, maybe even Aurora stuff. And, that's pretty much the {disfmarker} the big picture of {disfmarker} of um, the plan. Professor E: By the way, um, there's, uh, a couple people who are gonna be here {disfmarker} I forget if I already told you this, but, a couple people who are gonna be here for six months. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor E: Uh {disfmarker} uh, there's a Professor Kollmeier, uh, from Germany who's, uh, uh, quite big in the, uh, hearing - aid signal - processing area and, um, Michael Kleinschmidt, who's worked with him, who also looks at {vocalsound} auditory properties inspired by various, uh, brain function things. Grad A: Hmm. Professor E: So, um, um, I think they'll be interesting to talk to, in this sort of issue as these detectors are {disfmarker} are, uh, developing. Grad A: Hmm. OK. Professor E: So, he looks at interesting {disfmarker} interesting things in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} different ways of looking at spectra in order to {disfmarker} to get various speech properties out. So. Grad A: OK. Professor E: OK. Well, short meeting, but that's OK. And, uh, we might as well do our digits. And like I say, I {disfmarker} I encourage you to go ahead and meet, uh, next week with, uh, uh, Hynek. Alright, I'll {disfmarker} I'll start. It's, uh, one thirty - five. seventeen OK

The meeting took place close to the finalization of the model, so participants were focused on further experimentation they could conduct. It began with a discussion about how the backend system could be further improved. The team thought that perhaps they could tweak language scaling and insertion penalties to see how the model changed its performance. Then, the team moved into discussing methods for detecting voice segments in their results. Finally, the team spent some time exploring normalization techniques and acoustic events, both of which could potentially improve model performance.

tr-sq-655

tr-sq-655_0

What was said about the overlaps? PhD B: We're, I mean {pause} we {disfmarker} We didn't have a house before. Professor D: Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: OK. Professor D: We're on again? OK. PhD A: Mm - hmm. That is really great. Grad H: Yeah, so if {pause} uh {disfmarker} {pause} So if anyone hasn't signed the consent form, please do so. PhD A: That's terrific. PhD B: Oh, yeah! Professor D: OK Grad H: The new consent form. The new and improved consent form. PhD A: Now you won't be able to walk or ride your bike, huh? Professor D: OK. Postdoc F: Uh. PhD B: Right. Professor D: OK. Grad H: And uh, shall I go ahead and do some digits? Professor D: Uh, we were gonna do that at the end, remember? Grad H: OK, whatever you want. Professor D: Yeah. Just {disfmarker} just to be consistent, from here on in at least, that {disfmarker} {pause} that we'll do it at the end. PhD B: The new consent form. Grad H: It's uh {disfmarker} {pause} Yeah, it doesn't matter. OK. Professor D: OK Um Well, it ju I mean it might be that someone here has to go, Postdoc F: Testing, one, two, three. Professor D: and {disfmarker} Right? That was {disfmarker} that was sort of the point. So, uh {pause} I had asked actually anybody who had any ideas for an agenda {pause} to send it to me and no one did. So, Grad H: So we all forgot. Professor D: Uh, Postdoc F: From last time I wanted to {disfmarker} Uh {pause} {pause} The {disfmarker} An iss uh {pause} one topic from last time. Professor D: Right, s OK, so one item for an agenda is uh {pause} Jane has some uh {vocalsound} uh some research to talk about, research issues. Um {pause} and {pause} Uh, Adam has some short research issues. Grad H: And I have some {pause} short research issues. Professor D: Um, I have a {pause} list of things that I think were done over the last three months I was supposed to {vocalsound} {vocalsound} send off, uh {pause} and, um {pause} I {disfmarker} I sent a note about it to uh {disfmarker} to Adam and Jane but I think I'll just run through it {pause} also and see if someone thinks it's inaccurate or {pause} uh insufficient. PhD A: A list that you have to send off to who? Professor D: Uh, to uh uh, IBM. PhD A: Oh. Professor D: OK. They're, you know {disfmarker} PhD E: Professor D: So. Um, So, uh {pause} so, I'll go through that. Um, {pause} And, Anything else? {pause} anyone wants to talk about? PhD A: What about the, um {disfmarker} your trip, yesterday? Professor D: No. OK. Um. Sort of off - topic I guess. PhD A: Oh, OK. Professor D: Cuz that's {pause} Cuz that was all {disfmarker} all about the, uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can chat with you about that {pause} off - line. That's another thing. Um, And, Anything else? Nothing else? Uh, there's a {disfmarker} I mean, there is a {disfmarker} {pause} a, um {pause} uh {pause} telephone call tomorrow, {pause} which will be a conference call {pause} that some of us are involved in {pause} for uh a possible proposal. Um, we'll talk {disfmarker} we'll talk about it next week if {disfmarker} if something {disfmarker} Grad H: Do you want me to {pause} be there for that? I noticed you C C'ed me, but I wasn't actually a recipient. I didn't quite know what to make of that. Professor D: Uh Well, we'll talk {disfmarker} talk about that after our meeting. OK. Grad H: OK. Professor D: Uh, OK. So it sounds like the {disfmarker} the three main things that we have to talk about are, uh this list, uh Jane and {disfmarker} Jane and Adam have some research items, and, other than that, anything, {pause} as usual, {pause} anything goes beyond that. OK, uh, Jane, since {disfmarker} since you were sort of cut off last time why don't we start with yours, make sure we get to it. Postdoc F: OK, it's {disfmarker} it's very {pause} eh {disfmarker} it's {pause} very brief, I mean {disfmarker} just let me {disfmarker} just hand these out. Oops. Grad H: Is this the same as the email or different? PhD C: Thanks. Postdoc F: It's slightly different. I {disfmarker} {pause} basically the same. Grad H: OK. PhD A: Same idea? Postdoc F: But, same idea. So, if you've looked at this you've seen it before, so {pause} Basically, {vocalsound} um {pause} as you know, uh {pause} part of the encoding {pause} includes a mark that indicates {pause} an overlap. It's not indicated {pause} with, um {pause} uh, tight precision, it's just indicated that {disfmarker} OK, so, It's indicated to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} so the people know {pause} what parts of sp which {disfmarker} which stretches of speech were in the clear, versus being overlapped by others. So, I {pause} used this mark and, um {pause} and, uh {pause} uh, {pause} divided the {disfmarker} I wrote a script {pause} which divides things into individual minutes, {pause} of which we ended up with forty {pause} five, and a little bit. And, uh {pause} you know, minute zero, of course, is the first minute up to {pause} sixty seconds. PhD C: OK. Postdoc F: And, um {pause} What you can see is the number of overlaps {pause} and then {pause} to the right, {pause} whether they involve two speakers, three speakers, or more than three speakers. And, {pause} um {pause} and, what I was looking for sp sp specifically was the question of {pause} whether they're distributed evenly throughout or whether they're {pause} bursts of them. Um. And {pause} it looked to me as though {disfmarker} uh, you know {disfmarker} y this is just {disfmarker} {pause} eh {disfmarker} eh, this would {disfmarker} this is not statistically {pause} verified, {pause} but it {pause} did look to me as though there are bursts throughout, rather than being {pause} localized to a particular region. The part down there, where there's the maximum number of {disfmarker} {pause} of, um {pause} overlaps is an area where we were discussing {pause} {vocalsound} whether or not it would be useful to indi to s to {pause} code {pause} stress, {pause} uh, sentence stress {pause} as possible indication of, uh {pause} information retrieval. So it's like, {pause} you know, rather, {pause} lively discussion there. Professor D: What was {disfmarker} what's the {disfmarker} the parenthesized stuff {pause} that says, like {disfmarker} e the first one that says six overlaps and then two point eight? Postdoc F: Oh, th {vocalsound} {pause} That's the per cent. Professor D: Mmm. Postdoc F: So, six is, uh {pause} two point eight percent {pause} of the total number of overlaps in the {pause} session. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor D: Ah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: At the very end, this is when people were, {pause} you know, packing up to go basically, there's {pause} this final stuff, I think we {disfmarker} {pause} I don't remember where the digits {pause} fell. I'd have to look at that. But {pause} the final three there are no overlaps at all. And {pause} couple times there {pause} are not. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: So, i it seems like it goes through bursts {pause} but, um {pause} that's kind of it. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: Now, {pause} Another question is {pause} is there {disfmarker} are there {pause} individual differences in whether you're likely to be overlapped with or to overlap with others. And, again {pause} I want to emphasize this is just one {pause} particular {pause} um {disfmarker} {pause} one particular meeting, and also there's been no statistical testing of it all, but {pause} I, um {pause} I took the coding of {pause} the {disfmarker} I, you know, my {disfmarker} I had this script {pause} figure out, um {pause} who {pause} was the first speaker, who was the second speaker involved in a two - person overlap, I didn't look at the ones involving three or more. And, um {pause} {pause} this is how it breaks down in the individual cells of {pause} who tended to be overlapping most often with who {disfmarker} who else, and {pause} if you look at the marginal totals, which is the ones on the right side and across the bottom, you get {pause} the totals for an individual. So, {vocalsound} um {pause} If you {pause} look at the bottom, those are the, um {pause} numbers of overlaps in which {pause} um {pause} Adam was involved as the person doing the overlapping and if you look {disfmarker} I'm sorry, but you're o alphabetical, that's why I'm choosing you And then if you look across the right, {pause} then {pause} that's where he was the {pause} person who was the sp first speaker in the pair {pause} and got overlap overlapped with by somebody. PhD A: Hmm! PhD E: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: And, {pause} then if you look down in the summary table, {pause} then you see that, um {pause} th they're differences in {pause} whether a person got overlapped with or {pause} overlapped by. Grad H: Is this uh {pause} just raw counts or is it {disfmarker} Postdoc F: Raw counts. Grad H: So it would be interesting to see how much each person spoke. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah {vocalsound} Yeah Postdoc F: Yes, very true {disfmarker} very true Grad H: Normalized to how much {disfmarker} Postdoc F: it would be good to normalize with respect to that. Now on the table I did {pause} take one step toward, uh {pause} away from the raw frequencies by putting, {pause} uh {pause} percentages. So that the percentage of time {pause} of the {disfmarker} of the times that a person spoke, {pause} what percentage {pause} eh, w so. Of the times a person spoke and furthermore was involved in a two two - person overlap, {vocalsound} {vocalsound} what percentage of the time were they the overlapper and what percent of the time were they th the overlappee? And there, it looks like you see some differences, um, {pause} that some people tend to be overlapped {pause} with more often than they're overlapped, but, of course, uh i e {vocalsound} this is just one meeting, {pause} uh {pause} there's no statistical testing involved, and that would be {pause} required for a {disfmarker} for a finding {pause} of {pause} any {pause} kind of {pause} scientific {pause} reliability. Professor D: S so, i it would be statistically incorrect to conclude from this that Adam talked too much or something. Grad H: No {disfmarker} no actually, that would be actually statistically correct, Professor D: Yeah, yeah. Postdoc F: No, no, no. PhD E: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Grad H: but Postdoc F: Yeah, that's right. Professor D: Yeah. Excuse me. Postdoc F: That's right. And I'm {pause} you know, I'm {disfmarker} I don't see a point of singling people out, Professor D: B I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I rather enjoyed it, but {disfmarker} but this Postdoc F: now, this is a case where obviously {disfmarker} PhD A: But the numbers speak for themselves. PhD E: He's {disfmarker} Yeah, yeah, yeah. Postdoc F: Well, {vocalsound} you know, it's like {disfmarker} I'm not {disfmarker} I'm not saying on the tape who did {pause} better or worse Grad H: Yes, that's right, so you don't nee OK. Professor D: Sure. Postdoc F: because {pause} I don't think that it's {disfmarker} I {pause} you know, and {disfmarker} and th here's a case where of course, human subjects people would say be sure that you anonymize the results, {pause} and {disfmarker} and, so, might as well do this. Professor D: Yeah. Grad H: Yeah, when {disfmarker} this is what {disfmarker} This is actually {disfmarker} when Jane sent this email first, is what caused me to start thinking about anonymizing the data. Postdoc F: Well, fair enough. Fair enough. Professor D: Yeah. Postdoc F: And actually, {pause} you know, the point is not about an individual, it's the point about {pause} tendencies toward {pause} you know, different styles, different speaker styles. Professor D: Oh sure. Postdoc F: And {pause} it would be, you know {pause} of course, {pause} there's also the question of what type of overlap was this, and w what were they, and i and I {disfmarker} and I know that I can distinguish at least three types and, probably more, I mean, the {vocalsound} general {pause} {vocalsound} cultural idea which w uh, the conversation analysts originally started with in the seventies was that we have this {vocalsound} strict model where politeness involves that you let the person finish th before you start talking, and {pause} and you know, I mean, {pause} w we know that {disfmarker} {pause} an and they've loosened up on that too s in the intervening time, that {pause} that that's {disfmarker} that's viewed as being {pause} a culturally - relative thing, I mean, {pause} that you have the high - involvement style from the East Coast where people {vocalsound} will overlap often as an indication of interest in what the other person is saying. And Grad H: Uh - huh. PhD B: Exactly! Postdoc F: Yeah, exactly! PhD E: Yeah Postdoc F: Well, there you go. Fine, that's alright, that's OK. And {disfmarker} and, {pause} you know, in contrast, so Deborah {disfmarker} d and also Deborah Tannen's {pause} thesis she talked about differences of these types, {pause} that they're just different styles, and it's um {pause} you {disfmarker} you can't impose a model of {disfmarker} {pause} there {disfmarker} of the ideal being no overlaps, and {pause} you know, conversational analysts also agree with that, so it's {pause} now, universally {pause} a ag agreed with. And {disfmarker} and, als I mean, I can't say universally, but anyway, the people who used to say it was strict, {pause} um {pause} now, uh {pause} don't. I mean they {disfmarker} they {pause} also {pause} {vocalsound} you know, uh {pause} uh, ack acknowledge the influence of {pause} sub of subcultural norms and {pause} cross - cultural norms and things. So, um Then it beco {pause} though {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} just {disfmarker} just superficially to give {pause} um {pause} a couple ideas of the types of overlaps involved, I have at the bottom several that I noticed. So, {pause} {vocalsound} uh, there are backchannels, like what Adam just did now and, um {pause} {vocalsound} um, anticipating the end of a question and {pause} simply answering it earlier, and there are several of those in this {disfmarker} in these data where {disfmarker} PhD B: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: because we're {pause} people who've talked to each other, um {pause} we know {pause} basically what the topic is, what the possibilities are and w and we've spoken with each other so we know basically what the other person's style is likely to be and so {vocalsound} and t there are a number of places where someone just answered early. No problem. And places {pause} also which I thought were interesting, where two or more people gave exactly th the same answer in unison {disfmarker} different words of course but you know, the {disfmarker} basically, {pause} you know everyone's saying" yes" or {disfmarker} you know, or ev even more sp specific than that. So, uh, the point is that, um {pause} {vocalsound} overlap's not necessarily a bad thing and that it would be im {pause} i useful to subdivide these further and see if there are individual differences in styles with respect to the types involved. And that's all I wanted to say on that, {pause} unless people have questions. Professor D: Well, of course th the biggest, {pause} um {pause} result here, which is one we've {disfmarker} {pause} we've talked about many times and isn't new to us, but which I think would be interesting to show someone who isn't familiar with this {vocalsound} {pause} is just the sheer number of overlaps. Grad H: Yep. Professor D: That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Right? {pause} that {disfmarker} that, um PhD E: Yes, yes! Postdoc F: Oh, OK {disfmarker} interesting. PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: here's a relatively short meeting, it's a forty {disfmarker} {pause} forty plus minute {pause} {vocalsound} meeting, and not only were there two hundred and fifteen overlaps {vocalsound} {pause} but, {pause} uh I think there's one {disfmarker} {pause} one minute there where there {disfmarker} where {disfmarker} where there wasn't any overlap? Grad H: Hundred ninety - seven. Professor D: I mean, it's {disfmarker} {pause} {vocalsound} uh throughout this thing? PhD A: It'd be interesting {disfmarker} Professor D: It's {disfmarker} You have {disfmarker} Postdoc F: Well, at the bottom, you have the bottom three. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: S n are {disfmarker} Postdoc F: So four {disfmarker} four minutes all together with none {disfmarker} none. PhD A: But it w Professor D: Oh, so the bottom three did have s stuff going on? There was speech? Postdoc F: Yes, uh - huh. Yeah. But just no overlaps. Professor D: OK, so if {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} PhD A: It'd be interesting to see what the total amount of time is in the overlaps, versus {disfmarker} Postdoc F: Yes, exactly and that's {disfmarker} that's where Jose's pro project comes in. PhD E: Yeah, yeah, I h I have this that infor I have th that information now. PhD G: I was about to ask {disfmarker} PhD A: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. PhD B: Hmm. Professor D: Oh, about how much is it? PhD E: The {disfmarker} the duration of eh {disfmarker} of each of the overlaps. Professor D: O oh, what's {disfmarker} what's the {disfmarker} what's the average {pause} length? PhD E: M I {disfmarker} I haven't averaged it now but, uh {pause} I {disfmarker} I will, uh I will do the {disfmarker} the study of the {disfmarker} {pause} with the {disfmarker} with the program with the {disfmarker} uh, the different, uh {pause} the, nnn, {pause} distribution of the duration of the overlaps. Professor D: You don't know? OK, you {disfmarker} you don you don't have a feeling for roughly how {pause} much it is? Yeah. PhD E: mmm, {pause} Because the {disfmarker} the uh, @ @ is @ @. Professor D: Yeah. PhD E: The duration is, uh {pause} the variation {disfmarker} the variation of the duration is uh, very big on the dat PhD A: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: I suspect that it will also differ, {pause} depending on the type of overlap {pause} involved. PhD E: but eh {disfmarker} Professor D: Oh, I'm sure. PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F: So backchannels will be very brief PhD E: Because, on your surface eh {pause} a bit of zone of overlapping with the duration eh, overlapped and another very very short. Postdoc F: and {disfmarker} Professor D: Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: Uh, i probably it's very difficult to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} because the {disfmarker} the overlap is, uh on is only the {disfmarker} in the final" S" of the {disfmarker} of the {disfmarker} the fin the {disfmarker} the end {disfmarker} the end word of the, um {pause} previous speaker {vocalsound} with the {disfmarker} the next word of the {disfmarker} the new speaker. PhD A: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Um, I considered {pause} that's an overlap but it's very short, it's an" X" with a {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} the idea is probably, eh {pause} when eh {disfmarker} when eh, we studied th th that zone, eh {pause} {pause} eh, we h we have eh eh {pause} confusion with eh eh noise. PhD A: Mm - hmm. PhD E: With eh {pause} that fricative sounds, but uh {pause} I have new information but I have to {disfmarker} to study. Professor D: Yeah. Yeah, but I {disfmarker} I'd {disfmarker} {vocalsound} u PhD G: Can I {disfmarker} Professor D: go ahead. Postdoc F: Yeah. PhD G: You split this by minute, um {pause} so if an overlap straddles {pause} the boundary between two minutes, that counts towards both of those minutes. Postdoc F: Yes. Mm - hmm. Actually, um {vocalsound} um {pause} actually not. Uh, so {pause} le let's think about the case where {vocalsound} A starts speaking {pause} {vocalsound} and then B overlaps with A, {pause} and then the minute boundary happens. And let's say that {vocalsound} after that minute boundary, {vocalsound} um {pause} B is still speaking, {pause} and A overlaps {pause} with B, that would be a new overlap. But otherwise {pause} um, let's say B {pause} comes to the conclusion of {disfmarker} of that turn without {pause} anyone overlapping with him or her, in which case there would be no overlap counted in that second minute. PhD G: No, but suppose they both talk simultaneously {vocalsound} {pause} both a {disfmarker} a portion of it is in minute one and another portion of minute two. Postdoc F: OK. In that case, um {pause} my c {pause} the coding that I was using {disfmarker} {vocalsound} since we haven't, {pause} uh {pause} incorporated Adam's, uh {pause} coding of overlap yets, the coding of Yeah," yets" is not a word. Uh {vocalsound} since we haven't incorporated Adam's method of handling overl overlaps yet {vocalsound} um {pause} then {pause} that would have fallen through the cra cracks. It would be an underestimate of the number of overlaps because, um {pause} I wou I wouldn't be able to pick it up from the way it was {pause} encoded so far. Professor D: I I Postdoc F: We just haven't done th the precise second to sec you know, {pause} second to second coding of when they occur. Professor D: I I I'm {disfmarker} I'm {disfmarker} I'm confused now. So l l let me restate what I thought Andreas was saying and {disfmarker} and see. Postdoc F: Uh - huh. Professor D: Let's say that in {disfmarker} in second fifty - seven {pause} {vocalsound} of one minute, {pause} you start talking and I start talking and {pause} we ignore each other and keep on talking for six seconds. Postdoc F: Yep. OK. Mm - hmm. Professor D: So we go over {disfmarker} So we were {disfmarker} we were talking over one another, {pause} and it's just {disfmarker} in each case, it's just sort of one {pause} interval. Right? Postdoc F: Mm - hmm? Professor D: So, um {pause} we talked over the minute boundary. Is this {pause} considered as one overlap in each of the minutes, the way you have done this. Postdoc F: No, it wouldn't. It would be considered as an overlap in the first one. Professor D: OK, so that's {pause} good, i I think, in the sense that I think Andreas meant the question, PhD B: That's {disfmarker} {pause} that's good, yeah, cuz the overall rate is {disfmarker} PhD C: PhD G: Yeah. Grad H: Statistical. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc F: Mm - hmm. Professor D: right? Postdoc F: Yeah. They're not double counted. PhD G: Other - otherwise you'd get double counts, here and there. Grad H: Yep. PhD B: Ah but, yeah. PhD E: Yeah. PhD B: PhD G: And then it would be harder {disfmarker} Professor D: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F: I should also say I did a simplifying, uh {pause} count in that {vocalsound} if A was speaking {pause} B overlapped with A and then A came back again and overlapped with B again, I {disfmarker} I didn't count that as a three - person overlap, I counted that as a two - person overlap, {pause} and it was A being overlapped with by D. Grad H: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: Because the idea was the first speaker {pause} had the floor {pause} and the second person {pause} started speaking and then the f the first person reasserted the floor {pause} kind of thing. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc F: These are simplifying assumptions, didn't happen very often, there may be like three overlaps affected that way in the whole thing. Grad H: I want to go back and listen to minute forty - one. Postdoc F: Yeah, yeah. Grad H: Cuz i i I find it interesting that there were a large number of overlaps and they were all two - speaker. Professor D: Yeah. Grad H: I mean what I thought {disfmarker} what I would have thought in {pause} is that when there were a large number of overlaps, it was because everyone was talking at once, {vocalsound} but uh apparently not. Postdoc F: That's interesting. That's interesting. PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Mmm. Grad H: That's really neat. Professor D: Yeah. Postdoc F: Yeah, there's a lot of backchannel, a lot o a lot of {disfmarker} Grad H: This is {pause} really interesting data. Postdoc F: Yeah, it is. PhD B: I think what's really interesting though, it is {pause} before d {pause} saying" yes, meetings have a lot of overlaps" is to actually find out how many more {pause} we have than two - party. Postdoc F: I think so too, I think {disfmarker} PhD B: Cuz in two - party conversations, like Switchboard, there's an awful lot too if you just look at backchannels, if you consider those overlaps? it's also ver it's huge. It's just that people haven't been {pause} looking at that because they've been doing single - channel processing for {pause} speech recognition. Grad H: Mm - hmm. Professor D: Mm - hmm? PhD B: So, the question is, you know, how many more overlaps {pause} {vocalsound} do you have {pause} of, say the two - person type, by adding more people. to a meeting, and it may be a lot more but i it may {disfmarker} {pause} it may not be. Professor D: Well, but see, I find it interesting even if it wasn't any more, PhD B: So. Professor D: because {pause} since we were dealing with this full duplex sort of thing in Switchboard where it was just all separated out {vocalsound} we just {disfmarker} everything was just nice, PhD B: Mm - hmm? Professor D: so that {disfmarker} so the issue is in {disfmarker} in a situation {pause} where th that's {disfmarker} PhD B: Well, it's not really {pause}" nice" . It depends what you're doing. So if you were actually {pause} {vocalsound} having, uh {disfmarker} depends what you're doing, if {disfmarker} Right now we're do we have individual mikes on the people in this meeting. So the question is, you know {disfmarker}" are there really more overlaps happening than there would be in a two - person {pause} party" . Professor D: Mm - hmm? PhD B: And {disfmarker} and there well may be, but {disfmarker} Professor D: Let {disfmarker} let m let me rephrase what I'm saying cuz I don't think I'm getting it across. What {disfmarker} what I {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} I shouldn't use words like" nice" because maybe that's too {disfmarker} i too imprecise. But what I mean is {vocalsound} that, um in Switchboard, {pause} despite the many {disfmarker} many other problems that we have, one problem that we're not considering is overlap. And what we're doing now is, {pause} aside from the many other differences in the task, we are considering overlap and one of the reasons that we're considering it, {pause} you know, one of them not all of them, one of them is {vocalsound} that w uh at least, {pause} you know I'm very interested in {vocalsound} the scenario in which, uh {pause} both people talking are pretty much equally {pause} audible, {vocalsound} and from a single microphone. And so, {pause} in that case, it does get mixed in, {vocalsound} and it's pretty hard to jus {pause} to just ignore it, to just do processing on one and not on the other. PhD B: I {disfmarker} I agree that it's an issue here {pause} but it's also an issue for Switchboard and if you {pause} think of meetings {pause} being recorded over the telephone, which I think, you know, this whole point of studying meetings isn't just to have people in a room but to also have {pause} meetings over different phone lines. Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: Maybe far field mike people wouldn't be interested in that but all the dialogue issues still apply, Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: so if each of us was calling and having {pause} {vocalsound} a meeting that way {pause} you kn you know like a conference call. And, just the question is, {pause} y you know, in Switchboard {pause} you would think that's the simplest case of a meeting of more than one person, Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: and {pause} {vocalsound} I'm wondering how much more {pause} overlap {pause} of {pause} the types that {disfmarker} that Jane described happen with more people present. So it may be that having three people {pause} {vocalsound} is very different from having two people or it may not be. Professor D: That's an important question to ask. PhD B: So. Professor D: I think what I'm {disfmarker} {pause} All I'm s really saying is that I don't think we were considering that in Switchboard. PhD B: Not you, me. But uh {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but Professor D: Were you? Grad H: Though it wasn't {pause} in the design. Professor D: Were you {disfmarker} were you {disfmarker} were you {disfmarker} were you measuring it? I mean, w w were {disfmarker} PhD B: There {disfmarker} there's actually to tell you the truth, the reason why it's hard to measure is because of so, from the point of view of studying dialogue, I mean, which {pause} Dan Jurafsky and Andreas and I had some projects on, you want to know the sequence of turns. Professor D: Yeah. PhD B: So what happens is if you're talking and I have a backchannel in the middle of your turn, and then you keep going what it looks like in a dialogue model is your turn and then my backchannel, Professor D: Yeah. PhD B: even though my backchannel occurred completely inside your turn. Professor D: Yeah? PhD B: So, for things like language modeling or dialogue modeling {pause} {vocalsound} it's {disfmarker} We know that that's wrong in real time. Professor D: Yeah? PhD B: But, because of the acoustic segmentations that were done and the fact that some of the acoustic data in Switchboard were missing, people couldn't study it, but that doesn't mean in the real world that people don't talk that way. So, it's {disfmarker} um Professor D: Yeah, I wasn't saying that. Right? I was just saying that w now we're looking at it. PhD B: Well, we've als Professor D: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and, you {disfmarker} you maybe wanted to look at it before but, for these various technical reasons in terms of how the data was you weren't. PhD B: Right. We're looking at it here. Professor D: So that's why it's coming to us as new even though it may well be {pause} you know, if your {disfmarker} if your hypothes The hypothesis you were offering {vocalsound} eh {disfmarker} PhD B: Um. Professor D: Right? {disfmarker} if it's the null poth {comment} hypothesis, and if actually you have as much overlap in a two - person, {vocalsound} we don't know the answer to that. The reason we don't know the answer to is cuz it wasn't studied and it wasn't studied because it wasn't set up. Right? PhD B: Yeah, all I meant is that if you're asking the question from the point of view of {pause} what's different about a meeting, studying meetings of, say, more than two people versus {pause} what kinds of questions you could ask with a two - person {pause} meeting. Professor D: Mm - hmm? PhD B: It's important to distinguish {pause} that, you know, this project {pause} is getting a lot of overlap {pause} but other projects were too, but we just couldn't study them. And and so uh Professor D: May have been. May have been. Right? PhD B: Well, there is a high rate, Professor D: We do kn we don't know the numbers. PhD B: So. It's {disfmarker} but I don't know how high, in fact PhD A: Well, here I have a question. PhD B: that would be interesting to know. Professor D: See, I mean, i i le let me t I mean, my point was just if you wanted to say to somebody," what have we learned about overlaps here?" just never mind comparison with something else, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor D: what we've learned about is overlaps in this situation, is that {disfmarker} the first {disfmarker} {pause} the first - order thing I would say is that there's a lot of them. Right? PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: In {disfmarker} in the sense that i if you said if {disfmarker} i i i PhD B: Yeah, I {disfmarker} I don't di I agree with that. Professor D: In a way, I guess what I'm comparing to is more the common sense notion of {vocalsound} how {disfmarker} how much people overlap. Uh {pause} you know the fact that when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when, uh, Adam was looking for a stretch of {disfmarker} of speech before, that didn't have any overlaps, and he w he was having such a hard time and now I look at this and I go," well, I can see why he was having such a hard time" . PhD B: Right. That's also true of Switchboard. Professor D: It's happening a lot. PhD B: It may not be {disfmarker} Professor D: I wasn't saying it wasn't. PhD B: Right. So it's just, um Professor D: Right? I was commenting about this. PhD B: OK. All I'm saying is that from the Professor D: I'm saying if I {disfmarker} {pause} I'm saying if I have this complicated thing in front of me, {vocalsound} and we sh which, {pause} you know we're gonna get much more sophisticated about when we get lots more data, But {disfmarker} Then, if I was gonna describe to somebody what did you learn {pause} right here, about, you know, the {disfmarker} the modest amount of data that was analyzed I'd say," Well, the first - order thing was there was a lot of overlaps" . In fact {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and it's not just an overlap {disfmarker} bunch of overlaps {disfmarker} second - order thing is {vocalsound} it's not just a bunch of overlaps in one particular point, {vocalsound} but that there's overlaps, uh throughout the thing. Grad H: Right. PhD B: Right. No, I {disfmarker} I agree with that. Professor D: And that's interesting. That's all. PhD B: I'm just {pause} {vocalsound} saying that it may {disfmarker} {pause} the reason you get overlaps may or may not be due to sort of the number of people in the meeting. Professor D: Oh yeah. PhD B: And that's all. Professor D: Yeah. Yeah, I wasn't making any statement about that. PhD B: And {disfmarker} and it would actually be interesting to find out Professor D: Yeah. PhD B: because some of the data say Switchboard, which isn't exactly the same kind of context, I mean these are two people who don't know each other and so forth, But we should still be able to somehow say what {disfmarker} what is the added contra contribution to sort of overlap time of each additional person, or something like that. Grad H: Yep. Professor D: Yeah, that would be good to know, PhD A: What {disfmarker} Professor D: but w we {disfmarker} Postdoc F: OK, now. Grad H: I could certainly see it going either way. Postdoc F: Wh - yeah, I {disfmarker} I agree {disfmarker} I agree with Adam. PhD B: But yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F: And the reason is because I think there's a limit {disfmarker} {pause} there's an upper bound {pause} on how many you can have, simply {pause} from the standpoint of audibility. When we speak we {disfmarker} we do make a judgment of {pause}" can {disfmarker}" you know, as adults. PhD B: Right. Professor D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: I mean, children don't adjust so well, I mean, if a truck goes rolling past, {vocalsound} adults will well, depending, but mostly, adults will {disfmarker} will {disfmarker} {pause} will hold off to what {disfmarker} {pause} to finish the end of the sentence till the {disfmarker} till the noise is past. Professor D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: And I think we generally do {vocalsound} monitor things like that, {pause} about {disfmarker} whether we {disfmarker} whether our utterance will be in the clear or not. PhD B: Right. Postdoc F: And partly it's related to rhythmic structure in conversation, so, {vocalsound} you know, you {disfmarker} you t Yeah, this is d also um, people tend to time their {disfmarker} their {disfmarker} {vocalsound} their, um {pause} when they {pause} come into the conversation based on the overall rhythmic, {pause} uh uh, ambient thing. PhD A: Well {disfmarker} PhD B: Right. Postdoc F: So you don't want to be c cross - cutting. And {disfmarker} and, just to finish this, that um That I think that {vocalsound} there may be an upper bound on how many overlaps you can have, simply from the standpoint of audibility and how loud the other people are who are already {pause} in the fray. But I {disfmarker} you know, of certain types. Now if it's just backchannels, {vocalsound} people {pause} may be doing that {pause} with less {pause} intention of being heard, {pause} just sort of spontaneously doing backchannels, in which case {pause} that {disfmarker} those might {disfmarker} there may be no upper bound on those. PhD G: I {disfmarker} I have a feeling that backchannels, which are the vast majority of overlaps in Switchboard, {pause} uh, don't play as big a role here, because it's very unnatural I think, to backchannel if {disfmarker} in a multi - audience {disfmarker} you know, in a multi - person {vocalsound} {pause} audience. PhD B: If you can see them, actually. It's interesting, so if you watch people are going like {disfmarker} {comment} {comment} Right {disfmarker} right, like this here, PhD G: Right. PhD E: Yeah. PhD B: but That may not be the case if you couldn't see them. Professor D: u PhD G: But {disfmarker} {pause} but, it's sort of odd if one person's speaking and everybody's listening, and it's unusual to have everybody going" uh - huh, uh - huh" Professor D: Actually, I think I've done it {pause} a fair number of times today. PhD B: Yeah. Professor D: But. PhD B: There's a lot of head - nodding, in this Grad H: Um. PhD G: Yeah. Grad H: Yep, we need to put trackers on it. PhD A: In {disfmarker} in the two - person {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Postdoc F: He could, he could. PhD G: Plus {disfmarker} plus {disfmarker} plus the {disfmarker} Yeah. So {disfmarker} so actually, um That's in part because the nodding, if you have visual contact, {pause} the nodding has the same function, but on the phone, in Switchboard {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} that wouldn't work. So {vocalsound} so you need to use the backchannel. Grad H: Yeah, you don't have it. Your mike is {disfmarker} PhD A: So, in the two - person conversations, {pause} when there's backchannel, is there a great deal of {pause} overlap {pause} in the speech? Grad H: That is an earphone, so if you just put it {pause} so it's on your ear. PhD A: or {disfmarker} Cuz my impression is sometimes it happens when there's a pause, PhD B: Yes. Grad H: There you go. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc F: E for example. Grad H: Thank you. PhD A: you know, like you {disfmarker} you get a lot of backchannel, when somebody's pausing PhD B: Yes. Right. Postdoc F: She's doing that. PhD B: Sorry, what were you saying? PhD A: It's hard to do both, huh? Um {pause} no, when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when there's backchannel, I mean, just {disfmarker} I was just listening, and {disfmarker} and when there's two people talking and there's backchannel it seems like, {pause} um the backchannel happens when, you know, the pitch drops and the first person {disfmarker} PhD B: Oh. PhD A: and a lot of times, the first person actually stops talking and then there's a backchannel {pause} and then they start up again, and so I'm wondering about {disfmarker} h I just wonder how much overlap there is. Is there a lot? PhD B: I think there's a lot of the kind that Jose was talking about, where {disfmarker} {pause} I mean, this is called" precision timing" in {pause} conversation analysis, where {pause} {vocalsound} they come in overlapping, {pause} but at a point where the {pause} information is mostly {pause} complete. So all you're missing is some last syllables or something or the last word or some highly predictable words. PhD A: Mmm. Mm - hmm. PhD B: So technically, it's an overlap. PhD A: But maybe a {disfmarker} just a small overlap? PhD B: But {pause} you know, from information flow point of view it's not an overlap in {pause} the predictable information. PhD E: More, yeah. Grad H: It'd be interesting if we could do prediction. PhD A: I was just thinking more in terms of alignment, alignment overlap. PhD B: Yeah. Grad H: Language model prediction of overlap, that would be really interesting. PhD G: So {disfmarker} {pause} so {disfmarker} PhD B: Well, that's exactly, exactly why we wanted to study the precise timing of overlaps ins in uh Switchboard, Professor D: Yeah. PhD G: Right. Grad H: Right. PhD B: say, because there's a lot of that. PhD G: So {disfmarker} so here's a {disfmarker} here's a first interesting {pause} labeling task. Uh, to distinguish between, say, backchannels {vocalsound} {pause} precision timing {disfmarker} Sort of {vocalsound} you know, benevolent overlaps, and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {pause} and w and {disfmarker} and sort of, um {pause} I don't know, hostile overlaps, where {vocalsound} someone is trying to grab the floor from someone else. Grad H: Mm - hmm. Let's pick a different word. PhD E: Yeah. PhD G: Uh, that {disfmarker} that might be an interesting, um {pause} problem to look at. PhD A: Hostile takeovers. PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Postdoc F: Well, I mean you could do that. I ju I {disfmarker} I think that {pause} in this meeting I really had the feeling that wasn't happening, that {pause} the hostile {disfmarker} hostile type. These were {disfmarker} these were {pause} benevolent types, as people {pause} finishing each other's sentences, and {pause} stuff. PhD G: OK. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD G: Um, I could imagine that as {disfmarker} there's a fair number of {vocalsound} um cases where, and this is sort of, not {pause} really hostile, but sort of competitive, where {vocalsound} one person is finishing something and {vocalsound} you have, like, two or three people jumping {disfmarker} trying to {disfmarker} {pause} trying to {disfmarker} {pause} trying to, uh grab the next turn. Grad H: Trying to get the floor. Professor D: Yeah. PhD G: And so it's not against the person who talks first {pause} because actually we're all waiting for that person to finish. But they all want to {pause} be next. Professor D: I have a feeling most of these things are {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} {pause} that are not {pause} a benevolent kind are {disfmarker} are {vocalsound} {pause} are, uh {pause} um {pause} {vocalsound} are {disfmarker} are competitive as opposed to real really {disfmarker} really hostile. PhD G: Right. PhD A: I wonder what determines who gets the floor? Professor D: But. Postdoc F: Yeah, I agree. I agree. PhD A: I mean {disfmarker} Postdoc F: Well, there are various things, you {disfmarker} you have the {disfmarker} Professor D: Uh a vote {disfmarker} vote in Florida. Grad H: It's been studied a lot. Professor D: Yeah. PhD E: Voting for {disfmarker} Professor D: Um, o one thing {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I wanted to {disfmarker} or you can tell a good joke and then everybody's laughing and you get a chance to g break in. PhD G: Seniority. Professor D: But. But. Um. You know, the other thing I was thinking was that, {pause} um {pause} these {disfmarker} all these interesting questions are, of course, pretty hard to answer with, uh u {pause} you know, a small amount of data. Grad H: Ach. Professor D: So, um {pause} I wonder if what you're saying suggests that we should make a conscious attempt to have, um {vocalsound} a {disfmarker} a fair number of meetings with, uh a smaller number of people. Right? I mean {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} most of our meetings are {pause} uh, meetings currently with say five, six, seven, eight people Should we {pause} really try to have some two - person meetings, {pause} or some three - person meetings and re record them {vocalsound} just to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to beef up the {disfmarker} the statistics on that? Postdoc F: That's a control. Well, {vocalsound} it seems like there are two possibilities there, I mean {pause} i it seems like {vocalsound} if you have just {pause} two people it's not {pause} really, y like a meeting, w is not as similar as the rest of the {disfmarker} {pause} of the sample. It depends on what you're after, of course, but {vocalsound} It seems like that would be more a case of the control condition, compared to, uh {pause} an experimental {pause} condition, with more than two. Grad H: Mm - hmm. Professor D: Well, Liz was raising the question of {disfmarker} of whether i it's the number {disfmarker} there's a relationship between the number of people and the number of overlaps or type of overlaps there, Postdoc F: Mm - hmm. Professor D: and, um {vocalsound} If you had two people meeting in this kind of circumstance then you'd still have the visuals. You wouldn't have that difference {pause} also that you have in the {vocalsound} say, in Switchboard data. Uh Postdoc F: Mm - hmm. Yeah, I'm just thinking that'd be more like a c control condition. Professor D: Yeah. Postdoc F: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: Well, but from the acoustic point of view, it's all good. PhD E: Is the same. Professor D: Yeah, acoustic is fine, but {disfmarker} PhD G: If {disfmarker} if the goal were to just look at overlap you would {disfmarker} you could serve yourself {disfmarker} save yourself a lot of time but not even transcri transcribe the words. PhD B: Well, I was thinking you should be able to do this from the {pause} acoustics, on the close - talking mikes, Grad H: Yep. Professor D: Yeah. Grad H: Well, that's {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} that was my {disfmarker} my status report, PhD B: right? Postdoc F: You've been working on that. PhD B: Right, I mean Adam was {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F: Yeah. Grad H: so {vocalsound} {pause} Once we're done with this stuff discussing, PhD B: right. I mean, not as well as what {disfmarker} I mean, you wouldn't be able to have any kind of typology, obviously, Professor D: Yeah. PhD B: but you'd get some rough statistics. Grad H: Mm - hmm. PhD B: So. Professor D: But {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what do you think about that? Do you think that would be useful? I'm just thinking that as an action item of whether we should try to record some two - person meetings or something. PhD B: I guess my {disfmarker} my first comment was, um {pause} only that {vocalsound} um we should n not attribute overlaps only to meetings, but maybe that's obvious, maybe everybody knew that, Professor D: Yeah. PhD B: but that {vocalsound} in normal conversation with two people there's an awful lot of the same kinds of overlap, and that it would be interesting to look at {pause} whether there are these kinds of constraints that Jane mentioned, that {vocalsound} what maybe the additional people add to this competition that happens right after a turn, Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: you know, because now you can have five people trying to grab the turn, but pretty quickly there're {disfmarker} they back off and you go back to this sort of only one person at a time with one person interrupting at a time. Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: So, I don't know. To answer your question I {pause} it {disfmarker} I don't think it's crucial to have controls but I think it's worth recording all the meetings we {pause} can. Grad H: Can. PhD B: So, um {pause} you know. Professor D: Well, {vocalsound} OK. PhD E: Yeah. PhD G: I {disfmarker} I have an idea. PhD B: D I wouldn't not record a two - person meeting just because it only has two people. Grad H: Right. PhD G: Could we {disfmarker} Could we, um {disfmarker} we have {disfmarker} have in the past and I think continue {disfmarker} will continue to have a fair number of {pause} uh phone conference calls. Professor D: Uh - huh. PhD G: And, {vocalsound} uh, {pause} and as a {disfmarker} to, um {vocalsound} as another c {pause} c comparison {pause} condition, {pause} we could um see what {disfmarker} what what happens in terms of overlap, when you don't have visual contact. Grad H: Yeah, we talked about this repeatedly. PhD G: So, um {disfmarker} PhD B: Can we actually record? Grad H: It just seems like that's a very different {pause} thing than what we're doing. Professor D: Uh Well, we'll have to set up for it. PhD B: I mean {pause} physically {pause} can we record the o the other {disfmarker} Professor D: Yeah. Well, we're not really set up for it {pause} to do that. But. PhD G: Or, this is getting a little extravagant, we could put up some kind of blinds or something to {disfmarker} {pause} to remove, uh {pause} visual contact. Professor D: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. Grad H: Barriers! PhD B: That's what they did on Map Task, you know, this Map Task corpus? They ran exactly the same pairs of people with and without visual cues and it's quite interesting. Professor D: Well, we {disfmarker} we record this meeting so regularly it wouldn't be that {disfmarker} I mean {pause} a little strange. Grad H: OK, we can record, but no one can look at each other. PhD B: Well, we could just put {pause} b blindfolds on. PhD C: Yeah. PhD G: Well y no you {disfmarker} f Grad H: Close your eyes. Postdoc F: Blindf PhD G: Yeah, Yeah. Grad H: Turn off the lights. PhD B: and we'd take a picture of everybody sitting here with blindfolds. That would {disfmarker} Professor D: Oh, th that was the other thing, weren't we gonna take a picture {pause} at the beginning of each of these meetings? Grad H: Um, what {disfmarker} I had thought we were gonna do is just take pictures of the whiteboards. rather than take pictures of the meeting. Postdoc F: Well, linguistic {disfmarker} Grad H: And, uh {disfmarker} Professor D: Yes. Postdoc F: Yeah. Linguistic anthropologists would {disfmarker} would suggest it would be useful to also take a picture of the meeting. Professor D: There's a head nodding here vigorously, yeah. PhD A: Why {disfmarker} why do we want to have a picture of the meeting? PhD B: Ee - {pause} you mean, transc {pause} no {disfmarker} Postdoc F: The {disfmarker} because you get then the spatial relationship of the speakers. PhD E: Yeah Yeah. Postdoc F: And that {pause} could be PhD G: Well, you could do that by just noting on the enrollment sheet the {disfmarker} {pause} the seat number. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: Seat number, that's a good idea. I'll do that. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: I'll do that on the next set of forms. PhD E: Yeah. PhD G: So you'd number them somehow. PhD E: Is possible to get information from the rhythmic {disfmarker} f from the ge, eh {pause} uh, files. Grad H: I finally remembered to put, uh put native language on the newer forms. PhD A: We can {disfmarker} can't you figure it out from the mike number? Grad H: No. PhD A: OK. Grad H: The wireless ones. And even the jacks, I mean, I'm sitting here and the jack is {pause} over {pause} in front of you. PhD A: Oh. PhD B: But probably from these you could've {comment} infer it. PhD G: Yeah, but It's {disfmarker} it would be trivial {disfmarker} Grad H: It would be another task. PhD B: It would be a research task. Grad H: Having {disfmarker} having ground tu truth would be nice, so {pause} seat number would be good. PhD A: You know where you could get it? PhD B: Yeah, yeah. PhD A: Beam - forming during the digit {pause} uh stuff. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: So I'm gonna put little labels on all the chairs with the seat number. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Grad H: That's a good idea. PhD B: But you have to keep the chairs in the same pla like here. PhD G: Not the chairs. The chairs are {disfmarker} Chairs are movable. Grad H: But, uh {disfmarker} PhD G: Put them {disfmarker} {pause} Like, {pause} put them on the table where they {disfmarker} PhD E: The chair {comment} Yeah. Grad H: Yep. PhD C: Yeah. Grad H: Yep. Postdoc F: But you know, they {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} s the linguistic anthropologists would say it would be good to have a digital picture anyway, PhD A: Just remembered a joke. Postdoc F: because you get {pause} a sense also of posture. Posture, and we could like, {pause} you know, {pause} block out the person's face or whatever PhD G: What people were wearing. Grad H: Yeah. PhD B: The fashion statement. Postdoc F: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but, you know, these are important cues, PhD G: Oh, Andreas was {disfmarker} PhD A: How big their heads are. Postdoc F: I mean the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} how a person is sitting {pause} is {disfmarker} Professor D: But if you just f But from one picture, I don't know that you really get that. PhD G: Yeah. Andreas was wearing that same old sweater again. Professor D: Right? You'd want a video for that, I think. Postdoc F: It'd be better than nothing, is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} i Just from a single picture I think you can tell some aspects. PhD E: A video, yeah. Professor D: Think so? Postdoc F: I mean I {disfmarker} I could tell you I mean, if I if I'm in certain meetings I notice that there are certain people who really do {disfmarker} eh {disfmarker} The body language is very uh {disfmarker} is very interesting in terms of the dominance aspect. PhD G: And {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} Professor D: Hmm. PhD G: Yeah. And {disfmarker} and Morgan had that funny hair again. Postdoc F: Yeah. {comment} Well, I mean you black out the {disfmarker} that part. Grad H: Hmm. Postdoc F: But it's just, you know, the {disfmarker} the body PhD A: He agreed. Postdoc F: you know? Grad H: Of course, the {disfmarker} where we sit at the table, I find is very interesting, that we do tend to {pause} cong {pause} to gravitate to the same place each time. Postdoc F: Yeah. Grad H: and it's somewhat coincidental. I'm sitting here so that I can run into the room if the hardware starts, you know, catching fire or something. PhD G: Oh, no, you {disfmarker} you just like to be in charge, that's why you're sitting {disfmarker} Grad H: I just want to be at the head of the table. PhD G: Yeah. Grad H: Take control. Professor D: Speaking of taking control, you said you had some research to talk about. Postdoc F: Yeah. Yeah. Grad H: Yeah, I've been playing with, um uh, using the close - talking mike to do {disfmarker} to try to figure out who's speaking. So my first attempt was just using thresholding and filtering, that we talked about {disfmarker} about two weeks ago, and so I played with that a little bit, and {vocalsound} it works O K, {pause} except that {pause} it's very sensitive to your choice of {vocalsound} your filter width and your {vocalsound} threshold. So if you fiddle around with it a little bit and you get good numbers you can actually do a pretty good job of segmenting when someone's talking and when they're not. But if you try to use the same paramenters on another speaker, it doesn't work anymore, even if you normalize it based on the absolute loudness. PhD B: But does it work for that one speaker throughout the whole meeting? Grad H: It does work for the one speaker throughout the whole meeting. Um Pretty well. PhD A: How did you do it Adam? Grad H: Pretty well. How did I do it? PhD A: Yeah. Grad H: What do you mean? PhD A: I mean, wh what was the {disfmarker} Grad H: The algorithm was, uh take o every frame that's over the threshold, and then median - filter it, {vocalsound} and then look for runs. PhD A: Yeah. Mm - hmm. Grad H: So there was a minimum run length, PhD A: Every frame that's over what threshold? Grad H: so that {disfmarker} A threshold that you pick. PhD A: In terms of energy? Ah! Grad H: Yeah. PhD A: OK. Postdoc F: Say that again? Frame over fres threshold. Grad H: So you take a {disfmarker} each frame, and you compute the energy and if it's over the threshold you set it to one, and if it's under the threshold you set it to zero, {vocalsound} so now you have a bit stream {pause} of zeros and ones. Postdoc F: Hmm. OK. Grad H: And then I median - filtered that {vocalsound} using, um {pause} a fairly long {pause} filter length. Uh {pause} well, actually I guess depends on what you mean by long, you know, tenth of a second sorts of numbers. Um and that's to average out you know, pitch, you know, the pitch contours, and things like that. And then, uh looked for long runs. Postdoc F: OK Grad H: And that works O K, if you fil if you tune the filter parameters, if you tune {vocalsound} how long your median filter is and how high you're looking for your thresholds. PhD A: Did you ever try running the filter before you pick a threshold? Grad H: No. I certainly could though. But this was just I had the program mostly written already so it was easy to do. OK and then the other thing I did, was I took {vocalsound} Javier's speaker - change detector {disfmarker} acoustic - change detector, and I implemented that with the close - talking mikes, and {pause} unfortunately that's not working real well, and it looks like it's {disfmarker} the problem is {disfmarker} he does it in two passes, the first pass {vocalsound} is to find candidate places to do a break. And he does that using a neural net doing broad phone classification and he has the {vocalsound} the, uh {pause} one of the phone classes is silence. And so the possible breaks are where silence starts and ends. And then he has a second pass which is a modeling {disfmarker} a Gaussian mixture model. Um looking for {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} whether it improves or {disfmarker} or degrades to split at one of those particular places. And what looks like it's happening is that the {disfmarker} even on the close - talking mike the broad phone class classifier's doing a really bad job. PhD A: Who was it trained on? Grad H: Uh, I have no idea. PhD A: Hmm. Grad H: I don't remember. Does an do you remember, Morgan, was it Broadcast News? Professor D: I think so, yeah. Grad H: Um {pause} So, at any rate, my next attempt, {pause} which I'm in the midst of and haven't quite finished yet was actually using the {vocalsound} uh, thresholding as the way of generating the candidates. Because one of the things that definitely happens is if you put the threshold low {vocalsound} you get lots of breaks. All of which are definitely acoustic events. They're definitely {vocalsound} someone talking. But, like, it could be someone who isn't the person here, but the person over there or it can be the person breathing. And then feeding that into the acoustic change detector. And so I think that might work. But, I haven't gotten very far on that. But all of this is close - talking mike, so it's, uh {pause} just {disfmarker} just trying to get some ground truth. PhD E: Only with eh uh, but eh I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think, eh when {disfmarker} when, y I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I saw the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the speech from PDA and, eh {pause} close {pause} {vocalsound} talker. I {disfmarker} I think the there is a {disfmarker} a great difference in the {disfmarker} in the signal. Grad H: Oh, absolutely. PhD E: Um but eh I {disfmarker} but eh I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean that eh eh {pause} in the {disfmarker} in the mixed file {vocalsound} you can find, uh {pause} zone with, eh {pause} great different, eh {pause} level of energy. Grad H: So {pause} s my intention for this is {disfmarker} is as an aide for ground truth. not {disfmarker} PhD E: Um {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think for, eh {pause} algorithm based on energy, {pause} eh, that um h mmm, {disfmarker} more or less, eh, like eh {pause} eh, mmm, first sound energy detector. Grad H: Say it again? PhD E: eh nnn. When y you the detect the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the first at {disfmarker} at the end of {disfmarker} of the {vocalsound} detector of, ehm princ um. What is the {disfmarker} the name in English? the {disfmarker} the, mmm, {pause} {vocalsound} the de detector of, ehm of a word in the {disfmarker} in the s in {disfmarker} an isolated word in {disfmarker} in the background That, uh Grad H: I'm {disfmarker} I'm not sure what you're saying, can you try {disfmarker} PhD E: I mean that when {disfmarker} when you use, eh {pause} eh {pause} any PhD A: I think he's saying the onset detector. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: Onset detector, OK. PhD E: I {disfmarker} I think it's probably to work well eh, because, eh {pause} you have eh, in the mixed files a great level of energy. eh {pause} and great difference between the sp speaker. And probably is not so easy when you use the {disfmarker} the PDA, eh that {disfmarker} Because the signal is, eh {pause} the {disfmarker} in the e energy level. Grad H: Right. PhD E: in {disfmarker} in that, eh {pause} eh {pause} speech file {vocalsound} is, eh {pause} more similar. between the different eh, speaker, {vocalsound} um {pause} I {disfmarker} I think is {disfmarker} eh, it will {pause} i is my opinion. Grad H: Right. But different speakers. PhD E: It will be, eh {pause} more difficult to {disfmarker} to detect bass - tone energy. the {disfmarker} the change. I think that, um Grad H: Ah, in the clo in the P D A, you mean? PhD E: In the PDA. Grad H: Absolutely. PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Grad H: Yeah, no question. It'll be much harder. Professor D: Yeah. Grad H: Much harder. PhD E: And the {disfmarker} the another question, that when I review the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the work of Javier. I think the, nnn, the, nnn, {pause} that the idea of using a {pause} neural network {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to get a broad class of phonetic, eh {pause} from, eh uh a candidate from the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the speech signal. If you have, eh {vocalsound} uh, I'm considering, only because Javier, eh {pause} only consider, eh {pause} like candidate, the, nnn, eh {pause} the silence, because it is the {disfmarker} the only model, eh {disfmarker} eh, he used that, eh {pause} {vocalsound} eh {pause} nnn, to detect the {disfmarker} the possibility of a {disfmarker} a change between the {disfmarker} between the speaker, Grad H: Right. PhD E: Um {pause} another {disfmarker} another research thing, different groups, eh {pause} working, eh {pause} on Broadcast News {vocalsound} prefer to, eh {pause} to consider hypothesis eh {pause} between each phoneme. Grad H: Mm - hmm. Yeah, when a {pause} phone changes. PhD E: Because, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think it's more realistic that, uh {pause} only consider the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the silence between the speaker. Eh {pause} there {disfmarker} there exists eh {pause} silence between {disfmarker} between, eh {pause} a speaker. is {disfmarker} is, eh {pause} eh {pause} acoustic, eh {pause} event, important to {disfmarker} to consider. Professor D: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. PhD E: I {disfmarker} I found that the, eh {pause} silence in {disfmarker} in many occasions in the {disfmarker} in the speech file, but, eh {pause} when you have, eh {pause} eh, two speakers together without enough silence between {disfmarker} between them, eh {pause} {vocalsound} I think eh {pause} is better to use the acoustic change detector basically and I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I IX or, mmm, BIC criterion for consider all the frames in my opinion. Professor D: Mm - hmm. Yeah, the {disfmarker} you know, the reason that he, uh {pause} just used silence {vocalsound} was not because he thought it was better, it was {disfmarker} it was {disfmarker} it was the place he was starting. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: Yep. Professor D: So, he was trying to get something going, PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: and, uh e e you know, as {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} {vocalsound} as is in your case, if you're here for only a modest number of months you try to pick a realistic goal, PhD E: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Grad H: Do something. Professor D: But his {disfmarker} his goal was always to proceed from there to then allow broad category change also. PhD E: Uh - huh. But, eh {pause} do {disfmarker} do you think that if you consider all the frames to apply {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the, eh {pause} the BIC criterion to detect the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the different acoustic change, {vocalsound} eh {pause} between speaker, without, uh {pause} with, uh {pause} silence or {vocalsound} with overlapping, uh, I think like {disfmarker} like, eh {pause} eh a general, eh {pause} eh {pause} way of process the {disfmarker} the acoustic change. Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD E: In a first step, I mean. Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD E: An - and then, eh {pause} {vocalsound} eh {pause} without considering the you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you, um {pause} you can consider the energy {vocalsound} like a another parameter in the {disfmarker} in the feature vector, eh. Grad H: Right. Absolutely. Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD E: This {disfmarker} this is the idea. And if, if you do that, eh {pause} eh, with a BIC uh criterion for example, or with another kind of, eh {pause} of distance in a first step, {vocalsound} and then you, eh {pause} you get the, eh {pause} the hypothesis to the {disfmarker} this change acoustic, {vocalsound} eh {pause} {vocalsound} to po process Grad H: Right. PhD E: Because, eh {pause} eh, probably you {disfmarker} you can find the {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} eh {pause} a small gap of silence between speaker {vocalsound} with eh {pause} eh {pause} a ga mmm, {pause} {vocalsound} small duration Less than, {vocalsound} eh {pause} two hundred milliseconds for example Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD E: and apply another {disfmarker} another algorithm, another approach like, eh {pause} eh {pause} detector of ene, eh detector of bass - tone energy to {disfmarker} to consider that, eh {vocalsound} that, eh {pause} zone. of s a small silence between speaker, or {vocalsound} another algorithm to {disfmarker} to process, {vocalsound} eh {pause} the {disfmarker} the segment between marks eh {pause} founded by the {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} the BIC criterion and applied for {disfmarker} for each frame. Professor D: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. PhD E: I think is, eh {pause} nnn, it will be a an {disfmarker} an {disfmarker} a more general approach {vocalsound} the {pause} if we compare {disfmarker} with use, eh {pause} a neural net or another, eh {pause} speech recognizer with a broad class or {disfmarker} or narrow class, because, in my opinion eh {pause} it's in my opinion, {vocalsound} eh if you {disfmarker} if you change the condition of the speech, I mean, if you adjust to your algorithm with a mixed speech file and to, eh {vocalsound} to, eh {pause} {vocalsound} adapt the neural net, eh {pause} used by Javier with a mixed file. Professor D: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. PhD E: uh With a m mixed file, Grad H: With the what file? PhD A:" Mixed" . PhD E: with a {disfmarker} the mix, mix. Postdoc F:" Mixed." Grad H:" Mixed?" Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Sorry. And {pause} and then you {disfmarker} you, eh you try to {disfmarker} to apply that, eh, eh, eh, speech recognizer to that signal, to the PDA, eh {pause} speech file, {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think you will have problems, because the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {pause} condition {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you will need t t I {disfmarker} I suppose that you will need to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to retrain it. Professor D: Well, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Grad H: Oh, absolutely. This is {disfmarker} this is not what I was suggesting to do. Professor D: u {vocalsound} Look, I {disfmarker} I think this is a {disfmarker} One {disfmarker} once {disfmarker} It's a {disfmarker} I used to work, like, on voiced {disfmarker} on voice silence detection, you know, and this is this {pause} kind of thing. PhD E: Really? Yeah. Professor D: Um {pause} If you {vocalsound} have somebody who has some experience with this sort of thing, and they work on it for a couple months, {vocalsound} they can come up with something that gets most of the cases fairly easily. Then you say," OK, I don't just wanna get most of the cases I want it to be really accurate." Then it gets really hard no matter what you do. So, the p the problem is is that if you say," Well I {disfmarker} I have these other data over here, {vocalsound} that I learn things from, either explicit training of neural nets or of Gaussian mixture models or whatever." PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: Uh {pause} Suppose you don't use any of those things. You say you have looked for acoustic change. Well, what does that mean? That {disfmarker} that means you set some thresholds somewhere or something, PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: right? and {disfmarker} and so {vocalsound} where do you get your thresholds from? PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: From something that you looked at. So {vocalsound} you always have this problem, you're going to new data um {pause} H how are you going to adapt whatever you can very quickly learn about the new data? {vocalsound} Uh, if it's gonna be different from old data that you have? And I think that's a problem {pause} with this. Grad H: Well, also what I'm doing right now is not intended to be an acoustic change detector for far - field mikes. What I'm doing {vocalsound} is trying to use the close - talking mike {vocalsound} and just use {disfmarker} {pause} Can - and just generate candidate and just {pause} try to get a first pass at something that sort of works. PhD E: Yeah! PhD A: You have candidates. PhD G: Actually {disfmarker} actually {disfmarker} actually {disfmarker} PhD E: the candidate. PhD G: I {disfmarker} PhD A: to make marking easier. Yeah. PhD G: Or {disfmarker} Grad H: and I haven't spent a lot of time on it and I'm not intending to spend a lot of time on it. PhD G: OK. I {disfmarker} um, I, unfortunately, have to run, Grad H: So. PhD G: but, um {pause} I can imagine {pause} uh building {pause} a {pause} um {pause} model of speaker change {pause} detection {pause} that {vocalsound} takes into account {pause} both the far - field and the {vocalsound} uh {pause} actually, not just the close - talking mike for that speaker, but actually for all of th {pause} for all of the speakers. Grad H: Yep. Everyone else. Professor D: Yeah. PhD G: um {pause} If you model the {disfmarker} {pause} the {pause} effect that {pause} me speaking has on {pause} your {pause} microphone and everybody else's microphone, as well as on that, {vocalsound} and you build, um {disfmarker} basically I think you'd {disfmarker} you would {pause} build a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} an HMM that has as a state space all of the possible speaker combinations Grad H: All the {disfmarker} Yep. PhD E: Yeah. PhD G: and, um {vocalsound} you can control {disfmarker} Grad H: It's a little big. PhD G: It's not that big actually, um Grad H: Two to the N. Two to the number of people in the meeting. Professor D: But {disfmarker} Actually, Andreas may maybe {disfmarker} maybe just something simpler but {disfmarker} but along the lines of what you're saying, Grad H: Anyway. PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: I was just realizing, I used to know this guy who used to build, uh {vocalsound} um, mike mixers {disfmarker} automatic mike mixers where, you know, t in order to able to turn up the gain, you know, uh {vocalsound} as much as you can, you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you lower the gain on {disfmarker} on the mikes of people who aren't talking, PhD G: Mmm. PhD E: Yeah {comment} Yeah. PhD G: Mmm. Mm - hmm. Professor D: right? And then he had some sort of {vocalsound} reasonable way of doing that, PhD G: Mm - hmm. Professor D: but {vocalsound} uh, what if you were just looking at very simple measures like energy measures but you don't just compare it to some threshold {pause} overall but you compare it to the {vocalsound} energy in the other microphones. Grad H: I was thinking about doing that originally to find out {pause} who's the loudest, and that person is certainly talking. Professor D: Yeah. Grad H: But I also wanted to find threshold {disfmarker} uh, excuse me, mol overlap. Professor D: Yeah. Grad H: So, not just {disfmarker} just the loudest. PhD E: But, eh Postdoc F: Mm - hmm. PhD E: I {disfmarker} I Sorry. I {disfmarker} I have found that when {disfmarker} when I I analyzed the {disfmarker} the speech files from the, {pause} eh {pause} mike, eh {pause} from the eh close eh {pause} microphone, eh {pause} I found zones with a {disfmarker} a different level of energy. PhD G: Sorry, I have to go. Grad H: OK. Could you fill that out anyway? Just, {pause} put your name in. Are y you want me to do it? I'll do it. PhD A: But he's not gonna even read that. Oh. Grad H: I know. PhD E: including overlap zone. including. because, eh {pause} eh {pause} depend on the position of the {disfmarker} of the microph of the each speaker {vocalsound} to, eh, to get more o or less energy {vocalsound} i in the mixed sign in the signal. and then, {vocalsound} if you consider energy to {disfmarker} to detect overlapping in {disfmarker} in, uh, and you process the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the speech file from the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the mixed signals. The mixed signals, eh. I {disfmarker} I think it's {disfmarker} it's difficult, um {vocalsound} {pause} only to en with energy to {disfmarker} to consider that in that zone We have eh, eh, overlapping zone Eh, if you process only the the energy of the, of each frame. Professor D: Well, it's probably harder, but I {disfmarker} I think what I was s nnn noting just when he {disfmarker} when Andreas raised that, was that there's other information to be gained from looking at all {vocalsound} of the microphones and you may not need to look at very sophisticated things, PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: because if there's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if most of the overlaps {disfmarker} you know, this doesn't cover, say, three, but if most of the overlaps, say, are two, {vocalsound} if the distribution looks like there's a couple high ones and {disfmarker} and {pause} the rest of them are low, PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Grad H: And everyone else is low, yeah. Professor D: you know, what I mean, PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: there's some information there about their distribution even with very simple measures. PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Professor D: Uh, by the way, I had an idea with {disfmarker} while I was watching Chuck nodding at a lot of these things, is that we can all wear little bells on our heads, {vocalsound} so that {vocalsound} then you'd know that {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: Ding, ding, ding, ding. PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F:" Ding" . That's cute! PhD B: I think that'd be really interesting too, with blindfolds. Then {disfmarker} Grad H: Nodding with blindfolds, PhD B: Yeah. The question is, {pause} like {pause} whether {disfmarker} Grad H:" what are you nodding about?" PhD B: Well, trying with and {disfmarker} {pause} with and without, yeah. Grad H:" Sorry, I'm just {disfmarker} I'm just going to sleep." PhD B: But then there's just one @ @, like. Professor D: Yeah. PhD A: Actually, I saw a uh {disfmarker} a woman at the bus stop the other day who, um, was talking on her cell phone {vocalsound} speaking Japanese, and was bowing. you know, profusely. PhD B: Oh, yeah, that's really common. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah {comment} Yeah. PhD A: Just, kept {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F: Ah. Professor D: Wow. PhD B: It's very difficult if you try {disfmarker} while you're trying, say, to convince somebody on the phone it's difficult not to move your hands. Not {disfmarker} You know, if you watch people they'll actually do these things. Professor D: Mm - hmm? PhD B: So. I still think we should try a {disfmarker} a meeting or two with the blindfolds, at least of this meeting that we have lots of recordings of Grad H: Mm - hmm. PhD B: Um, maybe for part of the meeting, we don't have to do it the whole meeting. Professor D: Yeah, I think th I think it's a great idea. PhD B: That could be fun. It'll be too hard to make barriers, I was thinking because they have to go all the way Professor D: W Yeah. PhD B: you know, I can see Chuck even if you put a barrier here. Grad H: Well, we could just turn out the lights. Postdoc F: Actually {pause} well also {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can say I made barr barriers for {disfmarker} so that {disfmarker} the {pause} stuff I was doing with Collin wha {pause} which {pause} just used, um {pause} this {pause} kind of foam board. PhD B: Y Yeah? Postdoc F: R really inexpensive. You can {disfmarker} you can masking tape it together, these are {pause} you know, pretty l large partitions. Professor D: Yeah. PhD B: But then we also have these mikes, is the other thing I was thinking, so we need a barrier that doesn't disturb {pause} the sound, Postdoc F: It's true, it would disturb the, um {pause} the {disfmarker} the long - range {disfmarker} Grad H: The acoustics. PhD B: um Professor D: Blindfolds would be good. Postdoc F: it would {disfmarker} Grad H: I think, blindfolds. PhD B: I mean, it sounds weird but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} {pause} you know it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's cheap and, uh Be interesting to have the camera going. Professor D: Probably we should wait until after Adam's set up the mikes, But. Postdoc F: OK. I think we're going to have to work on the, uh {disfmarker} {pause} on the human subjects {vocalsound} form. PhD A: I'll be peeking. Grad H: Yeah, that's right, we didn't tell them we would be blindfolding. Professor D: That's {disfmarker} Postdoc F:" Do you mind being blindfolded while you're interviewed?" Professor D: that's {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} that's the one that we videotape. So. Um, I {disfmarker} I wanna move this along. Uh {pause} I did have this other agenda item which is, uh @ @ {disfmarker} it's uh a list which I sent to uh {disfmarker} a couple folks, but um I wanted to get broader input on it, So this is the things that I think we did {vocalsound} in the last three months obviously not everything we did but {disfmarker} but sort of highlights that I can {disfmarker} {pause} can {pause} tell {pause} s some outside person, you know, what {disfmarker} what were you {pause} actually working on. Um {pause} in no particular order {vocalsound} uh, one, uh, ten more hours of meeting r meetings recorded, something like that, you know from {disfmarker} from, uh {pause} three months ago. Uh {pause} XML formats and other transcription aspects sorted out {pause} and uh {pause} sent to IBM. Um, pilot data put together and sent to IBM for transcription, uh {pause} next batch of recorded data put together on the CD - ROMs for shipment to IBM, Grad H: Hasn't been sent yet, but {disfmarker} It's getting ready. Professor D: But yeah, that's why I phrased it that way, yeah OK. Um {pause} human subjects approval on campus, uh {pause} and release forms worked out so the meeting participants have a chance to request audio pixelization of selected parts of the spee their speech. Um {vocalsound} audio pixelization software written and tested. Um {pause} {vocalsound} preliminary analysis of overlaps in the pilot data we have transcribed, and exploratory analysis of long - distance inferences for topic coherence, that was {disfmarker} I was {disfmarker} {pause} wasn't {pause} sure if those were the right way {disfmarker} {pause} that was the right way to describe that because of that little exercise that {disfmarker} that you {comment} and {disfmarker} and Lokendra did. Postdoc F: What was that called? Professor D: I {disfmarker} well, I I'm probably saying this wrong, but what I said was exploratory analysis of long - distance inferences {vocalsound} for topic coherence. Postdoc F: The, uh {pause} say again? Professor D: Something like that. Um {pause} so, uh {pause} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {pause} a lot of that was from, you know, what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what you two were doing so I {disfmarker} I sent it to you, and you know, please mail me, you know, the corrections or suggestions for changing Grad H: Mm - hmm. Professor D: I {disfmarker} I don't want to make this twice it's length but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but you know, just im improve it. Um Is there anything anybody {disfmarker} Grad H: I {disfmarker} I did a bunch of stuff for supporting of digits. Professor D:" Bunch of stuff for s" OK, maybe {disfmarker} maybe send me a sentence that's a little thought through about that. Grad H: So, {pause} OK, I'll send you a sentence that doesn't just say" a bunch of" ? Professor D:" Bunch of stuff" , yeah," stuff" is probably bad too, Grad H: Yep." Stuff" {pause} is not very technical. Professor D: Yeah, well. Grad H: I'll try to {pause} phrase it in passive voice. Professor D: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, PhD A: Technical stuff. Professor D:" range of things" , yeah. Um {pause} and {disfmarker} and you know, I sort of threw in what you did with what Jane did on {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} under the, uh {pause} uh {vocalsound} preliminary analysis of overlaps. Uh {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} Thilo, can you tell us about all the work you've done on this project in the last, uh {pause} last three months? PhD E: Yeah. PhD C: So {disfmarker} what is {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} Um. Not really. Professor D: That's {disfmarker} PhD A: It's too complicated. PhD C: Um, {pause} I didn't get it. Wh - what is" audio pixelization" ? Professor D: Uh, audio pix wh he did it, so why don't you explain it quickly? Grad H: It's just, uh {pause} beeping out parts that you don't want included in the meeting so, you know you can say things like," Well, this should probably not be on the record, but beep" PhD C: OK, OK. I got that. Professor D: Yeah. We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we spent a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a fair amount of time early on just talk dealing with this issue about op w e e {vocalsound} we realized," well, people are speaking in an impromptu way and they might say something that would embarrass them or others later" , and, how do you get around that PhD C: OK. Professor D: so in the consent form it says, well you {disfmarker} we will look at the transcripts later and if there's something that you're {pause} unhappy with, yeah. PhD C: OK, and you can say {disfmarker} OK. Professor D: But you don't want to just totally excise it because um uh, well you have to be careful about excising it, how {disfmarker} how you excise it keeping the timing right and so forth so that at the moment tho th the idea we're running with is {disfmarker} is h putting the beep over it. PhD C: OK. Grad H: Yeah, you can either beep or it can be silence. I {disfmarker} I couldn't decide. which was the right way to do it. PhD E: Ah, yeah. Grad H: Beep is good auditorily, PhD C: Yeah. Grad H: if someone is listening to it, there's no mistake that it's been beeped out, PhD C: Yeah. Grad H: but for software it's probably better for it to be silence. PhD A: No, no. You can {disfmarker} you know, you could make a m as long as you keep using the same beep, people could make a model of that beep, Postdoc F: Hmm. PhD A: and {disfmarker} Postdoc F: I like that idea. Grad H: Yep. And I use {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's, uh {pause} it's an A below middle C beep, PhD B: I think the beep is a really good idea. PhD A: Yeah. Postdoc F: It's very clear. Then you don't think it's a long pause. PhD B: Also {disfmarker} PhD A: Yeah, it's more obvious that there was something there than if there's just silence. Grad H: so PhD C: Yeah. Postdoc F: Yeah. Professor D: Yeah, that {disfmarker} I mean, he's {disfmarker} he's removing the old {pause} thing PhD E: Yeah Professor D: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} Grad H: Yep. PhD A: Yea - right. Right. But I mean if you just replaced it with silence, {pause} it's not clear whether that's really silence or {disfmarker} Grad H: Yeah, it's not {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F: Yeah, I agree. Professor D: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: Yep. Postdoc F: One {disfmarker} one question. Do you do it on all channels? Grad H: Of course. Postdoc F: Interesting. I like that. Professor D: Yeah. Postdoc F: Yeah, I like that. Grad H: Yeah you have to do it on all channels because it's, uh {pause} audible. Postdoc F: Very clear. Very clear. Grad H: Uh, it's {disfmarker} it's potentially audible, you could potentially recover it. Professor D: Ke - keep a back door. Postdoc F: Well, the other thing that {disfmarker} you know, I mean the {disfmarker} the alternative might be to s Grad H: Yeah. Well, I {disfmarker} I haven't thrown away any of the meetings that I beeped. Actually yours is the only one that I beeped and then, uh {pause} the ar DARPA meeting. PhD B: Notice how quiet I am. Grad H: Sorry, and then the DARPA meeting I just excised completely, Postdoc F: Yeah. Grad H: so it's in a private directory. PhD B: You have some people who only have beeps as their speech in these meetings. Postdoc F: That's great. Yeah. Professor D: OK. PhD A: They're easy to find, then. Professor D: Alright, so, uh {pause} I think we should, uh {pause} uh, go on to the digits? Postdoc F: I have one concept a t I {disfmarker} I want to say, which is that I think it's nice that you're preserving the time relations, Grad H: OK. Postdoc F: s so you're {disfmarker} you're not just cutting {disfmarker} you're not doing scissor snips. You're {disfmarker} you're keeping the, uh {pause} the time duration of a {disfmarker} de - deleted {disfmarker} deleted part. Grad H: Right. PhD B: Yeah, definitely. Professor D: Yeah. Postdoc F: OK, good, digits. Grad H: Yeah, since we wanna {pause} possibly synchronize these things as well. Oh, I should have done that. Postdoc F: It's great. Grad H: Shoot. Oh well. PhD B: So I guess if there's an overlap, {pause} like, if I'm saying something that's {pause} bleepable and somebody else overlaps during it they also get bleeped, too? Professor D: Yeah. Oh Grad H: You'll lose it. There's no way around that. Professor D: Yeah. Um {pause} I d I did {disfmarker} before we do the digits, I did also wanna remind people, uh {pause} {vocalsound} please do send me, you know, uh thoughts for an agenda, Grad H: Agenda? Professor D: yeah that {disfmarker} that would be that'd be good. Postdoc F: Good. Professor D: Eh So that, uh, people's ideas don't get Grad H: Thursday crept up on me this week. Professor D: yeah, well it does creep up, doesn't it? PhD B: And, I wanted to say, I think this is really interesting {pause} analysis. Professor D: OK. Postdoc F: Thank you. Grad H: It's cool stuff, definitely. PhD B: I meant to say that before I started off on the {pause} Switchboard stuff. Postdoc F: Thank you. Grad H: I was gonna say" can you do that for the other meetings, PhD B: It's neat. Grad H: can you do it for them?" PhD B: Yeah. Grad H: And, no actually, you can't. PhD A: Actually {disfmarker} actually I {disfmarker} I thought that's what you were giving us was another meeting and I was like," Oh, OK!" PhD B: Does it take {disfmarker} Postdoc F: Thank you. Yeah. Grad H:" Ooo, cool!" Postdoc F: Aw, thanks. PhD B: How long does it {pause} take, just briefly, like {pause} t to {disfmarker} {pause} OK. {pause} to label the, Postdoc F: No. I have the script now, so, I mean, it can work off the, uh {pause} other thing, Grad H: It's {disfmarker} As soon as we get labels, yep. PhD B: OK. PhD A: But it has to be hand - labeled first? Postdoc F: but {disfmarker} Uh, well, yeah. Because, uh {pause} well, I mean {pause} once his {disfmarker} his algorithm is up and running then we can do it that way. Grad H: If it works well enough. Right now it's not. Not quite to the point where it works. PhD B: OK. Postdoc F: But {pause} I {disfmarker} I just worked off of my PhD B: It's really neat. Professor D: OK, go ahead Postdoc F: Thanks. Appreciate that. I think {disfmarker} what I {disfmarker} what this has, uh, caused me {disfmarker} so this discussion caused me to wanna subdivide these further. I'm gonna take a look at the, uh {pause} backchannels, how much we have anal I hope to have that for next time. PhD A: That'd be interesting. Grad H: Yeah, my {disfmarker} my algorithm worked great actually on these, but when you wear it like that or with the uh, lapel {pause} or if you have it very far from your face, that's when it starts {pause} failing. PhD A: Mm - hmm. Oh. PhD B: Well, I can wear it, I mean if you {disfmarker} Grad H: It doesn't matter. PhD B: OK. Grad H: I mean, we want it to work, PhD A: It's too late now. Grad H: right? I {disfmarker} I don't want {pause} to change the way we do the meeting. PhD B: I feel like this troublemaker. Grad H: It's uh {disfmarker} {pause} so, it was just a comment on the software, not a comment on {vocalsound} prescriptions on how you wear microphones. PhD B: OK. Professor D: OK, that's {disfmarker} let's {disfmarker} let's {disfmarker} let's do digits. Grad H: Get the bolts," whh whh" Postdoc F: Let's do it. OK. Grad H: OK. PhD B: I'm sorry. Grad H: OK, thank you. Postdoc F: Do you want us to put a mark on the bottom of these when they've actually been read, or do you just {pause} i i the only one that wasn't read is {disfmarker} is known, so we don't do it. OK.

PhD G explained how the data represents the number of overlaps regardless of the number of speakers. It is important to answer the question of whether overlaps are distributed evenly throughout or whether they are in bursts. Anonymizing the results and classifying overlaps by type may assist in standardizing cultural ways of conversing. PhD G proposed finding the average length of overlaps and the distribution of the duration of overlaps.

tr-sq-656

tr-sq-656_0

What was said about Switchboard? PhD B: We're, I mean {pause} we {disfmarker} We didn't have a house before. Professor D: Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: OK. Professor D: We're on again? OK. PhD A: Mm - hmm. That is really great. Grad H: Yeah, so if {pause} uh {disfmarker} {pause} So if anyone hasn't signed the consent form, please do so. PhD A: That's terrific. PhD B: Oh, yeah! Professor D: OK Grad H: The new consent form. The new and improved consent form. PhD A: Now you won't be able to walk or ride your bike, huh? Professor D: OK. Postdoc F: Uh. PhD B: Right. Professor D: OK. Grad H: And uh, shall I go ahead and do some digits? Professor D: Uh, we were gonna do that at the end, remember? Grad H: OK, whatever you want. Professor D: Yeah. Just {disfmarker} just to be consistent, from here on in at least, that {disfmarker} {pause} that we'll do it at the end. PhD B: The new consent form. Grad H: It's uh {disfmarker} {pause} Yeah, it doesn't matter. OK. Professor D: OK Um Well, it ju I mean it might be that someone here has to go, Postdoc F: Testing, one, two, three. Professor D: and {disfmarker} Right? That was {disfmarker} that was sort of the point. So, uh {pause} I had asked actually anybody who had any ideas for an agenda {pause} to send it to me and no one did. So, Grad H: So we all forgot. Professor D: Uh, Postdoc F: From last time I wanted to {disfmarker} Uh {pause} {pause} The {disfmarker} An iss uh {pause} one topic from last time. Professor D: Right, s OK, so one item for an agenda is uh {pause} Jane has some uh {vocalsound} uh some research to talk about, research issues. Um {pause} and {pause} Uh, Adam has some short research issues. Grad H: And I have some {pause} short research issues. Professor D: Um, I have a {pause} list of things that I think were done over the last three months I was supposed to {vocalsound} {vocalsound} send off, uh {pause} and, um {pause} I {disfmarker} I sent a note about it to uh {disfmarker} to Adam and Jane but I think I'll just run through it {pause} also and see if someone thinks it's inaccurate or {pause} uh insufficient. PhD A: A list that you have to send off to who? Professor D: Uh, to uh uh, IBM. PhD A: Oh. Professor D: OK. They're, you know {disfmarker} PhD E: Professor D: So. Um, So, uh {pause} so, I'll go through that. Um, {pause} And, Anything else? {pause} anyone wants to talk about? PhD A: What about the, um {disfmarker} your trip, yesterday? Professor D: No. OK. Um. Sort of off - topic I guess. PhD A: Oh, OK. Professor D: Cuz that's {pause} Cuz that was all {disfmarker} all about the, uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can chat with you about that {pause} off - line. That's another thing. Um, And, Anything else? Nothing else? Uh, there's a {disfmarker} I mean, there is a {disfmarker} {pause} a, um {pause} uh {pause} telephone call tomorrow, {pause} which will be a conference call {pause} that some of us are involved in {pause} for uh a possible proposal. Um, we'll talk {disfmarker} we'll talk about it next week if {disfmarker} if something {disfmarker} Grad H: Do you want me to {pause} be there for that? I noticed you C C'ed me, but I wasn't actually a recipient. I didn't quite know what to make of that. Professor D: Uh Well, we'll talk {disfmarker} talk about that after our meeting. OK. Grad H: OK. Professor D: Uh, OK. So it sounds like the {disfmarker} the three main things that we have to talk about are, uh this list, uh Jane and {disfmarker} Jane and Adam have some research items, and, other than that, anything, {pause} as usual, {pause} anything goes beyond that. OK, uh, Jane, since {disfmarker} since you were sort of cut off last time why don't we start with yours, make sure we get to it. Postdoc F: OK, it's {disfmarker} it's very {pause} eh {disfmarker} it's {pause} very brief, I mean {disfmarker} just let me {disfmarker} just hand these out. Oops. Grad H: Is this the same as the email or different? PhD C: Thanks. Postdoc F: It's slightly different. I {disfmarker} {pause} basically the same. Grad H: OK. PhD A: Same idea? Postdoc F: But, same idea. So, if you've looked at this you've seen it before, so {pause} Basically, {vocalsound} um {pause} as you know, uh {pause} part of the encoding {pause} includes a mark that indicates {pause} an overlap. It's not indicated {pause} with, um {pause} uh, tight precision, it's just indicated that {disfmarker} OK, so, It's indicated to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} so the people know {pause} what parts of sp which {disfmarker} which stretches of speech were in the clear, versus being overlapped by others. So, I {pause} used this mark and, um {pause} and, uh {pause} uh, {pause} divided the {disfmarker} I wrote a script {pause} which divides things into individual minutes, {pause} of which we ended up with forty {pause} five, and a little bit. And, uh {pause} you know, minute zero, of course, is the first minute up to {pause} sixty seconds. PhD C: OK. Postdoc F: And, um {pause} What you can see is the number of overlaps {pause} and then {pause} to the right, {pause} whether they involve two speakers, three speakers, or more than three speakers. And, {pause} um {pause} and, what I was looking for sp sp specifically was the question of {pause} whether they're distributed evenly throughout or whether they're {pause} bursts of them. Um. And {pause} it looked to me as though {disfmarker} uh, you know {disfmarker} y this is just {disfmarker} {pause} eh {disfmarker} eh, this would {disfmarker} this is not statistically {pause} verified, {pause} but it {pause} did look to me as though there are bursts throughout, rather than being {pause} localized to a particular region. The part down there, where there's the maximum number of {disfmarker} {pause} of, um {pause} overlaps is an area where we were discussing {pause} {vocalsound} whether or not it would be useful to indi to s to {pause} code {pause} stress, {pause} uh, sentence stress {pause} as possible indication of, uh {pause} information retrieval. So it's like, {pause} you know, rather, {pause} lively discussion there. Professor D: What was {disfmarker} what's the {disfmarker} the parenthesized stuff {pause} that says, like {disfmarker} e the first one that says six overlaps and then two point eight? Postdoc F: Oh, th {vocalsound} {pause} That's the per cent. Professor D: Mmm. Postdoc F: So, six is, uh {pause} two point eight percent {pause} of the total number of overlaps in the {pause} session. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor D: Ah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: At the very end, this is when people were, {pause} you know, packing up to go basically, there's {pause} this final stuff, I think we {disfmarker} {pause} I don't remember where the digits {pause} fell. I'd have to look at that. But {pause} the final three there are no overlaps at all. And {pause} couple times there {pause} are not. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: So, i it seems like it goes through bursts {pause} but, um {pause} that's kind of it. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: Now, {pause} Another question is {pause} is there {disfmarker} are there {pause} individual differences in whether you're likely to be overlapped with or to overlap with others. And, again {pause} I want to emphasize this is just one {pause} particular {pause} um {disfmarker} {pause} one particular meeting, and also there's been no statistical testing of it all, but {pause} I, um {pause} I took the coding of {pause} the {disfmarker} I, you know, my {disfmarker} I had this script {pause} figure out, um {pause} who {pause} was the first speaker, who was the second speaker involved in a two - person overlap, I didn't look at the ones involving three or more. And, um {pause} {pause} this is how it breaks down in the individual cells of {pause} who tended to be overlapping most often with who {disfmarker} who else, and {pause} if you look at the marginal totals, which is the ones on the right side and across the bottom, you get {pause} the totals for an individual. So, {vocalsound} um {pause} If you {pause} look at the bottom, those are the, um {pause} numbers of overlaps in which {pause} um {pause} Adam was involved as the person doing the overlapping and if you look {disfmarker} I'm sorry, but you're o alphabetical, that's why I'm choosing you And then if you look across the right, {pause} then {pause} that's where he was the {pause} person who was the sp first speaker in the pair {pause} and got overlap overlapped with by somebody. PhD A: Hmm! PhD E: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: And, {pause} then if you look down in the summary table, {pause} then you see that, um {pause} th they're differences in {pause} whether a person got overlapped with or {pause} overlapped by. Grad H: Is this uh {pause} just raw counts or is it {disfmarker} Postdoc F: Raw counts. Grad H: So it would be interesting to see how much each person spoke. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah {vocalsound} Yeah Postdoc F: Yes, very true {disfmarker} very true Grad H: Normalized to how much {disfmarker} Postdoc F: it would be good to normalize with respect to that. Now on the table I did {pause} take one step toward, uh {pause} away from the raw frequencies by putting, {pause} uh {pause} percentages. So that the percentage of time {pause} of the {disfmarker} of the times that a person spoke, {pause} what percentage {pause} eh, w so. Of the times a person spoke and furthermore was involved in a two two - person overlap, {vocalsound} {vocalsound} what percentage of the time were they the overlapper and what percent of the time were they th the overlappee? And there, it looks like you see some differences, um, {pause} that some people tend to be overlapped {pause} with more often than they're overlapped, but, of course, uh i e {vocalsound} this is just one meeting, {pause} uh {pause} there's no statistical testing involved, and that would be {pause} required for a {disfmarker} for a finding {pause} of {pause} any {pause} kind of {pause} scientific {pause} reliability. Professor D: S so, i it would be statistically incorrect to conclude from this that Adam talked too much or something. Grad H: No {disfmarker} no actually, that would be actually statistically correct, Professor D: Yeah, yeah. Postdoc F: No, no, no. PhD E: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Grad H: but Postdoc F: Yeah, that's right. Professor D: Yeah. Excuse me. Postdoc F: That's right. And I'm {pause} you know, I'm {disfmarker} I don't see a point of singling people out, Professor D: B I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I rather enjoyed it, but {disfmarker} but this Postdoc F: now, this is a case where obviously {disfmarker} PhD A: But the numbers speak for themselves. PhD E: He's {disfmarker} Yeah, yeah, yeah. Postdoc F: Well, {vocalsound} you know, it's like {disfmarker} I'm not {disfmarker} I'm not saying on the tape who did {pause} better or worse Grad H: Yes, that's right, so you don't nee OK. Professor D: Sure. Postdoc F: because {pause} I don't think that it's {disfmarker} I {pause} you know, and {disfmarker} and th here's a case where of course, human subjects people would say be sure that you anonymize the results, {pause} and {disfmarker} and, so, might as well do this. Professor D: Yeah. Grad H: Yeah, when {disfmarker} this is what {disfmarker} This is actually {disfmarker} when Jane sent this email first, is what caused me to start thinking about anonymizing the data. Postdoc F: Well, fair enough. Fair enough. Professor D: Yeah. Postdoc F: And actually, {pause} you know, the point is not about an individual, it's the point about {pause} tendencies toward {pause} you know, different styles, different speaker styles. Professor D: Oh sure. Postdoc F: And {pause} it would be, you know {pause} of course, {pause} there's also the question of what type of overlap was this, and w what were they, and i and I {disfmarker} and I know that I can distinguish at least three types and, probably more, I mean, the {vocalsound} general {pause} {vocalsound} cultural idea which w uh, the conversation analysts originally started with in the seventies was that we have this {vocalsound} strict model where politeness involves that you let the person finish th before you start talking, and {pause} and you know, I mean, {pause} w we know that {disfmarker} {pause} an and they've loosened up on that too s in the intervening time, that {pause} that that's {disfmarker} that's viewed as being {pause} a culturally - relative thing, I mean, {pause} that you have the high - involvement style from the East Coast where people {vocalsound} will overlap often as an indication of interest in what the other person is saying. And Grad H: Uh - huh. PhD B: Exactly! Postdoc F: Yeah, exactly! PhD E: Yeah Postdoc F: Well, there you go. Fine, that's alright, that's OK. And {disfmarker} and, {pause} you know, in contrast, so Deborah {disfmarker} d and also Deborah Tannen's {pause} thesis she talked about differences of these types, {pause} that they're just different styles, and it's um {pause} you {disfmarker} you can't impose a model of {disfmarker} {pause} there {disfmarker} of the ideal being no overlaps, and {pause} you know, conversational analysts also agree with that, so it's {pause} now, universally {pause} a ag agreed with. And {disfmarker} and, als I mean, I can't say universally, but anyway, the people who used to say it was strict, {pause} um {pause} now, uh {pause} don't. I mean they {disfmarker} they {pause} also {pause} {vocalsound} you know, uh {pause} uh, ack acknowledge the influence of {pause} sub of subcultural norms and {pause} cross - cultural norms and things. So, um Then it beco {pause} though {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} just {disfmarker} just superficially to give {pause} um {pause} a couple ideas of the types of overlaps involved, I have at the bottom several that I noticed. So, {pause} {vocalsound} uh, there are backchannels, like what Adam just did now and, um {pause} {vocalsound} um, anticipating the end of a question and {pause} simply answering it earlier, and there are several of those in this {disfmarker} in these data where {disfmarker} PhD B: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: because we're {pause} people who've talked to each other, um {pause} we know {pause} basically what the topic is, what the possibilities are and w and we've spoken with each other so we know basically what the other person's style is likely to be and so {vocalsound} and t there are a number of places where someone just answered early. No problem. And places {pause} also which I thought were interesting, where two or more people gave exactly th the same answer in unison {disfmarker} different words of course but you know, the {disfmarker} basically, {pause} you know everyone's saying" yes" or {disfmarker} you know, or ev even more sp specific than that. So, uh, the point is that, um {pause} {vocalsound} overlap's not necessarily a bad thing and that it would be im {pause} i useful to subdivide these further and see if there are individual differences in styles with respect to the types involved. And that's all I wanted to say on that, {pause} unless people have questions. Professor D: Well, of course th the biggest, {pause} um {pause} result here, which is one we've {disfmarker} {pause} we've talked about many times and isn't new to us, but which I think would be interesting to show someone who isn't familiar with this {vocalsound} {pause} is just the sheer number of overlaps. Grad H: Yep. Professor D: That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Right? {pause} that {disfmarker} that, um PhD E: Yes, yes! Postdoc F: Oh, OK {disfmarker} interesting. PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: here's a relatively short meeting, it's a forty {disfmarker} {pause} forty plus minute {pause} {vocalsound} meeting, and not only were there two hundred and fifteen overlaps {vocalsound} {pause} but, {pause} uh I think there's one {disfmarker} {pause} one minute there where there {disfmarker} where {disfmarker} where there wasn't any overlap? Grad H: Hundred ninety - seven. Professor D: I mean, it's {disfmarker} {pause} {vocalsound} uh throughout this thing? PhD A: It'd be interesting {disfmarker} Professor D: It's {disfmarker} You have {disfmarker} Postdoc F: Well, at the bottom, you have the bottom three. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: S n are {disfmarker} Postdoc F: So four {disfmarker} four minutes all together with none {disfmarker} none. PhD A: But it w Professor D: Oh, so the bottom three did have s stuff going on? There was speech? Postdoc F: Yes, uh - huh. Yeah. But just no overlaps. Professor D: OK, so if {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} PhD A: It'd be interesting to see what the total amount of time is in the overlaps, versus {disfmarker} Postdoc F: Yes, exactly and that's {disfmarker} that's where Jose's pro project comes in. PhD E: Yeah, yeah, I h I have this that infor I have th that information now. PhD G: I was about to ask {disfmarker} PhD A: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. PhD B: Hmm. Professor D: Oh, about how much is it? PhD E: The {disfmarker} the duration of eh {disfmarker} of each of the overlaps. Professor D: O oh, what's {disfmarker} what's the {disfmarker} what's the average {pause} length? PhD E: M I {disfmarker} I haven't averaged it now but, uh {pause} I {disfmarker} I will, uh I will do the {disfmarker} the study of the {disfmarker} {pause} with the {disfmarker} with the program with the {disfmarker} uh, the different, uh {pause} the, nnn, {pause} distribution of the duration of the overlaps. Professor D: You don't know? OK, you {disfmarker} you don you don't have a feeling for roughly how {pause} much it is? Yeah. PhD E: mmm, {pause} Because the {disfmarker} the uh, @ @ is @ @. Professor D: Yeah. PhD E: The duration is, uh {pause} the variation {disfmarker} the variation of the duration is uh, very big on the dat PhD A: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: I suspect that it will also differ, {pause} depending on the type of overlap {pause} involved. PhD E: but eh {disfmarker} Professor D: Oh, I'm sure. PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F: So backchannels will be very brief PhD E: Because, on your surface eh {pause} a bit of zone of overlapping with the duration eh, overlapped and another very very short. Postdoc F: and {disfmarker} Professor D: Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: Uh, i probably it's very difficult to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} because the {disfmarker} the overlap is, uh on is only the {disfmarker} in the final" S" of the {disfmarker} of the {disfmarker} the fin the {disfmarker} the end {disfmarker} the end word of the, um {pause} previous speaker {vocalsound} with the {disfmarker} the next word of the {disfmarker} the new speaker. PhD A: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Um, I considered {pause} that's an overlap but it's very short, it's an" X" with a {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} the idea is probably, eh {pause} when eh {disfmarker} when eh, we studied th th that zone, eh {pause} {pause} eh, we h we have eh eh {pause} confusion with eh eh noise. PhD A: Mm - hmm. PhD E: With eh {pause} that fricative sounds, but uh {pause} I have new information but I have to {disfmarker} to study. Professor D: Yeah. Yeah, but I {disfmarker} I'd {disfmarker} {vocalsound} u PhD G: Can I {disfmarker} Professor D: go ahead. Postdoc F: Yeah. PhD G: You split this by minute, um {pause} so if an overlap straddles {pause} the boundary between two minutes, that counts towards both of those minutes. Postdoc F: Yes. Mm - hmm. Actually, um {vocalsound} um {pause} actually not. Uh, so {pause} le let's think about the case where {vocalsound} A starts speaking {pause} {vocalsound} and then B overlaps with A, {pause} and then the minute boundary happens. And let's say that {vocalsound} after that minute boundary, {vocalsound} um {pause} B is still speaking, {pause} and A overlaps {pause} with B, that would be a new overlap. But otherwise {pause} um, let's say B {pause} comes to the conclusion of {disfmarker} of that turn without {pause} anyone overlapping with him or her, in which case there would be no overlap counted in that second minute. PhD G: No, but suppose they both talk simultaneously {vocalsound} {pause} both a {disfmarker} a portion of it is in minute one and another portion of minute two. Postdoc F: OK. In that case, um {pause} my c {pause} the coding that I was using {disfmarker} {vocalsound} since we haven't, {pause} uh {pause} incorporated Adam's, uh {pause} coding of overlap yets, the coding of Yeah," yets" is not a word. Uh {vocalsound} since we haven't incorporated Adam's method of handling overl overlaps yet {vocalsound} um {pause} then {pause} that would have fallen through the cra cracks. It would be an underestimate of the number of overlaps because, um {pause} I wou I wouldn't be able to pick it up from the way it was {pause} encoded so far. Professor D: I I Postdoc F: We just haven't done th the precise second to sec you know, {pause} second to second coding of when they occur. Professor D: I I I'm {disfmarker} I'm {disfmarker} I'm confused now. So l l let me restate what I thought Andreas was saying and {disfmarker} and see. Postdoc F: Uh - huh. Professor D: Let's say that in {disfmarker} in second fifty - seven {pause} {vocalsound} of one minute, {pause} you start talking and I start talking and {pause} we ignore each other and keep on talking for six seconds. Postdoc F: Yep. OK. Mm - hmm. Professor D: So we go over {disfmarker} So we were {disfmarker} we were talking over one another, {pause} and it's just {disfmarker} in each case, it's just sort of one {pause} interval. Right? Postdoc F: Mm - hmm? Professor D: So, um {pause} we talked over the minute boundary. Is this {pause} considered as one overlap in each of the minutes, the way you have done this. Postdoc F: No, it wouldn't. It would be considered as an overlap in the first one. Professor D: OK, so that's {pause} good, i I think, in the sense that I think Andreas meant the question, PhD B: That's {disfmarker} {pause} that's good, yeah, cuz the overall rate is {disfmarker} PhD C: PhD G: Yeah. Grad H: Statistical. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc F: Mm - hmm. Professor D: right? Postdoc F: Yeah. They're not double counted. PhD G: Other - otherwise you'd get double counts, here and there. Grad H: Yep. PhD B: Ah but, yeah. PhD E: Yeah. PhD B: PhD G: And then it would be harder {disfmarker} Professor D: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F: I should also say I did a simplifying, uh {pause} count in that {vocalsound} if A was speaking {pause} B overlapped with A and then A came back again and overlapped with B again, I {disfmarker} I didn't count that as a three - person overlap, I counted that as a two - person overlap, {pause} and it was A being overlapped with by D. Grad H: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: Because the idea was the first speaker {pause} had the floor {pause} and the second person {pause} started speaking and then the f the first person reasserted the floor {pause} kind of thing. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc F: These are simplifying assumptions, didn't happen very often, there may be like three overlaps affected that way in the whole thing. Grad H: I want to go back and listen to minute forty - one. Postdoc F: Yeah, yeah. Grad H: Cuz i i I find it interesting that there were a large number of overlaps and they were all two - speaker. Professor D: Yeah. Grad H: I mean what I thought {disfmarker} what I would have thought in {pause} is that when there were a large number of overlaps, it was because everyone was talking at once, {vocalsound} but uh apparently not. Postdoc F: That's interesting. That's interesting. PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Mmm. Grad H: That's really neat. Professor D: Yeah. Postdoc F: Yeah, there's a lot of backchannel, a lot o a lot of {disfmarker} Grad H: This is {pause} really interesting data. Postdoc F: Yeah, it is. PhD B: I think what's really interesting though, it is {pause} before d {pause} saying" yes, meetings have a lot of overlaps" is to actually find out how many more {pause} we have than two - party. Postdoc F: I think so too, I think {disfmarker} PhD B: Cuz in two - party conversations, like Switchboard, there's an awful lot too if you just look at backchannels, if you consider those overlaps? it's also ver it's huge. It's just that people haven't been {pause} looking at that because they've been doing single - channel processing for {pause} speech recognition. Grad H: Mm - hmm. Professor D: Mm - hmm? PhD B: So, the question is, you know, how many more overlaps {pause} {vocalsound} do you have {pause} of, say the two - person type, by adding more people. to a meeting, and it may be a lot more but i it may {disfmarker} {pause} it may not be. Professor D: Well, but see, I find it interesting even if it wasn't any more, PhD B: So. Professor D: because {pause} since we were dealing with this full duplex sort of thing in Switchboard where it was just all separated out {vocalsound} we just {disfmarker} everything was just nice, PhD B: Mm - hmm? Professor D: so that {disfmarker} so the issue is in {disfmarker} in a situation {pause} where th that's {disfmarker} PhD B: Well, it's not really {pause}" nice" . It depends what you're doing. So if you were actually {pause} {vocalsound} having, uh {disfmarker} depends what you're doing, if {disfmarker} Right now we're do we have individual mikes on the people in this meeting. So the question is, you know {disfmarker}" are there really more overlaps happening than there would be in a two - person {pause} party" . Professor D: Mm - hmm? PhD B: And {disfmarker} and there well may be, but {disfmarker} Professor D: Let {disfmarker} let m let me rephrase what I'm saying cuz I don't think I'm getting it across. What {disfmarker} what I {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} I shouldn't use words like" nice" because maybe that's too {disfmarker} i too imprecise. But what I mean is {vocalsound} that, um in Switchboard, {pause} despite the many {disfmarker} many other problems that we have, one problem that we're not considering is overlap. And what we're doing now is, {pause} aside from the many other differences in the task, we are considering overlap and one of the reasons that we're considering it, {pause} you know, one of them not all of them, one of them is {vocalsound} that w uh at least, {pause} you know I'm very interested in {vocalsound} the scenario in which, uh {pause} both people talking are pretty much equally {pause} audible, {vocalsound} and from a single microphone. And so, {pause} in that case, it does get mixed in, {vocalsound} and it's pretty hard to jus {pause} to just ignore it, to just do processing on one and not on the other. PhD B: I {disfmarker} I agree that it's an issue here {pause} but it's also an issue for Switchboard and if you {pause} think of meetings {pause} being recorded over the telephone, which I think, you know, this whole point of studying meetings isn't just to have people in a room but to also have {pause} meetings over different phone lines. Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: Maybe far field mike people wouldn't be interested in that but all the dialogue issues still apply, Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: so if each of us was calling and having {pause} {vocalsound} a meeting that way {pause} you kn you know like a conference call. And, just the question is, {pause} y you know, in Switchboard {pause} you would think that's the simplest case of a meeting of more than one person, Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: and {pause} {vocalsound} I'm wondering how much more {pause} overlap {pause} of {pause} the types that {disfmarker} that Jane described happen with more people present. So it may be that having three people {pause} {vocalsound} is very different from having two people or it may not be. Professor D: That's an important question to ask. PhD B: So. Professor D: I think what I'm {disfmarker} {pause} All I'm s really saying is that I don't think we were considering that in Switchboard. PhD B: Not you, me. But uh {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but Professor D: Were you? Grad H: Though it wasn't {pause} in the design. Professor D: Were you {disfmarker} were you {disfmarker} were you {disfmarker} were you measuring it? I mean, w w were {disfmarker} PhD B: There {disfmarker} there's actually to tell you the truth, the reason why it's hard to measure is because of so, from the point of view of studying dialogue, I mean, which {pause} Dan Jurafsky and Andreas and I had some projects on, you want to know the sequence of turns. Professor D: Yeah. PhD B: So what happens is if you're talking and I have a backchannel in the middle of your turn, and then you keep going what it looks like in a dialogue model is your turn and then my backchannel, Professor D: Yeah. PhD B: even though my backchannel occurred completely inside your turn. Professor D: Yeah? PhD B: So, for things like language modeling or dialogue modeling {pause} {vocalsound} it's {disfmarker} We know that that's wrong in real time. Professor D: Yeah? PhD B: But, because of the acoustic segmentations that were done and the fact that some of the acoustic data in Switchboard were missing, people couldn't study it, but that doesn't mean in the real world that people don't talk that way. So, it's {disfmarker} um Professor D: Yeah, I wasn't saying that. Right? I was just saying that w now we're looking at it. PhD B: Well, we've als Professor D: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and, you {disfmarker} you maybe wanted to look at it before but, for these various technical reasons in terms of how the data was you weren't. PhD B: Right. We're looking at it here. Professor D: So that's why it's coming to us as new even though it may well be {pause} you know, if your {disfmarker} if your hypothes The hypothesis you were offering {vocalsound} eh {disfmarker} PhD B: Um. Professor D: Right? {disfmarker} if it's the null poth {comment} hypothesis, and if actually you have as much overlap in a two - person, {vocalsound} we don't know the answer to that. The reason we don't know the answer to is cuz it wasn't studied and it wasn't studied because it wasn't set up. Right? PhD B: Yeah, all I meant is that if you're asking the question from the point of view of {pause} what's different about a meeting, studying meetings of, say, more than two people versus {pause} what kinds of questions you could ask with a two - person {pause} meeting. Professor D: Mm - hmm? PhD B: It's important to distinguish {pause} that, you know, this project {pause} is getting a lot of overlap {pause} but other projects were too, but we just couldn't study them. And and so uh Professor D: May have been. May have been. Right? PhD B: Well, there is a high rate, Professor D: We do kn we don't know the numbers. PhD B: So. It's {disfmarker} but I don't know how high, in fact PhD A: Well, here I have a question. PhD B: that would be interesting to know. Professor D: See, I mean, i i le let me t I mean, my point was just if you wanted to say to somebody," what have we learned about overlaps here?" just never mind comparison with something else, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor D: what we've learned about is overlaps in this situation, is that {disfmarker} the first {disfmarker} {pause} the first - order thing I would say is that there's a lot of them. Right? PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: In {disfmarker} in the sense that i if you said if {disfmarker} i i i PhD B: Yeah, I {disfmarker} I don't di I agree with that. Professor D: In a way, I guess what I'm comparing to is more the common sense notion of {vocalsound} how {disfmarker} how much people overlap. Uh {pause} you know the fact that when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when, uh, Adam was looking for a stretch of {disfmarker} of speech before, that didn't have any overlaps, and he w he was having such a hard time and now I look at this and I go," well, I can see why he was having such a hard time" . PhD B: Right. That's also true of Switchboard. Professor D: It's happening a lot. PhD B: It may not be {disfmarker} Professor D: I wasn't saying it wasn't. PhD B: Right. So it's just, um Professor D: Right? I was commenting about this. PhD B: OK. All I'm saying is that from the Professor D: I'm saying if I {disfmarker} {pause} I'm saying if I have this complicated thing in front of me, {vocalsound} and we sh which, {pause} you know we're gonna get much more sophisticated about when we get lots more data, But {disfmarker} Then, if I was gonna describe to somebody what did you learn {pause} right here, about, you know, the {disfmarker} the modest amount of data that was analyzed I'd say," Well, the first - order thing was there was a lot of overlaps" . In fact {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and it's not just an overlap {disfmarker} bunch of overlaps {disfmarker} second - order thing is {vocalsound} it's not just a bunch of overlaps in one particular point, {vocalsound} but that there's overlaps, uh throughout the thing. Grad H: Right. PhD B: Right. No, I {disfmarker} I agree with that. Professor D: And that's interesting. That's all. PhD B: I'm just {pause} {vocalsound} saying that it may {disfmarker} {pause} the reason you get overlaps may or may not be due to sort of the number of people in the meeting. Professor D: Oh yeah. PhD B: And that's all. Professor D: Yeah. Yeah, I wasn't making any statement about that. PhD B: And {disfmarker} and it would actually be interesting to find out Professor D: Yeah. PhD B: because some of the data say Switchboard, which isn't exactly the same kind of context, I mean these are two people who don't know each other and so forth, But we should still be able to somehow say what {disfmarker} what is the added contra contribution to sort of overlap time of each additional person, or something like that. Grad H: Yep. Professor D: Yeah, that would be good to know, PhD A: What {disfmarker} Professor D: but w we {disfmarker} Postdoc F: OK, now. Grad H: I could certainly see it going either way. Postdoc F: Wh - yeah, I {disfmarker} I agree {disfmarker} I agree with Adam. PhD B: But yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F: And the reason is because I think there's a limit {disfmarker} {pause} there's an upper bound {pause} on how many you can have, simply {pause} from the standpoint of audibility. When we speak we {disfmarker} we do make a judgment of {pause}" can {disfmarker}" you know, as adults. PhD B: Right. Professor D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: I mean, children don't adjust so well, I mean, if a truck goes rolling past, {vocalsound} adults will well, depending, but mostly, adults will {disfmarker} will {disfmarker} {pause} will hold off to what {disfmarker} {pause} to finish the end of the sentence till the {disfmarker} till the noise is past. Professor D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: And I think we generally do {vocalsound} monitor things like that, {pause} about {disfmarker} whether we {disfmarker} whether our utterance will be in the clear or not. PhD B: Right. Postdoc F: And partly it's related to rhythmic structure in conversation, so, {vocalsound} you know, you {disfmarker} you t Yeah, this is d also um, people tend to time their {disfmarker} their {disfmarker} {vocalsound} their, um {pause} when they {pause} come into the conversation based on the overall rhythmic, {pause} uh uh, ambient thing. PhD A: Well {disfmarker} PhD B: Right. Postdoc F: So you don't want to be c cross - cutting. And {disfmarker} and, just to finish this, that um That I think that {vocalsound} there may be an upper bound on how many overlaps you can have, simply from the standpoint of audibility and how loud the other people are who are already {pause} in the fray. But I {disfmarker} you know, of certain types. Now if it's just backchannels, {vocalsound} people {pause} may be doing that {pause} with less {pause} intention of being heard, {pause} just sort of spontaneously doing backchannels, in which case {pause} that {disfmarker} those might {disfmarker} there may be no upper bound on those. PhD G: I {disfmarker} I have a feeling that backchannels, which are the vast majority of overlaps in Switchboard, {pause} uh, don't play as big a role here, because it's very unnatural I think, to backchannel if {disfmarker} in a multi - audience {disfmarker} you know, in a multi - person {vocalsound} {pause} audience. PhD B: If you can see them, actually. It's interesting, so if you watch people are going like {disfmarker} {comment} {comment} Right {disfmarker} right, like this here, PhD G: Right. PhD E: Yeah. PhD B: but That may not be the case if you couldn't see them. Professor D: u PhD G: But {disfmarker} {pause} but, it's sort of odd if one person's speaking and everybody's listening, and it's unusual to have everybody going" uh - huh, uh - huh" Professor D: Actually, I think I've done it {pause} a fair number of times today. PhD B: Yeah. Professor D: But. PhD B: There's a lot of head - nodding, in this Grad H: Um. PhD G: Yeah. Grad H: Yep, we need to put trackers on it. PhD A: In {disfmarker} in the two - person {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Postdoc F: He could, he could. PhD G: Plus {disfmarker} plus {disfmarker} plus the {disfmarker} Yeah. So {disfmarker} so actually, um That's in part because the nodding, if you have visual contact, {pause} the nodding has the same function, but on the phone, in Switchboard {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} that wouldn't work. So {vocalsound} so you need to use the backchannel. Grad H: Yeah, you don't have it. Your mike is {disfmarker} PhD A: So, in the two - person conversations, {pause} when there's backchannel, is there a great deal of {pause} overlap {pause} in the speech? Grad H: That is an earphone, so if you just put it {pause} so it's on your ear. PhD A: or {disfmarker} Cuz my impression is sometimes it happens when there's a pause, PhD B: Yes. Grad H: There you go. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc F: E for example. Grad H: Thank you. PhD A: you know, like you {disfmarker} you get a lot of backchannel, when somebody's pausing PhD B: Yes. Right. Postdoc F: She's doing that. PhD B: Sorry, what were you saying? PhD A: It's hard to do both, huh? Um {pause} no, when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when there's backchannel, I mean, just {disfmarker} I was just listening, and {disfmarker} and when there's two people talking and there's backchannel it seems like, {pause} um the backchannel happens when, you know, the pitch drops and the first person {disfmarker} PhD B: Oh. PhD A: and a lot of times, the first person actually stops talking and then there's a backchannel {pause} and then they start up again, and so I'm wondering about {disfmarker} h I just wonder how much overlap there is. Is there a lot? PhD B: I think there's a lot of the kind that Jose was talking about, where {disfmarker} {pause} I mean, this is called" precision timing" in {pause} conversation analysis, where {pause} {vocalsound} they come in overlapping, {pause} but at a point where the {pause} information is mostly {pause} complete. So all you're missing is some last syllables or something or the last word or some highly predictable words. PhD A: Mmm. Mm - hmm. PhD B: So technically, it's an overlap. PhD A: But maybe a {disfmarker} just a small overlap? PhD B: But {pause} you know, from information flow point of view it's not an overlap in {pause} the predictable information. PhD E: More, yeah. Grad H: It'd be interesting if we could do prediction. PhD A: I was just thinking more in terms of alignment, alignment overlap. PhD B: Yeah. Grad H: Language model prediction of overlap, that would be really interesting. PhD G: So {disfmarker} {pause} so {disfmarker} PhD B: Well, that's exactly, exactly why we wanted to study the precise timing of overlaps ins in uh Switchboard, Professor D: Yeah. PhD G: Right. Grad H: Right. PhD B: say, because there's a lot of that. PhD G: So {disfmarker} so here's a {disfmarker} here's a first interesting {pause} labeling task. Uh, to distinguish between, say, backchannels {vocalsound} {pause} precision timing {disfmarker} Sort of {vocalsound} you know, benevolent overlaps, and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {pause} and w and {disfmarker} and sort of, um {pause} I don't know, hostile overlaps, where {vocalsound} someone is trying to grab the floor from someone else. Grad H: Mm - hmm. Let's pick a different word. PhD E: Yeah. PhD G: Uh, that {disfmarker} that might be an interesting, um {pause} problem to look at. PhD A: Hostile takeovers. PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Postdoc F: Well, I mean you could do that. I ju I {disfmarker} I think that {pause} in this meeting I really had the feeling that wasn't happening, that {pause} the hostile {disfmarker} hostile type. These were {disfmarker} these were {pause} benevolent types, as people {pause} finishing each other's sentences, and {pause} stuff. PhD G: OK. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD G: Um, I could imagine that as {disfmarker} there's a fair number of {vocalsound} um cases where, and this is sort of, not {pause} really hostile, but sort of competitive, where {vocalsound} one person is finishing something and {vocalsound} you have, like, two or three people jumping {disfmarker} trying to {disfmarker} {pause} trying to {disfmarker} {pause} trying to, uh grab the next turn. Grad H: Trying to get the floor. Professor D: Yeah. PhD G: And so it's not against the person who talks first {pause} because actually we're all waiting for that person to finish. But they all want to {pause} be next. Professor D: I have a feeling most of these things are {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} {pause} that are not {pause} a benevolent kind are {disfmarker} are {vocalsound} {pause} are, uh {pause} um {pause} {vocalsound} are {disfmarker} are competitive as opposed to real really {disfmarker} really hostile. PhD G: Right. PhD A: I wonder what determines who gets the floor? Professor D: But. Postdoc F: Yeah, I agree. I agree. PhD A: I mean {disfmarker} Postdoc F: Well, there are various things, you {disfmarker} you have the {disfmarker} Professor D: Uh a vote {disfmarker} vote in Florida. Grad H: It's been studied a lot. Professor D: Yeah. PhD E: Voting for {disfmarker} Professor D: Um, o one thing {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I wanted to {disfmarker} or you can tell a good joke and then everybody's laughing and you get a chance to g break in. PhD G: Seniority. Professor D: But. But. Um. You know, the other thing I was thinking was that, {pause} um {pause} these {disfmarker} all these interesting questions are, of course, pretty hard to answer with, uh u {pause} you know, a small amount of data. Grad H: Ach. Professor D: So, um {pause} I wonder if what you're saying suggests that we should make a conscious attempt to have, um {vocalsound} a {disfmarker} a fair number of meetings with, uh a smaller number of people. Right? I mean {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} most of our meetings are {pause} uh, meetings currently with say five, six, seven, eight people Should we {pause} really try to have some two - person meetings, {pause} or some three - person meetings and re record them {vocalsound} just to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to beef up the {disfmarker} the statistics on that? Postdoc F: That's a control. Well, {vocalsound} it seems like there are two possibilities there, I mean {pause} i it seems like {vocalsound} if you have just {pause} two people it's not {pause} really, y like a meeting, w is not as similar as the rest of the {disfmarker} {pause} of the sample. It depends on what you're after, of course, but {vocalsound} It seems like that would be more a case of the control condition, compared to, uh {pause} an experimental {pause} condition, with more than two. Grad H: Mm - hmm. Professor D: Well, Liz was raising the question of {disfmarker} of whether i it's the number {disfmarker} there's a relationship between the number of people and the number of overlaps or type of overlaps there, Postdoc F: Mm - hmm. Professor D: and, um {vocalsound} If you had two people meeting in this kind of circumstance then you'd still have the visuals. You wouldn't have that difference {pause} also that you have in the {vocalsound} say, in Switchboard data. Uh Postdoc F: Mm - hmm. Yeah, I'm just thinking that'd be more like a c control condition. Professor D: Yeah. Postdoc F: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: Well, but from the acoustic point of view, it's all good. PhD E: Is the same. Professor D: Yeah, acoustic is fine, but {disfmarker} PhD G: If {disfmarker} if the goal were to just look at overlap you would {disfmarker} you could serve yourself {disfmarker} save yourself a lot of time but not even transcri transcribe the words. PhD B: Well, I was thinking you should be able to do this from the {pause} acoustics, on the close - talking mikes, Grad H: Yep. Professor D: Yeah. Grad H: Well, that's {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} that was my {disfmarker} my status report, PhD B: right? Postdoc F: You've been working on that. PhD B: Right, I mean Adam was {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F: Yeah. Grad H: so {vocalsound} {pause} Once we're done with this stuff discussing, PhD B: right. I mean, not as well as what {disfmarker} I mean, you wouldn't be able to have any kind of typology, obviously, Professor D: Yeah. PhD B: but you'd get some rough statistics. Grad H: Mm - hmm. PhD B: So. Professor D: But {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what do you think about that? Do you think that would be useful? I'm just thinking that as an action item of whether we should try to record some two - person meetings or something. PhD B: I guess my {disfmarker} my first comment was, um {pause} only that {vocalsound} um we should n not attribute overlaps only to meetings, but maybe that's obvious, maybe everybody knew that, Professor D: Yeah. PhD B: but that {vocalsound} in normal conversation with two people there's an awful lot of the same kinds of overlap, and that it would be interesting to look at {pause} whether there are these kinds of constraints that Jane mentioned, that {vocalsound} what maybe the additional people add to this competition that happens right after a turn, Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: you know, because now you can have five people trying to grab the turn, but pretty quickly there're {disfmarker} they back off and you go back to this sort of only one person at a time with one person interrupting at a time. Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: So, I don't know. To answer your question I {pause} it {disfmarker} I don't think it's crucial to have controls but I think it's worth recording all the meetings we {pause} can. Grad H: Can. PhD B: So, um {pause} you know. Professor D: Well, {vocalsound} OK. PhD E: Yeah. PhD G: I {disfmarker} I have an idea. PhD B: D I wouldn't not record a two - person meeting just because it only has two people. Grad H: Right. PhD G: Could we {disfmarker} Could we, um {disfmarker} we have {disfmarker} have in the past and I think continue {disfmarker} will continue to have a fair number of {pause} uh phone conference calls. Professor D: Uh - huh. PhD G: And, {vocalsound} uh, {pause} and as a {disfmarker} to, um {vocalsound} as another c {pause} c comparison {pause} condition, {pause} we could um see what {disfmarker} what what happens in terms of overlap, when you don't have visual contact. Grad H: Yeah, we talked about this repeatedly. PhD G: So, um {disfmarker} PhD B: Can we actually record? Grad H: It just seems like that's a very different {pause} thing than what we're doing. Professor D: Uh Well, we'll have to set up for it. PhD B: I mean {pause} physically {pause} can we record the o the other {disfmarker} Professor D: Yeah. Well, we're not really set up for it {pause} to do that. But. PhD G: Or, this is getting a little extravagant, we could put up some kind of blinds or something to {disfmarker} {pause} to remove, uh {pause} visual contact. Professor D: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. Grad H: Barriers! PhD B: That's what they did on Map Task, you know, this Map Task corpus? They ran exactly the same pairs of people with and without visual cues and it's quite interesting. Professor D: Well, we {disfmarker} we record this meeting so regularly it wouldn't be that {disfmarker} I mean {pause} a little strange. Grad H: OK, we can record, but no one can look at each other. PhD B: Well, we could just put {pause} b blindfolds on. PhD C: Yeah. PhD G: Well y no you {disfmarker} f Grad H: Close your eyes. Postdoc F: Blindf PhD G: Yeah, Yeah. Grad H: Turn off the lights. PhD B: and we'd take a picture of everybody sitting here with blindfolds. That would {disfmarker} Professor D: Oh, th that was the other thing, weren't we gonna take a picture {pause} at the beginning of each of these meetings? Grad H: Um, what {disfmarker} I had thought we were gonna do is just take pictures of the whiteboards. rather than take pictures of the meeting. Postdoc F: Well, linguistic {disfmarker} Grad H: And, uh {disfmarker} Professor D: Yes. Postdoc F: Yeah. Linguistic anthropologists would {disfmarker} would suggest it would be useful to also take a picture of the meeting. Professor D: There's a head nodding here vigorously, yeah. PhD A: Why {disfmarker} why do we want to have a picture of the meeting? PhD B: Ee - {pause} you mean, transc {pause} no {disfmarker} Postdoc F: The {disfmarker} because you get then the spatial relationship of the speakers. PhD E: Yeah Yeah. Postdoc F: And that {pause} could be PhD G: Well, you could do that by just noting on the enrollment sheet the {disfmarker} {pause} the seat number. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: Seat number, that's a good idea. I'll do that. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: I'll do that on the next set of forms. PhD E: Yeah. PhD G: So you'd number them somehow. PhD E: Is possible to get information from the rhythmic {disfmarker} f from the ge, eh {pause} uh, files. Grad H: I finally remembered to put, uh put native language on the newer forms. PhD A: We can {disfmarker} can't you figure it out from the mike number? Grad H: No. PhD A: OK. Grad H: The wireless ones. And even the jacks, I mean, I'm sitting here and the jack is {pause} over {pause} in front of you. PhD A: Oh. PhD B: But probably from these you could've {comment} infer it. PhD G: Yeah, but It's {disfmarker} it would be trivial {disfmarker} Grad H: It would be another task. PhD B: It would be a research task. Grad H: Having {disfmarker} having ground tu truth would be nice, so {pause} seat number would be good. PhD A: You know where you could get it? PhD B: Yeah, yeah. PhD A: Beam - forming during the digit {pause} uh stuff. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: So I'm gonna put little labels on all the chairs with the seat number. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Grad H: That's a good idea. PhD B: But you have to keep the chairs in the same pla like here. PhD G: Not the chairs. The chairs are {disfmarker} Chairs are movable. Grad H: But, uh {disfmarker} PhD G: Put them {disfmarker} {pause} Like, {pause} put them on the table where they {disfmarker} PhD E: The chair {comment} Yeah. Grad H: Yep. PhD C: Yeah. Grad H: Yep. Postdoc F: But you know, they {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} s the linguistic anthropologists would say it would be good to have a digital picture anyway, PhD A: Just remembered a joke. Postdoc F: because you get {pause} a sense also of posture. Posture, and we could like, {pause} you know, {pause} block out the person's face or whatever PhD G: What people were wearing. Grad H: Yeah. PhD B: The fashion statement. Postdoc F: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but, you know, these are important cues, PhD G: Oh, Andreas was {disfmarker} PhD A: How big their heads are. Postdoc F: I mean the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} how a person is sitting {pause} is {disfmarker} Professor D: But if you just f But from one picture, I don't know that you really get that. PhD G: Yeah. Andreas was wearing that same old sweater again. Professor D: Right? You'd want a video for that, I think. Postdoc F: It'd be better than nothing, is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} i Just from a single picture I think you can tell some aspects. PhD E: A video, yeah. Professor D: Think so? Postdoc F: I mean I {disfmarker} I could tell you I mean, if I if I'm in certain meetings I notice that there are certain people who really do {disfmarker} eh {disfmarker} The body language is very uh {disfmarker} is very interesting in terms of the dominance aspect. PhD G: And {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} Professor D: Hmm. PhD G: Yeah. And {disfmarker} and Morgan had that funny hair again. Postdoc F: Yeah. {comment} Well, I mean you black out the {disfmarker} that part. Grad H: Hmm. Postdoc F: But it's just, you know, the {disfmarker} the body PhD A: He agreed. Postdoc F: you know? Grad H: Of course, the {disfmarker} where we sit at the table, I find is very interesting, that we do tend to {pause} cong {pause} to gravitate to the same place each time. Postdoc F: Yeah. Grad H: and it's somewhat coincidental. I'm sitting here so that I can run into the room if the hardware starts, you know, catching fire or something. PhD G: Oh, no, you {disfmarker} you just like to be in charge, that's why you're sitting {disfmarker} Grad H: I just want to be at the head of the table. PhD G: Yeah. Grad H: Take control. Professor D: Speaking of taking control, you said you had some research to talk about. Postdoc F: Yeah. Yeah. Grad H: Yeah, I've been playing with, um uh, using the close - talking mike to do {disfmarker} to try to figure out who's speaking. So my first attempt was just using thresholding and filtering, that we talked about {disfmarker} about two weeks ago, and so I played with that a little bit, and {vocalsound} it works O K, {pause} except that {pause} it's very sensitive to your choice of {vocalsound} your filter width and your {vocalsound} threshold. So if you fiddle around with it a little bit and you get good numbers you can actually do a pretty good job of segmenting when someone's talking and when they're not. But if you try to use the same paramenters on another speaker, it doesn't work anymore, even if you normalize it based on the absolute loudness. PhD B: But does it work for that one speaker throughout the whole meeting? Grad H: It does work for the one speaker throughout the whole meeting. Um Pretty well. PhD A: How did you do it Adam? Grad H: Pretty well. How did I do it? PhD A: Yeah. Grad H: What do you mean? PhD A: I mean, wh what was the {disfmarker} Grad H: The algorithm was, uh take o every frame that's over the threshold, and then median - filter it, {vocalsound} and then look for runs. PhD A: Yeah. Mm - hmm. Grad H: So there was a minimum run length, PhD A: Every frame that's over what threshold? Grad H: so that {disfmarker} A threshold that you pick. PhD A: In terms of energy? Ah! Grad H: Yeah. PhD A: OK. Postdoc F: Say that again? Frame over fres threshold. Grad H: So you take a {disfmarker} each frame, and you compute the energy and if it's over the threshold you set it to one, and if it's under the threshold you set it to zero, {vocalsound} so now you have a bit stream {pause} of zeros and ones. Postdoc F: Hmm. OK. Grad H: And then I median - filtered that {vocalsound} using, um {pause} a fairly long {pause} filter length. Uh {pause} well, actually I guess depends on what you mean by long, you know, tenth of a second sorts of numbers. Um and that's to average out you know, pitch, you know, the pitch contours, and things like that. And then, uh looked for long runs. Postdoc F: OK Grad H: And that works O K, if you fil if you tune the filter parameters, if you tune {vocalsound} how long your median filter is and how high you're looking for your thresholds. PhD A: Did you ever try running the filter before you pick a threshold? Grad H: No. I certainly could though. But this was just I had the program mostly written already so it was easy to do. OK and then the other thing I did, was I took {vocalsound} Javier's speaker - change detector {disfmarker} acoustic - change detector, and I implemented that with the close - talking mikes, and {pause} unfortunately that's not working real well, and it looks like it's {disfmarker} the problem is {disfmarker} he does it in two passes, the first pass {vocalsound} is to find candidate places to do a break. And he does that using a neural net doing broad phone classification and he has the {vocalsound} the, uh {pause} one of the phone classes is silence. And so the possible breaks are where silence starts and ends. And then he has a second pass which is a modeling {disfmarker} a Gaussian mixture model. Um looking for {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} whether it improves or {disfmarker} or degrades to split at one of those particular places. And what looks like it's happening is that the {disfmarker} even on the close - talking mike the broad phone class classifier's doing a really bad job. PhD A: Who was it trained on? Grad H: Uh, I have no idea. PhD A: Hmm. Grad H: I don't remember. Does an do you remember, Morgan, was it Broadcast News? Professor D: I think so, yeah. Grad H: Um {pause} So, at any rate, my next attempt, {pause} which I'm in the midst of and haven't quite finished yet was actually using the {vocalsound} uh, thresholding as the way of generating the candidates. Because one of the things that definitely happens is if you put the threshold low {vocalsound} you get lots of breaks. All of which are definitely acoustic events. They're definitely {vocalsound} someone talking. But, like, it could be someone who isn't the person here, but the person over there or it can be the person breathing. And then feeding that into the acoustic change detector. And so I think that might work. But, I haven't gotten very far on that. But all of this is close - talking mike, so it's, uh {pause} just {disfmarker} just trying to get some ground truth. PhD E: Only with eh uh, but eh I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think, eh when {disfmarker} when, y I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I saw the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the speech from PDA and, eh {pause} close {pause} {vocalsound} talker. I {disfmarker} I think the there is a {disfmarker} a great difference in the {disfmarker} in the signal. Grad H: Oh, absolutely. PhD E: Um but eh I {disfmarker} but eh I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean that eh eh {pause} in the {disfmarker} in the mixed file {vocalsound} you can find, uh {pause} zone with, eh {pause} great different, eh {pause} level of energy. Grad H: So {pause} s my intention for this is {disfmarker} is as an aide for ground truth. not {disfmarker} PhD E: Um {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think for, eh {pause} algorithm based on energy, {pause} eh, that um h mmm, {disfmarker} more or less, eh, like eh {pause} eh, mmm, first sound energy detector. Grad H: Say it again? PhD E: eh nnn. When y you the detect the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the first at {disfmarker} at the end of {disfmarker} of the {vocalsound} detector of, ehm princ um. What is the {disfmarker} the name in English? the {disfmarker} the, mmm, {pause} {vocalsound} the de detector of, ehm of a word in the {disfmarker} in the s in {disfmarker} an isolated word in {disfmarker} in the background That, uh Grad H: I'm {disfmarker} I'm not sure what you're saying, can you try {disfmarker} PhD E: I mean that when {disfmarker} when you use, eh {pause} eh {pause} any PhD A: I think he's saying the onset detector. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: Onset detector, OK. PhD E: I {disfmarker} I think it's probably to work well eh, because, eh {pause} you have eh, in the mixed files a great level of energy. eh {pause} and great difference between the sp speaker. And probably is not so easy when you use the {disfmarker} the PDA, eh that {disfmarker} Because the signal is, eh {pause} the {disfmarker} in the e energy level. Grad H: Right. PhD E: in {disfmarker} in that, eh {pause} eh {pause} speech file {vocalsound} is, eh {pause} more similar. between the different eh, speaker, {vocalsound} um {pause} I {disfmarker} I think is {disfmarker} eh, it will {pause} i is my opinion. Grad H: Right. But different speakers. PhD E: It will be, eh {pause} more difficult to {disfmarker} to detect bass - tone energy. the {disfmarker} the change. I think that, um Grad H: Ah, in the clo in the P D A, you mean? PhD E: In the PDA. Grad H: Absolutely. PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Grad H: Yeah, no question. It'll be much harder. Professor D: Yeah. Grad H: Much harder. PhD E: And the {disfmarker} the another question, that when I review the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the work of Javier. I think the, nnn, the, nnn, {pause} that the idea of using a {pause} neural network {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to get a broad class of phonetic, eh {pause} from, eh uh a candidate from the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the speech signal. If you have, eh {vocalsound} uh, I'm considering, only because Javier, eh {pause} only consider, eh {pause} like candidate, the, nnn, eh {pause} the silence, because it is the {disfmarker} the only model, eh {disfmarker} eh, he used that, eh {pause} {vocalsound} eh {pause} nnn, to detect the {disfmarker} the possibility of a {disfmarker} a change between the {disfmarker} between the speaker, Grad H: Right. PhD E: Um {pause} another {disfmarker} another research thing, different groups, eh {pause} working, eh {pause} on Broadcast News {vocalsound} prefer to, eh {pause} to consider hypothesis eh {pause} between each phoneme. Grad H: Mm - hmm. Yeah, when a {pause} phone changes. PhD E: Because, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think it's more realistic that, uh {pause} only consider the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the silence between the speaker. Eh {pause} there {disfmarker} there exists eh {pause} silence between {disfmarker} between, eh {pause} a speaker. is {disfmarker} is, eh {pause} eh {pause} acoustic, eh {pause} event, important to {disfmarker} to consider. Professor D: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. PhD E: I {disfmarker} I found that the, eh {pause} silence in {disfmarker} in many occasions in the {disfmarker} in the speech file, but, eh {pause} when you have, eh {pause} eh, two speakers together without enough silence between {disfmarker} between them, eh {pause} {vocalsound} I think eh {pause} is better to use the acoustic change detector basically and I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I IX or, mmm, BIC criterion for consider all the frames in my opinion. Professor D: Mm - hmm. Yeah, the {disfmarker} you know, the reason that he, uh {pause} just used silence {vocalsound} was not because he thought it was better, it was {disfmarker} it was {disfmarker} it was the place he was starting. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: Yep. Professor D: So, he was trying to get something going, PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: and, uh e e you know, as {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} {vocalsound} as is in your case, if you're here for only a modest number of months you try to pick a realistic goal, PhD E: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Grad H: Do something. Professor D: But his {disfmarker} his goal was always to proceed from there to then allow broad category change also. PhD E: Uh - huh. But, eh {pause} do {disfmarker} do you think that if you consider all the frames to apply {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the, eh {pause} the BIC criterion to detect the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the different acoustic change, {vocalsound} eh {pause} between speaker, without, uh {pause} with, uh {pause} silence or {vocalsound} with overlapping, uh, I think like {disfmarker} like, eh {pause} eh a general, eh {pause} eh {pause} way of process the {disfmarker} the acoustic change. Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD E: In a first step, I mean. Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD E: An - and then, eh {pause} {vocalsound} eh {pause} without considering the you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you, um {pause} you can consider the energy {vocalsound} like a another parameter in the {disfmarker} in the feature vector, eh. Grad H: Right. Absolutely. Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD E: This {disfmarker} this is the idea. And if, if you do that, eh {pause} eh, with a BIC uh criterion for example, or with another kind of, eh {pause} of distance in a first step, {vocalsound} and then you, eh {pause} you get the, eh {pause} the hypothesis to the {disfmarker} this change acoustic, {vocalsound} eh {pause} {vocalsound} to po process Grad H: Right. PhD E: Because, eh {pause} eh, probably you {disfmarker} you can find the {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} eh {pause} a small gap of silence between speaker {vocalsound} with eh {pause} eh {pause} a ga mmm, {pause} {vocalsound} small duration Less than, {vocalsound} eh {pause} two hundred milliseconds for example Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD E: and apply another {disfmarker} another algorithm, another approach like, eh {pause} eh {pause} detector of ene, eh detector of bass - tone energy to {disfmarker} to consider that, eh {vocalsound} that, eh {pause} zone. of s a small silence between speaker, or {vocalsound} another algorithm to {disfmarker} to process, {vocalsound} eh {pause} the {disfmarker} the segment between marks eh {pause} founded by the {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} the BIC criterion and applied for {disfmarker} for each frame. Professor D: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. PhD E: I think is, eh {pause} nnn, it will be a an {disfmarker} an {disfmarker} a more general approach {vocalsound} the {pause} if we compare {disfmarker} with use, eh {pause} a neural net or another, eh {pause} speech recognizer with a broad class or {disfmarker} or narrow class, because, in my opinion eh {pause} it's in my opinion, {vocalsound} eh if you {disfmarker} if you change the condition of the speech, I mean, if you adjust to your algorithm with a mixed speech file and to, eh {vocalsound} to, eh {pause} {vocalsound} adapt the neural net, eh {pause} used by Javier with a mixed file. Professor D: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. PhD E: uh With a m mixed file, Grad H: With the what file? PhD A:" Mixed" . PhD E: with a {disfmarker} the mix, mix. Postdoc F:" Mixed." Grad H:" Mixed?" Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Sorry. And {pause} and then you {disfmarker} you, eh you try to {disfmarker} to apply that, eh, eh, eh, speech recognizer to that signal, to the PDA, eh {pause} speech file, {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think you will have problems, because the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {pause} condition {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you will need t t I {disfmarker} I suppose that you will need to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to retrain it. Professor D: Well, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Grad H: Oh, absolutely. This is {disfmarker} this is not what I was suggesting to do. Professor D: u {vocalsound} Look, I {disfmarker} I think this is a {disfmarker} One {disfmarker} once {disfmarker} It's a {disfmarker} I used to work, like, on voiced {disfmarker} on voice silence detection, you know, and this is this {pause} kind of thing. PhD E: Really? Yeah. Professor D: Um {pause} If you {vocalsound} have somebody who has some experience with this sort of thing, and they work on it for a couple months, {vocalsound} they can come up with something that gets most of the cases fairly easily. Then you say," OK, I don't just wanna get most of the cases I want it to be really accurate." Then it gets really hard no matter what you do. So, the p the problem is is that if you say," Well I {disfmarker} I have these other data over here, {vocalsound} that I learn things from, either explicit training of neural nets or of Gaussian mixture models or whatever." PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: Uh {pause} Suppose you don't use any of those things. You say you have looked for acoustic change. Well, what does that mean? That {disfmarker} that means you set some thresholds somewhere or something, PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: right? and {disfmarker} and so {vocalsound} where do you get your thresholds from? PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: From something that you looked at. So {vocalsound} you always have this problem, you're going to new data um {pause} H how are you going to adapt whatever you can very quickly learn about the new data? {vocalsound} Uh, if it's gonna be different from old data that you have? And I think that's a problem {pause} with this. Grad H: Well, also what I'm doing right now is not intended to be an acoustic change detector for far - field mikes. What I'm doing {vocalsound} is trying to use the close - talking mike {vocalsound} and just use {disfmarker} {pause} Can - and just generate candidate and just {pause} try to get a first pass at something that sort of works. PhD E: Yeah! PhD A: You have candidates. PhD G: Actually {disfmarker} actually {disfmarker} actually {disfmarker} PhD E: the candidate. PhD G: I {disfmarker} PhD A: to make marking easier. Yeah. PhD G: Or {disfmarker} Grad H: and I haven't spent a lot of time on it and I'm not intending to spend a lot of time on it. PhD G: OK. I {disfmarker} um, I, unfortunately, have to run, Grad H: So. PhD G: but, um {pause} I can imagine {pause} uh building {pause} a {pause} um {pause} model of speaker change {pause} detection {pause} that {vocalsound} takes into account {pause} both the far - field and the {vocalsound} uh {pause} actually, not just the close - talking mike for that speaker, but actually for all of th {pause} for all of the speakers. Grad H: Yep. Everyone else. Professor D: Yeah. PhD G: um {pause} If you model the {disfmarker} {pause} the {pause} effect that {pause} me speaking has on {pause} your {pause} microphone and everybody else's microphone, as well as on that, {vocalsound} and you build, um {disfmarker} basically I think you'd {disfmarker} you would {pause} build a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} an HMM that has as a state space all of the possible speaker combinations Grad H: All the {disfmarker} Yep. PhD E: Yeah. PhD G: and, um {vocalsound} you can control {disfmarker} Grad H: It's a little big. PhD G: It's not that big actually, um Grad H: Two to the N. Two to the number of people in the meeting. Professor D: But {disfmarker} Actually, Andreas may maybe {disfmarker} maybe just something simpler but {disfmarker} but along the lines of what you're saying, Grad H: Anyway. PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: I was just realizing, I used to know this guy who used to build, uh {vocalsound} um, mike mixers {disfmarker} automatic mike mixers where, you know, t in order to able to turn up the gain, you know, uh {vocalsound} as much as you can, you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you lower the gain on {disfmarker} on the mikes of people who aren't talking, PhD G: Mmm. PhD E: Yeah {comment} Yeah. PhD G: Mmm. Mm - hmm. Professor D: right? And then he had some sort of {vocalsound} reasonable way of doing that, PhD G: Mm - hmm. Professor D: but {vocalsound} uh, what if you were just looking at very simple measures like energy measures but you don't just compare it to some threshold {pause} overall but you compare it to the {vocalsound} energy in the other microphones. Grad H: I was thinking about doing that originally to find out {pause} who's the loudest, and that person is certainly talking. Professor D: Yeah. Grad H: But I also wanted to find threshold {disfmarker} uh, excuse me, mol overlap. Professor D: Yeah. Grad H: So, not just {disfmarker} just the loudest. PhD E: But, eh Postdoc F: Mm - hmm. PhD E: I {disfmarker} I Sorry. I {disfmarker} I have found that when {disfmarker} when I I analyzed the {disfmarker} the speech files from the, {pause} eh {pause} mike, eh {pause} from the eh close eh {pause} microphone, eh {pause} I found zones with a {disfmarker} a different level of energy. PhD G: Sorry, I have to go. Grad H: OK. Could you fill that out anyway? Just, {pause} put your name in. Are y you want me to do it? I'll do it. PhD A: But he's not gonna even read that. Oh. Grad H: I know. PhD E: including overlap zone. including. because, eh {pause} eh {pause} depend on the position of the {disfmarker} of the microph of the each speaker {vocalsound} to, eh, to get more o or less energy {vocalsound} i in the mixed sign in the signal. and then, {vocalsound} if you consider energy to {disfmarker} to detect overlapping in {disfmarker} in, uh, and you process the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the speech file from the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the mixed signals. The mixed signals, eh. I {disfmarker} I think it's {disfmarker} it's difficult, um {vocalsound} {pause} only to en with energy to {disfmarker} to consider that in that zone We have eh, eh, overlapping zone Eh, if you process only the the energy of the, of each frame. Professor D: Well, it's probably harder, but I {disfmarker} I think what I was s nnn noting just when he {disfmarker} when Andreas raised that, was that there's other information to be gained from looking at all {vocalsound} of the microphones and you may not need to look at very sophisticated things, PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: because if there's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if most of the overlaps {disfmarker} you know, this doesn't cover, say, three, but if most of the overlaps, say, are two, {vocalsound} if the distribution looks like there's a couple high ones and {disfmarker} and {pause} the rest of them are low, PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Grad H: And everyone else is low, yeah. Professor D: you know, what I mean, PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: there's some information there about their distribution even with very simple measures. PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Professor D: Uh, by the way, I had an idea with {disfmarker} while I was watching Chuck nodding at a lot of these things, is that we can all wear little bells on our heads, {vocalsound} so that {vocalsound} then you'd know that {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: Ding, ding, ding, ding. PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F:" Ding" . That's cute! PhD B: I think that'd be really interesting too, with blindfolds. Then {disfmarker} Grad H: Nodding with blindfolds, PhD B: Yeah. The question is, {pause} like {pause} whether {disfmarker} Grad H:" what are you nodding about?" PhD B: Well, trying with and {disfmarker} {pause} with and without, yeah. Grad H:" Sorry, I'm just {disfmarker} I'm just going to sleep." PhD B: But then there's just one @ @, like. Professor D: Yeah. PhD A: Actually, I saw a uh {disfmarker} a woman at the bus stop the other day who, um, was talking on her cell phone {vocalsound} speaking Japanese, and was bowing. you know, profusely. PhD B: Oh, yeah, that's really common. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah {comment} Yeah. PhD A: Just, kept {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F: Ah. Professor D: Wow. PhD B: It's very difficult if you try {disfmarker} while you're trying, say, to convince somebody on the phone it's difficult not to move your hands. Not {disfmarker} You know, if you watch people they'll actually do these things. Professor D: Mm - hmm? PhD B: So. I still think we should try a {disfmarker} a meeting or two with the blindfolds, at least of this meeting that we have lots of recordings of Grad H: Mm - hmm. PhD B: Um, maybe for part of the meeting, we don't have to do it the whole meeting. Professor D: Yeah, I think th I think it's a great idea. PhD B: That could be fun. It'll be too hard to make barriers, I was thinking because they have to go all the way Professor D: W Yeah. PhD B: you know, I can see Chuck even if you put a barrier here. Grad H: Well, we could just turn out the lights. Postdoc F: Actually {pause} well also {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can say I made barr barriers for {disfmarker} so that {disfmarker} the {pause} stuff I was doing with Collin wha {pause} which {pause} just used, um {pause} this {pause} kind of foam board. PhD B: Y Yeah? Postdoc F: R really inexpensive. You can {disfmarker} you can masking tape it together, these are {pause} you know, pretty l large partitions. Professor D: Yeah. PhD B: But then we also have these mikes, is the other thing I was thinking, so we need a barrier that doesn't disturb {pause} the sound, Postdoc F: It's true, it would disturb the, um {pause} the {disfmarker} the long - range {disfmarker} Grad H: The acoustics. PhD B: um Professor D: Blindfolds would be good. Postdoc F: it would {disfmarker} Grad H: I think, blindfolds. PhD B: I mean, it sounds weird but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} {pause} you know it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's cheap and, uh Be interesting to have the camera going. Professor D: Probably we should wait until after Adam's set up the mikes, But. Postdoc F: OK. I think we're going to have to work on the, uh {disfmarker} {pause} on the human subjects {vocalsound} form. PhD A: I'll be peeking. Grad H: Yeah, that's right, we didn't tell them we would be blindfolding. Professor D: That's {disfmarker} Postdoc F:" Do you mind being blindfolded while you're interviewed?" Professor D: that's {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} that's the one that we videotape. So. Um, I {disfmarker} I wanna move this along. Uh {pause} I did have this other agenda item which is, uh @ @ {disfmarker} it's uh a list which I sent to uh {disfmarker} a couple folks, but um I wanted to get broader input on it, So this is the things that I think we did {vocalsound} in the last three months obviously not everything we did but {disfmarker} but sort of highlights that I can {disfmarker} {pause} can {pause} tell {pause} s some outside person, you know, what {disfmarker} what were you {pause} actually working on. Um {pause} in no particular order {vocalsound} uh, one, uh, ten more hours of meeting r meetings recorded, something like that, you know from {disfmarker} from, uh {pause} three months ago. Uh {pause} XML formats and other transcription aspects sorted out {pause} and uh {pause} sent to IBM. Um, pilot data put together and sent to IBM for transcription, uh {pause} next batch of recorded data put together on the CD - ROMs for shipment to IBM, Grad H: Hasn't been sent yet, but {disfmarker} It's getting ready. Professor D: But yeah, that's why I phrased it that way, yeah OK. Um {pause} human subjects approval on campus, uh {pause} and release forms worked out so the meeting participants have a chance to request audio pixelization of selected parts of the spee their speech. Um {vocalsound} audio pixelization software written and tested. Um {pause} {vocalsound} preliminary analysis of overlaps in the pilot data we have transcribed, and exploratory analysis of long - distance inferences for topic coherence, that was {disfmarker} I was {disfmarker} {pause} wasn't {pause} sure if those were the right way {disfmarker} {pause} that was the right way to describe that because of that little exercise that {disfmarker} that you {comment} and {disfmarker} and Lokendra did. Postdoc F: What was that called? Professor D: I {disfmarker} well, I I'm probably saying this wrong, but what I said was exploratory analysis of long - distance inferences {vocalsound} for topic coherence. Postdoc F: The, uh {pause} say again? Professor D: Something like that. Um {pause} so, uh {pause} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {pause} a lot of that was from, you know, what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what you two were doing so I {disfmarker} I sent it to you, and you know, please mail me, you know, the corrections or suggestions for changing Grad H: Mm - hmm. Professor D: I {disfmarker} I don't want to make this twice it's length but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but you know, just im improve it. Um Is there anything anybody {disfmarker} Grad H: I {disfmarker} I did a bunch of stuff for supporting of digits. Professor D:" Bunch of stuff for s" OK, maybe {disfmarker} maybe send me a sentence that's a little thought through about that. Grad H: So, {pause} OK, I'll send you a sentence that doesn't just say" a bunch of" ? Professor D:" Bunch of stuff" , yeah," stuff" is probably bad too, Grad H: Yep." Stuff" {pause} is not very technical. Professor D: Yeah, well. Grad H: I'll try to {pause} phrase it in passive voice. Professor D: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, PhD A: Technical stuff. Professor D:" range of things" , yeah. Um {pause} and {disfmarker} and you know, I sort of threw in what you did with what Jane did on {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} under the, uh {pause} uh {vocalsound} preliminary analysis of overlaps. Uh {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} Thilo, can you tell us about all the work you've done on this project in the last, uh {pause} last three months? PhD E: Yeah. PhD C: So {disfmarker} what is {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} Um. Not really. Professor D: That's {disfmarker} PhD A: It's too complicated. PhD C: Um, {pause} I didn't get it. Wh - what is" audio pixelization" ? Professor D: Uh, audio pix wh he did it, so why don't you explain it quickly? Grad H: It's just, uh {pause} beeping out parts that you don't want included in the meeting so, you know you can say things like," Well, this should probably not be on the record, but beep" PhD C: OK, OK. I got that. Professor D: Yeah. We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we spent a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a fair amount of time early on just talk dealing with this issue about op w e e {vocalsound} we realized," well, people are speaking in an impromptu way and they might say something that would embarrass them or others later" , and, how do you get around that PhD C: OK. Professor D: so in the consent form it says, well you {disfmarker} we will look at the transcripts later and if there's something that you're {pause} unhappy with, yeah. PhD C: OK, and you can say {disfmarker} OK. Professor D: But you don't want to just totally excise it because um uh, well you have to be careful about excising it, how {disfmarker} how you excise it keeping the timing right and so forth so that at the moment tho th the idea we're running with is {disfmarker} is h putting the beep over it. PhD C: OK. Grad H: Yeah, you can either beep or it can be silence. I {disfmarker} I couldn't decide. which was the right way to do it. PhD E: Ah, yeah. Grad H: Beep is good auditorily, PhD C: Yeah. Grad H: if someone is listening to it, there's no mistake that it's been beeped out, PhD C: Yeah. Grad H: but for software it's probably better for it to be silence. PhD A: No, no. You can {disfmarker} you know, you could make a m as long as you keep using the same beep, people could make a model of that beep, Postdoc F: Hmm. PhD A: and {disfmarker} Postdoc F: I like that idea. Grad H: Yep. And I use {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's, uh {pause} it's an A below middle C beep, PhD B: I think the beep is a really good idea. PhD A: Yeah. Postdoc F: It's very clear. Then you don't think it's a long pause. PhD B: Also {disfmarker} PhD A: Yeah, it's more obvious that there was something there than if there's just silence. Grad H: so PhD C: Yeah. Postdoc F: Yeah. Professor D: Yeah, that {disfmarker} I mean, he's {disfmarker} he's removing the old {pause} thing PhD E: Yeah Professor D: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} Grad H: Yep. PhD A: Yea - right. Right. But I mean if you just replaced it with silence, {pause} it's not clear whether that's really silence or {disfmarker} Grad H: Yeah, it's not {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F: Yeah, I agree. Professor D: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: Yep. Postdoc F: One {disfmarker} one question. Do you do it on all channels? Grad H: Of course. Postdoc F: Interesting. I like that. Professor D: Yeah. Postdoc F: Yeah, I like that. Grad H: Yeah you have to do it on all channels because it's, uh {pause} audible. Postdoc F: Very clear. Very clear. Grad H: Uh, it's {disfmarker} it's potentially audible, you could potentially recover it. Professor D: Ke - keep a back door. Postdoc F: Well, the other thing that {disfmarker} you know, I mean the {disfmarker} the alternative might be to s Grad H: Yeah. Well, I {disfmarker} I haven't thrown away any of the meetings that I beeped. Actually yours is the only one that I beeped and then, uh {pause} the ar DARPA meeting. PhD B: Notice how quiet I am. Grad H: Sorry, and then the DARPA meeting I just excised completely, Postdoc F: Yeah. Grad H: so it's in a private directory. PhD B: You have some people who only have beeps as their speech in these meetings. Postdoc F: That's great. Yeah. Professor D: OK. PhD A: They're easy to find, then. Professor D: Alright, so, uh {pause} I think we should, uh {pause} uh, go on to the digits? Postdoc F: I have one concept a t I {disfmarker} I want to say, which is that I think it's nice that you're preserving the time relations, Grad H: OK. Postdoc F: s so you're {disfmarker} you're not just cutting {disfmarker} you're not doing scissor snips. You're {disfmarker} you're keeping the, uh {pause} the time duration of a {disfmarker} de - deleted {disfmarker} deleted part. Grad H: Right. PhD B: Yeah, definitely. Professor D: Yeah. Postdoc F: OK, good, digits. Grad H: Yeah, since we wanna {pause} possibly synchronize these things as well. Oh, I should have done that. Postdoc F: It's great. Grad H: Shoot. Oh well. PhD B: So I guess if there's an overlap, {pause} like, if I'm saying something that's {pause} bleepable and somebody else overlaps during it they also get bleeped, too? Professor D: Yeah. Oh Grad H: You'll lose it. There's no way around that. Professor D: Yeah. Um {pause} I d I did {disfmarker} before we do the digits, I did also wanna remind people, uh {pause} {vocalsound} please do send me, you know, uh thoughts for an agenda, Grad H: Agenda? Professor D: yeah that {disfmarker} that would be that'd be good. Postdoc F: Good. Professor D: Eh So that, uh, people's ideas don't get Grad H: Thursday crept up on me this week. Professor D: yeah, well it does creep up, doesn't it? PhD B: And, I wanted to say, I think this is really interesting {pause} analysis. Professor D: OK. Postdoc F: Thank you. Grad H: It's cool stuff, definitely. PhD B: I meant to say that before I started off on the {pause} Switchboard stuff. Postdoc F: Thank you. Grad H: I was gonna say" can you do that for the other meetings, PhD B: It's neat. Grad H: can you do it for them?" PhD B: Yeah. Grad H: And, no actually, you can't. PhD A: Actually {disfmarker} actually I {disfmarker} I thought that's what you were giving us was another meeting and I was like," Oh, OK!" PhD B: Does it take {disfmarker} Postdoc F: Thank you. Yeah. Grad H:" Ooo, cool!" Postdoc F: Aw, thanks. PhD B: How long does it {pause} take, just briefly, like {pause} t to {disfmarker} {pause} OK. {pause} to label the, Postdoc F: No. I have the script now, so, I mean, it can work off the, uh {pause} other thing, Grad H: It's {disfmarker} As soon as we get labels, yep. PhD B: OK. PhD A: But it has to be hand - labeled first? Postdoc F: but {disfmarker} Uh, well, yeah. Because, uh {pause} well, I mean {pause} once his {disfmarker} his algorithm is up and running then we can do it that way. Grad H: If it works well enough. Right now it's not. Not quite to the point where it works. PhD B: OK. Postdoc F: But {pause} I {disfmarker} I just worked off of my PhD B: It's really neat. Professor D: OK, go ahead Postdoc F: Thanks. Appreciate that. I think {disfmarker} what I {disfmarker} what this has, uh, caused me {disfmarker} so this discussion caused me to wanna subdivide these further. I'm gonna take a look at the, uh {pause} backchannels, how much we have anal I hope to have that for next time. PhD A: That'd be interesting. Grad H: Yeah, my {disfmarker} my algorithm worked great actually on these, but when you wear it like that or with the uh, lapel {pause} or if you have it very far from your face, that's when it starts {pause} failing. PhD A: Mm - hmm. Oh. PhD B: Well, I can wear it, I mean if you {disfmarker} Grad H: It doesn't matter. PhD B: OK. Grad H: I mean, we want it to work, PhD A: It's too late now. Grad H: right? I {disfmarker} I don't want {pause} to change the way we do the meeting. PhD B: I feel like this troublemaker. Grad H: It's uh {disfmarker} {pause} so, it was just a comment on the software, not a comment on {vocalsound} prescriptions on how you wear microphones. PhD B: OK. Professor D: OK, that's {disfmarker} let's {disfmarker} let's {disfmarker} let's do digits. Grad H: Get the bolts," whh whh" Postdoc F: Let's do it. OK. Grad H: OK. PhD B: I'm sorry. Grad H: OK, thank you. Postdoc F: Do you want us to put a mark on the bottom of these when they've actually been read, or do you just {pause} i i the only one that wasn't read is {disfmarker} is known, so we don't do it. OK.

Professor D said Switchboard does not allow for accurate recording of backchannels, especially with a smaller audience. Backchannels, which are the vast majority of overlaps in Switchboard don't play as big a role online, because it's unnatural to backchannel with a multi- person audience.

tr-sq-657

tr-sq-657_0

Summarize what was said on Control and Further Modifications PhD B: We're, I mean {pause} we {disfmarker} We didn't have a house before. Professor D: Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: OK. Professor D: We're on again? OK. PhD A: Mm - hmm. That is really great. Grad H: Yeah, so if {pause} uh {disfmarker} {pause} So if anyone hasn't signed the consent form, please do so. PhD A: That's terrific. PhD B: Oh, yeah! Professor D: OK Grad H: The new consent form. The new and improved consent form. PhD A: Now you won't be able to walk or ride your bike, huh? Professor D: OK. Postdoc F: Uh. PhD B: Right. Professor D: OK. Grad H: And uh, shall I go ahead and do some digits? Professor D: Uh, we were gonna do that at the end, remember? Grad H: OK, whatever you want. Professor D: Yeah. Just {disfmarker} just to be consistent, from here on in at least, that {disfmarker} {pause} that we'll do it at the end. PhD B: The new consent form. Grad H: It's uh {disfmarker} {pause} Yeah, it doesn't matter. OK. Professor D: OK Um Well, it ju I mean it might be that someone here has to go, Postdoc F: Testing, one, two, three. Professor D: and {disfmarker} Right? That was {disfmarker} that was sort of the point. So, uh {pause} I had asked actually anybody who had any ideas for an agenda {pause} to send it to me and no one did. So, Grad H: So we all forgot. Professor D: Uh, Postdoc F: From last time I wanted to {disfmarker} Uh {pause} {pause} The {disfmarker} An iss uh {pause} one topic from last time. Professor D: Right, s OK, so one item for an agenda is uh {pause} Jane has some uh {vocalsound} uh some research to talk about, research issues. Um {pause} and {pause} Uh, Adam has some short research issues. Grad H: And I have some {pause} short research issues. Professor D: Um, I have a {pause} list of things that I think were done over the last three months I was supposed to {vocalsound} {vocalsound} send off, uh {pause} and, um {pause} I {disfmarker} I sent a note about it to uh {disfmarker} to Adam and Jane but I think I'll just run through it {pause} also and see if someone thinks it's inaccurate or {pause} uh insufficient. PhD A: A list that you have to send off to who? Professor D: Uh, to uh uh, IBM. PhD A: Oh. Professor D: OK. They're, you know {disfmarker} PhD E: Professor D: So. Um, So, uh {pause} so, I'll go through that. Um, {pause} And, Anything else? {pause} anyone wants to talk about? PhD A: What about the, um {disfmarker} your trip, yesterday? Professor D: No. OK. Um. Sort of off - topic I guess. PhD A: Oh, OK. Professor D: Cuz that's {pause} Cuz that was all {disfmarker} all about the, uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can chat with you about that {pause} off - line. That's another thing. Um, And, Anything else? Nothing else? Uh, there's a {disfmarker} I mean, there is a {disfmarker} {pause} a, um {pause} uh {pause} telephone call tomorrow, {pause} which will be a conference call {pause} that some of us are involved in {pause} for uh a possible proposal. Um, we'll talk {disfmarker} we'll talk about it next week if {disfmarker} if something {disfmarker} Grad H: Do you want me to {pause} be there for that? I noticed you C C'ed me, but I wasn't actually a recipient. I didn't quite know what to make of that. Professor D: Uh Well, we'll talk {disfmarker} talk about that after our meeting. OK. Grad H: OK. Professor D: Uh, OK. So it sounds like the {disfmarker} the three main things that we have to talk about are, uh this list, uh Jane and {disfmarker} Jane and Adam have some research items, and, other than that, anything, {pause} as usual, {pause} anything goes beyond that. OK, uh, Jane, since {disfmarker} since you were sort of cut off last time why don't we start with yours, make sure we get to it. Postdoc F: OK, it's {disfmarker} it's very {pause} eh {disfmarker} it's {pause} very brief, I mean {disfmarker} just let me {disfmarker} just hand these out. Oops. Grad H: Is this the same as the email or different? PhD C: Thanks. Postdoc F: It's slightly different. I {disfmarker} {pause} basically the same. Grad H: OK. PhD A: Same idea? Postdoc F: But, same idea. So, if you've looked at this you've seen it before, so {pause} Basically, {vocalsound} um {pause} as you know, uh {pause} part of the encoding {pause} includes a mark that indicates {pause} an overlap. It's not indicated {pause} with, um {pause} uh, tight precision, it's just indicated that {disfmarker} OK, so, It's indicated to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} so the people know {pause} what parts of sp which {disfmarker} which stretches of speech were in the clear, versus being overlapped by others. So, I {pause} used this mark and, um {pause} and, uh {pause} uh, {pause} divided the {disfmarker} I wrote a script {pause} which divides things into individual minutes, {pause} of which we ended up with forty {pause} five, and a little bit. And, uh {pause} you know, minute zero, of course, is the first minute up to {pause} sixty seconds. PhD C: OK. Postdoc F: And, um {pause} What you can see is the number of overlaps {pause} and then {pause} to the right, {pause} whether they involve two speakers, three speakers, or more than three speakers. And, {pause} um {pause} and, what I was looking for sp sp specifically was the question of {pause} whether they're distributed evenly throughout or whether they're {pause} bursts of them. Um. And {pause} it looked to me as though {disfmarker} uh, you know {disfmarker} y this is just {disfmarker} {pause} eh {disfmarker} eh, this would {disfmarker} this is not statistically {pause} verified, {pause} but it {pause} did look to me as though there are bursts throughout, rather than being {pause} localized to a particular region. The part down there, where there's the maximum number of {disfmarker} {pause} of, um {pause} overlaps is an area where we were discussing {pause} {vocalsound} whether or not it would be useful to indi to s to {pause} code {pause} stress, {pause} uh, sentence stress {pause} as possible indication of, uh {pause} information retrieval. So it's like, {pause} you know, rather, {pause} lively discussion there. Professor D: What was {disfmarker} what's the {disfmarker} the parenthesized stuff {pause} that says, like {disfmarker} e the first one that says six overlaps and then two point eight? Postdoc F: Oh, th {vocalsound} {pause} That's the per cent. Professor D: Mmm. Postdoc F: So, six is, uh {pause} two point eight percent {pause} of the total number of overlaps in the {pause} session. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor D: Ah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: At the very end, this is when people were, {pause} you know, packing up to go basically, there's {pause} this final stuff, I think we {disfmarker} {pause} I don't remember where the digits {pause} fell. I'd have to look at that. But {pause} the final three there are no overlaps at all. And {pause} couple times there {pause} are not. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: So, i it seems like it goes through bursts {pause} but, um {pause} that's kind of it. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: Now, {pause} Another question is {pause} is there {disfmarker} are there {pause} individual differences in whether you're likely to be overlapped with or to overlap with others. And, again {pause} I want to emphasize this is just one {pause} particular {pause} um {disfmarker} {pause} one particular meeting, and also there's been no statistical testing of it all, but {pause} I, um {pause} I took the coding of {pause} the {disfmarker} I, you know, my {disfmarker} I had this script {pause} figure out, um {pause} who {pause} was the first speaker, who was the second speaker involved in a two - person overlap, I didn't look at the ones involving three or more. And, um {pause} {pause} this is how it breaks down in the individual cells of {pause} who tended to be overlapping most often with who {disfmarker} who else, and {pause} if you look at the marginal totals, which is the ones on the right side and across the bottom, you get {pause} the totals for an individual. So, {vocalsound} um {pause} If you {pause} look at the bottom, those are the, um {pause} numbers of overlaps in which {pause} um {pause} Adam was involved as the person doing the overlapping and if you look {disfmarker} I'm sorry, but you're o alphabetical, that's why I'm choosing you And then if you look across the right, {pause} then {pause} that's where he was the {pause} person who was the sp first speaker in the pair {pause} and got overlap overlapped with by somebody. PhD A: Hmm! PhD E: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: And, {pause} then if you look down in the summary table, {pause} then you see that, um {pause} th they're differences in {pause} whether a person got overlapped with or {pause} overlapped by. Grad H: Is this uh {pause} just raw counts or is it {disfmarker} Postdoc F: Raw counts. Grad H: So it would be interesting to see how much each person spoke. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah {vocalsound} Yeah Postdoc F: Yes, very true {disfmarker} very true Grad H: Normalized to how much {disfmarker} Postdoc F: it would be good to normalize with respect to that. Now on the table I did {pause} take one step toward, uh {pause} away from the raw frequencies by putting, {pause} uh {pause} percentages. So that the percentage of time {pause} of the {disfmarker} of the times that a person spoke, {pause} what percentage {pause} eh, w so. Of the times a person spoke and furthermore was involved in a two two - person overlap, {vocalsound} {vocalsound} what percentage of the time were they the overlapper and what percent of the time were they th the overlappee? And there, it looks like you see some differences, um, {pause} that some people tend to be overlapped {pause} with more often than they're overlapped, but, of course, uh i e {vocalsound} this is just one meeting, {pause} uh {pause} there's no statistical testing involved, and that would be {pause} required for a {disfmarker} for a finding {pause} of {pause} any {pause} kind of {pause} scientific {pause} reliability. Professor D: S so, i it would be statistically incorrect to conclude from this that Adam talked too much or something. Grad H: No {disfmarker} no actually, that would be actually statistically correct, Professor D: Yeah, yeah. Postdoc F: No, no, no. PhD E: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Grad H: but Postdoc F: Yeah, that's right. Professor D: Yeah. Excuse me. Postdoc F: That's right. And I'm {pause} you know, I'm {disfmarker} I don't see a point of singling people out, Professor D: B I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I rather enjoyed it, but {disfmarker} but this Postdoc F: now, this is a case where obviously {disfmarker} PhD A: But the numbers speak for themselves. PhD E: He's {disfmarker} Yeah, yeah, yeah. Postdoc F: Well, {vocalsound} you know, it's like {disfmarker} I'm not {disfmarker} I'm not saying on the tape who did {pause} better or worse Grad H: Yes, that's right, so you don't nee OK. Professor D: Sure. Postdoc F: because {pause} I don't think that it's {disfmarker} I {pause} you know, and {disfmarker} and th here's a case where of course, human subjects people would say be sure that you anonymize the results, {pause} and {disfmarker} and, so, might as well do this. Professor D: Yeah. Grad H: Yeah, when {disfmarker} this is what {disfmarker} This is actually {disfmarker} when Jane sent this email first, is what caused me to start thinking about anonymizing the data. Postdoc F: Well, fair enough. Fair enough. Professor D: Yeah. Postdoc F: And actually, {pause} you know, the point is not about an individual, it's the point about {pause} tendencies toward {pause} you know, different styles, different speaker styles. Professor D: Oh sure. Postdoc F: And {pause} it would be, you know {pause} of course, {pause} there's also the question of what type of overlap was this, and w what were they, and i and I {disfmarker} and I know that I can distinguish at least three types and, probably more, I mean, the {vocalsound} general {pause} {vocalsound} cultural idea which w uh, the conversation analysts originally started with in the seventies was that we have this {vocalsound} strict model where politeness involves that you let the person finish th before you start talking, and {pause} and you know, I mean, {pause} w we know that {disfmarker} {pause} an and they've loosened up on that too s in the intervening time, that {pause} that that's {disfmarker} that's viewed as being {pause} a culturally - relative thing, I mean, {pause} that you have the high - involvement style from the East Coast where people {vocalsound} will overlap often as an indication of interest in what the other person is saying. And Grad H: Uh - huh. PhD B: Exactly! Postdoc F: Yeah, exactly! PhD E: Yeah Postdoc F: Well, there you go. Fine, that's alright, that's OK. And {disfmarker} and, {pause} you know, in contrast, so Deborah {disfmarker} d and also Deborah Tannen's {pause} thesis she talked about differences of these types, {pause} that they're just different styles, and it's um {pause} you {disfmarker} you can't impose a model of {disfmarker} {pause} there {disfmarker} of the ideal being no overlaps, and {pause} you know, conversational analysts also agree with that, so it's {pause} now, universally {pause} a ag agreed with. And {disfmarker} and, als I mean, I can't say universally, but anyway, the people who used to say it was strict, {pause} um {pause} now, uh {pause} don't. I mean they {disfmarker} they {pause} also {pause} {vocalsound} you know, uh {pause} uh, ack acknowledge the influence of {pause} sub of subcultural norms and {pause} cross - cultural norms and things. So, um Then it beco {pause} though {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} just {disfmarker} just superficially to give {pause} um {pause} a couple ideas of the types of overlaps involved, I have at the bottom several that I noticed. So, {pause} {vocalsound} uh, there are backchannels, like what Adam just did now and, um {pause} {vocalsound} um, anticipating the end of a question and {pause} simply answering it earlier, and there are several of those in this {disfmarker} in these data where {disfmarker} PhD B: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: because we're {pause} people who've talked to each other, um {pause} we know {pause} basically what the topic is, what the possibilities are and w and we've spoken with each other so we know basically what the other person's style is likely to be and so {vocalsound} and t there are a number of places where someone just answered early. No problem. And places {pause} also which I thought were interesting, where two or more people gave exactly th the same answer in unison {disfmarker} different words of course but you know, the {disfmarker} basically, {pause} you know everyone's saying" yes" or {disfmarker} you know, or ev even more sp specific than that. So, uh, the point is that, um {pause} {vocalsound} overlap's not necessarily a bad thing and that it would be im {pause} i useful to subdivide these further and see if there are individual differences in styles with respect to the types involved. And that's all I wanted to say on that, {pause} unless people have questions. Professor D: Well, of course th the biggest, {pause} um {pause} result here, which is one we've {disfmarker} {pause} we've talked about many times and isn't new to us, but which I think would be interesting to show someone who isn't familiar with this {vocalsound} {pause} is just the sheer number of overlaps. Grad H: Yep. Professor D: That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Right? {pause} that {disfmarker} that, um PhD E: Yes, yes! Postdoc F: Oh, OK {disfmarker} interesting. PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: here's a relatively short meeting, it's a forty {disfmarker} {pause} forty plus minute {pause} {vocalsound} meeting, and not only were there two hundred and fifteen overlaps {vocalsound} {pause} but, {pause} uh I think there's one {disfmarker} {pause} one minute there where there {disfmarker} where {disfmarker} where there wasn't any overlap? Grad H: Hundred ninety - seven. Professor D: I mean, it's {disfmarker} {pause} {vocalsound} uh throughout this thing? PhD A: It'd be interesting {disfmarker} Professor D: It's {disfmarker} You have {disfmarker} Postdoc F: Well, at the bottom, you have the bottom three. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: S n are {disfmarker} Postdoc F: So four {disfmarker} four minutes all together with none {disfmarker} none. PhD A: But it w Professor D: Oh, so the bottom three did have s stuff going on? There was speech? Postdoc F: Yes, uh - huh. Yeah. But just no overlaps. Professor D: OK, so if {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} PhD A: It'd be interesting to see what the total amount of time is in the overlaps, versus {disfmarker} Postdoc F: Yes, exactly and that's {disfmarker} that's where Jose's pro project comes in. PhD E: Yeah, yeah, I h I have this that infor I have th that information now. PhD G: I was about to ask {disfmarker} PhD A: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. PhD B: Hmm. Professor D: Oh, about how much is it? PhD E: The {disfmarker} the duration of eh {disfmarker} of each of the overlaps. Professor D: O oh, what's {disfmarker} what's the {disfmarker} what's the average {pause} length? PhD E: M I {disfmarker} I haven't averaged it now but, uh {pause} I {disfmarker} I will, uh I will do the {disfmarker} the study of the {disfmarker} {pause} with the {disfmarker} with the program with the {disfmarker} uh, the different, uh {pause} the, nnn, {pause} distribution of the duration of the overlaps. Professor D: You don't know? OK, you {disfmarker} you don you don't have a feeling for roughly how {pause} much it is? Yeah. PhD E: mmm, {pause} Because the {disfmarker} the uh, @ @ is @ @. Professor D: Yeah. PhD E: The duration is, uh {pause} the variation {disfmarker} the variation of the duration is uh, very big on the dat PhD A: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: I suspect that it will also differ, {pause} depending on the type of overlap {pause} involved. PhD E: but eh {disfmarker} Professor D: Oh, I'm sure. PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F: So backchannels will be very brief PhD E: Because, on your surface eh {pause} a bit of zone of overlapping with the duration eh, overlapped and another very very short. Postdoc F: and {disfmarker} Professor D: Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: Uh, i probably it's very difficult to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} because the {disfmarker} the overlap is, uh on is only the {disfmarker} in the final" S" of the {disfmarker} of the {disfmarker} the fin the {disfmarker} the end {disfmarker} the end word of the, um {pause} previous speaker {vocalsound} with the {disfmarker} the next word of the {disfmarker} the new speaker. PhD A: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Um, I considered {pause} that's an overlap but it's very short, it's an" X" with a {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} the idea is probably, eh {pause} when eh {disfmarker} when eh, we studied th th that zone, eh {pause} {pause} eh, we h we have eh eh {pause} confusion with eh eh noise. PhD A: Mm - hmm. PhD E: With eh {pause} that fricative sounds, but uh {pause} I have new information but I have to {disfmarker} to study. Professor D: Yeah. Yeah, but I {disfmarker} I'd {disfmarker} {vocalsound} u PhD G: Can I {disfmarker} Professor D: go ahead. Postdoc F: Yeah. PhD G: You split this by minute, um {pause} so if an overlap straddles {pause} the boundary between two minutes, that counts towards both of those minutes. Postdoc F: Yes. Mm - hmm. Actually, um {vocalsound} um {pause} actually not. Uh, so {pause} le let's think about the case where {vocalsound} A starts speaking {pause} {vocalsound} and then B overlaps with A, {pause} and then the minute boundary happens. And let's say that {vocalsound} after that minute boundary, {vocalsound} um {pause} B is still speaking, {pause} and A overlaps {pause} with B, that would be a new overlap. But otherwise {pause} um, let's say B {pause} comes to the conclusion of {disfmarker} of that turn without {pause} anyone overlapping with him or her, in which case there would be no overlap counted in that second minute. PhD G: No, but suppose they both talk simultaneously {vocalsound} {pause} both a {disfmarker} a portion of it is in minute one and another portion of minute two. Postdoc F: OK. In that case, um {pause} my c {pause} the coding that I was using {disfmarker} {vocalsound} since we haven't, {pause} uh {pause} incorporated Adam's, uh {pause} coding of overlap yets, the coding of Yeah," yets" is not a word. Uh {vocalsound} since we haven't incorporated Adam's method of handling overl overlaps yet {vocalsound} um {pause} then {pause} that would have fallen through the cra cracks. It would be an underestimate of the number of overlaps because, um {pause} I wou I wouldn't be able to pick it up from the way it was {pause} encoded so far. Professor D: I I Postdoc F: We just haven't done th the precise second to sec you know, {pause} second to second coding of when they occur. Professor D: I I I'm {disfmarker} I'm {disfmarker} I'm confused now. So l l let me restate what I thought Andreas was saying and {disfmarker} and see. Postdoc F: Uh - huh. Professor D: Let's say that in {disfmarker} in second fifty - seven {pause} {vocalsound} of one minute, {pause} you start talking and I start talking and {pause} we ignore each other and keep on talking for six seconds. Postdoc F: Yep. OK. Mm - hmm. Professor D: So we go over {disfmarker} So we were {disfmarker} we were talking over one another, {pause} and it's just {disfmarker} in each case, it's just sort of one {pause} interval. Right? Postdoc F: Mm - hmm? Professor D: So, um {pause} we talked over the minute boundary. Is this {pause} considered as one overlap in each of the minutes, the way you have done this. Postdoc F: No, it wouldn't. It would be considered as an overlap in the first one. Professor D: OK, so that's {pause} good, i I think, in the sense that I think Andreas meant the question, PhD B: That's {disfmarker} {pause} that's good, yeah, cuz the overall rate is {disfmarker} PhD C: PhD G: Yeah. Grad H: Statistical. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc F: Mm - hmm. Professor D: right? Postdoc F: Yeah. They're not double counted. PhD G: Other - otherwise you'd get double counts, here and there. Grad H: Yep. PhD B: Ah but, yeah. PhD E: Yeah. PhD B: PhD G: And then it would be harder {disfmarker} Professor D: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F: I should also say I did a simplifying, uh {pause} count in that {vocalsound} if A was speaking {pause} B overlapped with A and then A came back again and overlapped with B again, I {disfmarker} I didn't count that as a three - person overlap, I counted that as a two - person overlap, {pause} and it was A being overlapped with by D. Grad H: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: Because the idea was the first speaker {pause} had the floor {pause} and the second person {pause} started speaking and then the f the first person reasserted the floor {pause} kind of thing. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc F: These are simplifying assumptions, didn't happen very often, there may be like three overlaps affected that way in the whole thing. Grad H: I want to go back and listen to minute forty - one. Postdoc F: Yeah, yeah. Grad H: Cuz i i I find it interesting that there were a large number of overlaps and they were all two - speaker. Professor D: Yeah. Grad H: I mean what I thought {disfmarker} what I would have thought in {pause} is that when there were a large number of overlaps, it was because everyone was talking at once, {vocalsound} but uh apparently not. Postdoc F: That's interesting. That's interesting. PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Mmm. Grad H: That's really neat. Professor D: Yeah. Postdoc F: Yeah, there's a lot of backchannel, a lot o a lot of {disfmarker} Grad H: This is {pause} really interesting data. Postdoc F: Yeah, it is. PhD B: I think what's really interesting though, it is {pause} before d {pause} saying" yes, meetings have a lot of overlaps" is to actually find out how many more {pause} we have than two - party. Postdoc F: I think so too, I think {disfmarker} PhD B: Cuz in two - party conversations, like Switchboard, there's an awful lot too if you just look at backchannels, if you consider those overlaps? it's also ver it's huge. It's just that people haven't been {pause} looking at that because they've been doing single - channel processing for {pause} speech recognition. Grad H: Mm - hmm. Professor D: Mm - hmm? PhD B: So, the question is, you know, how many more overlaps {pause} {vocalsound} do you have {pause} of, say the two - person type, by adding more people. to a meeting, and it may be a lot more but i it may {disfmarker} {pause} it may not be. Professor D: Well, but see, I find it interesting even if it wasn't any more, PhD B: So. Professor D: because {pause} since we were dealing with this full duplex sort of thing in Switchboard where it was just all separated out {vocalsound} we just {disfmarker} everything was just nice, PhD B: Mm - hmm? Professor D: so that {disfmarker} so the issue is in {disfmarker} in a situation {pause} where th that's {disfmarker} PhD B: Well, it's not really {pause}" nice" . It depends what you're doing. So if you were actually {pause} {vocalsound} having, uh {disfmarker} depends what you're doing, if {disfmarker} Right now we're do we have individual mikes on the people in this meeting. So the question is, you know {disfmarker}" are there really more overlaps happening than there would be in a two - person {pause} party" . Professor D: Mm - hmm? PhD B: And {disfmarker} and there well may be, but {disfmarker} Professor D: Let {disfmarker} let m let me rephrase what I'm saying cuz I don't think I'm getting it across. What {disfmarker} what I {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} I shouldn't use words like" nice" because maybe that's too {disfmarker} i too imprecise. But what I mean is {vocalsound} that, um in Switchboard, {pause} despite the many {disfmarker} many other problems that we have, one problem that we're not considering is overlap. And what we're doing now is, {pause} aside from the many other differences in the task, we are considering overlap and one of the reasons that we're considering it, {pause} you know, one of them not all of them, one of them is {vocalsound} that w uh at least, {pause} you know I'm very interested in {vocalsound} the scenario in which, uh {pause} both people talking are pretty much equally {pause} audible, {vocalsound} and from a single microphone. And so, {pause} in that case, it does get mixed in, {vocalsound} and it's pretty hard to jus {pause} to just ignore it, to just do processing on one and not on the other. PhD B: I {disfmarker} I agree that it's an issue here {pause} but it's also an issue for Switchboard and if you {pause} think of meetings {pause} being recorded over the telephone, which I think, you know, this whole point of studying meetings isn't just to have people in a room but to also have {pause} meetings over different phone lines. Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: Maybe far field mike people wouldn't be interested in that but all the dialogue issues still apply, Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: so if each of us was calling and having {pause} {vocalsound} a meeting that way {pause} you kn you know like a conference call. And, just the question is, {pause} y you know, in Switchboard {pause} you would think that's the simplest case of a meeting of more than one person, Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: and {pause} {vocalsound} I'm wondering how much more {pause} overlap {pause} of {pause} the types that {disfmarker} that Jane described happen with more people present. So it may be that having three people {pause} {vocalsound} is very different from having two people or it may not be. Professor D: That's an important question to ask. PhD B: So. Professor D: I think what I'm {disfmarker} {pause} All I'm s really saying is that I don't think we were considering that in Switchboard. PhD B: Not you, me. But uh {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but Professor D: Were you? Grad H: Though it wasn't {pause} in the design. Professor D: Were you {disfmarker} were you {disfmarker} were you {disfmarker} were you measuring it? I mean, w w were {disfmarker} PhD B: There {disfmarker} there's actually to tell you the truth, the reason why it's hard to measure is because of so, from the point of view of studying dialogue, I mean, which {pause} Dan Jurafsky and Andreas and I had some projects on, you want to know the sequence of turns. Professor D: Yeah. PhD B: So what happens is if you're talking and I have a backchannel in the middle of your turn, and then you keep going what it looks like in a dialogue model is your turn and then my backchannel, Professor D: Yeah. PhD B: even though my backchannel occurred completely inside your turn. Professor D: Yeah? PhD B: So, for things like language modeling or dialogue modeling {pause} {vocalsound} it's {disfmarker} We know that that's wrong in real time. Professor D: Yeah? PhD B: But, because of the acoustic segmentations that were done and the fact that some of the acoustic data in Switchboard were missing, people couldn't study it, but that doesn't mean in the real world that people don't talk that way. So, it's {disfmarker} um Professor D: Yeah, I wasn't saying that. Right? I was just saying that w now we're looking at it. PhD B: Well, we've als Professor D: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and, you {disfmarker} you maybe wanted to look at it before but, for these various technical reasons in terms of how the data was you weren't. PhD B: Right. We're looking at it here. Professor D: So that's why it's coming to us as new even though it may well be {pause} you know, if your {disfmarker} if your hypothes The hypothesis you were offering {vocalsound} eh {disfmarker} PhD B: Um. Professor D: Right? {disfmarker} if it's the null poth {comment} hypothesis, and if actually you have as much overlap in a two - person, {vocalsound} we don't know the answer to that. The reason we don't know the answer to is cuz it wasn't studied and it wasn't studied because it wasn't set up. Right? PhD B: Yeah, all I meant is that if you're asking the question from the point of view of {pause} what's different about a meeting, studying meetings of, say, more than two people versus {pause} what kinds of questions you could ask with a two - person {pause} meeting. Professor D: Mm - hmm? PhD B: It's important to distinguish {pause} that, you know, this project {pause} is getting a lot of overlap {pause} but other projects were too, but we just couldn't study them. And and so uh Professor D: May have been. May have been. Right? PhD B: Well, there is a high rate, Professor D: We do kn we don't know the numbers. PhD B: So. It's {disfmarker} but I don't know how high, in fact PhD A: Well, here I have a question. PhD B: that would be interesting to know. Professor D: See, I mean, i i le let me t I mean, my point was just if you wanted to say to somebody," what have we learned about overlaps here?" just never mind comparison with something else, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor D: what we've learned about is overlaps in this situation, is that {disfmarker} the first {disfmarker} {pause} the first - order thing I would say is that there's a lot of them. Right? PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: In {disfmarker} in the sense that i if you said if {disfmarker} i i i PhD B: Yeah, I {disfmarker} I don't di I agree with that. Professor D: In a way, I guess what I'm comparing to is more the common sense notion of {vocalsound} how {disfmarker} how much people overlap. Uh {pause} you know the fact that when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when, uh, Adam was looking for a stretch of {disfmarker} of speech before, that didn't have any overlaps, and he w he was having such a hard time and now I look at this and I go," well, I can see why he was having such a hard time" . PhD B: Right. That's also true of Switchboard. Professor D: It's happening a lot. PhD B: It may not be {disfmarker} Professor D: I wasn't saying it wasn't. PhD B: Right. So it's just, um Professor D: Right? I was commenting about this. PhD B: OK. All I'm saying is that from the Professor D: I'm saying if I {disfmarker} {pause} I'm saying if I have this complicated thing in front of me, {vocalsound} and we sh which, {pause} you know we're gonna get much more sophisticated about when we get lots more data, But {disfmarker} Then, if I was gonna describe to somebody what did you learn {pause} right here, about, you know, the {disfmarker} the modest amount of data that was analyzed I'd say," Well, the first - order thing was there was a lot of overlaps" . In fact {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and it's not just an overlap {disfmarker} bunch of overlaps {disfmarker} second - order thing is {vocalsound} it's not just a bunch of overlaps in one particular point, {vocalsound} but that there's overlaps, uh throughout the thing. Grad H: Right. PhD B: Right. No, I {disfmarker} I agree with that. Professor D: And that's interesting. That's all. PhD B: I'm just {pause} {vocalsound} saying that it may {disfmarker} {pause} the reason you get overlaps may or may not be due to sort of the number of people in the meeting. Professor D: Oh yeah. PhD B: And that's all. Professor D: Yeah. Yeah, I wasn't making any statement about that. PhD B: And {disfmarker} and it would actually be interesting to find out Professor D: Yeah. PhD B: because some of the data say Switchboard, which isn't exactly the same kind of context, I mean these are two people who don't know each other and so forth, But we should still be able to somehow say what {disfmarker} what is the added contra contribution to sort of overlap time of each additional person, or something like that. Grad H: Yep. Professor D: Yeah, that would be good to know, PhD A: What {disfmarker} Professor D: but w we {disfmarker} Postdoc F: OK, now. Grad H: I could certainly see it going either way. Postdoc F: Wh - yeah, I {disfmarker} I agree {disfmarker} I agree with Adam. PhD B: But yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F: And the reason is because I think there's a limit {disfmarker} {pause} there's an upper bound {pause} on how many you can have, simply {pause} from the standpoint of audibility. When we speak we {disfmarker} we do make a judgment of {pause}" can {disfmarker}" you know, as adults. PhD B: Right. Professor D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: I mean, children don't adjust so well, I mean, if a truck goes rolling past, {vocalsound} adults will well, depending, but mostly, adults will {disfmarker} will {disfmarker} {pause} will hold off to what {disfmarker} {pause} to finish the end of the sentence till the {disfmarker} till the noise is past. Professor D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: And I think we generally do {vocalsound} monitor things like that, {pause} about {disfmarker} whether we {disfmarker} whether our utterance will be in the clear or not. PhD B: Right. Postdoc F: And partly it's related to rhythmic structure in conversation, so, {vocalsound} you know, you {disfmarker} you t Yeah, this is d also um, people tend to time their {disfmarker} their {disfmarker} {vocalsound} their, um {pause} when they {pause} come into the conversation based on the overall rhythmic, {pause} uh uh, ambient thing. PhD A: Well {disfmarker} PhD B: Right. Postdoc F: So you don't want to be c cross - cutting. And {disfmarker} and, just to finish this, that um That I think that {vocalsound} there may be an upper bound on how many overlaps you can have, simply from the standpoint of audibility and how loud the other people are who are already {pause} in the fray. But I {disfmarker} you know, of certain types. Now if it's just backchannels, {vocalsound} people {pause} may be doing that {pause} with less {pause} intention of being heard, {pause} just sort of spontaneously doing backchannels, in which case {pause} that {disfmarker} those might {disfmarker} there may be no upper bound on those. PhD G: I {disfmarker} I have a feeling that backchannels, which are the vast majority of overlaps in Switchboard, {pause} uh, don't play as big a role here, because it's very unnatural I think, to backchannel if {disfmarker} in a multi - audience {disfmarker} you know, in a multi - person {vocalsound} {pause} audience. PhD B: If you can see them, actually. It's interesting, so if you watch people are going like {disfmarker} {comment} {comment} Right {disfmarker} right, like this here, PhD G: Right. PhD E: Yeah. PhD B: but That may not be the case if you couldn't see them. Professor D: u PhD G: But {disfmarker} {pause} but, it's sort of odd if one person's speaking and everybody's listening, and it's unusual to have everybody going" uh - huh, uh - huh" Professor D: Actually, I think I've done it {pause} a fair number of times today. PhD B: Yeah. Professor D: But. PhD B: There's a lot of head - nodding, in this Grad H: Um. PhD G: Yeah. Grad H: Yep, we need to put trackers on it. PhD A: In {disfmarker} in the two - person {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Postdoc F: He could, he could. PhD G: Plus {disfmarker} plus {disfmarker} plus the {disfmarker} Yeah. So {disfmarker} so actually, um That's in part because the nodding, if you have visual contact, {pause} the nodding has the same function, but on the phone, in Switchboard {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} that wouldn't work. So {vocalsound} so you need to use the backchannel. Grad H: Yeah, you don't have it. Your mike is {disfmarker} PhD A: So, in the two - person conversations, {pause} when there's backchannel, is there a great deal of {pause} overlap {pause} in the speech? Grad H: That is an earphone, so if you just put it {pause} so it's on your ear. PhD A: or {disfmarker} Cuz my impression is sometimes it happens when there's a pause, PhD B: Yes. Grad H: There you go. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc F: E for example. Grad H: Thank you. PhD A: you know, like you {disfmarker} you get a lot of backchannel, when somebody's pausing PhD B: Yes. Right. Postdoc F: She's doing that. PhD B: Sorry, what were you saying? PhD A: It's hard to do both, huh? Um {pause} no, when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when there's backchannel, I mean, just {disfmarker} I was just listening, and {disfmarker} and when there's two people talking and there's backchannel it seems like, {pause} um the backchannel happens when, you know, the pitch drops and the first person {disfmarker} PhD B: Oh. PhD A: and a lot of times, the first person actually stops talking and then there's a backchannel {pause} and then they start up again, and so I'm wondering about {disfmarker} h I just wonder how much overlap there is. Is there a lot? PhD B: I think there's a lot of the kind that Jose was talking about, where {disfmarker} {pause} I mean, this is called" precision timing" in {pause} conversation analysis, where {pause} {vocalsound} they come in overlapping, {pause} but at a point where the {pause} information is mostly {pause} complete. So all you're missing is some last syllables or something or the last word or some highly predictable words. PhD A: Mmm. Mm - hmm. PhD B: So technically, it's an overlap. PhD A: But maybe a {disfmarker} just a small overlap? PhD B: But {pause} you know, from information flow point of view it's not an overlap in {pause} the predictable information. PhD E: More, yeah. Grad H: It'd be interesting if we could do prediction. PhD A: I was just thinking more in terms of alignment, alignment overlap. PhD B: Yeah. Grad H: Language model prediction of overlap, that would be really interesting. PhD G: So {disfmarker} {pause} so {disfmarker} PhD B: Well, that's exactly, exactly why we wanted to study the precise timing of overlaps ins in uh Switchboard, Professor D: Yeah. PhD G: Right. Grad H: Right. PhD B: say, because there's a lot of that. PhD G: So {disfmarker} so here's a {disfmarker} here's a first interesting {pause} labeling task. Uh, to distinguish between, say, backchannels {vocalsound} {pause} precision timing {disfmarker} Sort of {vocalsound} you know, benevolent overlaps, and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {pause} and w and {disfmarker} and sort of, um {pause} I don't know, hostile overlaps, where {vocalsound} someone is trying to grab the floor from someone else. Grad H: Mm - hmm. Let's pick a different word. PhD E: Yeah. PhD G: Uh, that {disfmarker} that might be an interesting, um {pause} problem to look at. PhD A: Hostile takeovers. PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Postdoc F: Well, I mean you could do that. I ju I {disfmarker} I think that {pause} in this meeting I really had the feeling that wasn't happening, that {pause} the hostile {disfmarker} hostile type. These were {disfmarker} these were {pause} benevolent types, as people {pause} finishing each other's sentences, and {pause} stuff. PhD G: OK. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD G: Um, I could imagine that as {disfmarker} there's a fair number of {vocalsound} um cases where, and this is sort of, not {pause} really hostile, but sort of competitive, where {vocalsound} one person is finishing something and {vocalsound} you have, like, two or three people jumping {disfmarker} trying to {disfmarker} {pause} trying to {disfmarker} {pause} trying to, uh grab the next turn. Grad H: Trying to get the floor. Professor D: Yeah. PhD G: And so it's not against the person who talks first {pause} because actually we're all waiting for that person to finish. But they all want to {pause} be next. Professor D: I have a feeling most of these things are {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} {pause} that are not {pause} a benevolent kind are {disfmarker} are {vocalsound} {pause} are, uh {pause} um {pause} {vocalsound} are {disfmarker} are competitive as opposed to real really {disfmarker} really hostile. PhD G: Right. PhD A: I wonder what determines who gets the floor? Professor D: But. Postdoc F: Yeah, I agree. I agree. PhD A: I mean {disfmarker} Postdoc F: Well, there are various things, you {disfmarker} you have the {disfmarker} Professor D: Uh a vote {disfmarker} vote in Florida. Grad H: It's been studied a lot. Professor D: Yeah. PhD E: Voting for {disfmarker} Professor D: Um, o one thing {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I wanted to {disfmarker} or you can tell a good joke and then everybody's laughing and you get a chance to g break in. PhD G: Seniority. Professor D: But. But. Um. You know, the other thing I was thinking was that, {pause} um {pause} these {disfmarker} all these interesting questions are, of course, pretty hard to answer with, uh u {pause} you know, a small amount of data. Grad H: Ach. Professor D: So, um {pause} I wonder if what you're saying suggests that we should make a conscious attempt to have, um {vocalsound} a {disfmarker} a fair number of meetings with, uh a smaller number of people. Right? I mean {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} most of our meetings are {pause} uh, meetings currently with say five, six, seven, eight people Should we {pause} really try to have some two - person meetings, {pause} or some three - person meetings and re record them {vocalsound} just to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to beef up the {disfmarker} the statistics on that? Postdoc F: That's a control. Well, {vocalsound} it seems like there are two possibilities there, I mean {pause} i it seems like {vocalsound} if you have just {pause} two people it's not {pause} really, y like a meeting, w is not as similar as the rest of the {disfmarker} {pause} of the sample. It depends on what you're after, of course, but {vocalsound} It seems like that would be more a case of the control condition, compared to, uh {pause} an experimental {pause} condition, with more than two. Grad H: Mm - hmm. Professor D: Well, Liz was raising the question of {disfmarker} of whether i it's the number {disfmarker} there's a relationship between the number of people and the number of overlaps or type of overlaps there, Postdoc F: Mm - hmm. Professor D: and, um {vocalsound} If you had two people meeting in this kind of circumstance then you'd still have the visuals. You wouldn't have that difference {pause} also that you have in the {vocalsound} say, in Switchboard data. Uh Postdoc F: Mm - hmm. Yeah, I'm just thinking that'd be more like a c control condition. Professor D: Yeah. Postdoc F: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: Well, but from the acoustic point of view, it's all good. PhD E: Is the same. Professor D: Yeah, acoustic is fine, but {disfmarker} PhD G: If {disfmarker} if the goal were to just look at overlap you would {disfmarker} you could serve yourself {disfmarker} save yourself a lot of time but not even transcri transcribe the words. PhD B: Well, I was thinking you should be able to do this from the {pause} acoustics, on the close - talking mikes, Grad H: Yep. Professor D: Yeah. Grad H: Well, that's {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} that was my {disfmarker} my status report, PhD B: right? Postdoc F: You've been working on that. PhD B: Right, I mean Adam was {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F: Yeah. Grad H: so {vocalsound} {pause} Once we're done with this stuff discussing, PhD B: right. I mean, not as well as what {disfmarker} I mean, you wouldn't be able to have any kind of typology, obviously, Professor D: Yeah. PhD B: but you'd get some rough statistics. Grad H: Mm - hmm. PhD B: So. Professor D: But {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what do you think about that? Do you think that would be useful? I'm just thinking that as an action item of whether we should try to record some two - person meetings or something. PhD B: I guess my {disfmarker} my first comment was, um {pause} only that {vocalsound} um we should n not attribute overlaps only to meetings, but maybe that's obvious, maybe everybody knew that, Professor D: Yeah. PhD B: but that {vocalsound} in normal conversation with two people there's an awful lot of the same kinds of overlap, and that it would be interesting to look at {pause} whether there are these kinds of constraints that Jane mentioned, that {vocalsound} what maybe the additional people add to this competition that happens right after a turn, Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: you know, because now you can have five people trying to grab the turn, but pretty quickly there're {disfmarker} they back off and you go back to this sort of only one person at a time with one person interrupting at a time. Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: So, I don't know. To answer your question I {pause} it {disfmarker} I don't think it's crucial to have controls but I think it's worth recording all the meetings we {pause} can. Grad H: Can. PhD B: So, um {pause} you know. Professor D: Well, {vocalsound} OK. PhD E: Yeah. PhD G: I {disfmarker} I have an idea. PhD B: D I wouldn't not record a two - person meeting just because it only has two people. Grad H: Right. PhD G: Could we {disfmarker} Could we, um {disfmarker} we have {disfmarker} have in the past and I think continue {disfmarker} will continue to have a fair number of {pause} uh phone conference calls. Professor D: Uh - huh. PhD G: And, {vocalsound} uh, {pause} and as a {disfmarker} to, um {vocalsound} as another c {pause} c comparison {pause} condition, {pause} we could um see what {disfmarker} what what happens in terms of overlap, when you don't have visual contact. Grad H: Yeah, we talked about this repeatedly. PhD G: So, um {disfmarker} PhD B: Can we actually record? Grad H: It just seems like that's a very different {pause} thing than what we're doing. Professor D: Uh Well, we'll have to set up for it. PhD B: I mean {pause} physically {pause} can we record the o the other {disfmarker} Professor D: Yeah. Well, we're not really set up for it {pause} to do that. But. PhD G: Or, this is getting a little extravagant, we could put up some kind of blinds or something to {disfmarker} {pause} to remove, uh {pause} visual contact. Professor D: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. Grad H: Barriers! PhD B: That's what they did on Map Task, you know, this Map Task corpus? They ran exactly the same pairs of people with and without visual cues and it's quite interesting. Professor D: Well, we {disfmarker} we record this meeting so regularly it wouldn't be that {disfmarker} I mean {pause} a little strange. Grad H: OK, we can record, but no one can look at each other. PhD B: Well, we could just put {pause} b blindfolds on. PhD C: Yeah. PhD G: Well y no you {disfmarker} f Grad H: Close your eyes. Postdoc F: Blindf PhD G: Yeah, Yeah. Grad H: Turn off the lights. PhD B: and we'd take a picture of everybody sitting here with blindfolds. That would {disfmarker} Professor D: Oh, th that was the other thing, weren't we gonna take a picture {pause} at the beginning of each of these meetings? Grad H: Um, what {disfmarker} I had thought we were gonna do is just take pictures of the whiteboards. rather than take pictures of the meeting. Postdoc F: Well, linguistic {disfmarker} Grad H: And, uh {disfmarker} Professor D: Yes. Postdoc F: Yeah. Linguistic anthropologists would {disfmarker} would suggest it would be useful to also take a picture of the meeting. Professor D: There's a head nodding here vigorously, yeah. PhD A: Why {disfmarker} why do we want to have a picture of the meeting? PhD B: Ee - {pause} you mean, transc {pause} no {disfmarker} Postdoc F: The {disfmarker} because you get then the spatial relationship of the speakers. PhD E: Yeah Yeah. Postdoc F: And that {pause} could be PhD G: Well, you could do that by just noting on the enrollment sheet the {disfmarker} {pause} the seat number. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: Seat number, that's a good idea. I'll do that. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: I'll do that on the next set of forms. PhD E: Yeah. PhD G: So you'd number them somehow. PhD E: Is possible to get information from the rhythmic {disfmarker} f from the ge, eh {pause} uh, files. Grad H: I finally remembered to put, uh put native language on the newer forms. PhD A: We can {disfmarker} can't you figure it out from the mike number? Grad H: No. PhD A: OK. Grad H: The wireless ones. And even the jacks, I mean, I'm sitting here and the jack is {pause} over {pause} in front of you. PhD A: Oh. PhD B: But probably from these you could've {comment} infer it. PhD G: Yeah, but It's {disfmarker} it would be trivial {disfmarker} Grad H: It would be another task. PhD B: It would be a research task. Grad H: Having {disfmarker} having ground tu truth would be nice, so {pause} seat number would be good. PhD A: You know where you could get it? PhD B: Yeah, yeah. PhD A: Beam - forming during the digit {pause} uh stuff. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: So I'm gonna put little labels on all the chairs with the seat number. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Grad H: That's a good idea. PhD B: But you have to keep the chairs in the same pla like here. PhD G: Not the chairs. The chairs are {disfmarker} Chairs are movable. Grad H: But, uh {disfmarker} PhD G: Put them {disfmarker} {pause} Like, {pause} put them on the table where they {disfmarker} PhD E: The chair {comment} Yeah. Grad H: Yep. PhD C: Yeah. Grad H: Yep. Postdoc F: But you know, they {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} s the linguistic anthropologists would say it would be good to have a digital picture anyway, PhD A: Just remembered a joke. Postdoc F: because you get {pause} a sense also of posture. Posture, and we could like, {pause} you know, {pause} block out the person's face or whatever PhD G: What people were wearing. Grad H: Yeah. PhD B: The fashion statement. Postdoc F: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but, you know, these are important cues, PhD G: Oh, Andreas was {disfmarker} PhD A: How big their heads are. Postdoc F: I mean the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} how a person is sitting {pause} is {disfmarker} Professor D: But if you just f But from one picture, I don't know that you really get that. PhD G: Yeah. Andreas was wearing that same old sweater again. Professor D: Right? You'd want a video for that, I think. Postdoc F: It'd be better than nothing, is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} i Just from a single picture I think you can tell some aspects. PhD E: A video, yeah. Professor D: Think so? Postdoc F: I mean I {disfmarker} I could tell you I mean, if I if I'm in certain meetings I notice that there are certain people who really do {disfmarker} eh {disfmarker} The body language is very uh {disfmarker} is very interesting in terms of the dominance aspect. PhD G: And {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} Professor D: Hmm. PhD G: Yeah. And {disfmarker} and Morgan had that funny hair again. Postdoc F: Yeah. {comment} Well, I mean you black out the {disfmarker} that part. Grad H: Hmm. Postdoc F: But it's just, you know, the {disfmarker} the body PhD A: He agreed. Postdoc F: you know? Grad H: Of course, the {disfmarker} where we sit at the table, I find is very interesting, that we do tend to {pause} cong {pause} to gravitate to the same place each time. Postdoc F: Yeah. Grad H: and it's somewhat coincidental. I'm sitting here so that I can run into the room if the hardware starts, you know, catching fire or something. PhD G: Oh, no, you {disfmarker} you just like to be in charge, that's why you're sitting {disfmarker} Grad H: I just want to be at the head of the table. PhD G: Yeah. Grad H: Take control. Professor D: Speaking of taking control, you said you had some research to talk about. Postdoc F: Yeah. Yeah. Grad H: Yeah, I've been playing with, um uh, using the close - talking mike to do {disfmarker} to try to figure out who's speaking. So my first attempt was just using thresholding and filtering, that we talked about {disfmarker} about two weeks ago, and so I played with that a little bit, and {vocalsound} it works O K, {pause} except that {pause} it's very sensitive to your choice of {vocalsound} your filter width and your {vocalsound} threshold. So if you fiddle around with it a little bit and you get good numbers you can actually do a pretty good job of segmenting when someone's talking and when they're not. But if you try to use the same paramenters on another speaker, it doesn't work anymore, even if you normalize it based on the absolute loudness. PhD B: But does it work for that one speaker throughout the whole meeting? Grad H: It does work for the one speaker throughout the whole meeting. Um Pretty well. PhD A: How did you do it Adam? Grad H: Pretty well. How did I do it? PhD A: Yeah. Grad H: What do you mean? PhD A: I mean, wh what was the {disfmarker} Grad H: The algorithm was, uh take o every frame that's over the threshold, and then median - filter it, {vocalsound} and then look for runs. PhD A: Yeah. Mm - hmm. Grad H: So there was a minimum run length, PhD A: Every frame that's over what threshold? Grad H: so that {disfmarker} A threshold that you pick. PhD A: In terms of energy? Ah! Grad H: Yeah. PhD A: OK. Postdoc F: Say that again? Frame over fres threshold. Grad H: So you take a {disfmarker} each frame, and you compute the energy and if it's over the threshold you set it to one, and if it's under the threshold you set it to zero, {vocalsound} so now you have a bit stream {pause} of zeros and ones. Postdoc F: Hmm. OK. Grad H: And then I median - filtered that {vocalsound} using, um {pause} a fairly long {pause} filter length. Uh {pause} well, actually I guess depends on what you mean by long, you know, tenth of a second sorts of numbers. Um and that's to average out you know, pitch, you know, the pitch contours, and things like that. And then, uh looked for long runs. Postdoc F: OK Grad H: And that works O K, if you fil if you tune the filter parameters, if you tune {vocalsound} how long your median filter is and how high you're looking for your thresholds. PhD A: Did you ever try running the filter before you pick a threshold? Grad H: No. I certainly could though. But this was just I had the program mostly written already so it was easy to do. OK and then the other thing I did, was I took {vocalsound} Javier's speaker - change detector {disfmarker} acoustic - change detector, and I implemented that with the close - talking mikes, and {pause} unfortunately that's not working real well, and it looks like it's {disfmarker} the problem is {disfmarker} he does it in two passes, the first pass {vocalsound} is to find candidate places to do a break. And he does that using a neural net doing broad phone classification and he has the {vocalsound} the, uh {pause} one of the phone classes is silence. And so the possible breaks are where silence starts and ends. And then he has a second pass which is a modeling {disfmarker} a Gaussian mixture model. Um looking for {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} whether it improves or {disfmarker} or degrades to split at one of those particular places. And what looks like it's happening is that the {disfmarker} even on the close - talking mike the broad phone class classifier's doing a really bad job. PhD A: Who was it trained on? Grad H: Uh, I have no idea. PhD A: Hmm. Grad H: I don't remember. Does an do you remember, Morgan, was it Broadcast News? Professor D: I think so, yeah. Grad H: Um {pause} So, at any rate, my next attempt, {pause} which I'm in the midst of and haven't quite finished yet was actually using the {vocalsound} uh, thresholding as the way of generating the candidates. Because one of the things that definitely happens is if you put the threshold low {vocalsound} you get lots of breaks. All of which are definitely acoustic events. They're definitely {vocalsound} someone talking. But, like, it could be someone who isn't the person here, but the person over there or it can be the person breathing. And then feeding that into the acoustic change detector. And so I think that might work. But, I haven't gotten very far on that. But all of this is close - talking mike, so it's, uh {pause} just {disfmarker} just trying to get some ground truth. PhD E: Only with eh uh, but eh I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think, eh when {disfmarker} when, y I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I saw the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the speech from PDA and, eh {pause} close {pause} {vocalsound} talker. I {disfmarker} I think the there is a {disfmarker} a great difference in the {disfmarker} in the signal. Grad H: Oh, absolutely. PhD E: Um but eh I {disfmarker} but eh I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean that eh eh {pause} in the {disfmarker} in the mixed file {vocalsound} you can find, uh {pause} zone with, eh {pause} great different, eh {pause} level of energy. Grad H: So {pause} s my intention for this is {disfmarker} is as an aide for ground truth. not {disfmarker} PhD E: Um {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think for, eh {pause} algorithm based on energy, {pause} eh, that um h mmm, {disfmarker} more or less, eh, like eh {pause} eh, mmm, first sound energy detector. Grad H: Say it again? PhD E: eh nnn. When y you the detect the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the first at {disfmarker} at the end of {disfmarker} of the {vocalsound} detector of, ehm princ um. What is the {disfmarker} the name in English? the {disfmarker} the, mmm, {pause} {vocalsound} the de detector of, ehm of a word in the {disfmarker} in the s in {disfmarker} an isolated word in {disfmarker} in the background That, uh Grad H: I'm {disfmarker} I'm not sure what you're saying, can you try {disfmarker} PhD E: I mean that when {disfmarker} when you use, eh {pause} eh {pause} any PhD A: I think he's saying the onset detector. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: Onset detector, OK. PhD E: I {disfmarker} I think it's probably to work well eh, because, eh {pause} you have eh, in the mixed files a great level of energy. eh {pause} and great difference between the sp speaker. And probably is not so easy when you use the {disfmarker} the PDA, eh that {disfmarker} Because the signal is, eh {pause} the {disfmarker} in the e energy level. Grad H: Right. PhD E: in {disfmarker} in that, eh {pause} eh {pause} speech file {vocalsound} is, eh {pause} more similar. between the different eh, speaker, {vocalsound} um {pause} I {disfmarker} I think is {disfmarker} eh, it will {pause} i is my opinion. Grad H: Right. But different speakers. PhD E: It will be, eh {pause} more difficult to {disfmarker} to detect bass - tone energy. the {disfmarker} the change. I think that, um Grad H: Ah, in the clo in the P D A, you mean? PhD E: In the PDA. Grad H: Absolutely. PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Grad H: Yeah, no question. It'll be much harder. Professor D: Yeah. Grad H: Much harder. PhD E: And the {disfmarker} the another question, that when I review the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the work of Javier. I think the, nnn, the, nnn, {pause} that the idea of using a {pause} neural network {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to get a broad class of phonetic, eh {pause} from, eh uh a candidate from the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the speech signal. If you have, eh {vocalsound} uh, I'm considering, only because Javier, eh {pause} only consider, eh {pause} like candidate, the, nnn, eh {pause} the silence, because it is the {disfmarker} the only model, eh {disfmarker} eh, he used that, eh {pause} {vocalsound} eh {pause} nnn, to detect the {disfmarker} the possibility of a {disfmarker} a change between the {disfmarker} between the speaker, Grad H: Right. PhD E: Um {pause} another {disfmarker} another research thing, different groups, eh {pause} working, eh {pause} on Broadcast News {vocalsound} prefer to, eh {pause} to consider hypothesis eh {pause} between each phoneme. Grad H: Mm - hmm. Yeah, when a {pause} phone changes. PhD E: Because, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think it's more realistic that, uh {pause} only consider the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the silence between the speaker. Eh {pause} there {disfmarker} there exists eh {pause} silence between {disfmarker} between, eh {pause} a speaker. is {disfmarker} is, eh {pause} eh {pause} acoustic, eh {pause} event, important to {disfmarker} to consider. Professor D: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. PhD E: I {disfmarker} I found that the, eh {pause} silence in {disfmarker} in many occasions in the {disfmarker} in the speech file, but, eh {pause} when you have, eh {pause} eh, two speakers together without enough silence between {disfmarker} between them, eh {pause} {vocalsound} I think eh {pause} is better to use the acoustic change detector basically and I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I IX or, mmm, BIC criterion for consider all the frames in my opinion. Professor D: Mm - hmm. Yeah, the {disfmarker} you know, the reason that he, uh {pause} just used silence {vocalsound} was not because he thought it was better, it was {disfmarker} it was {disfmarker} it was the place he was starting. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: Yep. Professor D: So, he was trying to get something going, PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: and, uh e e you know, as {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} {vocalsound} as is in your case, if you're here for only a modest number of months you try to pick a realistic goal, PhD E: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Grad H: Do something. Professor D: But his {disfmarker} his goal was always to proceed from there to then allow broad category change also. PhD E: Uh - huh. But, eh {pause} do {disfmarker} do you think that if you consider all the frames to apply {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the, eh {pause} the BIC criterion to detect the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the different acoustic change, {vocalsound} eh {pause} between speaker, without, uh {pause} with, uh {pause} silence or {vocalsound} with overlapping, uh, I think like {disfmarker} like, eh {pause} eh a general, eh {pause} eh {pause} way of process the {disfmarker} the acoustic change. Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD E: In a first step, I mean. Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD E: An - and then, eh {pause} {vocalsound} eh {pause} without considering the you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you, um {pause} you can consider the energy {vocalsound} like a another parameter in the {disfmarker} in the feature vector, eh. Grad H: Right. Absolutely. Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD E: This {disfmarker} this is the idea. And if, if you do that, eh {pause} eh, with a BIC uh criterion for example, or with another kind of, eh {pause} of distance in a first step, {vocalsound} and then you, eh {pause} you get the, eh {pause} the hypothesis to the {disfmarker} this change acoustic, {vocalsound} eh {pause} {vocalsound} to po process Grad H: Right. PhD E: Because, eh {pause} eh, probably you {disfmarker} you can find the {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} eh {pause} a small gap of silence between speaker {vocalsound} with eh {pause} eh {pause} a ga mmm, {pause} {vocalsound} small duration Less than, {vocalsound} eh {pause} two hundred milliseconds for example Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD E: and apply another {disfmarker} another algorithm, another approach like, eh {pause} eh {pause} detector of ene, eh detector of bass - tone energy to {disfmarker} to consider that, eh {vocalsound} that, eh {pause} zone. of s a small silence between speaker, or {vocalsound} another algorithm to {disfmarker} to process, {vocalsound} eh {pause} the {disfmarker} the segment between marks eh {pause} founded by the {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} the BIC criterion and applied for {disfmarker} for each frame. Professor D: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. PhD E: I think is, eh {pause} nnn, it will be a an {disfmarker} an {disfmarker} a more general approach {vocalsound} the {pause} if we compare {disfmarker} with use, eh {pause} a neural net or another, eh {pause} speech recognizer with a broad class or {disfmarker} or narrow class, because, in my opinion eh {pause} it's in my opinion, {vocalsound} eh if you {disfmarker} if you change the condition of the speech, I mean, if you adjust to your algorithm with a mixed speech file and to, eh {vocalsound} to, eh {pause} {vocalsound} adapt the neural net, eh {pause} used by Javier with a mixed file. Professor D: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. PhD E: uh With a m mixed file, Grad H: With the what file? PhD A:" Mixed" . PhD E: with a {disfmarker} the mix, mix. Postdoc F:" Mixed." Grad H:" Mixed?" Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Sorry. And {pause} and then you {disfmarker} you, eh you try to {disfmarker} to apply that, eh, eh, eh, speech recognizer to that signal, to the PDA, eh {pause} speech file, {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think you will have problems, because the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {pause} condition {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you will need t t I {disfmarker} I suppose that you will need to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to retrain it. Professor D: Well, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Grad H: Oh, absolutely. This is {disfmarker} this is not what I was suggesting to do. Professor D: u {vocalsound} Look, I {disfmarker} I think this is a {disfmarker} One {disfmarker} once {disfmarker} It's a {disfmarker} I used to work, like, on voiced {disfmarker} on voice silence detection, you know, and this is this {pause} kind of thing. PhD E: Really? Yeah. Professor D: Um {pause} If you {vocalsound} have somebody who has some experience with this sort of thing, and they work on it for a couple months, {vocalsound} they can come up with something that gets most of the cases fairly easily. Then you say," OK, I don't just wanna get most of the cases I want it to be really accurate." Then it gets really hard no matter what you do. So, the p the problem is is that if you say," Well I {disfmarker} I have these other data over here, {vocalsound} that I learn things from, either explicit training of neural nets or of Gaussian mixture models or whatever." PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: Uh {pause} Suppose you don't use any of those things. You say you have looked for acoustic change. Well, what does that mean? That {disfmarker} that means you set some thresholds somewhere or something, PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: right? and {disfmarker} and so {vocalsound} where do you get your thresholds from? PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: From something that you looked at. So {vocalsound} you always have this problem, you're going to new data um {pause} H how are you going to adapt whatever you can very quickly learn about the new data? {vocalsound} Uh, if it's gonna be different from old data that you have? And I think that's a problem {pause} with this. Grad H: Well, also what I'm doing right now is not intended to be an acoustic change detector for far - field mikes. What I'm doing {vocalsound} is trying to use the close - talking mike {vocalsound} and just use {disfmarker} {pause} Can - and just generate candidate and just {pause} try to get a first pass at something that sort of works. PhD E: Yeah! PhD A: You have candidates. PhD G: Actually {disfmarker} actually {disfmarker} actually {disfmarker} PhD E: the candidate. PhD G: I {disfmarker} PhD A: to make marking easier. Yeah. PhD G: Or {disfmarker} Grad H: and I haven't spent a lot of time on it and I'm not intending to spend a lot of time on it. PhD G: OK. I {disfmarker} um, I, unfortunately, have to run, Grad H: So. PhD G: but, um {pause} I can imagine {pause} uh building {pause} a {pause} um {pause} model of speaker change {pause} detection {pause} that {vocalsound} takes into account {pause} both the far - field and the {vocalsound} uh {pause} actually, not just the close - talking mike for that speaker, but actually for all of th {pause} for all of the speakers. Grad H: Yep. Everyone else. Professor D: Yeah. PhD G: um {pause} If you model the {disfmarker} {pause} the {pause} effect that {pause} me speaking has on {pause} your {pause} microphone and everybody else's microphone, as well as on that, {vocalsound} and you build, um {disfmarker} basically I think you'd {disfmarker} you would {pause} build a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} an HMM that has as a state space all of the possible speaker combinations Grad H: All the {disfmarker} Yep. PhD E: Yeah. PhD G: and, um {vocalsound} you can control {disfmarker} Grad H: It's a little big. PhD G: It's not that big actually, um Grad H: Two to the N. Two to the number of people in the meeting. Professor D: But {disfmarker} Actually, Andreas may maybe {disfmarker} maybe just something simpler but {disfmarker} but along the lines of what you're saying, Grad H: Anyway. PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: I was just realizing, I used to know this guy who used to build, uh {vocalsound} um, mike mixers {disfmarker} automatic mike mixers where, you know, t in order to able to turn up the gain, you know, uh {vocalsound} as much as you can, you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you lower the gain on {disfmarker} on the mikes of people who aren't talking, PhD G: Mmm. PhD E: Yeah {comment} Yeah. PhD G: Mmm. Mm - hmm. Professor D: right? And then he had some sort of {vocalsound} reasonable way of doing that, PhD G: Mm - hmm. Professor D: but {vocalsound} uh, what if you were just looking at very simple measures like energy measures but you don't just compare it to some threshold {pause} overall but you compare it to the {vocalsound} energy in the other microphones. Grad H: I was thinking about doing that originally to find out {pause} who's the loudest, and that person is certainly talking. Professor D: Yeah. Grad H: But I also wanted to find threshold {disfmarker} uh, excuse me, mol overlap. Professor D: Yeah. Grad H: So, not just {disfmarker} just the loudest. PhD E: But, eh Postdoc F: Mm - hmm. PhD E: I {disfmarker} I Sorry. I {disfmarker} I have found that when {disfmarker} when I I analyzed the {disfmarker} the speech files from the, {pause} eh {pause} mike, eh {pause} from the eh close eh {pause} microphone, eh {pause} I found zones with a {disfmarker} a different level of energy. PhD G: Sorry, I have to go. Grad H: OK. Could you fill that out anyway? Just, {pause} put your name in. Are y you want me to do it? I'll do it. PhD A: But he's not gonna even read that. Oh. Grad H: I know. PhD E: including overlap zone. including. because, eh {pause} eh {pause} depend on the position of the {disfmarker} of the microph of the each speaker {vocalsound} to, eh, to get more o or less energy {vocalsound} i in the mixed sign in the signal. and then, {vocalsound} if you consider energy to {disfmarker} to detect overlapping in {disfmarker} in, uh, and you process the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the speech file from the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the mixed signals. The mixed signals, eh. I {disfmarker} I think it's {disfmarker} it's difficult, um {vocalsound} {pause} only to en with energy to {disfmarker} to consider that in that zone We have eh, eh, overlapping zone Eh, if you process only the the energy of the, of each frame. Professor D: Well, it's probably harder, but I {disfmarker} I think what I was s nnn noting just when he {disfmarker} when Andreas raised that, was that there's other information to be gained from looking at all {vocalsound} of the microphones and you may not need to look at very sophisticated things, PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: because if there's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if most of the overlaps {disfmarker} you know, this doesn't cover, say, three, but if most of the overlaps, say, are two, {vocalsound} if the distribution looks like there's a couple high ones and {disfmarker} and {pause} the rest of them are low, PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Grad H: And everyone else is low, yeah. Professor D: you know, what I mean, PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: there's some information there about their distribution even with very simple measures. PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Professor D: Uh, by the way, I had an idea with {disfmarker} while I was watching Chuck nodding at a lot of these things, is that we can all wear little bells on our heads, {vocalsound} so that {vocalsound} then you'd know that {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: Ding, ding, ding, ding. PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F:" Ding" . That's cute! PhD B: I think that'd be really interesting too, with blindfolds. Then {disfmarker} Grad H: Nodding with blindfolds, PhD B: Yeah. The question is, {pause} like {pause} whether {disfmarker} Grad H:" what are you nodding about?" PhD B: Well, trying with and {disfmarker} {pause} with and without, yeah. Grad H:" Sorry, I'm just {disfmarker} I'm just going to sleep." PhD B: But then there's just one @ @, like. Professor D: Yeah. PhD A: Actually, I saw a uh {disfmarker} a woman at the bus stop the other day who, um, was talking on her cell phone {vocalsound} speaking Japanese, and was bowing. you know, profusely. PhD B: Oh, yeah, that's really common. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah {comment} Yeah. PhD A: Just, kept {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F: Ah. Professor D: Wow. PhD B: It's very difficult if you try {disfmarker} while you're trying, say, to convince somebody on the phone it's difficult not to move your hands. Not {disfmarker} You know, if you watch people they'll actually do these things. Professor D: Mm - hmm? PhD B: So. I still think we should try a {disfmarker} a meeting or two with the blindfolds, at least of this meeting that we have lots of recordings of Grad H: Mm - hmm. PhD B: Um, maybe for part of the meeting, we don't have to do it the whole meeting. Professor D: Yeah, I think th I think it's a great idea. PhD B: That could be fun. It'll be too hard to make barriers, I was thinking because they have to go all the way Professor D: W Yeah. PhD B: you know, I can see Chuck even if you put a barrier here. Grad H: Well, we could just turn out the lights. Postdoc F: Actually {pause} well also {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can say I made barr barriers for {disfmarker} so that {disfmarker} the {pause} stuff I was doing with Collin wha {pause} which {pause} just used, um {pause} this {pause} kind of foam board. PhD B: Y Yeah? Postdoc F: R really inexpensive. You can {disfmarker} you can masking tape it together, these are {pause} you know, pretty l large partitions. Professor D: Yeah. PhD B: But then we also have these mikes, is the other thing I was thinking, so we need a barrier that doesn't disturb {pause} the sound, Postdoc F: It's true, it would disturb the, um {pause} the {disfmarker} the long - range {disfmarker} Grad H: The acoustics. PhD B: um Professor D: Blindfolds would be good. Postdoc F: it would {disfmarker} Grad H: I think, blindfolds. PhD B: I mean, it sounds weird but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} {pause} you know it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's cheap and, uh Be interesting to have the camera going. Professor D: Probably we should wait until after Adam's set up the mikes, But. Postdoc F: OK. I think we're going to have to work on the, uh {disfmarker} {pause} on the human subjects {vocalsound} form. PhD A: I'll be peeking. Grad H: Yeah, that's right, we didn't tell them we would be blindfolding. Professor D: That's {disfmarker} Postdoc F:" Do you mind being blindfolded while you're interviewed?" Professor D: that's {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} that's the one that we videotape. So. Um, I {disfmarker} I wanna move this along. Uh {pause} I did have this other agenda item which is, uh @ @ {disfmarker} it's uh a list which I sent to uh {disfmarker} a couple folks, but um I wanted to get broader input on it, So this is the things that I think we did {vocalsound} in the last three months obviously not everything we did but {disfmarker} but sort of highlights that I can {disfmarker} {pause} can {pause} tell {pause} s some outside person, you know, what {disfmarker} what were you {pause} actually working on. Um {pause} in no particular order {vocalsound} uh, one, uh, ten more hours of meeting r meetings recorded, something like that, you know from {disfmarker} from, uh {pause} three months ago. Uh {pause} XML formats and other transcription aspects sorted out {pause} and uh {pause} sent to IBM. Um, pilot data put together and sent to IBM for transcription, uh {pause} next batch of recorded data put together on the CD - ROMs for shipment to IBM, Grad H: Hasn't been sent yet, but {disfmarker} It's getting ready. Professor D: But yeah, that's why I phrased it that way, yeah OK. Um {pause} human subjects approval on campus, uh {pause} and release forms worked out so the meeting participants have a chance to request audio pixelization of selected parts of the spee their speech. Um {vocalsound} audio pixelization software written and tested. Um {pause} {vocalsound} preliminary analysis of overlaps in the pilot data we have transcribed, and exploratory analysis of long - distance inferences for topic coherence, that was {disfmarker} I was {disfmarker} {pause} wasn't {pause} sure if those were the right way {disfmarker} {pause} that was the right way to describe that because of that little exercise that {disfmarker} that you {comment} and {disfmarker} and Lokendra did. Postdoc F: What was that called? Professor D: I {disfmarker} well, I I'm probably saying this wrong, but what I said was exploratory analysis of long - distance inferences {vocalsound} for topic coherence. Postdoc F: The, uh {pause} say again? Professor D: Something like that. Um {pause} so, uh {pause} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {pause} a lot of that was from, you know, what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what you two were doing so I {disfmarker} I sent it to you, and you know, please mail me, you know, the corrections or suggestions for changing Grad H: Mm - hmm. Professor D: I {disfmarker} I don't want to make this twice it's length but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but you know, just im improve it. Um Is there anything anybody {disfmarker} Grad H: I {disfmarker} I did a bunch of stuff for supporting of digits. Professor D:" Bunch of stuff for s" OK, maybe {disfmarker} maybe send me a sentence that's a little thought through about that. Grad H: So, {pause} OK, I'll send you a sentence that doesn't just say" a bunch of" ? Professor D:" Bunch of stuff" , yeah," stuff" is probably bad too, Grad H: Yep." Stuff" {pause} is not very technical. Professor D: Yeah, well. Grad H: I'll try to {pause} phrase it in passive voice. Professor D: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, PhD A: Technical stuff. Professor D:" range of things" , yeah. Um {pause} and {disfmarker} and you know, I sort of threw in what you did with what Jane did on {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} under the, uh {pause} uh {vocalsound} preliminary analysis of overlaps. Uh {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} Thilo, can you tell us about all the work you've done on this project in the last, uh {pause} last three months? PhD E: Yeah. PhD C: So {disfmarker} what is {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} Um. Not really. Professor D: That's {disfmarker} PhD A: It's too complicated. PhD C: Um, {pause} I didn't get it. Wh - what is" audio pixelization" ? Professor D: Uh, audio pix wh he did it, so why don't you explain it quickly? Grad H: It's just, uh {pause} beeping out parts that you don't want included in the meeting so, you know you can say things like," Well, this should probably not be on the record, but beep" PhD C: OK, OK. I got that. Professor D: Yeah. We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we spent a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a fair amount of time early on just talk dealing with this issue about op w e e {vocalsound} we realized," well, people are speaking in an impromptu way and they might say something that would embarrass them or others later" , and, how do you get around that PhD C: OK. Professor D: so in the consent form it says, well you {disfmarker} we will look at the transcripts later and if there's something that you're {pause} unhappy with, yeah. PhD C: OK, and you can say {disfmarker} OK. Professor D: But you don't want to just totally excise it because um uh, well you have to be careful about excising it, how {disfmarker} how you excise it keeping the timing right and so forth so that at the moment tho th the idea we're running with is {disfmarker} is h putting the beep over it. PhD C: OK. Grad H: Yeah, you can either beep or it can be silence. I {disfmarker} I couldn't decide. which was the right way to do it. PhD E: Ah, yeah. Grad H: Beep is good auditorily, PhD C: Yeah. Grad H: if someone is listening to it, there's no mistake that it's been beeped out, PhD C: Yeah. Grad H: but for software it's probably better for it to be silence. PhD A: No, no. You can {disfmarker} you know, you could make a m as long as you keep using the same beep, people could make a model of that beep, Postdoc F: Hmm. PhD A: and {disfmarker} Postdoc F: I like that idea. Grad H: Yep. And I use {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's, uh {pause} it's an A below middle C beep, PhD B: I think the beep is a really good idea. PhD A: Yeah. Postdoc F: It's very clear. Then you don't think it's a long pause. PhD B: Also {disfmarker} PhD A: Yeah, it's more obvious that there was something there than if there's just silence. Grad H: so PhD C: Yeah. Postdoc F: Yeah. Professor D: Yeah, that {disfmarker} I mean, he's {disfmarker} he's removing the old {pause} thing PhD E: Yeah Professor D: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} Grad H: Yep. PhD A: Yea - right. Right. But I mean if you just replaced it with silence, {pause} it's not clear whether that's really silence or {disfmarker} Grad H: Yeah, it's not {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F: Yeah, I agree. Professor D: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: Yep. Postdoc F: One {disfmarker} one question. Do you do it on all channels? Grad H: Of course. Postdoc F: Interesting. I like that. Professor D: Yeah. Postdoc F: Yeah, I like that. Grad H: Yeah you have to do it on all channels because it's, uh {pause} audible. Postdoc F: Very clear. Very clear. Grad H: Uh, it's {disfmarker} it's potentially audible, you could potentially recover it. Professor D: Ke - keep a back door. Postdoc F: Well, the other thing that {disfmarker} you know, I mean the {disfmarker} the alternative might be to s Grad H: Yeah. Well, I {disfmarker} I haven't thrown away any of the meetings that I beeped. Actually yours is the only one that I beeped and then, uh {pause} the ar DARPA meeting. PhD B: Notice how quiet I am. Grad H: Sorry, and then the DARPA meeting I just excised completely, Postdoc F: Yeah. Grad H: so it's in a private directory. PhD B: You have some people who only have beeps as their speech in these meetings. Postdoc F: That's great. Yeah. Professor D: OK. PhD A: They're easy to find, then. Professor D: Alright, so, uh {pause} I think we should, uh {pause} uh, go on to the digits? Postdoc F: I have one concept a t I {disfmarker} I want to say, which is that I think it's nice that you're preserving the time relations, Grad H: OK. Postdoc F: s so you're {disfmarker} you're not just cutting {disfmarker} you're not doing scissor snips. You're {disfmarker} you're keeping the, uh {pause} the time duration of a {disfmarker} de - deleted {disfmarker} deleted part. Grad H: Right. PhD B: Yeah, definitely. Professor D: Yeah. Postdoc F: OK, good, digits. Grad H: Yeah, since we wanna {pause} possibly synchronize these things as well. Oh, I should have done that. Postdoc F: It's great. Grad H: Shoot. Oh well. PhD B: So I guess if there's an overlap, {pause} like, if I'm saying something that's {pause} bleepable and somebody else overlaps during it they also get bleeped, too? Professor D: Yeah. Oh Grad H: You'll lose it. There's no way around that. Professor D: Yeah. Um {pause} I d I did {disfmarker} before we do the digits, I did also wanna remind people, uh {pause} {vocalsound} please do send me, you know, uh thoughts for an agenda, Grad H: Agenda? Professor D: yeah that {disfmarker} that would be that'd be good. Postdoc F: Good. Professor D: Eh So that, uh, people's ideas don't get Grad H: Thursday crept up on me this week. Professor D: yeah, well it does creep up, doesn't it? PhD B: And, I wanted to say, I think this is really interesting {pause} analysis. Professor D: OK. Postdoc F: Thank you. Grad H: It's cool stuff, definitely. PhD B: I meant to say that before I started off on the {pause} Switchboard stuff. Postdoc F: Thank you. Grad H: I was gonna say" can you do that for the other meetings, PhD B: It's neat. Grad H: can you do it for them?" PhD B: Yeah. Grad H: And, no actually, you can't. PhD A: Actually {disfmarker} actually I {disfmarker} I thought that's what you were giving us was another meeting and I was like," Oh, OK!" PhD B: Does it take {disfmarker} Postdoc F: Thank you. Yeah. Grad H:" Ooo, cool!" Postdoc F: Aw, thanks. PhD B: How long does it {pause} take, just briefly, like {pause} t to {disfmarker} {pause} OK. {pause} to label the, Postdoc F: No. I have the script now, so, I mean, it can work off the, uh {pause} other thing, Grad H: It's {disfmarker} As soon as we get labels, yep. PhD B: OK. PhD A: But it has to be hand - labeled first? Postdoc F: but {disfmarker} Uh, well, yeah. Because, uh {pause} well, I mean {pause} once his {disfmarker} his algorithm is up and running then we can do it that way. Grad H: If it works well enough. Right now it's not. Not quite to the point where it works. PhD B: OK. Postdoc F: But {pause} I {disfmarker} I just worked off of my PhD B: It's really neat. Professor D: OK, go ahead Postdoc F: Thanks. Appreciate that. I think {disfmarker} what I {disfmarker} what this has, uh, caused me {disfmarker} so this discussion caused me to wanna subdivide these further. I'm gonna take a look at the, uh {pause} backchannels, how much we have anal I hope to have that for next time. PhD A: That'd be interesting. Grad H: Yeah, my {disfmarker} my algorithm worked great actually on these, but when you wear it like that or with the uh, lapel {pause} or if you have it very far from your face, that's when it starts {pause} failing. PhD A: Mm - hmm. Oh. PhD B: Well, I can wear it, I mean if you {disfmarker} Grad H: It doesn't matter. PhD B: OK. Grad H: I mean, we want it to work, PhD A: It's too late now. Grad H: right? I {disfmarker} I don't want {pause} to change the way we do the meeting. PhD B: I feel like this troublemaker. Grad H: It's uh {disfmarker} {pause} so, it was just a comment on the software, not a comment on {vocalsound} prescriptions on how you wear microphones. PhD B: OK. Professor D: OK, that's {disfmarker} let's {disfmarker} let's {disfmarker} let's do digits. Grad H: Get the bolts," whh whh" Postdoc F: Let's do it. OK. Grad H: OK. PhD B: I'm sorry. Grad H: OK, thank you. Postdoc F: Do you want us to put a mark on the bottom of these when they've actually been read, or do you just {pause} i i the only one that wasn't read is {disfmarker} is known, so we don't do it. OK.

Postdoc F said or a control experiment, having a number of meetings with a smaller group of people may be useful. Since most of the meetings currently have between five and eight people, the control would have three person meetings.

tr-sq-658

tr-sq-658_0

What did the team say on experiments? PhD B: We're, I mean {pause} we {disfmarker} We didn't have a house before. Professor D: Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: OK. Professor D: We're on again? OK. PhD A: Mm - hmm. That is really great. Grad H: Yeah, so if {pause} uh {disfmarker} {pause} So if anyone hasn't signed the consent form, please do so. PhD A: That's terrific. PhD B: Oh, yeah! Professor D: OK Grad H: The new consent form. The new and improved consent form. PhD A: Now you won't be able to walk or ride your bike, huh? Professor D: OK. Postdoc F: Uh. PhD B: Right. Professor D: OK. Grad H: And uh, shall I go ahead and do some digits? Professor D: Uh, we were gonna do that at the end, remember? Grad H: OK, whatever you want. Professor D: Yeah. Just {disfmarker} just to be consistent, from here on in at least, that {disfmarker} {pause} that we'll do it at the end. PhD B: The new consent form. Grad H: It's uh {disfmarker} {pause} Yeah, it doesn't matter. OK. Professor D: OK Um Well, it ju I mean it might be that someone here has to go, Postdoc F: Testing, one, two, three. Professor D: and {disfmarker} Right? That was {disfmarker} that was sort of the point. So, uh {pause} I had asked actually anybody who had any ideas for an agenda {pause} to send it to me and no one did. So, Grad H: So we all forgot. Professor D: Uh, Postdoc F: From last time I wanted to {disfmarker} Uh {pause} {pause} The {disfmarker} An iss uh {pause} one topic from last time. Professor D: Right, s OK, so one item for an agenda is uh {pause} Jane has some uh {vocalsound} uh some research to talk about, research issues. Um {pause} and {pause} Uh, Adam has some short research issues. Grad H: And I have some {pause} short research issues. Professor D: Um, I have a {pause} list of things that I think were done over the last three months I was supposed to {vocalsound} {vocalsound} send off, uh {pause} and, um {pause} I {disfmarker} I sent a note about it to uh {disfmarker} to Adam and Jane but I think I'll just run through it {pause} also and see if someone thinks it's inaccurate or {pause} uh insufficient. PhD A: A list that you have to send off to who? Professor D: Uh, to uh uh, IBM. PhD A: Oh. Professor D: OK. They're, you know {disfmarker} PhD E: Professor D: So. Um, So, uh {pause} so, I'll go through that. Um, {pause} And, Anything else? {pause} anyone wants to talk about? PhD A: What about the, um {disfmarker} your trip, yesterday? Professor D: No. OK. Um. Sort of off - topic I guess. PhD A: Oh, OK. Professor D: Cuz that's {pause} Cuz that was all {disfmarker} all about the, uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can chat with you about that {pause} off - line. That's another thing. Um, And, Anything else? Nothing else? Uh, there's a {disfmarker} I mean, there is a {disfmarker} {pause} a, um {pause} uh {pause} telephone call tomorrow, {pause} which will be a conference call {pause} that some of us are involved in {pause} for uh a possible proposal. Um, we'll talk {disfmarker} we'll talk about it next week if {disfmarker} if something {disfmarker} Grad H: Do you want me to {pause} be there for that? I noticed you C C'ed me, but I wasn't actually a recipient. I didn't quite know what to make of that. Professor D: Uh Well, we'll talk {disfmarker} talk about that after our meeting. OK. Grad H: OK. Professor D: Uh, OK. So it sounds like the {disfmarker} the three main things that we have to talk about are, uh this list, uh Jane and {disfmarker} Jane and Adam have some research items, and, other than that, anything, {pause} as usual, {pause} anything goes beyond that. OK, uh, Jane, since {disfmarker} since you were sort of cut off last time why don't we start with yours, make sure we get to it. Postdoc F: OK, it's {disfmarker} it's very {pause} eh {disfmarker} it's {pause} very brief, I mean {disfmarker} just let me {disfmarker} just hand these out. Oops. Grad H: Is this the same as the email or different? PhD C: Thanks. Postdoc F: It's slightly different. I {disfmarker} {pause} basically the same. Grad H: OK. PhD A: Same idea? Postdoc F: But, same idea. So, if you've looked at this you've seen it before, so {pause} Basically, {vocalsound} um {pause} as you know, uh {pause} part of the encoding {pause} includes a mark that indicates {pause} an overlap. It's not indicated {pause} with, um {pause} uh, tight precision, it's just indicated that {disfmarker} OK, so, It's indicated to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} so the people know {pause} what parts of sp which {disfmarker} which stretches of speech were in the clear, versus being overlapped by others. So, I {pause} used this mark and, um {pause} and, uh {pause} uh, {pause} divided the {disfmarker} I wrote a script {pause} which divides things into individual minutes, {pause} of which we ended up with forty {pause} five, and a little bit. And, uh {pause} you know, minute zero, of course, is the first minute up to {pause} sixty seconds. PhD C: OK. Postdoc F: And, um {pause} What you can see is the number of overlaps {pause} and then {pause} to the right, {pause} whether they involve two speakers, three speakers, or more than three speakers. And, {pause} um {pause} and, what I was looking for sp sp specifically was the question of {pause} whether they're distributed evenly throughout or whether they're {pause} bursts of them. Um. And {pause} it looked to me as though {disfmarker} uh, you know {disfmarker} y this is just {disfmarker} {pause} eh {disfmarker} eh, this would {disfmarker} this is not statistically {pause} verified, {pause} but it {pause} did look to me as though there are bursts throughout, rather than being {pause} localized to a particular region. The part down there, where there's the maximum number of {disfmarker} {pause} of, um {pause} overlaps is an area where we were discussing {pause} {vocalsound} whether or not it would be useful to indi to s to {pause} code {pause} stress, {pause} uh, sentence stress {pause} as possible indication of, uh {pause} information retrieval. So it's like, {pause} you know, rather, {pause} lively discussion there. Professor D: What was {disfmarker} what's the {disfmarker} the parenthesized stuff {pause} that says, like {disfmarker} e the first one that says six overlaps and then two point eight? Postdoc F: Oh, th {vocalsound} {pause} That's the per cent. Professor D: Mmm. Postdoc F: So, six is, uh {pause} two point eight percent {pause} of the total number of overlaps in the {pause} session. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor D: Ah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: At the very end, this is when people were, {pause} you know, packing up to go basically, there's {pause} this final stuff, I think we {disfmarker} {pause} I don't remember where the digits {pause} fell. I'd have to look at that. But {pause} the final three there are no overlaps at all. And {pause} couple times there {pause} are not. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: So, i it seems like it goes through bursts {pause} but, um {pause} that's kind of it. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: Now, {pause} Another question is {pause} is there {disfmarker} are there {pause} individual differences in whether you're likely to be overlapped with or to overlap with others. And, again {pause} I want to emphasize this is just one {pause} particular {pause} um {disfmarker} {pause} one particular meeting, and also there's been no statistical testing of it all, but {pause} I, um {pause} I took the coding of {pause} the {disfmarker} I, you know, my {disfmarker} I had this script {pause} figure out, um {pause} who {pause} was the first speaker, who was the second speaker involved in a two - person overlap, I didn't look at the ones involving three or more. And, um {pause} {pause} this is how it breaks down in the individual cells of {pause} who tended to be overlapping most often with who {disfmarker} who else, and {pause} if you look at the marginal totals, which is the ones on the right side and across the bottom, you get {pause} the totals for an individual. So, {vocalsound} um {pause} If you {pause} look at the bottom, those are the, um {pause} numbers of overlaps in which {pause} um {pause} Adam was involved as the person doing the overlapping and if you look {disfmarker} I'm sorry, but you're o alphabetical, that's why I'm choosing you And then if you look across the right, {pause} then {pause} that's where he was the {pause} person who was the sp first speaker in the pair {pause} and got overlap overlapped with by somebody. PhD A: Hmm! PhD E: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: And, {pause} then if you look down in the summary table, {pause} then you see that, um {pause} th they're differences in {pause} whether a person got overlapped with or {pause} overlapped by. Grad H: Is this uh {pause} just raw counts or is it {disfmarker} Postdoc F: Raw counts. Grad H: So it would be interesting to see how much each person spoke. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah {vocalsound} Yeah Postdoc F: Yes, very true {disfmarker} very true Grad H: Normalized to how much {disfmarker} Postdoc F: it would be good to normalize with respect to that. Now on the table I did {pause} take one step toward, uh {pause} away from the raw frequencies by putting, {pause} uh {pause} percentages. So that the percentage of time {pause} of the {disfmarker} of the times that a person spoke, {pause} what percentage {pause} eh, w so. Of the times a person spoke and furthermore was involved in a two two - person overlap, {vocalsound} {vocalsound} what percentage of the time were they the overlapper and what percent of the time were they th the overlappee? And there, it looks like you see some differences, um, {pause} that some people tend to be overlapped {pause} with more often than they're overlapped, but, of course, uh i e {vocalsound} this is just one meeting, {pause} uh {pause} there's no statistical testing involved, and that would be {pause} required for a {disfmarker} for a finding {pause} of {pause} any {pause} kind of {pause} scientific {pause} reliability. Professor D: S so, i it would be statistically incorrect to conclude from this that Adam talked too much or something. Grad H: No {disfmarker} no actually, that would be actually statistically correct, Professor D: Yeah, yeah. Postdoc F: No, no, no. PhD E: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Grad H: but Postdoc F: Yeah, that's right. Professor D: Yeah. Excuse me. Postdoc F: That's right. And I'm {pause} you know, I'm {disfmarker} I don't see a point of singling people out, Professor D: B I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I rather enjoyed it, but {disfmarker} but this Postdoc F: now, this is a case where obviously {disfmarker} PhD A: But the numbers speak for themselves. PhD E: He's {disfmarker} Yeah, yeah, yeah. Postdoc F: Well, {vocalsound} you know, it's like {disfmarker} I'm not {disfmarker} I'm not saying on the tape who did {pause} better or worse Grad H: Yes, that's right, so you don't nee OK. Professor D: Sure. Postdoc F: because {pause} I don't think that it's {disfmarker} I {pause} you know, and {disfmarker} and th here's a case where of course, human subjects people would say be sure that you anonymize the results, {pause} and {disfmarker} and, so, might as well do this. Professor D: Yeah. Grad H: Yeah, when {disfmarker} this is what {disfmarker} This is actually {disfmarker} when Jane sent this email first, is what caused me to start thinking about anonymizing the data. Postdoc F: Well, fair enough. Fair enough. Professor D: Yeah. Postdoc F: And actually, {pause} you know, the point is not about an individual, it's the point about {pause} tendencies toward {pause} you know, different styles, different speaker styles. Professor D: Oh sure. Postdoc F: And {pause} it would be, you know {pause} of course, {pause} there's also the question of what type of overlap was this, and w what were they, and i and I {disfmarker} and I know that I can distinguish at least three types and, probably more, I mean, the {vocalsound} general {pause} {vocalsound} cultural idea which w uh, the conversation analysts originally started with in the seventies was that we have this {vocalsound} strict model where politeness involves that you let the person finish th before you start talking, and {pause} and you know, I mean, {pause} w we know that {disfmarker} {pause} an and they've loosened up on that too s in the intervening time, that {pause} that that's {disfmarker} that's viewed as being {pause} a culturally - relative thing, I mean, {pause} that you have the high - involvement style from the East Coast where people {vocalsound} will overlap often as an indication of interest in what the other person is saying. And Grad H: Uh - huh. PhD B: Exactly! Postdoc F: Yeah, exactly! PhD E: Yeah Postdoc F: Well, there you go. Fine, that's alright, that's OK. And {disfmarker} and, {pause} you know, in contrast, so Deborah {disfmarker} d and also Deborah Tannen's {pause} thesis she talked about differences of these types, {pause} that they're just different styles, and it's um {pause} you {disfmarker} you can't impose a model of {disfmarker} {pause} there {disfmarker} of the ideal being no overlaps, and {pause} you know, conversational analysts also agree with that, so it's {pause} now, universally {pause} a ag agreed with. And {disfmarker} and, als I mean, I can't say universally, but anyway, the people who used to say it was strict, {pause} um {pause} now, uh {pause} don't. I mean they {disfmarker} they {pause} also {pause} {vocalsound} you know, uh {pause} uh, ack acknowledge the influence of {pause} sub of subcultural norms and {pause} cross - cultural norms and things. So, um Then it beco {pause} though {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} just {disfmarker} just superficially to give {pause} um {pause} a couple ideas of the types of overlaps involved, I have at the bottom several that I noticed. So, {pause} {vocalsound} uh, there are backchannels, like what Adam just did now and, um {pause} {vocalsound} um, anticipating the end of a question and {pause} simply answering it earlier, and there are several of those in this {disfmarker} in these data where {disfmarker} PhD B: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: because we're {pause} people who've talked to each other, um {pause} we know {pause} basically what the topic is, what the possibilities are and w and we've spoken with each other so we know basically what the other person's style is likely to be and so {vocalsound} and t there are a number of places where someone just answered early. No problem. And places {pause} also which I thought were interesting, where two or more people gave exactly th the same answer in unison {disfmarker} different words of course but you know, the {disfmarker} basically, {pause} you know everyone's saying" yes" or {disfmarker} you know, or ev even more sp specific than that. So, uh, the point is that, um {pause} {vocalsound} overlap's not necessarily a bad thing and that it would be im {pause} i useful to subdivide these further and see if there are individual differences in styles with respect to the types involved. And that's all I wanted to say on that, {pause} unless people have questions. Professor D: Well, of course th the biggest, {pause} um {pause} result here, which is one we've {disfmarker} {pause} we've talked about many times and isn't new to us, but which I think would be interesting to show someone who isn't familiar with this {vocalsound} {pause} is just the sheer number of overlaps. Grad H: Yep. Professor D: That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Right? {pause} that {disfmarker} that, um PhD E: Yes, yes! Postdoc F: Oh, OK {disfmarker} interesting. PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: here's a relatively short meeting, it's a forty {disfmarker} {pause} forty plus minute {pause} {vocalsound} meeting, and not only were there two hundred and fifteen overlaps {vocalsound} {pause} but, {pause} uh I think there's one {disfmarker} {pause} one minute there where there {disfmarker} where {disfmarker} where there wasn't any overlap? Grad H: Hundred ninety - seven. Professor D: I mean, it's {disfmarker} {pause} {vocalsound} uh throughout this thing? PhD A: It'd be interesting {disfmarker} Professor D: It's {disfmarker} You have {disfmarker} Postdoc F: Well, at the bottom, you have the bottom three. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: S n are {disfmarker} Postdoc F: So four {disfmarker} four minutes all together with none {disfmarker} none. PhD A: But it w Professor D: Oh, so the bottom three did have s stuff going on? There was speech? Postdoc F: Yes, uh - huh. Yeah. But just no overlaps. Professor D: OK, so if {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} PhD A: It'd be interesting to see what the total amount of time is in the overlaps, versus {disfmarker} Postdoc F: Yes, exactly and that's {disfmarker} that's where Jose's pro project comes in. PhD E: Yeah, yeah, I h I have this that infor I have th that information now. PhD G: I was about to ask {disfmarker} PhD A: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. PhD B: Hmm. Professor D: Oh, about how much is it? PhD E: The {disfmarker} the duration of eh {disfmarker} of each of the overlaps. Professor D: O oh, what's {disfmarker} what's the {disfmarker} what's the average {pause} length? PhD E: M I {disfmarker} I haven't averaged it now but, uh {pause} I {disfmarker} I will, uh I will do the {disfmarker} the study of the {disfmarker} {pause} with the {disfmarker} with the program with the {disfmarker} uh, the different, uh {pause} the, nnn, {pause} distribution of the duration of the overlaps. Professor D: You don't know? OK, you {disfmarker} you don you don't have a feeling for roughly how {pause} much it is? Yeah. PhD E: mmm, {pause} Because the {disfmarker} the uh, @ @ is @ @. Professor D: Yeah. PhD E: The duration is, uh {pause} the variation {disfmarker} the variation of the duration is uh, very big on the dat PhD A: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: I suspect that it will also differ, {pause} depending on the type of overlap {pause} involved. PhD E: but eh {disfmarker} Professor D: Oh, I'm sure. PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F: So backchannels will be very brief PhD E: Because, on your surface eh {pause} a bit of zone of overlapping with the duration eh, overlapped and another very very short. Postdoc F: and {disfmarker} Professor D: Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: Uh, i probably it's very difficult to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} because the {disfmarker} the overlap is, uh on is only the {disfmarker} in the final" S" of the {disfmarker} of the {disfmarker} the fin the {disfmarker} the end {disfmarker} the end word of the, um {pause} previous speaker {vocalsound} with the {disfmarker} the next word of the {disfmarker} the new speaker. PhD A: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Um, I considered {pause} that's an overlap but it's very short, it's an" X" with a {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} the idea is probably, eh {pause} when eh {disfmarker} when eh, we studied th th that zone, eh {pause} {pause} eh, we h we have eh eh {pause} confusion with eh eh noise. PhD A: Mm - hmm. PhD E: With eh {pause} that fricative sounds, but uh {pause} I have new information but I have to {disfmarker} to study. Professor D: Yeah. Yeah, but I {disfmarker} I'd {disfmarker} {vocalsound} u PhD G: Can I {disfmarker} Professor D: go ahead. Postdoc F: Yeah. PhD G: You split this by minute, um {pause} so if an overlap straddles {pause} the boundary between two minutes, that counts towards both of those minutes. Postdoc F: Yes. Mm - hmm. Actually, um {vocalsound} um {pause} actually not. Uh, so {pause} le let's think about the case where {vocalsound} A starts speaking {pause} {vocalsound} and then B overlaps with A, {pause} and then the minute boundary happens. And let's say that {vocalsound} after that minute boundary, {vocalsound} um {pause} B is still speaking, {pause} and A overlaps {pause} with B, that would be a new overlap. But otherwise {pause} um, let's say B {pause} comes to the conclusion of {disfmarker} of that turn without {pause} anyone overlapping with him or her, in which case there would be no overlap counted in that second minute. PhD G: No, but suppose they both talk simultaneously {vocalsound} {pause} both a {disfmarker} a portion of it is in minute one and another portion of minute two. Postdoc F: OK. In that case, um {pause} my c {pause} the coding that I was using {disfmarker} {vocalsound} since we haven't, {pause} uh {pause} incorporated Adam's, uh {pause} coding of overlap yets, the coding of Yeah," yets" is not a word. Uh {vocalsound} since we haven't incorporated Adam's method of handling overl overlaps yet {vocalsound} um {pause} then {pause} that would have fallen through the cra cracks. It would be an underestimate of the number of overlaps because, um {pause} I wou I wouldn't be able to pick it up from the way it was {pause} encoded so far. Professor D: I I Postdoc F: We just haven't done th the precise second to sec you know, {pause} second to second coding of when they occur. Professor D: I I I'm {disfmarker} I'm {disfmarker} I'm confused now. So l l let me restate what I thought Andreas was saying and {disfmarker} and see. Postdoc F: Uh - huh. Professor D: Let's say that in {disfmarker} in second fifty - seven {pause} {vocalsound} of one minute, {pause} you start talking and I start talking and {pause} we ignore each other and keep on talking for six seconds. Postdoc F: Yep. OK. Mm - hmm. Professor D: So we go over {disfmarker} So we were {disfmarker} we were talking over one another, {pause} and it's just {disfmarker} in each case, it's just sort of one {pause} interval. Right? Postdoc F: Mm - hmm? Professor D: So, um {pause} we talked over the minute boundary. Is this {pause} considered as one overlap in each of the minutes, the way you have done this. Postdoc F: No, it wouldn't. It would be considered as an overlap in the first one. Professor D: OK, so that's {pause} good, i I think, in the sense that I think Andreas meant the question, PhD B: That's {disfmarker} {pause} that's good, yeah, cuz the overall rate is {disfmarker} PhD C: PhD G: Yeah. Grad H: Statistical. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc F: Mm - hmm. Professor D: right? Postdoc F: Yeah. They're not double counted. PhD G: Other - otherwise you'd get double counts, here and there. Grad H: Yep. PhD B: Ah but, yeah. PhD E: Yeah. PhD B: PhD G: And then it would be harder {disfmarker} Professor D: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F: I should also say I did a simplifying, uh {pause} count in that {vocalsound} if A was speaking {pause} B overlapped with A and then A came back again and overlapped with B again, I {disfmarker} I didn't count that as a three - person overlap, I counted that as a two - person overlap, {pause} and it was A being overlapped with by D. Grad H: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: Because the idea was the first speaker {pause} had the floor {pause} and the second person {pause} started speaking and then the f the first person reasserted the floor {pause} kind of thing. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc F: These are simplifying assumptions, didn't happen very often, there may be like three overlaps affected that way in the whole thing. Grad H: I want to go back and listen to minute forty - one. Postdoc F: Yeah, yeah. Grad H: Cuz i i I find it interesting that there were a large number of overlaps and they were all two - speaker. Professor D: Yeah. Grad H: I mean what I thought {disfmarker} what I would have thought in {pause} is that when there were a large number of overlaps, it was because everyone was talking at once, {vocalsound} but uh apparently not. Postdoc F: That's interesting. That's interesting. PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Mmm. Grad H: That's really neat. Professor D: Yeah. Postdoc F: Yeah, there's a lot of backchannel, a lot o a lot of {disfmarker} Grad H: This is {pause} really interesting data. Postdoc F: Yeah, it is. PhD B: I think what's really interesting though, it is {pause} before d {pause} saying" yes, meetings have a lot of overlaps" is to actually find out how many more {pause} we have than two - party. Postdoc F: I think so too, I think {disfmarker} PhD B: Cuz in two - party conversations, like Switchboard, there's an awful lot too if you just look at backchannels, if you consider those overlaps? it's also ver it's huge. It's just that people haven't been {pause} looking at that because they've been doing single - channel processing for {pause} speech recognition. Grad H: Mm - hmm. Professor D: Mm - hmm? PhD B: So, the question is, you know, how many more overlaps {pause} {vocalsound} do you have {pause} of, say the two - person type, by adding more people. to a meeting, and it may be a lot more but i it may {disfmarker} {pause} it may not be. Professor D: Well, but see, I find it interesting even if it wasn't any more, PhD B: So. Professor D: because {pause} since we were dealing with this full duplex sort of thing in Switchboard where it was just all separated out {vocalsound} we just {disfmarker} everything was just nice, PhD B: Mm - hmm? Professor D: so that {disfmarker} so the issue is in {disfmarker} in a situation {pause} where th that's {disfmarker} PhD B: Well, it's not really {pause}" nice" . It depends what you're doing. So if you were actually {pause} {vocalsound} having, uh {disfmarker} depends what you're doing, if {disfmarker} Right now we're do we have individual mikes on the people in this meeting. So the question is, you know {disfmarker}" are there really more overlaps happening than there would be in a two - person {pause} party" . Professor D: Mm - hmm? PhD B: And {disfmarker} and there well may be, but {disfmarker} Professor D: Let {disfmarker} let m let me rephrase what I'm saying cuz I don't think I'm getting it across. What {disfmarker} what I {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} I shouldn't use words like" nice" because maybe that's too {disfmarker} i too imprecise. But what I mean is {vocalsound} that, um in Switchboard, {pause} despite the many {disfmarker} many other problems that we have, one problem that we're not considering is overlap. And what we're doing now is, {pause} aside from the many other differences in the task, we are considering overlap and one of the reasons that we're considering it, {pause} you know, one of them not all of them, one of them is {vocalsound} that w uh at least, {pause} you know I'm very interested in {vocalsound} the scenario in which, uh {pause} both people talking are pretty much equally {pause} audible, {vocalsound} and from a single microphone. And so, {pause} in that case, it does get mixed in, {vocalsound} and it's pretty hard to jus {pause} to just ignore it, to just do processing on one and not on the other. PhD B: I {disfmarker} I agree that it's an issue here {pause} but it's also an issue for Switchboard and if you {pause} think of meetings {pause} being recorded over the telephone, which I think, you know, this whole point of studying meetings isn't just to have people in a room but to also have {pause} meetings over different phone lines. Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: Maybe far field mike people wouldn't be interested in that but all the dialogue issues still apply, Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: so if each of us was calling and having {pause} {vocalsound} a meeting that way {pause} you kn you know like a conference call. And, just the question is, {pause} y you know, in Switchboard {pause} you would think that's the simplest case of a meeting of more than one person, Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: and {pause} {vocalsound} I'm wondering how much more {pause} overlap {pause} of {pause} the types that {disfmarker} that Jane described happen with more people present. So it may be that having three people {pause} {vocalsound} is very different from having two people or it may not be. Professor D: That's an important question to ask. PhD B: So. Professor D: I think what I'm {disfmarker} {pause} All I'm s really saying is that I don't think we were considering that in Switchboard. PhD B: Not you, me. But uh {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but Professor D: Were you? Grad H: Though it wasn't {pause} in the design. Professor D: Were you {disfmarker} were you {disfmarker} were you {disfmarker} were you measuring it? I mean, w w were {disfmarker} PhD B: There {disfmarker} there's actually to tell you the truth, the reason why it's hard to measure is because of so, from the point of view of studying dialogue, I mean, which {pause} Dan Jurafsky and Andreas and I had some projects on, you want to know the sequence of turns. Professor D: Yeah. PhD B: So what happens is if you're talking and I have a backchannel in the middle of your turn, and then you keep going what it looks like in a dialogue model is your turn and then my backchannel, Professor D: Yeah. PhD B: even though my backchannel occurred completely inside your turn. Professor D: Yeah? PhD B: So, for things like language modeling or dialogue modeling {pause} {vocalsound} it's {disfmarker} We know that that's wrong in real time. Professor D: Yeah? PhD B: But, because of the acoustic segmentations that were done and the fact that some of the acoustic data in Switchboard were missing, people couldn't study it, but that doesn't mean in the real world that people don't talk that way. So, it's {disfmarker} um Professor D: Yeah, I wasn't saying that. Right? I was just saying that w now we're looking at it. PhD B: Well, we've als Professor D: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and, you {disfmarker} you maybe wanted to look at it before but, for these various technical reasons in terms of how the data was you weren't. PhD B: Right. We're looking at it here. Professor D: So that's why it's coming to us as new even though it may well be {pause} you know, if your {disfmarker} if your hypothes The hypothesis you were offering {vocalsound} eh {disfmarker} PhD B: Um. Professor D: Right? {disfmarker} if it's the null poth {comment} hypothesis, and if actually you have as much overlap in a two - person, {vocalsound} we don't know the answer to that. The reason we don't know the answer to is cuz it wasn't studied and it wasn't studied because it wasn't set up. Right? PhD B: Yeah, all I meant is that if you're asking the question from the point of view of {pause} what's different about a meeting, studying meetings of, say, more than two people versus {pause} what kinds of questions you could ask with a two - person {pause} meeting. Professor D: Mm - hmm? PhD B: It's important to distinguish {pause} that, you know, this project {pause} is getting a lot of overlap {pause} but other projects were too, but we just couldn't study them. And and so uh Professor D: May have been. May have been. Right? PhD B: Well, there is a high rate, Professor D: We do kn we don't know the numbers. PhD B: So. It's {disfmarker} but I don't know how high, in fact PhD A: Well, here I have a question. PhD B: that would be interesting to know. Professor D: See, I mean, i i le let me t I mean, my point was just if you wanted to say to somebody," what have we learned about overlaps here?" just never mind comparison with something else, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor D: what we've learned about is overlaps in this situation, is that {disfmarker} the first {disfmarker} {pause} the first - order thing I would say is that there's a lot of them. Right? PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: In {disfmarker} in the sense that i if you said if {disfmarker} i i i PhD B: Yeah, I {disfmarker} I don't di I agree with that. Professor D: In a way, I guess what I'm comparing to is more the common sense notion of {vocalsound} how {disfmarker} how much people overlap. Uh {pause} you know the fact that when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when, uh, Adam was looking for a stretch of {disfmarker} of speech before, that didn't have any overlaps, and he w he was having such a hard time and now I look at this and I go," well, I can see why he was having such a hard time" . PhD B: Right. That's also true of Switchboard. Professor D: It's happening a lot. PhD B: It may not be {disfmarker} Professor D: I wasn't saying it wasn't. PhD B: Right. So it's just, um Professor D: Right? I was commenting about this. PhD B: OK. All I'm saying is that from the Professor D: I'm saying if I {disfmarker} {pause} I'm saying if I have this complicated thing in front of me, {vocalsound} and we sh which, {pause} you know we're gonna get much more sophisticated about when we get lots more data, But {disfmarker} Then, if I was gonna describe to somebody what did you learn {pause} right here, about, you know, the {disfmarker} the modest amount of data that was analyzed I'd say," Well, the first - order thing was there was a lot of overlaps" . In fact {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and it's not just an overlap {disfmarker} bunch of overlaps {disfmarker} second - order thing is {vocalsound} it's not just a bunch of overlaps in one particular point, {vocalsound} but that there's overlaps, uh throughout the thing. Grad H: Right. PhD B: Right. No, I {disfmarker} I agree with that. Professor D: And that's interesting. That's all. PhD B: I'm just {pause} {vocalsound} saying that it may {disfmarker} {pause} the reason you get overlaps may or may not be due to sort of the number of people in the meeting. Professor D: Oh yeah. PhD B: And that's all. Professor D: Yeah. Yeah, I wasn't making any statement about that. PhD B: And {disfmarker} and it would actually be interesting to find out Professor D: Yeah. PhD B: because some of the data say Switchboard, which isn't exactly the same kind of context, I mean these are two people who don't know each other and so forth, But we should still be able to somehow say what {disfmarker} what is the added contra contribution to sort of overlap time of each additional person, or something like that. Grad H: Yep. Professor D: Yeah, that would be good to know, PhD A: What {disfmarker} Professor D: but w we {disfmarker} Postdoc F: OK, now. Grad H: I could certainly see it going either way. Postdoc F: Wh - yeah, I {disfmarker} I agree {disfmarker} I agree with Adam. PhD B: But yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F: And the reason is because I think there's a limit {disfmarker} {pause} there's an upper bound {pause} on how many you can have, simply {pause} from the standpoint of audibility. When we speak we {disfmarker} we do make a judgment of {pause}" can {disfmarker}" you know, as adults. PhD B: Right. Professor D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: I mean, children don't adjust so well, I mean, if a truck goes rolling past, {vocalsound} adults will well, depending, but mostly, adults will {disfmarker} will {disfmarker} {pause} will hold off to what {disfmarker} {pause} to finish the end of the sentence till the {disfmarker} till the noise is past. Professor D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: And I think we generally do {vocalsound} monitor things like that, {pause} about {disfmarker} whether we {disfmarker} whether our utterance will be in the clear or not. PhD B: Right. Postdoc F: And partly it's related to rhythmic structure in conversation, so, {vocalsound} you know, you {disfmarker} you t Yeah, this is d also um, people tend to time their {disfmarker} their {disfmarker} {vocalsound} their, um {pause} when they {pause} come into the conversation based on the overall rhythmic, {pause} uh uh, ambient thing. PhD A: Well {disfmarker} PhD B: Right. Postdoc F: So you don't want to be c cross - cutting. And {disfmarker} and, just to finish this, that um That I think that {vocalsound} there may be an upper bound on how many overlaps you can have, simply from the standpoint of audibility and how loud the other people are who are already {pause} in the fray. But I {disfmarker} you know, of certain types. Now if it's just backchannels, {vocalsound} people {pause} may be doing that {pause} with less {pause} intention of being heard, {pause} just sort of spontaneously doing backchannels, in which case {pause} that {disfmarker} those might {disfmarker} there may be no upper bound on those. PhD G: I {disfmarker} I have a feeling that backchannels, which are the vast majority of overlaps in Switchboard, {pause} uh, don't play as big a role here, because it's very unnatural I think, to backchannel if {disfmarker} in a multi - audience {disfmarker} you know, in a multi - person {vocalsound} {pause} audience. PhD B: If you can see them, actually. It's interesting, so if you watch people are going like {disfmarker} {comment} {comment} Right {disfmarker} right, like this here, PhD G: Right. PhD E: Yeah. PhD B: but That may not be the case if you couldn't see them. Professor D: u PhD G: But {disfmarker} {pause} but, it's sort of odd if one person's speaking and everybody's listening, and it's unusual to have everybody going" uh - huh, uh - huh" Professor D: Actually, I think I've done it {pause} a fair number of times today. PhD B: Yeah. Professor D: But. PhD B: There's a lot of head - nodding, in this Grad H: Um. PhD G: Yeah. Grad H: Yep, we need to put trackers on it. PhD A: In {disfmarker} in the two - person {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Postdoc F: He could, he could. PhD G: Plus {disfmarker} plus {disfmarker} plus the {disfmarker} Yeah. So {disfmarker} so actually, um That's in part because the nodding, if you have visual contact, {pause} the nodding has the same function, but on the phone, in Switchboard {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} that wouldn't work. So {vocalsound} so you need to use the backchannel. Grad H: Yeah, you don't have it. Your mike is {disfmarker} PhD A: So, in the two - person conversations, {pause} when there's backchannel, is there a great deal of {pause} overlap {pause} in the speech? Grad H: That is an earphone, so if you just put it {pause} so it's on your ear. PhD A: or {disfmarker} Cuz my impression is sometimes it happens when there's a pause, PhD B: Yes. Grad H: There you go. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc F: E for example. Grad H: Thank you. PhD A: you know, like you {disfmarker} you get a lot of backchannel, when somebody's pausing PhD B: Yes. Right. Postdoc F: She's doing that. PhD B: Sorry, what were you saying? PhD A: It's hard to do both, huh? Um {pause} no, when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when there's backchannel, I mean, just {disfmarker} I was just listening, and {disfmarker} and when there's two people talking and there's backchannel it seems like, {pause} um the backchannel happens when, you know, the pitch drops and the first person {disfmarker} PhD B: Oh. PhD A: and a lot of times, the first person actually stops talking and then there's a backchannel {pause} and then they start up again, and so I'm wondering about {disfmarker} h I just wonder how much overlap there is. Is there a lot? PhD B: I think there's a lot of the kind that Jose was talking about, where {disfmarker} {pause} I mean, this is called" precision timing" in {pause} conversation analysis, where {pause} {vocalsound} they come in overlapping, {pause} but at a point where the {pause} information is mostly {pause} complete. So all you're missing is some last syllables or something or the last word or some highly predictable words. PhD A: Mmm. Mm - hmm. PhD B: So technically, it's an overlap. PhD A: But maybe a {disfmarker} just a small overlap? PhD B: But {pause} you know, from information flow point of view it's not an overlap in {pause} the predictable information. PhD E: More, yeah. Grad H: It'd be interesting if we could do prediction. PhD A: I was just thinking more in terms of alignment, alignment overlap. PhD B: Yeah. Grad H: Language model prediction of overlap, that would be really interesting. PhD G: So {disfmarker} {pause} so {disfmarker} PhD B: Well, that's exactly, exactly why we wanted to study the precise timing of overlaps ins in uh Switchboard, Professor D: Yeah. PhD G: Right. Grad H: Right. PhD B: say, because there's a lot of that. PhD G: So {disfmarker} so here's a {disfmarker} here's a first interesting {pause} labeling task. Uh, to distinguish between, say, backchannels {vocalsound} {pause} precision timing {disfmarker} Sort of {vocalsound} you know, benevolent overlaps, and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {pause} and w and {disfmarker} and sort of, um {pause} I don't know, hostile overlaps, where {vocalsound} someone is trying to grab the floor from someone else. Grad H: Mm - hmm. Let's pick a different word. PhD E: Yeah. PhD G: Uh, that {disfmarker} that might be an interesting, um {pause} problem to look at. PhD A: Hostile takeovers. PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Postdoc F: Well, I mean you could do that. I ju I {disfmarker} I think that {pause} in this meeting I really had the feeling that wasn't happening, that {pause} the hostile {disfmarker} hostile type. These were {disfmarker} these were {pause} benevolent types, as people {pause} finishing each other's sentences, and {pause} stuff. PhD G: OK. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD G: Um, I could imagine that as {disfmarker} there's a fair number of {vocalsound} um cases where, and this is sort of, not {pause} really hostile, but sort of competitive, where {vocalsound} one person is finishing something and {vocalsound} you have, like, two or three people jumping {disfmarker} trying to {disfmarker} {pause} trying to {disfmarker} {pause} trying to, uh grab the next turn. Grad H: Trying to get the floor. Professor D: Yeah. PhD G: And so it's not against the person who talks first {pause} because actually we're all waiting for that person to finish. But they all want to {pause} be next. Professor D: I have a feeling most of these things are {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} {pause} that are not {pause} a benevolent kind are {disfmarker} are {vocalsound} {pause} are, uh {pause} um {pause} {vocalsound} are {disfmarker} are competitive as opposed to real really {disfmarker} really hostile. PhD G: Right. PhD A: I wonder what determines who gets the floor? Professor D: But. Postdoc F: Yeah, I agree. I agree. PhD A: I mean {disfmarker} Postdoc F: Well, there are various things, you {disfmarker} you have the {disfmarker} Professor D: Uh a vote {disfmarker} vote in Florida. Grad H: It's been studied a lot. Professor D: Yeah. PhD E: Voting for {disfmarker} Professor D: Um, o one thing {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I wanted to {disfmarker} or you can tell a good joke and then everybody's laughing and you get a chance to g break in. PhD G: Seniority. Professor D: But. But. Um. You know, the other thing I was thinking was that, {pause} um {pause} these {disfmarker} all these interesting questions are, of course, pretty hard to answer with, uh u {pause} you know, a small amount of data. Grad H: Ach. Professor D: So, um {pause} I wonder if what you're saying suggests that we should make a conscious attempt to have, um {vocalsound} a {disfmarker} a fair number of meetings with, uh a smaller number of people. Right? I mean {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} most of our meetings are {pause} uh, meetings currently with say five, six, seven, eight people Should we {pause} really try to have some two - person meetings, {pause} or some three - person meetings and re record them {vocalsound} just to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to beef up the {disfmarker} the statistics on that? Postdoc F: That's a control. Well, {vocalsound} it seems like there are two possibilities there, I mean {pause} i it seems like {vocalsound} if you have just {pause} two people it's not {pause} really, y like a meeting, w is not as similar as the rest of the {disfmarker} {pause} of the sample. It depends on what you're after, of course, but {vocalsound} It seems like that would be more a case of the control condition, compared to, uh {pause} an experimental {pause} condition, with more than two. Grad H: Mm - hmm. Professor D: Well, Liz was raising the question of {disfmarker} of whether i it's the number {disfmarker} there's a relationship between the number of people and the number of overlaps or type of overlaps there, Postdoc F: Mm - hmm. Professor D: and, um {vocalsound} If you had two people meeting in this kind of circumstance then you'd still have the visuals. You wouldn't have that difference {pause} also that you have in the {vocalsound} say, in Switchboard data. Uh Postdoc F: Mm - hmm. Yeah, I'm just thinking that'd be more like a c control condition. Professor D: Yeah. Postdoc F: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: Well, but from the acoustic point of view, it's all good. PhD E: Is the same. Professor D: Yeah, acoustic is fine, but {disfmarker} PhD G: If {disfmarker} if the goal were to just look at overlap you would {disfmarker} you could serve yourself {disfmarker} save yourself a lot of time but not even transcri transcribe the words. PhD B: Well, I was thinking you should be able to do this from the {pause} acoustics, on the close - talking mikes, Grad H: Yep. Professor D: Yeah. Grad H: Well, that's {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} that was my {disfmarker} my status report, PhD B: right? Postdoc F: You've been working on that. PhD B: Right, I mean Adam was {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F: Yeah. Grad H: so {vocalsound} {pause} Once we're done with this stuff discussing, PhD B: right. I mean, not as well as what {disfmarker} I mean, you wouldn't be able to have any kind of typology, obviously, Professor D: Yeah. PhD B: but you'd get some rough statistics. Grad H: Mm - hmm. PhD B: So. Professor D: But {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what do you think about that? Do you think that would be useful? I'm just thinking that as an action item of whether we should try to record some two - person meetings or something. PhD B: I guess my {disfmarker} my first comment was, um {pause} only that {vocalsound} um we should n not attribute overlaps only to meetings, but maybe that's obvious, maybe everybody knew that, Professor D: Yeah. PhD B: but that {vocalsound} in normal conversation with two people there's an awful lot of the same kinds of overlap, and that it would be interesting to look at {pause} whether there are these kinds of constraints that Jane mentioned, that {vocalsound} what maybe the additional people add to this competition that happens right after a turn, Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: you know, because now you can have five people trying to grab the turn, but pretty quickly there're {disfmarker} they back off and you go back to this sort of only one person at a time with one person interrupting at a time. Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: So, I don't know. To answer your question I {pause} it {disfmarker} I don't think it's crucial to have controls but I think it's worth recording all the meetings we {pause} can. Grad H: Can. PhD B: So, um {pause} you know. Professor D: Well, {vocalsound} OK. PhD E: Yeah. PhD G: I {disfmarker} I have an idea. PhD B: D I wouldn't not record a two - person meeting just because it only has two people. Grad H: Right. PhD G: Could we {disfmarker} Could we, um {disfmarker} we have {disfmarker} have in the past and I think continue {disfmarker} will continue to have a fair number of {pause} uh phone conference calls. Professor D: Uh - huh. PhD G: And, {vocalsound} uh, {pause} and as a {disfmarker} to, um {vocalsound} as another c {pause} c comparison {pause} condition, {pause} we could um see what {disfmarker} what what happens in terms of overlap, when you don't have visual contact. Grad H: Yeah, we talked about this repeatedly. PhD G: So, um {disfmarker} PhD B: Can we actually record? Grad H: It just seems like that's a very different {pause} thing than what we're doing. Professor D: Uh Well, we'll have to set up for it. PhD B: I mean {pause} physically {pause} can we record the o the other {disfmarker} Professor D: Yeah. Well, we're not really set up for it {pause} to do that. But. PhD G: Or, this is getting a little extravagant, we could put up some kind of blinds or something to {disfmarker} {pause} to remove, uh {pause} visual contact. Professor D: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. Grad H: Barriers! PhD B: That's what they did on Map Task, you know, this Map Task corpus? They ran exactly the same pairs of people with and without visual cues and it's quite interesting. Professor D: Well, we {disfmarker} we record this meeting so regularly it wouldn't be that {disfmarker} I mean {pause} a little strange. Grad H: OK, we can record, but no one can look at each other. PhD B: Well, we could just put {pause} b blindfolds on. PhD C: Yeah. PhD G: Well y no you {disfmarker} f Grad H: Close your eyes. Postdoc F: Blindf PhD G: Yeah, Yeah. Grad H: Turn off the lights. PhD B: and we'd take a picture of everybody sitting here with blindfolds. That would {disfmarker} Professor D: Oh, th that was the other thing, weren't we gonna take a picture {pause} at the beginning of each of these meetings? Grad H: Um, what {disfmarker} I had thought we were gonna do is just take pictures of the whiteboards. rather than take pictures of the meeting. Postdoc F: Well, linguistic {disfmarker} Grad H: And, uh {disfmarker} Professor D: Yes. Postdoc F: Yeah. Linguistic anthropologists would {disfmarker} would suggest it would be useful to also take a picture of the meeting. Professor D: There's a head nodding here vigorously, yeah. PhD A: Why {disfmarker} why do we want to have a picture of the meeting? PhD B: Ee - {pause} you mean, transc {pause} no {disfmarker} Postdoc F: The {disfmarker} because you get then the spatial relationship of the speakers. PhD E: Yeah Yeah. Postdoc F: And that {pause} could be PhD G: Well, you could do that by just noting on the enrollment sheet the {disfmarker} {pause} the seat number. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: Seat number, that's a good idea. I'll do that. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: I'll do that on the next set of forms. PhD E: Yeah. PhD G: So you'd number them somehow. PhD E: Is possible to get information from the rhythmic {disfmarker} f from the ge, eh {pause} uh, files. Grad H: I finally remembered to put, uh put native language on the newer forms. PhD A: We can {disfmarker} can't you figure it out from the mike number? Grad H: No. PhD A: OK. Grad H: The wireless ones. And even the jacks, I mean, I'm sitting here and the jack is {pause} over {pause} in front of you. PhD A: Oh. PhD B: But probably from these you could've {comment} infer it. PhD G: Yeah, but It's {disfmarker} it would be trivial {disfmarker} Grad H: It would be another task. PhD B: It would be a research task. Grad H: Having {disfmarker} having ground tu truth would be nice, so {pause} seat number would be good. PhD A: You know where you could get it? PhD B: Yeah, yeah. PhD A: Beam - forming during the digit {pause} uh stuff. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: So I'm gonna put little labels on all the chairs with the seat number. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Grad H: That's a good idea. PhD B: But you have to keep the chairs in the same pla like here. PhD G: Not the chairs. The chairs are {disfmarker} Chairs are movable. Grad H: But, uh {disfmarker} PhD G: Put them {disfmarker} {pause} Like, {pause} put them on the table where they {disfmarker} PhD E: The chair {comment} Yeah. Grad H: Yep. PhD C: Yeah. Grad H: Yep. Postdoc F: But you know, they {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} s the linguistic anthropologists would say it would be good to have a digital picture anyway, PhD A: Just remembered a joke. Postdoc F: because you get {pause} a sense also of posture. Posture, and we could like, {pause} you know, {pause} block out the person's face or whatever PhD G: What people were wearing. Grad H: Yeah. PhD B: The fashion statement. Postdoc F: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but, you know, these are important cues, PhD G: Oh, Andreas was {disfmarker} PhD A: How big their heads are. Postdoc F: I mean the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} how a person is sitting {pause} is {disfmarker} Professor D: But if you just f But from one picture, I don't know that you really get that. PhD G: Yeah. Andreas was wearing that same old sweater again. Professor D: Right? You'd want a video for that, I think. Postdoc F: It'd be better than nothing, is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} i Just from a single picture I think you can tell some aspects. PhD E: A video, yeah. Professor D: Think so? Postdoc F: I mean I {disfmarker} I could tell you I mean, if I if I'm in certain meetings I notice that there are certain people who really do {disfmarker} eh {disfmarker} The body language is very uh {disfmarker} is very interesting in terms of the dominance aspect. PhD G: And {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} Professor D: Hmm. PhD G: Yeah. And {disfmarker} and Morgan had that funny hair again. Postdoc F: Yeah. {comment} Well, I mean you black out the {disfmarker} that part. Grad H: Hmm. Postdoc F: But it's just, you know, the {disfmarker} the body PhD A: He agreed. Postdoc F: you know? Grad H: Of course, the {disfmarker} where we sit at the table, I find is very interesting, that we do tend to {pause} cong {pause} to gravitate to the same place each time. Postdoc F: Yeah. Grad H: and it's somewhat coincidental. I'm sitting here so that I can run into the room if the hardware starts, you know, catching fire or something. PhD G: Oh, no, you {disfmarker} you just like to be in charge, that's why you're sitting {disfmarker} Grad H: I just want to be at the head of the table. PhD G: Yeah. Grad H: Take control. Professor D: Speaking of taking control, you said you had some research to talk about. Postdoc F: Yeah. Yeah. Grad H: Yeah, I've been playing with, um uh, using the close - talking mike to do {disfmarker} to try to figure out who's speaking. So my first attempt was just using thresholding and filtering, that we talked about {disfmarker} about two weeks ago, and so I played with that a little bit, and {vocalsound} it works O K, {pause} except that {pause} it's very sensitive to your choice of {vocalsound} your filter width and your {vocalsound} threshold. So if you fiddle around with it a little bit and you get good numbers you can actually do a pretty good job of segmenting when someone's talking and when they're not. But if you try to use the same paramenters on another speaker, it doesn't work anymore, even if you normalize it based on the absolute loudness. PhD B: But does it work for that one speaker throughout the whole meeting? Grad H: It does work for the one speaker throughout the whole meeting. Um Pretty well. PhD A: How did you do it Adam? Grad H: Pretty well. How did I do it? PhD A: Yeah. Grad H: What do you mean? PhD A: I mean, wh what was the {disfmarker} Grad H: The algorithm was, uh take o every frame that's over the threshold, and then median - filter it, {vocalsound} and then look for runs. PhD A: Yeah. Mm - hmm. Grad H: So there was a minimum run length, PhD A: Every frame that's over what threshold? Grad H: so that {disfmarker} A threshold that you pick. PhD A: In terms of energy? Ah! Grad H: Yeah. PhD A: OK. Postdoc F: Say that again? Frame over fres threshold. Grad H: So you take a {disfmarker} each frame, and you compute the energy and if it's over the threshold you set it to one, and if it's under the threshold you set it to zero, {vocalsound} so now you have a bit stream {pause} of zeros and ones. Postdoc F: Hmm. OK. Grad H: And then I median - filtered that {vocalsound} using, um {pause} a fairly long {pause} filter length. Uh {pause} well, actually I guess depends on what you mean by long, you know, tenth of a second sorts of numbers. Um and that's to average out you know, pitch, you know, the pitch contours, and things like that. And then, uh looked for long runs. Postdoc F: OK Grad H: And that works O K, if you fil if you tune the filter parameters, if you tune {vocalsound} how long your median filter is and how high you're looking for your thresholds. PhD A: Did you ever try running the filter before you pick a threshold? Grad H: No. I certainly could though. But this was just I had the program mostly written already so it was easy to do. OK and then the other thing I did, was I took {vocalsound} Javier's speaker - change detector {disfmarker} acoustic - change detector, and I implemented that with the close - talking mikes, and {pause} unfortunately that's not working real well, and it looks like it's {disfmarker} the problem is {disfmarker} he does it in two passes, the first pass {vocalsound} is to find candidate places to do a break. And he does that using a neural net doing broad phone classification and he has the {vocalsound} the, uh {pause} one of the phone classes is silence. And so the possible breaks are where silence starts and ends. And then he has a second pass which is a modeling {disfmarker} a Gaussian mixture model. Um looking for {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} whether it improves or {disfmarker} or degrades to split at one of those particular places. And what looks like it's happening is that the {disfmarker} even on the close - talking mike the broad phone class classifier's doing a really bad job. PhD A: Who was it trained on? Grad H: Uh, I have no idea. PhD A: Hmm. Grad H: I don't remember. Does an do you remember, Morgan, was it Broadcast News? Professor D: I think so, yeah. Grad H: Um {pause} So, at any rate, my next attempt, {pause} which I'm in the midst of and haven't quite finished yet was actually using the {vocalsound} uh, thresholding as the way of generating the candidates. Because one of the things that definitely happens is if you put the threshold low {vocalsound} you get lots of breaks. All of which are definitely acoustic events. They're definitely {vocalsound} someone talking. But, like, it could be someone who isn't the person here, but the person over there or it can be the person breathing. And then feeding that into the acoustic change detector. And so I think that might work. But, I haven't gotten very far on that. But all of this is close - talking mike, so it's, uh {pause} just {disfmarker} just trying to get some ground truth. PhD E: Only with eh uh, but eh I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think, eh when {disfmarker} when, y I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I saw the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the speech from PDA and, eh {pause} close {pause} {vocalsound} talker. I {disfmarker} I think the there is a {disfmarker} a great difference in the {disfmarker} in the signal. Grad H: Oh, absolutely. PhD E: Um but eh I {disfmarker} but eh I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean that eh eh {pause} in the {disfmarker} in the mixed file {vocalsound} you can find, uh {pause} zone with, eh {pause} great different, eh {pause} level of energy. Grad H: So {pause} s my intention for this is {disfmarker} is as an aide for ground truth. not {disfmarker} PhD E: Um {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think for, eh {pause} algorithm based on energy, {pause} eh, that um h mmm, {disfmarker} more or less, eh, like eh {pause} eh, mmm, first sound energy detector. Grad H: Say it again? PhD E: eh nnn. When y you the detect the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the first at {disfmarker} at the end of {disfmarker} of the {vocalsound} detector of, ehm princ um. What is the {disfmarker} the name in English? the {disfmarker} the, mmm, {pause} {vocalsound} the de detector of, ehm of a word in the {disfmarker} in the s in {disfmarker} an isolated word in {disfmarker} in the background That, uh Grad H: I'm {disfmarker} I'm not sure what you're saying, can you try {disfmarker} PhD E: I mean that when {disfmarker} when you use, eh {pause} eh {pause} any PhD A: I think he's saying the onset detector. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: Onset detector, OK. PhD E: I {disfmarker} I think it's probably to work well eh, because, eh {pause} you have eh, in the mixed files a great level of energy. eh {pause} and great difference between the sp speaker. And probably is not so easy when you use the {disfmarker} the PDA, eh that {disfmarker} Because the signal is, eh {pause} the {disfmarker} in the e energy level. Grad H: Right. PhD E: in {disfmarker} in that, eh {pause} eh {pause} speech file {vocalsound} is, eh {pause} more similar. between the different eh, speaker, {vocalsound} um {pause} I {disfmarker} I think is {disfmarker} eh, it will {pause} i is my opinion. Grad H: Right. But different speakers. PhD E: It will be, eh {pause} more difficult to {disfmarker} to detect bass - tone energy. the {disfmarker} the change. I think that, um Grad H: Ah, in the clo in the P D A, you mean? PhD E: In the PDA. Grad H: Absolutely. PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Grad H: Yeah, no question. It'll be much harder. Professor D: Yeah. Grad H: Much harder. PhD E: And the {disfmarker} the another question, that when I review the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the work of Javier. I think the, nnn, the, nnn, {pause} that the idea of using a {pause} neural network {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to get a broad class of phonetic, eh {pause} from, eh uh a candidate from the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the speech signal. If you have, eh {vocalsound} uh, I'm considering, only because Javier, eh {pause} only consider, eh {pause} like candidate, the, nnn, eh {pause} the silence, because it is the {disfmarker} the only model, eh {disfmarker} eh, he used that, eh {pause} {vocalsound} eh {pause} nnn, to detect the {disfmarker} the possibility of a {disfmarker} a change between the {disfmarker} between the speaker, Grad H: Right. PhD E: Um {pause} another {disfmarker} another research thing, different groups, eh {pause} working, eh {pause} on Broadcast News {vocalsound} prefer to, eh {pause} to consider hypothesis eh {pause} between each phoneme. Grad H: Mm - hmm. Yeah, when a {pause} phone changes. PhD E: Because, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think it's more realistic that, uh {pause} only consider the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the silence between the speaker. Eh {pause} there {disfmarker} there exists eh {pause} silence between {disfmarker} between, eh {pause} a speaker. is {disfmarker} is, eh {pause} eh {pause} acoustic, eh {pause} event, important to {disfmarker} to consider. Professor D: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. PhD E: I {disfmarker} I found that the, eh {pause} silence in {disfmarker} in many occasions in the {disfmarker} in the speech file, but, eh {pause} when you have, eh {pause} eh, two speakers together without enough silence between {disfmarker} between them, eh {pause} {vocalsound} I think eh {pause} is better to use the acoustic change detector basically and I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I IX or, mmm, BIC criterion for consider all the frames in my opinion. Professor D: Mm - hmm. Yeah, the {disfmarker} you know, the reason that he, uh {pause} just used silence {vocalsound} was not because he thought it was better, it was {disfmarker} it was {disfmarker} it was the place he was starting. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: Yep. Professor D: So, he was trying to get something going, PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: and, uh e e you know, as {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} {vocalsound} as is in your case, if you're here for only a modest number of months you try to pick a realistic goal, PhD E: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Grad H: Do something. Professor D: But his {disfmarker} his goal was always to proceed from there to then allow broad category change also. PhD E: Uh - huh. But, eh {pause} do {disfmarker} do you think that if you consider all the frames to apply {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the, eh {pause} the BIC criterion to detect the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the different acoustic change, {vocalsound} eh {pause} between speaker, without, uh {pause} with, uh {pause} silence or {vocalsound} with overlapping, uh, I think like {disfmarker} like, eh {pause} eh a general, eh {pause} eh {pause} way of process the {disfmarker} the acoustic change. Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD E: In a first step, I mean. Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD E: An - and then, eh {pause} {vocalsound} eh {pause} without considering the you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you, um {pause} you can consider the energy {vocalsound} like a another parameter in the {disfmarker} in the feature vector, eh. Grad H: Right. Absolutely. Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD E: This {disfmarker} this is the idea. And if, if you do that, eh {pause} eh, with a BIC uh criterion for example, or with another kind of, eh {pause} of distance in a first step, {vocalsound} and then you, eh {pause} you get the, eh {pause} the hypothesis to the {disfmarker} this change acoustic, {vocalsound} eh {pause} {vocalsound} to po process Grad H: Right. PhD E: Because, eh {pause} eh, probably you {disfmarker} you can find the {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} eh {pause} a small gap of silence between speaker {vocalsound} with eh {pause} eh {pause} a ga mmm, {pause} {vocalsound} small duration Less than, {vocalsound} eh {pause} two hundred milliseconds for example Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD E: and apply another {disfmarker} another algorithm, another approach like, eh {pause} eh {pause} detector of ene, eh detector of bass - tone energy to {disfmarker} to consider that, eh {vocalsound} that, eh {pause} zone. of s a small silence between speaker, or {vocalsound} another algorithm to {disfmarker} to process, {vocalsound} eh {pause} the {disfmarker} the segment between marks eh {pause} founded by the {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} the BIC criterion and applied for {disfmarker} for each frame. Professor D: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. PhD E: I think is, eh {pause} nnn, it will be a an {disfmarker} an {disfmarker} a more general approach {vocalsound} the {pause} if we compare {disfmarker} with use, eh {pause} a neural net or another, eh {pause} speech recognizer with a broad class or {disfmarker} or narrow class, because, in my opinion eh {pause} it's in my opinion, {vocalsound} eh if you {disfmarker} if you change the condition of the speech, I mean, if you adjust to your algorithm with a mixed speech file and to, eh {vocalsound} to, eh {pause} {vocalsound} adapt the neural net, eh {pause} used by Javier with a mixed file. Professor D: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. PhD E: uh With a m mixed file, Grad H: With the what file? PhD A:" Mixed" . PhD E: with a {disfmarker} the mix, mix. Postdoc F:" Mixed." Grad H:" Mixed?" Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Sorry. And {pause} and then you {disfmarker} you, eh you try to {disfmarker} to apply that, eh, eh, eh, speech recognizer to that signal, to the PDA, eh {pause} speech file, {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think you will have problems, because the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {pause} condition {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you will need t t I {disfmarker} I suppose that you will need to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to retrain it. Professor D: Well, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Grad H: Oh, absolutely. This is {disfmarker} this is not what I was suggesting to do. Professor D: u {vocalsound} Look, I {disfmarker} I think this is a {disfmarker} One {disfmarker} once {disfmarker} It's a {disfmarker} I used to work, like, on voiced {disfmarker} on voice silence detection, you know, and this is this {pause} kind of thing. PhD E: Really? Yeah. Professor D: Um {pause} If you {vocalsound} have somebody who has some experience with this sort of thing, and they work on it for a couple months, {vocalsound} they can come up with something that gets most of the cases fairly easily. Then you say," OK, I don't just wanna get most of the cases I want it to be really accurate." Then it gets really hard no matter what you do. So, the p the problem is is that if you say," Well I {disfmarker} I have these other data over here, {vocalsound} that I learn things from, either explicit training of neural nets or of Gaussian mixture models or whatever." PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: Uh {pause} Suppose you don't use any of those things. You say you have looked for acoustic change. Well, what does that mean? That {disfmarker} that means you set some thresholds somewhere or something, PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: right? and {disfmarker} and so {vocalsound} where do you get your thresholds from? PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: From something that you looked at. So {vocalsound} you always have this problem, you're going to new data um {pause} H how are you going to adapt whatever you can very quickly learn about the new data? {vocalsound} Uh, if it's gonna be different from old data that you have? And I think that's a problem {pause} with this. Grad H: Well, also what I'm doing right now is not intended to be an acoustic change detector for far - field mikes. What I'm doing {vocalsound} is trying to use the close - talking mike {vocalsound} and just use {disfmarker} {pause} Can - and just generate candidate and just {pause} try to get a first pass at something that sort of works. PhD E: Yeah! PhD A: You have candidates. PhD G: Actually {disfmarker} actually {disfmarker} actually {disfmarker} PhD E: the candidate. PhD G: I {disfmarker} PhD A: to make marking easier. Yeah. PhD G: Or {disfmarker} Grad H: and I haven't spent a lot of time on it and I'm not intending to spend a lot of time on it. PhD G: OK. I {disfmarker} um, I, unfortunately, have to run, Grad H: So. PhD G: but, um {pause} I can imagine {pause} uh building {pause} a {pause} um {pause} model of speaker change {pause} detection {pause} that {vocalsound} takes into account {pause} both the far - field and the {vocalsound} uh {pause} actually, not just the close - talking mike for that speaker, but actually for all of th {pause} for all of the speakers. Grad H: Yep. Everyone else. Professor D: Yeah. PhD G: um {pause} If you model the {disfmarker} {pause} the {pause} effect that {pause} me speaking has on {pause} your {pause} microphone and everybody else's microphone, as well as on that, {vocalsound} and you build, um {disfmarker} basically I think you'd {disfmarker} you would {pause} build a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} an HMM that has as a state space all of the possible speaker combinations Grad H: All the {disfmarker} Yep. PhD E: Yeah. PhD G: and, um {vocalsound} you can control {disfmarker} Grad H: It's a little big. PhD G: It's not that big actually, um Grad H: Two to the N. Two to the number of people in the meeting. Professor D: But {disfmarker} Actually, Andreas may maybe {disfmarker} maybe just something simpler but {disfmarker} but along the lines of what you're saying, Grad H: Anyway. PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: I was just realizing, I used to know this guy who used to build, uh {vocalsound} um, mike mixers {disfmarker} automatic mike mixers where, you know, t in order to able to turn up the gain, you know, uh {vocalsound} as much as you can, you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you lower the gain on {disfmarker} on the mikes of people who aren't talking, PhD G: Mmm. PhD E: Yeah {comment} Yeah. PhD G: Mmm. Mm - hmm. Professor D: right? And then he had some sort of {vocalsound} reasonable way of doing that, PhD G: Mm - hmm. Professor D: but {vocalsound} uh, what if you were just looking at very simple measures like energy measures but you don't just compare it to some threshold {pause} overall but you compare it to the {vocalsound} energy in the other microphones. Grad H: I was thinking about doing that originally to find out {pause} who's the loudest, and that person is certainly talking. Professor D: Yeah. Grad H: But I also wanted to find threshold {disfmarker} uh, excuse me, mol overlap. Professor D: Yeah. Grad H: So, not just {disfmarker} just the loudest. PhD E: But, eh Postdoc F: Mm - hmm. PhD E: I {disfmarker} I Sorry. I {disfmarker} I have found that when {disfmarker} when I I analyzed the {disfmarker} the speech files from the, {pause} eh {pause} mike, eh {pause} from the eh close eh {pause} microphone, eh {pause} I found zones with a {disfmarker} a different level of energy. PhD G: Sorry, I have to go. Grad H: OK. Could you fill that out anyway? Just, {pause} put your name in. Are y you want me to do it? I'll do it. PhD A: But he's not gonna even read that. Oh. Grad H: I know. PhD E: including overlap zone. including. because, eh {pause} eh {pause} depend on the position of the {disfmarker} of the microph of the each speaker {vocalsound} to, eh, to get more o or less energy {vocalsound} i in the mixed sign in the signal. and then, {vocalsound} if you consider energy to {disfmarker} to detect overlapping in {disfmarker} in, uh, and you process the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the speech file from the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the mixed signals. The mixed signals, eh. I {disfmarker} I think it's {disfmarker} it's difficult, um {vocalsound} {pause} only to en with energy to {disfmarker} to consider that in that zone We have eh, eh, overlapping zone Eh, if you process only the the energy of the, of each frame. Professor D: Well, it's probably harder, but I {disfmarker} I think what I was s nnn noting just when he {disfmarker} when Andreas raised that, was that there's other information to be gained from looking at all {vocalsound} of the microphones and you may not need to look at very sophisticated things, PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: because if there's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if most of the overlaps {disfmarker} you know, this doesn't cover, say, three, but if most of the overlaps, say, are two, {vocalsound} if the distribution looks like there's a couple high ones and {disfmarker} and {pause} the rest of them are low, PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Grad H: And everyone else is low, yeah. Professor D: you know, what I mean, PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: there's some information there about their distribution even with very simple measures. PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Professor D: Uh, by the way, I had an idea with {disfmarker} while I was watching Chuck nodding at a lot of these things, is that we can all wear little bells on our heads, {vocalsound} so that {vocalsound} then you'd know that {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: Ding, ding, ding, ding. PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F:" Ding" . That's cute! PhD B: I think that'd be really interesting too, with blindfolds. Then {disfmarker} Grad H: Nodding with blindfolds, PhD B: Yeah. The question is, {pause} like {pause} whether {disfmarker} Grad H:" what are you nodding about?" PhD B: Well, trying with and {disfmarker} {pause} with and without, yeah. Grad H:" Sorry, I'm just {disfmarker} I'm just going to sleep." PhD B: But then there's just one @ @, like. Professor D: Yeah. PhD A: Actually, I saw a uh {disfmarker} a woman at the bus stop the other day who, um, was talking on her cell phone {vocalsound} speaking Japanese, and was bowing. you know, profusely. PhD B: Oh, yeah, that's really common. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah {comment} Yeah. PhD A: Just, kept {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F: Ah. Professor D: Wow. PhD B: It's very difficult if you try {disfmarker} while you're trying, say, to convince somebody on the phone it's difficult not to move your hands. Not {disfmarker} You know, if you watch people they'll actually do these things. Professor D: Mm - hmm? PhD B: So. I still think we should try a {disfmarker} a meeting or two with the blindfolds, at least of this meeting that we have lots of recordings of Grad H: Mm - hmm. PhD B: Um, maybe for part of the meeting, we don't have to do it the whole meeting. Professor D: Yeah, I think th I think it's a great idea. PhD B: That could be fun. It'll be too hard to make barriers, I was thinking because they have to go all the way Professor D: W Yeah. PhD B: you know, I can see Chuck even if you put a barrier here. Grad H: Well, we could just turn out the lights. Postdoc F: Actually {pause} well also {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can say I made barr barriers for {disfmarker} so that {disfmarker} the {pause} stuff I was doing with Collin wha {pause} which {pause} just used, um {pause} this {pause} kind of foam board. PhD B: Y Yeah? Postdoc F: R really inexpensive. You can {disfmarker} you can masking tape it together, these are {pause} you know, pretty l large partitions. Professor D: Yeah. PhD B: But then we also have these mikes, is the other thing I was thinking, so we need a barrier that doesn't disturb {pause} the sound, Postdoc F: It's true, it would disturb the, um {pause} the {disfmarker} the long - range {disfmarker} Grad H: The acoustics. PhD B: um Professor D: Blindfolds would be good. Postdoc F: it would {disfmarker} Grad H: I think, blindfolds. PhD B: I mean, it sounds weird but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} {pause} you know it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's cheap and, uh Be interesting to have the camera going. Professor D: Probably we should wait until after Adam's set up the mikes, But. Postdoc F: OK. I think we're going to have to work on the, uh {disfmarker} {pause} on the human subjects {vocalsound} form. PhD A: I'll be peeking. Grad H: Yeah, that's right, we didn't tell them we would be blindfolding. Professor D: That's {disfmarker} Postdoc F:" Do you mind being blindfolded while you're interviewed?" Professor D: that's {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} that's the one that we videotape. So. Um, I {disfmarker} I wanna move this along. Uh {pause} I did have this other agenda item which is, uh @ @ {disfmarker} it's uh a list which I sent to uh {disfmarker} a couple folks, but um I wanted to get broader input on it, So this is the things that I think we did {vocalsound} in the last three months obviously not everything we did but {disfmarker} but sort of highlights that I can {disfmarker} {pause} can {pause} tell {pause} s some outside person, you know, what {disfmarker} what were you {pause} actually working on. Um {pause} in no particular order {vocalsound} uh, one, uh, ten more hours of meeting r meetings recorded, something like that, you know from {disfmarker} from, uh {pause} three months ago. Uh {pause} XML formats and other transcription aspects sorted out {pause} and uh {pause} sent to IBM. Um, pilot data put together and sent to IBM for transcription, uh {pause} next batch of recorded data put together on the CD - ROMs for shipment to IBM, Grad H: Hasn't been sent yet, but {disfmarker} It's getting ready. Professor D: But yeah, that's why I phrased it that way, yeah OK. Um {pause} human subjects approval on campus, uh {pause} and release forms worked out so the meeting participants have a chance to request audio pixelization of selected parts of the spee their speech. Um {vocalsound} audio pixelization software written and tested. Um {pause} {vocalsound} preliminary analysis of overlaps in the pilot data we have transcribed, and exploratory analysis of long - distance inferences for topic coherence, that was {disfmarker} I was {disfmarker} {pause} wasn't {pause} sure if those were the right way {disfmarker} {pause} that was the right way to describe that because of that little exercise that {disfmarker} that you {comment} and {disfmarker} and Lokendra did. Postdoc F: What was that called? Professor D: I {disfmarker} well, I I'm probably saying this wrong, but what I said was exploratory analysis of long - distance inferences {vocalsound} for topic coherence. Postdoc F: The, uh {pause} say again? Professor D: Something like that. Um {pause} so, uh {pause} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {pause} a lot of that was from, you know, what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what you two were doing so I {disfmarker} I sent it to you, and you know, please mail me, you know, the corrections or suggestions for changing Grad H: Mm - hmm. Professor D: I {disfmarker} I don't want to make this twice it's length but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but you know, just im improve it. Um Is there anything anybody {disfmarker} Grad H: I {disfmarker} I did a bunch of stuff for supporting of digits. Professor D:" Bunch of stuff for s" OK, maybe {disfmarker} maybe send me a sentence that's a little thought through about that. Grad H: So, {pause} OK, I'll send you a sentence that doesn't just say" a bunch of" ? Professor D:" Bunch of stuff" , yeah," stuff" is probably bad too, Grad H: Yep." Stuff" {pause} is not very technical. Professor D: Yeah, well. Grad H: I'll try to {pause} phrase it in passive voice. Professor D: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, PhD A: Technical stuff. Professor D:" range of things" , yeah. Um {pause} and {disfmarker} and you know, I sort of threw in what you did with what Jane did on {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} under the, uh {pause} uh {vocalsound} preliminary analysis of overlaps. Uh {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} Thilo, can you tell us about all the work you've done on this project in the last, uh {pause} last three months? PhD E: Yeah. PhD C: So {disfmarker} what is {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} Um. Not really. Professor D: That's {disfmarker} PhD A: It's too complicated. PhD C: Um, {pause} I didn't get it. Wh - what is" audio pixelization" ? Professor D: Uh, audio pix wh he did it, so why don't you explain it quickly? Grad H: It's just, uh {pause} beeping out parts that you don't want included in the meeting so, you know you can say things like," Well, this should probably not be on the record, but beep" PhD C: OK, OK. I got that. Professor D: Yeah. We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we spent a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a fair amount of time early on just talk dealing with this issue about op w e e {vocalsound} we realized," well, people are speaking in an impromptu way and they might say something that would embarrass them or others later" , and, how do you get around that PhD C: OK. Professor D: so in the consent form it says, well you {disfmarker} we will look at the transcripts later and if there's something that you're {pause} unhappy with, yeah. PhD C: OK, and you can say {disfmarker} OK. Professor D: But you don't want to just totally excise it because um uh, well you have to be careful about excising it, how {disfmarker} how you excise it keeping the timing right and so forth so that at the moment tho th the idea we're running with is {disfmarker} is h putting the beep over it. PhD C: OK. Grad H: Yeah, you can either beep or it can be silence. I {disfmarker} I couldn't decide. which was the right way to do it. PhD E: Ah, yeah. Grad H: Beep is good auditorily, PhD C: Yeah. Grad H: if someone is listening to it, there's no mistake that it's been beeped out, PhD C: Yeah. Grad H: but for software it's probably better for it to be silence. PhD A: No, no. You can {disfmarker} you know, you could make a m as long as you keep using the same beep, people could make a model of that beep, Postdoc F: Hmm. PhD A: and {disfmarker} Postdoc F: I like that idea. Grad H: Yep. And I use {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's, uh {pause} it's an A below middle C beep, PhD B: I think the beep is a really good idea. PhD A: Yeah. Postdoc F: It's very clear. Then you don't think it's a long pause. PhD B: Also {disfmarker} PhD A: Yeah, it's more obvious that there was something there than if there's just silence. Grad H: so PhD C: Yeah. Postdoc F: Yeah. Professor D: Yeah, that {disfmarker} I mean, he's {disfmarker} he's removing the old {pause} thing PhD E: Yeah Professor D: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} Grad H: Yep. PhD A: Yea - right. Right. But I mean if you just replaced it with silence, {pause} it's not clear whether that's really silence or {disfmarker} Grad H: Yeah, it's not {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F: Yeah, I agree. Professor D: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: Yep. Postdoc F: One {disfmarker} one question. Do you do it on all channels? Grad H: Of course. Postdoc F: Interesting. I like that. Professor D: Yeah. Postdoc F: Yeah, I like that. Grad H: Yeah you have to do it on all channels because it's, uh {pause} audible. Postdoc F: Very clear. Very clear. Grad H: Uh, it's {disfmarker} it's potentially audible, you could potentially recover it. Professor D: Ke - keep a back door. Postdoc F: Well, the other thing that {disfmarker} you know, I mean the {disfmarker} the alternative might be to s Grad H: Yeah. Well, I {disfmarker} I haven't thrown away any of the meetings that I beeped. Actually yours is the only one that I beeped and then, uh {pause} the ar DARPA meeting. PhD B: Notice how quiet I am. Grad H: Sorry, and then the DARPA meeting I just excised completely, Postdoc F: Yeah. Grad H: so it's in a private directory. PhD B: You have some people who only have beeps as their speech in these meetings. Postdoc F: That's great. Yeah. Professor D: OK. PhD A: They're easy to find, then. Professor D: Alright, so, uh {pause} I think we should, uh {pause} uh, go on to the digits? Postdoc F: I have one concept a t I {disfmarker} I want to say, which is that I think it's nice that you're preserving the time relations, Grad H: OK. Postdoc F: s so you're {disfmarker} you're not just cutting {disfmarker} you're not doing scissor snips. You're {disfmarker} you're keeping the, uh {pause} the time duration of a {disfmarker} de - deleted {disfmarker} deleted part. Grad H: Right. PhD B: Yeah, definitely. Professor D: Yeah. Postdoc F: OK, good, digits. Grad H: Yeah, since we wanna {pause} possibly synchronize these things as well. Oh, I should have done that. Postdoc F: It's great. Grad H: Shoot. Oh well. PhD B: So I guess if there's an overlap, {pause} like, if I'm saying something that's {pause} bleepable and somebody else overlaps during it they also get bleeped, too? Professor D: Yeah. Oh Grad H: You'll lose it. There's no way around that. Professor D: Yeah. Um {pause} I d I did {disfmarker} before we do the digits, I did also wanna remind people, uh {pause} {vocalsound} please do send me, you know, uh thoughts for an agenda, Grad H: Agenda? Professor D: yeah that {disfmarker} that would be that'd be good. Postdoc F: Good. Professor D: Eh So that, uh, people's ideas don't get Grad H: Thursday crept up on me this week. Professor D: yeah, well it does creep up, doesn't it? PhD B: And, I wanted to say, I think this is really interesting {pause} analysis. Professor D: OK. Postdoc F: Thank you. Grad H: It's cool stuff, definitely. PhD B: I meant to say that before I started off on the {pause} Switchboard stuff. Postdoc F: Thank you. Grad H: I was gonna say" can you do that for the other meetings, PhD B: It's neat. Grad H: can you do it for them?" PhD B: Yeah. Grad H: And, no actually, you can't. PhD A: Actually {disfmarker} actually I {disfmarker} I thought that's what you were giving us was another meeting and I was like," Oh, OK!" PhD B: Does it take {disfmarker} Postdoc F: Thank you. Yeah. Grad H:" Ooo, cool!" Postdoc F: Aw, thanks. PhD B: How long does it {pause} take, just briefly, like {pause} t to {disfmarker} {pause} OK. {pause} to label the, Postdoc F: No. I have the script now, so, I mean, it can work off the, uh {pause} other thing, Grad H: It's {disfmarker} As soon as we get labels, yep. PhD B: OK. PhD A: But it has to be hand - labeled first? Postdoc F: but {disfmarker} Uh, well, yeah. Because, uh {pause} well, I mean {pause} once his {disfmarker} his algorithm is up and running then we can do it that way. Grad H: If it works well enough. Right now it's not. Not quite to the point where it works. PhD B: OK. Postdoc F: But {pause} I {disfmarker} I just worked off of my PhD B: It's really neat. Professor D: OK, go ahead Postdoc F: Thanks. Appreciate that. I think {disfmarker} what I {disfmarker} what this has, uh, caused me {disfmarker} so this discussion caused me to wanna subdivide these further. I'm gonna take a look at the, uh {pause} backchannels, how much we have anal I hope to have that for next time. PhD A: That'd be interesting. Grad H: Yeah, my {disfmarker} my algorithm worked great actually on these, but when you wear it like that or with the uh, lapel {pause} or if you have it very far from your face, that's when it starts {pause} failing. PhD A: Mm - hmm. Oh. PhD B: Well, I can wear it, I mean if you {disfmarker} Grad H: It doesn't matter. PhD B: OK. Grad H: I mean, we want it to work, PhD A: It's too late now. Grad H: right? I {disfmarker} I don't want {pause} to change the way we do the meeting. PhD B: I feel like this troublemaker. Grad H: It's uh {disfmarker} {pause} so, it was just a comment on the software, not a comment on {vocalsound} prescriptions on how you wear microphones. PhD B: OK. Professor D: OK, that's {disfmarker} let's {disfmarker} let's {disfmarker} let's do digits. Grad H: Get the bolts," whh whh" Postdoc F: Let's do it. OK. Grad H: OK. PhD B: I'm sorry. Grad H: OK, thank you. Postdoc F: Do you want us to put a mark on the bottom of these when they've actually been read, or do you just {pause} i i the only one that wasn't read is {disfmarker} is known, so we don't do it. OK.

Grad H has been experimenting with using the close - talking mike to decipher who is speaking. The first attempt was thresholding and filtering, which is very sensitive to the choice of filter width and threshold. It does allow for effective segmenting when someone's talking and when they are not.

tr-gq-659

tr-gq-659_0

Summarize the Meeting PhD B: We're, I mean {pause} we {disfmarker} We didn't have a house before. Professor D: Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: OK. Professor D: We're on again? OK. PhD A: Mm - hmm. That is really great. Grad H: Yeah, so if {pause} uh {disfmarker} {pause} So if anyone hasn't signed the consent form, please do so. PhD A: That's terrific. PhD B: Oh, yeah! Professor D: OK Grad H: The new consent form. The new and improved consent form. PhD A: Now you won't be able to walk or ride your bike, huh? Professor D: OK. Postdoc F: Uh. PhD B: Right. Professor D: OK. Grad H: And uh, shall I go ahead and do some digits? Professor D: Uh, we were gonna do that at the end, remember? Grad H: OK, whatever you want. Professor D: Yeah. Just {disfmarker} just to be consistent, from here on in at least, that {disfmarker} {pause} that we'll do it at the end. PhD B: The new consent form. Grad H: It's uh {disfmarker} {pause} Yeah, it doesn't matter. OK. Professor D: OK Um Well, it ju I mean it might be that someone here has to go, Postdoc F: Testing, one, two, three. Professor D: and {disfmarker} Right? That was {disfmarker} that was sort of the point. So, uh {pause} I had asked actually anybody who had any ideas for an agenda {pause} to send it to me and no one did. So, Grad H: So we all forgot. Professor D: Uh, Postdoc F: From last time I wanted to {disfmarker} Uh {pause} {pause} The {disfmarker} An iss uh {pause} one topic from last time. Professor D: Right, s OK, so one item for an agenda is uh {pause} Jane has some uh {vocalsound} uh some research to talk about, research issues. Um {pause} and {pause} Uh, Adam has some short research issues. Grad H: And I have some {pause} short research issues. Professor D: Um, I have a {pause} list of things that I think were done over the last three months I was supposed to {vocalsound} {vocalsound} send off, uh {pause} and, um {pause} I {disfmarker} I sent a note about it to uh {disfmarker} to Adam and Jane but I think I'll just run through it {pause} also and see if someone thinks it's inaccurate or {pause} uh insufficient. PhD A: A list that you have to send off to who? Professor D: Uh, to uh uh, IBM. PhD A: Oh. Professor D: OK. They're, you know {disfmarker} PhD E: Professor D: So. Um, So, uh {pause} so, I'll go through that. Um, {pause} And, Anything else? {pause} anyone wants to talk about? PhD A: What about the, um {disfmarker} your trip, yesterday? Professor D: No. OK. Um. Sort of off - topic I guess. PhD A: Oh, OK. Professor D: Cuz that's {pause} Cuz that was all {disfmarker} all about the, uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can chat with you about that {pause} off - line. That's another thing. Um, And, Anything else? Nothing else? Uh, there's a {disfmarker} I mean, there is a {disfmarker} {pause} a, um {pause} uh {pause} telephone call tomorrow, {pause} which will be a conference call {pause} that some of us are involved in {pause} for uh a possible proposal. Um, we'll talk {disfmarker} we'll talk about it next week if {disfmarker} if something {disfmarker} Grad H: Do you want me to {pause} be there for that? I noticed you C C'ed me, but I wasn't actually a recipient. I didn't quite know what to make of that. Professor D: Uh Well, we'll talk {disfmarker} talk about that after our meeting. OK. Grad H: OK. Professor D: Uh, OK. So it sounds like the {disfmarker} the three main things that we have to talk about are, uh this list, uh Jane and {disfmarker} Jane and Adam have some research items, and, other than that, anything, {pause} as usual, {pause} anything goes beyond that. OK, uh, Jane, since {disfmarker} since you were sort of cut off last time why don't we start with yours, make sure we get to it. Postdoc F: OK, it's {disfmarker} it's very {pause} eh {disfmarker} it's {pause} very brief, I mean {disfmarker} just let me {disfmarker} just hand these out. Oops. Grad H: Is this the same as the email or different? PhD C: Thanks. Postdoc F: It's slightly different. I {disfmarker} {pause} basically the same. Grad H: OK. PhD A: Same idea? Postdoc F: But, same idea. So, if you've looked at this you've seen it before, so {pause} Basically, {vocalsound} um {pause} as you know, uh {pause} part of the encoding {pause} includes a mark that indicates {pause} an overlap. It's not indicated {pause} with, um {pause} uh, tight precision, it's just indicated that {disfmarker} OK, so, It's indicated to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} so the people know {pause} what parts of sp which {disfmarker} which stretches of speech were in the clear, versus being overlapped by others. So, I {pause} used this mark and, um {pause} and, uh {pause} uh, {pause} divided the {disfmarker} I wrote a script {pause} which divides things into individual minutes, {pause} of which we ended up with forty {pause} five, and a little bit. And, uh {pause} you know, minute zero, of course, is the first minute up to {pause} sixty seconds. PhD C: OK. Postdoc F: And, um {pause} What you can see is the number of overlaps {pause} and then {pause} to the right, {pause} whether they involve two speakers, three speakers, or more than three speakers. And, {pause} um {pause} and, what I was looking for sp sp specifically was the question of {pause} whether they're distributed evenly throughout or whether they're {pause} bursts of them. Um. And {pause} it looked to me as though {disfmarker} uh, you know {disfmarker} y this is just {disfmarker} {pause} eh {disfmarker} eh, this would {disfmarker} this is not statistically {pause} verified, {pause} but it {pause} did look to me as though there are bursts throughout, rather than being {pause} localized to a particular region. The part down there, where there's the maximum number of {disfmarker} {pause} of, um {pause} overlaps is an area where we were discussing {pause} {vocalsound} whether or not it would be useful to indi to s to {pause} code {pause} stress, {pause} uh, sentence stress {pause} as possible indication of, uh {pause} information retrieval. So it's like, {pause} you know, rather, {pause} lively discussion there. Professor D: What was {disfmarker} what's the {disfmarker} the parenthesized stuff {pause} that says, like {disfmarker} e the first one that says six overlaps and then two point eight? Postdoc F: Oh, th {vocalsound} {pause} That's the per cent. Professor D: Mmm. Postdoc F: So, six is, uh {pause} two point eight percent {pause} of the total number of overlaps in the {pause} session. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Professor D: Ah. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: At the very end, this is when people were, {pause} you know, packing up to go basically, there's {pause} this final stuff, I think we {disfmarker} {pause} I don't remember where the digits {pause} fell. I'd have to look at that. But {pause} the final three there are no overlaps at all. And {pause} couple times there {pause} are not. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: So, i it seems like it goes through bursts {pause} but, um {pause} that's kind of it. PhD E: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: Now, {pause} Another question is {pause} is there {disfmarker} are there {pause} individual differences in whether you're likely to be overlapped with or to overlap with others. And, again {pause} I want to emphasize this is just one {pause} particular {pause} um {disfmarker} {pause} one particular meeting, and also there's been no statistical testing of it all, but {pause} I, um {pause} I took the coding of {pause} the {disfmarker} I, you know, my {disfmarker} I had this script {pause} figure out, um {pause} who {pause} was the first speaker, who was the second speaker involved in a two - person overlap, I didn't look at the ones involving three or more. And, um {pause} {pause} this is how it breaks down in the individual cells of {pause} who tended to be overlapping most often with who {disfmarker} who else, and {pause} if you look at the marginal totals, which is the ones on the right side and across the bottom, you get {pause} the totals for an individual. So, {vocalsound} um {pause} If you {pause} look at the bottom, those are the, um {pause} numbers of overlaps in which {pause} um {pause} Adam was involved as the person doing the overlapping and if you look {disfmarker} I'm sorry, but you're o alphabetical, that's why I'm choosing you And then if you look across the right, {pause} then {pause} that's where he was the {pause} person who was the sp first speaker in the pair {pause} and got overlap overlapped with by somebody. PhD A: Hmm! PhD E: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: And, {pause} then if you look down in the summary table, {pause} then you see that, um {pause} th they're differences in {pause} whether a person got overlapped with or {pause} overlapped by. Grad H: Is this uh {pause} just raw counts or is it {disfmarker} Postdoc F: Raw counts. Grad H: So it would be interesting to see how much each person spoke. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah {vocalsound} Yeah Postdoc F: Yes, very true {disfmarker} very true Grad H: Normalized to how much {disfmarker} Postdoc F: it would be good to normalize with respect to that. Now on the table I did {pause} take one step toward, uh {pause} away from the raw frequencies by putting, {pause} uh {pause} percentages. So that the percentage of time {pause} of the {disfmarker} of the times that a person spoke, {pause} what percentage {pause} eh, w so. Of the times a person spoke and furthermore was involved in a two two - person overlap, {vocalsound} {vocalsound} what percentage of the time were they the overlapper and what percent of the time were they th the overlappee? And there, it looks like you see some differences, um, {pause} that some people tend to be overlapped {pause} with more often than they're overlapped, but, of course, uh i e {vocalsound} this is just one meeting, {pause} uh {pause} there's no statistical testing involved, and that would be {pause} required for a {disfmarker} for a finding {pause} of {pause} any {pause} kind of {pause} scientific {pause} reliability. Professor D: S so, i it would be statistically incorrect to conclude from this that Adam talked too much or something. Grad H: No {disfmarker} no actually, that would be actually statistically correct, Professor D: Yeah, yeah. Postdoc F: No, no, no. PhD E: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Grad H: but Postdoc F: Yeah, that's right. Professor D: Yeah. Excuse me. Postdoc F: That's right. And I'm {pause} you know, I'm {disfmarker} I don't see a point of singling people out, Professor D: B I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I rather enjoyed it, but {disfmarker} but this Postdoc F: now, this is a case where obviously {disfmarker} PhD A: But the numbers speak for themselves. PhD E: He's {disfmarker} Yeah, yeah, yeah. Postdoc F: Well, {vocalsound} you know, it's like {disfmarker} I'm not {disfmarker} I'm not saying on the tape who did {pause} better or worse Grad H: Yes, that's right, so you don't nee OK. Professor D: Sure. Postdoc F: because {pause} I don't think that it's {disfmarker} I {pause} you know, and {disfmarker} and th here's a case where of course, human subjects people would say be sure that you anonymize the results, {pause} and {disfmarker} and, so, might as well do this. Professor D: Yeah. Grad H: Yeah, when {disfmarker} this is what {disfmarker} This is actually {disfmarker} when Jane sent this email first, is what caused me to start thinking about anonymizing the data. Postdoc F: Well, fair enough. Fair enough. Professor D: Yeah. Postdoc F: And actually, {pause} you know, the point is not about an individual, it's the point about {pause} tendencies toward {pause} you know, different styles, different speaker styles. Professor D: Oh sure. Postdoc F: And {pause} it would be, you know {pause} of course, {pause} there's also the question of what type of overlap was this, and w what were they, and i and I {disfmarker} and I know that I can distinguish at least three types and, probably more, I mean, the {vocalsound} general {pause} {vocalsound} cultural idea which w uh, the conversation analysts originally started with in the seventies was that we have this {vocalsound} strict model where politeness involves that you let the person finish th before you start talking, and {pause} and you know, I mean, {pause} w we know that {disfmarker} {pause} an and they've loosened up on that too s in the intervening time, that {pause} that that's {disfmarker} that's viewed as being {pause} a culturally - relative thing, I mean, {pause} that you have the high - involvement style from the East Coast where people {vocalsound} will overlap often as an indication of interest in what the other person is saying. And Grad H: Uh - huh. PhD B: Exactly! Postdoc F: Yeah, exactly! PhD E: Yeah Postdoc F: Well, there you go. Fine, that's alright, that's OK. And {disfmarker} and, {pause} you know, in contrast, so Deborah {disfmarker} d and also Deborah Tannen's {pause} thesis she talked about differences of these types, {pause} that they're just different styles, and it's um {pause} you {disfmarker} you can't impose a model of {disfmarker} {pause} there {disfmarker} of the ideal being no overlaps, and {pause} you know, conversational analysts also agree with that, so it's {pause} now, universally {pause} a ag agreed with. And {disfmarker} and, als I mean, I can't say universally, but anyway, the people who used to say it was strict, {pause} um {pause} now, uh {pause} don't. I mean they {disfmarker} they {pause} also {pause} {vocalsound} you know, uh {pause} uh, ack acknowledge the influence of {pause} sub of subcultural norms and {pause} cross - cultural norms and things. So, um Then it beco {pause} though {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} just {disfmarker} just superficially to give {pause} um {pause} a couple ideas of the types of overlaps involved, I have at the bottom several that I noticed. So, {pause} {vocalsound} uh, there are backchannels, like what Adam just did now and, um {pause} {vocalsound} um, anticipating the end of a question and {pause} simply answering it earlier, and there are several of those in this {disfmarker} in these data where {disfmarker} PhD B: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: because we're {pause} people who've talked to each other, um {pause} we know {pause} basically what the topic is, what the possibilities are and w and we've spoken with each other so we know basically what the other person's style is likely to be and so {vocalsound} and t there are a number of places where someone just answered early. No problem. And places {pause} also which I thought were interesting, where two or more people gave exactly th the same answer in unison {disfmarker} different words of course but you know, the {disfmarker} basically, {pause} you know everyone's saying" yes" or {disfmarker} you know, or ev even more sp specific than that. So, uh, the point is that, um {pause} {vocalsound} overlap's not necessarily a bad thing and that it would be im {pause} i useful to subdivide these further and see if there are individual differences in styles with respect to the types involved. And that's all I wanted to say on that, {pause} unless people have questions. Professor D: Well, of course th the biggest, {pause} um {pause} result here, which is one we've {disfmarker} {pause} we've talked about many times and isn't new to us, but which I think would be interesting to show someone who isn't familiar with this {vocalsound} {pause} is just the sheer number of overlaps. Grad H: Yep. Professor D: That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Right? {pause} that {disfmarker} that, um PhD E: Yes, yes! Postdoc F: Oh, OK {disfmarker} interesting. PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: here's a relatively short meeting, it's a forty {disfmarker} {pause} forty plus minute {pause} {vocalsound} meeting, and not only were there two hundred and fifteen overlaps {vocalsound} {pause} but, {pause} uh I think there's one {disfmarker} {pause} one minute there where there {disfmarker} where {disfmarker} where there wasn't any overlap? Grad H: Hundred ninety - seven. Professor D: I mean, it's {disfmarker} {pause} {vocalsound} uh throughout this thing? PhD A: It'd be interesting {disfmarker} Professor D: It's {disfmarker} You have {disfmarker} Postdoc F: Well, at the bottom, you have the bottom three. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: S n are {disfmarker} Postdoc F: So four {disfmarker} four minutes all together with none {disfmarker} none. PhD A: But it w Professor D: Oh, so the bottom three did have s stuff going on? There was speech? Postdoc F: Yes, uh - huh. Yeah. But just no overlaps. Professor D: OK, so if {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} PhD A: It'd be interesting to see what the total amount of time is in the overlaps, versus {disfmarker} Postdoc F: Yes, exactly and that's {disfmarker} that's where Jose's pro project comes in. PhD E: Yeah, yeah, I h I have this that infor I have th that information now. PhD G: I was about to ask {disfmarker} PhD A: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. PhD B: Hmm. Professor D: Oh, about how much is it? PhD E: The {disfmarker} the duration of eh {disfmarker} of each of the overlaps. Professor D: O oh, what's {disfmarker} what's the {disfmarker} what's the average {pause} length? PhD E: M I {disfmarker} I haven't averaged it now but, uh {pause} I {disfmarker} I will, uh I will do the {disfmarker} the study of the {disfmarker} {pause} with the {disfmarker} with the program with the {disfmarker} uh, the different, uh {pause} the, nnn, {pause} distribution of the duration of the overlaps. Professor D: You don't know? OK, you {disfmarker} you don you don't have a feeling for roughly how {pause} much it is? Yeah. PhD E: mmm, {pause} Because the {disfmarker} the uh, @ @ is @ @. Professor D: Yeah. PhD E: The duration is, uh {pause} the variation {disfmarker} the variation of the duration is uh, very big on the dat PhD A: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: I suspect that it will also differ, {pause} depending on the type of overlap {pause} involved. PhD E: but eh {disfmarker} Professor D: Oh, I'm sure. PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F: So backchannels will be very brief PhD E: Because, on your surface eh {pause} a bit of zone of overlapping with the duration eh, overlapped and another very very short. Postdoc F: and {disfmarker} Professor D: Yeah. Yeah. PhD E: Uh, i probably it's very difficult to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} because the {disfmarker} the overlap is, uh on is only the {disfmarker} in the final" S" of the {disfmarker} of the {disfmarker} the fin the {disfmarker} the end {disfmarker} the end word of the, um {pause} previous speaker {vocalsound} with the {disfmarker} the next word of the {disfmarker} the new speaker. PhD A: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Um, I considered {pause} that's an overlap but it's very short, it's an" X" with a {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} the idea is probably, eh {pause} when eh {disfmarker} when eh, we studied th th that zone, eh {pause} {pause} eh, we h we have eh eh {pause} confusion with eh eh noise. PhD A: Mm - hmm. PhD E: With eh {pause} that fricative sounds, but uh {pause} I have new information but I have to {disfmarker} to study. Professor D: Yeah. Yeah, but I {disfmarker} I'd {disfmarker} {vocalsound} u PhD G: Can I {disfmarker} Professor D: go ahead. Postdoc F: Yeah. PhD G: You split this by minute, um {pause} so if an overlap straddles {pause} the boundary between two minutes, that counts towards both of those minutes. Postdoc F: Yes. Mm - hmm. Actually, um {vocalsound} um {pause} actually not. Uh, so {pause} le let's think about the case where {vocalsound} A starts speaking {pause} {vocalsound} and then B overlaps with A, {pause} and then the minute boundary happens. And let's say that {vocalsound} after that minute boundary, {vocalsound} um {pause} B is still speaking, {pause} and A overlaps {pause} with B, that would be a new overlap. But otherwise {pause} um, let's say B {pause} comes to the conclusion of {disfmarker} of that turn without {pause} anyone overlapping with him or her, in which case there would be no overlap counted in that second minute. PhD G: No, but suppose they both talk simultaneously {vocalsound} {pause} both a {disfmarker} a portion of it is in minute one and another portion of minute two. Postdoc F: OK. In that case, um {pause} my c {pause} the coding that I was using {disfmarker} {vocalsound} since we haven't, {pause} uh {pause} incorporated Adam's, uh {pause} coding of overlap yets, the coding of Yeah," yets" is not a word. Uh {vocalsound} since we haven't incorporated Adam's method of handling overl overlaps yet {vocalsound} um {pause} then {pause} that would have fallen through the cra cracks. It would be an underestimate of the number of overlaps because, um {pause} I wou I wouldn't be able to pick it up from the way it was {pause} encoded so far. Professor D: I I Postdoc F: We just haven't done th the precise second to sec you know, {pause} second to second coding of when they occur. Professor D: I I I'm {disfmarker} I'm {disfmarker} I'm confused now. So l l let me restate what I thought Andreas was saying and {disfmarker} and see. Postdoc F: Uh - huh. Professor D: Let's say that in {disfmarker} in second fifty - seven {pause} {vocalsound} of one minute, {pause} you start talking and I start talking and {pause} we ignore each other and keep on talking for six seconds. Postdoc F: Yep. OK. Mm - hmm. Professor D: So we go over {disfmarker} So we were {disfmarker} we were talking over one another, {pause} and it's just {disfmarker} in each case, it's just sort of one {pause} interval. Right? Postdoc F: Mm - hmm? Professor D: So, um {pause} we talked over the minute boundary. Is this {pause} considered as one overlap in each of the minutes, the way you have done this. Postdoc F: No, it wouldn't. It would be considered as an overlap in the first one. Professor D: OK, so that's {pause} good, i I think, in the sense that I think Andreas meant the question, PhD B: That's {disfmarker} {pause} that's good, yeah, cuz the overall rate is {disfmarker} PhD C: PhD G: Yeah. Grad H: Statistical. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc F: Mm - hmm. Professor D: right? Postdoc F: Yeah. They're not double counted. PhD G: Other - otherwise you'd get double counts, here and there. Grad H: Yep. PhD B: Ah but, yeah. PhD E: Yeah. PhD B: PhD G: And then it would be harder {disfmarker} Professor D: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F: I should also say I did a simplifying, uh {pause} count in that {vocalsound} if A was speaking {pause} B overlapped with A and then A came back again and overlapped with B again, I {disfmarker} I didn't count that as a three - person overlap, I counted that as a two - person overlap, {pause} and it was A being overlapped with by D. Grad H: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: Because the idea was the first speaker {pause} had the floor {pause} and the second person {pause} started speaking and then the f the first person reasserted the floor {pause} kind of thing. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc F: These are simplifying assumptions, didn't happen very often, there may be like three overlaps affected that way in the whole thing. Grad H: I want to go back and listen to minute forty - one. Postdoc F: Yeah, yeah. Grad H: Cuz i i I find it interesting that there were a large number of overlaps and they were all two - speaker. Professor D: Yeah. Grad H: I mean what I thought {disfmarker} what I would have thought in {pause} is that when there were a large number of overlaps, it was because everyone was talking at once, {vocalsound} but uh apparently not. Postdoc F: That's interesting. That's interesting. PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Mmm. Grad H: That's really neat. Professor D: Yeah. Postdoc F: Yeah, there's a lot of backchannel, a lot o a lot of {disfmarker} Grad H: This is {pause} really interesting data. Postdoc F: Yeah, it is. PhD B: I think what's really interesting though, it is {pause} before d {pause} saying" yes, meetings have a lot of overlaps" is to actually find out how many more {pause} we have than two - party. Postdoc F: I think so too, I think {disfmarker} PhD B: Cuz in two - party conversations, like Switchboard, there's an awful lot too if you just look at backchannels, if you consider those overlaps? it's also ver it's huge. It's just that people haven't been {pause} looking at that because they've been doing single - channel processing for {pause} speech recognition. Grad H: Mm - hmm. Professor D: Mm - hmm? PhD B: So, the question is, you know, how many more overlaps {pause} {vocalsound} do you have {pause} of, say the two - person type, by adding more people. to a meeting, and it may be a lot more but i it may {disfmarker} {pause} it may not be. Professor D: Well, but see, I find it interesting even if it wasn't any more, PhD B: So. Professor D: because {pause} since we were dealing with this full duplex sort of thing in Switchboard where it was just all separated out {vocalsound} we just {disfmarker} everything was just nice, PhD B: Mm - hmm? Professor D: so that {disfmarker} so the issue is in {disfmarker} in a situation {pause} where th that's {disfmarker} PhD B: Well, it's not really {pause}" nice" . It depends what you're doing. So if you were actually {pause} {vocalsound} having, uh {disfmarker} depends what you're doing, if {disfmarker} Right now we're do we have individual mikes on the people in this meeting. So the question is, you know {disfmarker}" are there really more overlaps happening than there would be in a two - person {pause} party" . Professor D: Mm - hmm? PhD B: And {disfmarker} and there well may be, but {disfmarker} Professor D: Let {disfmarker} let m let me rephrase what I'm saying cuz I don't think I'm getting it across. What {disfmarker} what I {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} I shouldn't use words like" nice" because maybe that's too {disfmarker} i too imprecise. But what I mean is {vocalsound} that, um in Switchboard, {pause} despite the many {disfmarker} many other problems that we have, one problem that we're not considering is overlap. And what we're doing now is, {pause} aside from the many other differences in the task, we are considering overlap and one of the reasons that we're considering it, {pause} you know, one of them not all of them, one of them is {vocalsound} that w uh at least, {pause} you know I'm very interested in {vocalsound} the scenario in which, uh {pause} both people talking are pretty much equally {pause} audible, {vocalsound} and from a single microphone. And so, {pause} in that case, it does get mixed in, {vocalsound} and it's pretty hard to jus {pause} to just ignore it, to just do processing on one and not on the other. PhD B: I {disfmarker} I agree that it's an issue here {pause} but it's also an issue for Switchboard and if you {pause} think of meetings {pause} being recorded over the telephone, which I think, you know, this whole point of studying meetings isn't just to have people in a room but to also have {pause} meetings over different phone lines. Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: Maybe far field mike people wouldn't be interested in that but all the dialogue issues still apply, Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: so if each of us was calling and having {pause} {vocalsound} a meeting that way {pause} you kn you know like a conference call. And, just the question is, {pause} y you know, in Switchboard {pause} you would think that's the simplest case of a meeting of more than one person, Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: and {pause} {vocalsound} I'm wondering how much more {pause} overlap {pause} of {pause} the types that {disfmarker} that Jane described happen with more people present. So it may be that having three people {pause} {vocalsound} is very different from having two people or it may not be. Professor D: That's an important question to ask. PhD B: So. Professor D: I think what I'm {disfmarker} {pause} All I'm s really saying is that I don't think we were considering that in Switchboard. PhD B: Not you, me. But uh {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but Professor D: Were you? Grad H: Though it wasn't {pause} in the design. Professor D: Were you {disfmarker} were you {disfmarker} were you {disfmarker} were you measuring it? I mean, w w were {disfmarker} PhD B: There {disfmarker} there's actually to tell you the truth, the reason why it's hard to measure is because of so, from the point of view of studying dialogue, I mean, which {pause} Dan Jurafsky and Andreas and I had some projects on, you want to know the sequence of turns. Professor D: Yeah. PhD B: So what happens is if you're talking and I have a backchannel in the middle of your turn, and then you keep going what it looks like in a dialogue model is your turn and then my backchannel, Professor D: Yeah. PhD B: even though my backchannel occurred completely inside your turn. Professor D: Yeah? PhD B: So, for things like language modeling or dialogue modeling {pause} {vocalsound} it's {disfmarker} We know that that's wrong in real time. Professor D: Yeah? PhD B: But, because of the acoustic segmentations that were done and the fact that some of the acoustic data in Switchboard were missing, people couldn't study it, but that doesn't mean in the real world that people don't talk that way. So, it's {disfmarker} um Professor D: Yeah, I wasn't saying that. Right? I was just saying that w now we're looking at it. PhD B: Well, we've als Professor D: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and, you {disfmarker} you maybe wanted to look at it before but, for these various technical reasons in terms of how the data was you weren't. PhD B: Right. We're looking at it here. Professor D: So that's why it's coming to us as new even though it may well be {pause} you know, if your {disfmarker} if your hypothes The hypothesis you were offering {vocalsound} eh {disfmarker} PhD B: Um. Professor D: Right? {disfmarker} if it's the null poth {comment} hypothesis, and if actually you have as much overlap in a two - person, {vocalsound} we don't know the answer to that. The reason we don't know the answer to is cuz it wasn't studied and it wasn't studied because it wasn't set up. Right? PhD B: Yeah, all I meant is that if you're asking the question from the point of view of {pause} what's different about a meeting, studying meetings of, say, more than two people versus {pause} what kinds of questions you could ask with a two - person {pause} meeting. Professor D: Mm - hmm? PhD B: It's important to distinguish {pause} that, you know, this project {pause} is getting a lot of overlap {pause} but other projects were too, but we just couldn't study them. And and so uh Professor D: May have been. May have been. Right? PhD B: Well, there is a high rate, Professor D: We do kn we don't know the numbers. PhD B: So. It's {disfmarker} but I don't know how high, in fact PhD A: Well, here I have a question. PhD B: that would be interesting to know. Professor D: See, I mean, i i le let me t I mean, my point was just if you wanted to say to somebody," what have we learned about overlaps here?" just never mind comparison with something else, PhD B: Mm - hmm. Professor D: what we've learned about is overlaps in this situation, is that {disfmarker} the first {disfmarker} {pause} the first - order thing I would say is that there's a lot of them. Right? PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: In {disfmarker} in the sense that i if you said if {disfmarker} i i i PhD B: Yeah, I {disfmarker} I don't di I agree with that. Professor D: In a way, I guess what I'm comparing to is more the common sense notion of {vocalsound} how {disfmarker} how much people overlap. Uh {pause} you know the fact that when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when, uh, Adam was looking for a stretch of {disfmarker} of speech before, that didn't have any overlaps, and he w he was having such a hard time and now I look at this and I go," well, I can see why he was having such a hard time" . PhD B: Right. That's also true of Switchboard. Professor D: It's happening a lot. PhD B: It may not be {disfmarker} Professor D: I wasn't saying it wasn't. PhD B: Right. So it's just, um Professor D: Right? I was commenting about this. PhD B: OK. All I'm saying is that from the Professor D: I'm saying if I {disfmarker} {pause} I'm saying if I have this complicated thing in front of me, {vocalsound} and we sh which, {pause} you know we're gonna get much more sophisticated about when we get lots more data, But {disfmarker} Then, if I was gonna describe to somebody what did you learn {pause} right here, about, you know, the {disfmarker} the modest amount of data that was analyzed I'd say," Well, the first - order thing was there was a lot of overlaps" . In fact {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and it's not just an overlap {disfmarker} bunch of overlaps {disfmarker} second - order thing is {vocalsound} it's not just a bunch of overlaps in one particular point, {vocalsound} but that there's overlaps, uh throughout the thing. Grad H: Right. PhD B: Right. No, I {disfmarker} I agree with that. Professor D: And that's interesting. That's all. PhD B: I'm just {pause} {vocalsound} saying that it may {disfmarker} {pause} the reason you get overlaps may or may not be due to sort of the number of people in the meeting. Professor D: Oh yeah. PhD B: And that's all. Professor D: Yeah. Yeah, I wasn't making any statement about that. PhD B: And {disfmarker} and it would actually be interesting to find out Professor D: Yeah. PhD B: because some of the data say Switchboard, which isn't exactly the same kind of context, I mean these are two people who don't know each other and so forth, But we should still be able to somehow say what {disfmarker} what is the added contra contribution to sort of overlap time of each additional person, or something like that. Grad H: Yep. Professor D: Yeah, that would be good to know, PhD A: What {disfmarker} Professor D: but w we {disfmarker} Postdoc F: OK, now. Grad H: I could certainly see it going either way. Postdoc F: Wh - yeah, I {disfmarker} I agree {disfmarker} I agree with Adam. PhD B: But yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F: And the reason is because I think there's a limit {disfmarker} {pause} there's an upper bound {pause} on how many you can have, simply {pause} from the standpoint of audibility. When we speak we {disfmarker} we do make a judgment of {pause}" can {disfmarker}" you know, as adults. PhD B: Right. Professor D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: I mean, children don't adjust so well, I mean, if a truck goes rolling past, {vocalsound} adults will well, depending, but mostly, adults will {disfmarker} will {disfmarker} {pause} will hold off to what {disfmarker} {pause} to finish the end of the sentence till the {disfmarker} till the noise is past. Professor D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc F: And I think we generally do {vocalsound} monitor things like that, {pause} about {disfmarker} whether we {disfmarker} whether our utterance will be in the clear or not. PhD B: Right. Postdoc F: And partly it's related to rhythmic structure in conversation, so, {vocalsound} you know, you {disfmarker} you t Yeah, this is d also um, people tend to time their {disfmarker} their {disfmarker} {vocalsound} their, um {pause} when they {pause} come into the conversation based on the overall rhythmic, {pause} uh uh, ambient thing. PhD A: Well {disfmarker} PhD B: Right. Postdoc F: So you don't want to be c cross - cutting. And {disfmarker} and, just to finish this, that um That I think that {vocalsound} there may be an upper bound on how many overlaps you can have, simply from the standpoint of audibility and how loud the other people are who are already {pause} in the fray. But I {disfmarker} you know, of certain types. Now if it's just backchannels, {vocalsound} people {pause} may be doing that {pause} with less {pause} intention of being heard, {pause} just sort of spontaneously doing backchannels, in which case {pause} that {disfmarker} those might {disfmarker} there may be no upper bound on those. PhD G: I {disfmarker} I have a feeling that backchannels, which are the vast majority of overlaps in Switchboard, {pause} uh, don't play as big a role here, because it's very unnatural I think, to backchannel if {disfmarker} in a multi - audience {disfmarker} you know, in a multi - person {vocalsound} {pause} audience. PhD B: If you can see them, actually. It's interesting, so if you watch people are going like {disfmarker} {comment} {comment} Right {disfmarker} right, like this here, PhD G: Right. PhD E: Yeah. PhD B: but That may not be the case if you couldn't see them. Professor D: u PhD G: But {disfmarker} {pause} but, it's sort of odd if one person's speaking and everybody's listening, and it's unusual to have everybody going" uh - huh, uh - huh" Professor D: Actually, I think I've done it {pause} a fair number of times today. PhD B: Yeah. Professor D: But. PhD B: There's a lot of head - nodding, in this Grad H: Um. PhD G: Yeah. Grad H: Yep, we need to put trackers on it. PhD A: In {disfmarker} in the two - person {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Postdoc F: He could, he could. PhD G: Plus {disfmarker} plus {disfmarker} plus the {disfmarker} Yeah. So {disfmarker} so actually, um That's in part because the nodding, if you have visual contact, {pause} the nodding has the same function, but on the phone, in Switchboard {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} that wouldn't work. So {vocalsound} so you need to use the backchannel. Grad H: Yeah, you don't have it. Your mike is {disfmarker} PhD A: So, in the two - person conversations, {pause} when there's backchannel, is there a great deal of {pause} overlap {pause} in the speech? Grad H: That is an earphone, so if you just put it {pause} so it's on your ear. PhD A: or {disfmarker} Cuz my impression is sometimes it happens when there's a pause, PhD B: Yes. Grad H: There you go. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc F: E for example. Grad H: Thank you. PhD A: you know, like you {disfmarker} you get a lot of backchannel, when somebody's pausing PhD B: Yes. Right. Postdoc F: She's doing that. PhD B: Sorry, what were you saying? PhD A: It's hard to do both, huh? Um {pause} no, when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when there's backchannel, I mean, just {disfmarker} I was just listening, and {disfmarker} and when there's two people talking and there's backchannel it seems like, {pause} um the backchannel happens when, you know, the pitch drops and the first person {disfmarker} PhD B: Oh. PhD A: and a lot of times, the first person actually stops talking and then there's a backchannel {pause} and then they start up again, and so I'm wondering about {disfmarker} h I just wonder how much overlap there is. Is there a lot? PhD B: I think there's a lot of the kind that Jose was talking about, where {disfmarker} {pause} I mean, this is called" precision timing" in {pause} conversation analysis, where {pause} {vocalsound} they come in overlapping, {pause} but at a point where the {pause} information is mostly {pause} complete. So all you're missing is some last syllables or something or the last word or some highly predictable words. PhD A: Mmm. Mm - hmm. PhD B: So technically, it's an overlap. PhD A: But maybe a {disfmarker} just a small overlap? PhD B: But {pause} you know, from information flow point of view it's not an overlap in {pause} the predictable information. PhD E: More, yeah. Grad H: It'd be interesting if we could do prediction. PhD A: I was just thinking more in terms of alignment, alignment overlap. PhD B: Yeah. Grad H: Language model prediction of overlap, that would be really interesting. PhD G: So {disfmarker} {pause} so {disfmarker} PhD B: Well, that's exactly, exactly why we wanted to study the precise timing of overlaps ins in uh Switchboard, Professor D: Yeah. PhD G: Right. Grad H: Right. PhD B: say, because there's a lot of that. PhD G: So {disfmarker} so here's a {disfmarker} here's a first interesting {pause} labeling task. Uh, to distinguish between, say, backchannels {vocalsound} {pause} precision timing {disfmarker} Sort of {vocalsound} you know, benevolent overlaps, and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {pause} and w and {disfmarker} and sort of, um {pause} I don't know, hostile overlaps, where {vocalsound} someone is trying to grab the floor from someone else. Grad H: Mm - hmm. Let's pick a different word. PhD E: Yeah. PhD G: Uh, that {disfmarker} that might be an interesting, um {pause} problem to look at. PhD A: Hostile takeovers. PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Postdoc F: Well, I mean you could do that. I ju I {disfmarker} I think that {pause} in this meeting I really had the feeling that wasn't happening, that {pause} the hostile {disfmarker} hostile type. These were {disfmarker} these were {pause} benevolent types, as people {pause} finishing each other's sentences, and {pause} stuff. PhD G: OK. PhD B: Mm - hmm. PhD G: Um, I could imagine that as {disfmarker} there's a fair number of {vocalsound} um cases where, and this is sort of, not {pause} really hostile, but sort of competitive, where {vocalsound} one person is finishing something and {vocalsound} you have, like, two or three people jumping {disfmarker} trying to {disfmarker} {pause} trying to {disfmarker} {pause} trying to, uh grab the next turn. Grad H: Trying to get the floor. Professor D: Yeah. PhD G: And so it's not against the person who talks first {pause} because actually we're all waiting for that person to finish. But they all want to {pause} be next. Professor D: I have a feeling most of these things are {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} {pause} that are not {pause} a benevolent kind are {disfmarker} are {vocalsound} {pause} are, uh {pause} um {pause} {vocalsound} are {disfmarker} are competitive as opposed to real really {disfmarker} really hostile. PhD G: Right. PhD A: I wonder what determines who gets the floor? Professor D: But. Postdoc F: Yeah, I agree. I agree. PhD A: I mean {disfmarker} Postdoc F: Well, there are various things, you {disfmarker} you have the {disfmarker} Professor D: Uh a vote {disfmarker} vote in Florida. Grad H: It's been studied a lot. Professor D: Yeah. PhD E: Voting for {disfmarker} Professor D: Um, o one thing {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I wanted to {disfmarker} or you can tell a good joke and then everybody's laughing and you get a chance to g break in. PhD G: Seniority. Professor D: But. But. Um. You know, the other thing I was thinking was that, {pause} um {pause} these {disfmarker} all these interesting questions are, of course, pretty hard to answer with, uh u {pause} you know, a small amount of data. Grad H: Ach. Professor D: So, um {pause} I wonder if what you're saying suggests that we should make a conscious attempt to have, um {vocalsound} a {disfmarker} a fair number of meetings with, uh a smaller number of people. Right? I mean {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} most of our meetings are {pause} uh, meetings currently with say five, six, seven, eight people Should we {pause} really try to have some two - person meetings, {pause} or some three - person meetings and re record them {vocalsound} just to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to beef up the {disfmarker} the statistics on that? Postdoc F: That's a control. Well, {vocalsound} it seems like there are two possibilities there, I mean {pause} i it seems like {vocalsound} if you have just {pause} two people it's not {pause} really, y like a meeting, w is not as similar as the rest of the {disfmarker} {pause} of the sample. It depends on what you're after, of course, but {vocalsound} It seems like that would be more a case of the control condition, compared to, uh {pause} an experimental {pause} condition, with more than two. Grad H: Mm - hmm. Professor D: Well, Liz was raising the question of {disfmarker} of whether i it's the number {disfmarker} there's a relationship between the number of people and the number of overlaps or type of overlaps there, Postdoc F: Mm - hmm. Professor D: and, um {vocalsound} If you had two people meeting in this kind of circumstance then you'd still have the visuals. You wouldn't have that difference {pause} also that you have in the {vocalsound} say, in Switchboard data. Uh Postdoc F: Mm - hmm. Yeah, I'm just thinking that'd be more like a c control condition. Professor D: Yeah. Postdoc F: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: Well, but from the acoustic point of view, it's all good. PhD E: Is the same. Professor D: Yeah, acoustic is fine, but {disfmarker} PhD G: If {disfmarker} if the goal were to just look at overlap you would {disfmarker} you could serve yourself {disfmarker} save yourself a lot of time but not even transcri transcribe the words. PhD B: Well, I was thinking you should be able to do this from the {pause} acoustics, on the close - talking mikes, Grad H: Yep. Professor D: Yeah. Grad H: Well, that's {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} that was my {disfmarker} my status report, PhD B: right? Postdoc F: You've been working on that. PhD B: Right, I mean Adam was {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F: Yeah. Grad H: so {vocalsound} {pause} Once we're done with this stuff discussing, PhD B: right. I mean, not as well as what {disfmarker} I mean, you wouldn't be able to have any kind of typology, obviously, Professor D: Yeah. PhD B: but you'd get some rough statistics. Grad H: Mm - hmm. PhD B: So. Professor D: But {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what do you think about that? Do you think that would be useful? I'm just thinking that as an action item of whether we should try to record some two - person meetings or something. PhD B: I guess my {disfmarker} my first comment was, um {pause} only that {vocalsound} um we should n not attribute overlaps only to meetings, but maybe that's obvious, maybe everybody knew that, Professor D: Yeah. PhD B: but that {vocalsound} in normal conversation with two people there's an awful lot of the same kinds of overlap, and that it would be interesting to look at {pause} whether there are these kinds of constraints that Jane mentioned, that {vocalsound} what maybe the additional people add to this competition that happens right after a turn, Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: you know, because now you can have five people trying to grab the turn, but pretty quickly there're {disfmarker} they back off and you go back to this sort of only one person at a time with one person interrupting at a time. Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: So, I don't know. To answer your question I {pause} it {disfmarker} I don't think it's crucial to have controls but I think it's worth recording all the meetings we {pause} can. Grad H: Can. PhD B: So, um {pause} you know. Professor D: Well, {vocalsound} OK. PhD E: Yeah. PhD G: I {disfmarker} I have an idea. PhD B: D I wouldn't not record a two - person meeting just because it only has two people. Grad H: Right. PhD G: Could we {disfmarker} Could we, um {disfmarker} we have {disfmarker} have in the past and I think continue {disfmarker} will continue to have a fair number of {pause} uh phone conference calls. Professor D: Uh - huh. PhD G: And, {vocalsound} uh, {pause} and as a {disfmarker} to, um {vocalsound} as another c {pause} c comparison {pause} condition, {pause} we could um see what {disfmarker} what what happens in terms of overlap, when you don't have visual contact. Grad H: Yeah, we talked about this repeatedly. PhD G: So, um {disfmarker} PhD B: Can we actually record? Grad H: It just seems like that's a very different {pause} thing than what we're doing. Professor D: Uh Well, we'll have to set up for it. PhD B: I mean {pause} physically {pause} can we record the o the other {disfmarker} Professor D: Yeah. Well, we're not really set up for it {pause} to do that. But. PhD G: Or, this is getting a little extravagant, we could put up some kind of blinds or something to {disfmarker} {pause} to remove, uh {pause} visual contact. Professor D: Yeah. PhD C: Yeah. Grad H: Barriers! PhD B: That's what they did on Map Task, you know, this Map Task corpus? They ran exactly the same pairs of people with and without visual cues and it's quite interesting. Professor D: Well, we {disfmarker} we record this meeting so regularly it wouldn't be that {disfmarker} I mean {pause} a little strange. Grad H: OK, we can record, but no one can look at each other. PhD B: Well, we could just put {pause} b blindfolds on. PhD C: Yeah. PhD G: Well y no you {disfmarker} f Grad H: Close your eyes. Postdoc F: Blindf PhD G: Yeah, Yeah. Grad H: Turn off the lights. PhD B: and we'd take a picture of everybody sitting here with blindfolds. That would {disfmarker} Professor D: Oh, th that was the other thing, weren't we gonna take a picture {pause} at the beginning of each of these meetings? Grad H: Um, what {disfmarker} I had thought we were gonna do is just take pictures of the whiteboards. rather than take pictures of the meeting. Postdoc F: Well, linguistic {disfmarker} Grad H: And, uh {disfmarker} Professor D: Yes. Postdoc F: Yeah. Linguistic anthropologists would {disfmarker} would suggest it would be useful to also take a picture of the meeting. Professor D: There's a head nodding here vigorously, yeah. PhD A: Why {disfmarker} why do we want to have a picture of the meeting? PhD B: Ee - {pause} you mean, transc {pause} no {disfmarker} Postdoc F: The {disfmarker} because you get then the spatial relationship of the speakers. PhD E: Yeah Yeah. Postdoc F: And that {pause} could be PhD G: Well, you could do that by just noting on the enrollment sheet the {disfmarker} {pause} the seat number. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: Seat number, that's a good idea. I'll do that. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: I'll do that on the next set of forms. PhD E: Yeah. PhD G: So you'd number them somehow. PhD E: Is possible to get information from the rhythmic {disfmarker} f from the ge, eh {pause} uh, files. Grad H: I finally remembered to put, uh put native language on the newer forms. PhD A: We can {disfmarker} can't you figure it out from the mike number? Grad H: No. PhD A: OK. Grad H: The wireless ones. And even the jacks, I mean, I'm sitting here and the jack is {pause} over {pause} in front of you. PhD A: Oh. PhD B: But probably from these you could've {comment} infer it. PhD G: Yeah, but It's {disfmarker} it would be trivial {disfmarker} Grad H: It would be another task. PhD B: It would be a research task. Grad H: Having {disfmarker} having ground tu truth would be nice, so {pause} seat number would be good. PhD A: You know where you could get it? PhD B: Yeah, yeah. PhD A: Beam - forming during the digit {pause} uh stuff. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: So I'm gonna put little labels on all the chairs with the seat number. PhD C: Mm - hmm. Grad H: That's a good idea. PhD B: But you have to keep the chairs in the same pla like here. PhD G: Not the chairs. The chairs are {disfmarker} Chairs are movable. Grad H: But, uh {disfmarker} PhD G: Put them {disfmarker} {pause} Like, {pause} put them on the table where they {disfmarker} PhD E: The chair {comment} Yeah. Grad H: Yep. PhD C: Yeah. Grad H: Yep. Postdoc F: But you know, they {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} s the linguistic anthropologists would say it would be good to have a digital picture anyway, PhD A: Just remembered a joke. Postdoc F: because you get {pause} a sense also of posture. Posture, and we could like, {pause} you know, {pause} block out the person's face or whatever PhD G: What people were wearing. Grad H: Yeah. PhD B: The fashion statement. Postdoc F: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but, you know, these are important cues, PhD G: Oh, Andreas was {disfmarker} PhD A: How big their heads are. Postdoc F: I mean the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} how a person is sitting {pause} is {disfmarker} Professor D: But if you just f But from one picture, I don't know that you really get that. PhD G: Yeah. Andreas was wearing that same old sweater again. Professor D: Right? You'd want a video for that, I think. Postdoc F: It'd be better than nothing, is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} i Just from a single picture I think you can tell some aspects. PhD E: A video, yeah. Professor D: Think so? Postdoc F: I mean I {disfmarker} I could tell you I mean, if I if I'm in certain meetings I notice that there are certain people who really do {disfmarker} eh {disfmarker} The body language is very uh {disfmarker} is very interesting in terms of the dominance aspect. PhD G: And {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} Professor D: Hmm. PhD G: Yeah. And {disfmarker} and Morgan had that funny hair again. Postdoc F: Yeah. {comment} Well, I mean you black out the {disfmarker} that part. Grad H: Hmm. Postdoc F: But it's just, you know, the {disfmarker} the body PhD A: He agreed. Postdoc F: you know? Grad H: Of course, the {disfmarker} where we sit at the table, I find is very interesting, that we do tend to {pause} cong {pause} to gravitate to the same place each time. Postdoc F: Yeah. Grad H: and it's somewhat coincidental. I'm sitting here so that I can run into the room if the hardware starts, you know, catching fire or something. PhD G: Oh, no, you {disfmarker} you just like to be in charge, that's why you're sitting {disfmarker} Grad H: I just want to be at the head of the table. PhD G: Yeah. Grad H: Take control. Professor D: Speaking of taking control, you said you had some research to talk about. Postdoc F: Yeah. Yeah. Grad H: Yeah, I've been playing with, um uh, using the close - talking mike to do {disfmarker} to try to figure out who's speaking. So my first attempt was just using thresholding and filtering, that we talked about {disfmarker} about two weeks ago, and so I played with that a little bit, and {vocalsound} it works O K, {pause} except that {pause} it's very sensitive to your choice of {vocalsound} your filter width and your {vocalsound} threshold. So if you fiddle around with it a little bit and you get good numbers you can actually do a pretty good job of segmenting when someone's talking and when they're not. But if you try to use the same paramenters on another speaker, it doesn't work anymore, even if you normalize it based on the absolute loudness. PhD B: But does it work for that one speaker throughout the whole meeting? Grad H: It does work for the one speaker throughout the whole meeting. Um Pretty well. PhD A: How did you do it Adam? Grad H: Pretty well. How did I do it? PhD A: Yeah. Grad H: What do you mean? PhD A: I mean, wh what was the {disfmarker} Grad H: The algorithm was, uh take o every frame that's over the threshold, and then median - filter it, {vocalsound} and then look for runs. PhD A: Yeah. Mm - hmm. Grad H: So there was a minimum run length, PhD A: Every frame that's over what threshold? Grad H: so that {disfmarker} A threshold that you pick. PhD A: In terms of energy? Ah! Grad H: Yeah. PhD A: OK. Postdoc F: Say that again? Frame over fres threshold. Grad H: So you take a {disfmarker} each frame, and you compute the energy and if it's over the threshold you set it to one, and if it's under the threshold you set it to zero, {vocalsound} so now you have a bit stream {pause} of zeros and ones. Postdoc F: Hmm. OK. Grad H: And then I median - filtered that {vocalsound} using, um {pause} a fairly long {pause} filter length. Uh {pause} well, actually I guess depends on what you mean by long, you know, tenth of a second sorts of numbers. Um and that's to average out you know, pitch, you know, the pitch contours, and things like that. And then, uh looked for long runs. Postdoc F: OK Grad H: And that works O K, if you fil if you tune the filter parameters, if you tune {vocalsound} how long your median filter is and how high you're looking for your thresholds. PhD A: Did you ever try running the filter before you pick a threshold? Grad H: No. I certainly could though. But this was just I had the program mostly written already so it was easy to do. OK and then the other thing I did, was I took {vocalsound} Javier's speaker - change detector {disfmarker} acoustic - change detector, and I implemented that with the close - talking mikes, and {pause} unfortunately that's not working real well, and it looks like it's {disfmarker} the problem is {disfmarker} he does it in two passes, the first pass {vocalsound} is to find candidate places to do a break. And he does that using a neural net doing broad phone classification and he has the {vocalsound} the, uh {pause} one of the phone classes is silence. And so the possible breaks are where silence starts and ends. And then he has a second pass which is a modeling {disfmarker} a Gaussian mixture model. Um looking for {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} whether it improves or {disfmarker} or degrades to split at one of those particular places. And what looks like it's happening is that the {disfmarker} even on the close - talking mike the broad phone class classifier's doing a really bad job. PhD A: Who was it trained on? Grad H: Uh, I have no idea. PhD A: Hmm. Grad H: I don't remember. Does an do you remember, Morgan, was it Broadcast News? Professor D: I think so, yeah. Grad H: Um {pause} So, at any rate, my next attempt, {pause} which I'm in the midst of and haven't quite finished yet was actually using the {vocalsound} uh, thresholding as the way of generating the candidates. Because one of the things that definitely happens is if you put the threshold low {vocalsound} you get lots of breaks. All of which are definitely acoustic events. They're definitely {vocalsound} someone talking. But, like, it could be someone who isn't the person here, but the person over there or it can be the person breathing. And then feeding that into the acoustic change detector. And so I think that might work. But, I haven't gotten very far on that. But all of this is close - talking mike, so it's, uh {pause} just {disfmarker} just trying to get some ground truth. PhD E: Only with eh uh, but eh I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think, eh when {disfmarker} when, y I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I saw the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the speech from PDA and, eh {pause} close {pause} {vocalsound} talker. I {disfmarker} I think the there is a {disfmarker} a great difference in the {disfmarker} in the signal. Grad H: Oh, absolutely. PhD E: Um but eh I {disfmarker} but eh I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean that eh eh {pause} in the {disfmarker} in the mixed file {vocalsound} you can find, uh {pause} zone with, eh {pause} great different, eh {pause} level of energy. Grad H: So {pause} s my intention for this is {disfmarker} is as an aide for ground truth. not {disfmarker} PhD E: Um {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think for, eh {pause} algorithm based on energy, {pause} eh, that um h mmm, {disfmarker} more or less, eh, like eh {pause} eh, mmm, first sound energy detector. Grad H: Say it again? PhD E: eh nnn. When y you the detect the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the first at {disfmarker} at the end of {disfmarker} of the {vocalsound} detector of, ehm princ um. What is the {disfmarker} the name in English? the {disfmarker} the, mmm, {pause} {vocalsound} the de detector of, ehm of a word in the {disfmarker} in the s in {disfmarker} an isolated word in {disfmarker} in the background That, uh Grad H: I'm {disfmarker} I'm not sure what you're saying, can you try {disfmarker} PhD E: I mean that when {disfmarker} when you use, eh {pause} eh {pause} any PhD A: I think he's saying the onset detector. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: Onset detector, OK. PhD E: I {disfmarker} I think it's probably to work well eh, because, eh {pause} you have eh, in the mixed files a great level of energy. eh {pause} and great difference between the sp speaker. And probably is not so easy when you use the {disfmarker} the PDA, eh that {disfmarker} Because the signal is, eh {pause} the {disfmarker} in the e energy level. Grad H: Right. PhD E: in {disfmarker} in that, eh {pause} eh {pause} speech file {vocalsound} is, eh {pause} more similar. between the different eh, speaker, {vocalsound} um {pause} I {disfmarker} I think is {disfmarker} eh, it will {pause} i is my opinion. Grad H: Right. But different speakers. PhD E: It will be, eh {pause} more difficult to {disfmarker} to detect bass - tone energy. the {disfmarker} the change. I think that, um Grad H: Ah, in the clo in the P D A, you mean? PhD E: In the PDA. Grad H: Absolutely. PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Grad H: Yeah, no question. It'll be much harder. Professor D: Yeah. Grad H: Much harder. PhD E: And the {disfmarker} the another question, that when I review the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the work of Javier. I think the, nnn, the, nnn, {pause} that the idea of using a {pause} neural network {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to get a broad class of phonetic, eh {pause} from, eh uh a candidate from the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the speech signal. If you have, eh {vocalsound} uh, I'm considering, only because Javier, eh {pause} only consider, eh {pause} like candidate, the, nnn, eh {pause} the silence, because it is the {disfmarker} the only model, eh {disfmarker} eh, he used that, eh {pause} {vocalsound} eh {pause} nnn, to detect the {disfmarker} the possibility of a {disfmarker} a change between the {disfmarker} between the speaker, Grad H: Right. PhD E: Um {pause} another {disfmarker} another research thing, different groups, eh {pause} working, eh {pause} on Broadcast News {vocalsound} prefer to, eh {pause} to consider hypothesis eh {pause} between each phoneme. Grad H: Mm - hmm. Yeah, when a {pause} phone changes. PhD E: Because, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think it's more realistic that, uh {pause} only consider the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the silence between the speaker. Eh {pause} there {disfmarker} there exists eh {pause} silence between {disfmarker} between, eh {pause} a speaker. is {disfmarker} is, eh {pause} eh {pause} acoustic, eh {pause} event, important to {disfmarker} to consider. Professor D: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. PhD E: I {disfmarker} I found that the, eh {pause} silence in {disfmarker} in many occasions in the {disfmarker} in the speech file, but, eh {pause} when you have, eh {pause} eh, two speakers together without enough silence between {disfmarker} between them, eh {pause} {vocalsound} I think eh {pause} is better to use the acoustic change detector basically and I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I IX or, mmm, BIC criterion for consider all the frames in my opinion. Professor D: Mm - hmm. Yeah, the {disfmarker} you know, the reason that he, uh {pause} just used silence {vocalsound} was not because he thought it was better, it was {disfmarker} it was {disfmarker} it was the place he was starting. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: Yep. Professor D: So, he was trying to get something going, PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: and, uh e e you know, as {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} {vocalsound} as is in your case, if you're here for only a modest number of months you try to pick a realistic goal, PhD E: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Grad H: Do something. Professor D: But his {disfmarker} his goal was always to proceed from there to then allow broad category change also. PhD E: Uh - huh. But, eh {pause} do {disfmarker} do you think that if you consider all the frames to apply {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the, eh {pause} the BIC criterion to detect the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the different acoustic change, {vocalsound} eh {pause} between speaker, without, uh {pause} with, uh {pause} silence or {vocalsound} with overlapping, uh, I think like {disfmarker} like, eh {pause} eh a general, eh {pause} eh {pause} way of process the {disfmarker} the acoustic change. Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD E: In a first step, I mean. Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD E: An - and then, eh {pause} {vocalsound} eh {pause} without considering the you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you, um {pause} you can consider the energy {vocalsound} like a another parameter in the {disfmarker} in the feature vector, eh. Grad H: Right. Absolutely. Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD E: This {disfmarker} this is the idea. And if, if you do that, eh {pause} eh, with a BIC uh criterion for example, or with another kind of, eh {pause} of distance in a first step, {vocalsound} and then you, eh {pause} you get the, eh {pause} the hypothesis to the {disfmarker} this change acoustic, {vocalsound} eh {pause} {vocalsound} to po process Grad H: Right. PhD E: Because, eh {pause} eh, probably you {disfmarker} you can find the {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} eh {pause} a small gap of silence between speaker {vocalsound} with eh {pause} eh {pause} a ga mmm, {pause} {vocalsound} small duration Less than, {vocalsound} eh {pause} two hundred milliseconds for example Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD E: and apply another {disfmarker} another algorithm, another approach like, eh {pause} eh {pause} detector of ene, eh detector of bass - tone energy to {disfmarker} to consider that, eh {vocalsound} that, eh {pause} zone. of s a small silence between speaker, or {vocalsound} another algorithm to {disfmarker} to process, {vocalsound} eh {pause} the {disfmarker} the segment between marks eh {pause} founded by the {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} the BIC criterion and applied for {disfmarker} for each frame. Professor D: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. PhD E: I think is, eh {pause} nnn, it will be a an {disfmarker} an {disfmarker} a more general approach {vocalsound} the {pause} if we compare {disfmarker} with use, eh {pause} a neural net or another, eh {pause} speech recognizer with a broad class or {disfmarker} or narrow class, because, in my opinion eh {pause} it's in my opinion, {vocalsound} eh if you {disfmarker} if you change the condition of the speech, I mean, if you adjust to your algorithm with a mixed speech file and to, eh {vocalsound} to, eh {pause} {vocalsound} adapt the neural net, eh {pause} used by Javier with a mixed file. Professor D: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. PhD E: uh With a m mixed file, Grad H: With the what file? PhD A:" Mixed" . PhD E: with a {disfmarker} the mix, mix. Postdoc F:" Mixed." Grad H:" Mixed?" Professor D: Mm - hmm. PhD E: Sorry. And {pause} and then you {disfmarker} you, eh you try to {disfmarker} to apply that, eh, eh, eh, speech recognizer to that signal, to the PDA, eh {pause} speech file, {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think you will have problems, because the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {pause} condition {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you will need t t I {disfmarker} I suppose that you will need to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to retrain it. Professor D: Well, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Grad H: Oh, absolutely. This is {disfmarker} this is not what I was suggesting to do. Professor D: u {vocalsound} Look, I {disfmarker} I think this is a {disfmarker} One {disfmarker} once {disfmarker} It's a {disfmarker} I used to work, like, on voiced {disfmarker} on voice silence detection, you know, and this is this {pause} kind of thing. PhD E: Really? Yeah. Professor D: Um {pause} If you {vocalsound} have somebody who has some experience with this sort of thing, and they work on it for a couple months, {vocalsound} they can come up with something that gets most of the cases fairly easily. Then you say," OK, I don't just wanna get most of the cases I want it to be really accurate." Then it gets really hard no matter what you do. So, the p the problem is is that if you say," Well I {disfmarker} I have these other data over here, {vocalsound} that I learn things from, either explicit training of neural nets or of Gaussian mixture models or whatever." PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: Uh {pause} Suppose you don't use any of those things. You say you have looked for acoustic change. Well, what does that mean? That {disfmarker} that means you set some thresholds somewhere or something, PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: right? and {disfmarker} and so {vocalsound} where do you get your thresholds from? PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: From something that you looked at. So {vocalsound} you always have this problem, you're going to new data um {pause} H how are you going to adapt whatever you can very quickly learn about the new data? {vocalsound} Uh, if it's gonna be different from old data that you have? And I think that's a problem {pause} with this. Grad H: Well, also what I'm doing right now is not intended to be an acoustic change detector for far - field mikes. What I'm doing {vocalsound} is trying to use the close - talking mike {vocalsound} and just use {disfmarker} {pause} Can - and just generate candidate and just {pause} try to get a first pass at something that sort of works. PhD E: Yeah! PhD A: You have candidates. PhD G: Actually {disfmarker} actually {disfmarker} actually {disfmarker} PhD E: the candidate. PhD G: I {disfmarker} PhD A: to make marking easier. Yeah. PhD G: Or {disfmarker} Grad H: and I haven't spent a lot of time on it and I'm not intending to spend a lot of time on it. PhD G: OK. I {disfmarker} um, I, unfortunately, have to run, Grad H: So. PhD G: but, um {pause} I can imagine {pause} uh building {pause} a {pause} um {pause} model of speaker change {pause} detection {pause} that {vocalsound} takes into account {pause} both the far - field and the {vocalsound} uh {pause} actually, not just the close - talking mike for that speaker, but actually for all of th {pause} for all of the speakers. Grad H: Yep. Everyone else. Professor D: Yeah. PhD G: um {pause} If you model the {disfmarker} {pause} the {pause} effect that {pause} me speaking has on {pause} your {pause} microphone and everybody else's microphone, as well as on that, {vocalsound} and you build, um {disfmarker} basically I think you'd {disfmarker} you would {pause} build a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} an HMM that has as a state space all of the possible speaker combinations Grad H: All the {disfmarker} Yep. PhD E: Yeah. PhD G: and, um {vocalsound} you can control {disfmarker} Grad H: It's a little big. PhD G: It's not that big actually, um Grad H: Two to the N. Two to the number of people in the meeting. Professor D: But {disfmarker} Actually, Andreas may maybe {disfmarker} maybe just something simpler but {disfmarker} but along the lines of what you're saying, Grad H: Anyway. PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: I was just realizing, I used to know this guy who used to build, uh {vocalsound} um, mike mixers {disfmarker} automatic mike mixers where, you know, t in order to able to turn up the gain, you know, uh {vocalsound} as much as you can, you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you lower the gain on {disfmarker} on the mikes of people who aren't talking, PhD G: Mmm. PhD E: Yeah {comment} Yeah. PhD G: Mmm. Mm - hmm. Professor D: right? And then he had some sort of {vocalsound} reasonable way of doing that, PhD G: Mm - hmm. Professor D: but {vocalsound} uh, what if you were just looking at very simple measures like energy measures but you don't just compare it to some threshold {pause} overall but you compare it to the {vocalsound} energy in the other microphones. Grad H: I was thinking about doing that originally to find out {pause} who's the loudest, and that person is certainly talking. Professor D: Yeah. Grad H: But I also wanted to find threshold {disfmarker} uh, excuse me, mol overlap. Professor D: Yeah. Grad H: So, not just {disfmarker} just the loudest. PhD E: But, eh Postdoc F: Mm - hmm. PhD E: I {disfmarker} I Sorry. I {disfmarker} I have found that when {disfmarker} when I I analyzed the {disfmarker} the speech files from the, {pause} eh {pause} mike, eh {pause} from the eh close eh {pause} microphone, eh {pause} I found zones with a {disfmarker} a different level of energy. PhD G: Sorry, I have to go. Grad H: OK. Could you fill that out anyway? Just, {pause} put your name in. Are y you want me to do it? I'll do it. PhD A: But he's not gonna even read that. Oh. Grad H: I know. PhD E: including overlap zone. including. because, eh {pause} eh {pause} depend on the position of the {disfmarker} of the microph of the each speaker {vocalsound} to, eh, to get more o or less energy {vocalsound} i in the mixed sign in the signal. and then, {vocalsound} if you consider energy to {disfmarker} to detect overlapping in {disfmarker} in, uh, and you process the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the speech file from the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the mixed signals. The mixed signals, eh. I {disfmarker} I think it's {disfmarker} it's difficult, um {vocalsound} {pause} only to en with energy to {disfmarker} to consider that in that zone We have eh, eh, overlapping zone Eh, if you process only the the energy of the, of each frame. Professor D: Well, it's probably harder, but I {disfmarker} I think what I was s nnn noting just when he {disfmarker} when Andreas raised that, was that there's other information to be gained from looking at all {vocalsound} of the microphones and you may not need to look at very sophisticated things, PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: because if there's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if most of the overlaps {disfmarker} you know, this doesn't cover, say, three, but if most of the overlaps, say, are two, {vocalsound} if the distribution looks like there's a couple high ones and {disfmarker} and {pause} the rest of them are low, PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Grad H: And everyone else is low, yeah. Professor D: you know, what I mean, PhD E: Yeah. Professor D: there's some information there about their distribution even with very simple measures. PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Professor D: Uh, by the way, I had an idea with {disfmarker} while I was watching Chuck nodding at a lot of these things, is that we can all wear little bells on our heads, {vocalsound} so that {vocalsound} then you'd know that {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: Ding, ding, ding, ding. PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F:" Ding" . That's cute! PhD B: I think that'd be really interesting too, with blindfolds. Then {disfmarker} Grad H: Nodding with blindfolds, PhD B: Yeah. The question is, {pause} like {pause} whether {disfmarker} Grad H:" what are you nodding about?" PhD B: Well, trying with and {disfmarker} {pause} with and without, yeah. Grad H:" Sorry, I'm just {disfmarker} I'm just going to sleep." PhD B: But then there's just one @ @, like. Professor D: Yeah. PhD A: Actually, I saw a uh {disfmarker} a woman at the bus stop the other day who, um, was talking on her cell phone {vocalsound} speaking Japanese, and was bowing. you know, profusely. PhD B: Oh, yeah, that's really common. PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah {comment} Yeah. PhD A: Just, kept {disfmarker} PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F: Ah. Professor D: Wow. PhD B: It's very difficult if you try {disfmarker} while you're trying, say, to convince somebody on the phone it's difficult not to move your hands. Not {disfmarker} You know, if you watch people they'll actually do these things. Professor D: Mm - hmm? PhD B: So. I still think we should try a {disfmarker} a meeting or two with the blindfolds, at least of this meeting that we have lots of recordings of Grad H: Mm - hmm. PhD B: Um, maybe for part of the meeting, we don't have to do it the whole meeting. Professor D: Yeah, I think th I think it's a great idea. PhD B: That could be fun. It'll be too hard to make barriers, I was thinking because they have to go all the way Professor D: W Yeah. PhD B: you know, I can see Chuck even if you put a barrier here. Grad H: Well, we could just turn out the lights. Postdoc F: Actually {pause} well also {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can say I made barr barriers for {disfmarker} so that {disfmarker} the {pause} stuff I was doing with Collin wha {pause} which {pause} just used, um {pause} this {pause} kind of foam board. PhD B: Y Yeah? Postdoc F: R really inexpensive. You can {disfmarker} you can masking tape it together, these are {pause} you know, pretty l large partitions. Professor D: Yeah. PhD B: But then we also have these mikes, is the other thing I was thinking, so we need a barrier that doesn't disturb {pause} the sound, Postdoc F: It's true, it would disturb the, um {pause} the {disfmarker} the long - range {disfmarker} Grad H: The acoustics. PhD B: um Professor D: Blindfolds would be good. Postdoc F: it would {disfmarker} Grad H: I think, blindfolds. PhD B: I mean, it sounds weird but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} {pause} you know it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's cheap and, uh Be interesting to have the camera going. Professor D: Probably we should wait until after Adam's set up the mikes, But. Postdoc F: OK. I think we're going to have to work on the, uh {disfmarker} {pause} on the human subjects {vocalsound} form. PhD A: I'll be peeking. Grad H: Yeah, that's right, we didn't tell them we would be blindfolding. Professor D: That's {disfmarker} Postdoc F:" Do you mind being blindfolded while you're interviewed?" Professor D: that's {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} that's the one that we videotape. So. Um, I {disfmarker} I wanna move this along. Uh {pause} I did have this other agenda item which is, uh @ @ {disfmarker} it's uh a list which I sent to uh {disfmarker} a couple folks, but um I wanted to get broader input on it, So this is the things that I think we did {vocalsound} in the last three months obviously not everything we did but {disfmarker} but sort of highlights that I can {disfmarker} {pause} can {pause} tell {pause} s some outside person, you know, what {disfmarker} what were you {pause} actually working on. Um {pause} in no particular order {vocalsound} uh, one, uh, ten more hours of meeting r meetings recorded, something like that, you know from {disfmarker} from, uh {pause} three months ago. Uh {pause} XML formats and other transcription aspects sorted out {pause} and uh {pause} sent to IBM. Um, pilot data put together and sent to IBM for transcription, uh {pause} next batch of recorded data put together on the CD - ROMs for shipment to IBM, Grad H: Hasn't been sent yet, but {disfmarker} It's getting ready. Professor D: But yeah, that's why I phrased it that way, yeah OK. Um {pause} human subjects approval on campus, uh {pause} and release forms worked out so the meeting participants have a chance to request audio pixelization of selected parts of the spee their speech. Um {vocalsound} audio pixelization software written and tested. Um {pause} {vocalsound} preliminary analysis of overlaps in the pilot data we have transcribed, and exploratory analysis of long - distance inferences for topic coherence, that was {disfmarker} I was {disfmarker} {pause} wasn't {pause} sure if those were the right way {disfmarker} {pause} that was the right way to describe that because of that little exercise that {disfmarker} that you {comment} and {disfmarker} and Lokendra did. Postdoc F: What was that called? Professor D: I {disfmarker} well, I I'm probably saying this wrong, but what I said was exploratory analysis of long - distance inferences {vocalsound} for topic coherence. Postdoc F: The, uh {pause} say again? Professor D: Something like that. Um {pause} so, uh {pause} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {pause} a lot of that was from, you know, what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what you two were doing so I {disfmarker} I sent it to you, and you know, please mail me, you know, the corrections or suggestions for changing Grad H: Mm - hmm. Professor D: I {disfmarker} I don't want to make this twice it's length but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but you know, just im improve it. Um Is there anything anybody {disfmarker} Grad H: I {disfmarker} I did a bunch of stuff for supporting of digits. Professor D:" Bunch of stuff for s" OK, maybe {disfmarker} maybe send me a sentence that's a little thought through about that. Grad H: So, {pause} OK, I'll send you a sentence that doesn't just say" a bunch of" ? Professor D:" Bunch of stuff" , yeah," stuff" is probably bad too, Grad H: Yep." Stuff" {pause} is not very technical. Professor D: Yeah, well. Grad H: I'll try to {pause} phrase it in passive voice. Professor D: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, PhD A: Technical stuff. Professor D:" range of things" , yeah. Um {pause} and {disfmarker} and you know, I sort of threw in what you did with what Jane did on {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} under the, uh {pause} uh {vocalsound} preliminary analysis of overlaps. Uh {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} Thilo, can you tell us about all the work you've done on this project in the last, uh {pause} last three months? PhD E: Yeah. PhD C: So {disfmarker} what is {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} Um. Not really. Professor D: That's {disfmarker} PhD A: It's too complicated. PhD C: Um, {pause} I didn't get it. Wh - what is" audio pixelization" ? Professor D: Uh, audio pix wh he did it, so why don't you explain it quickly? Grad H: It's just, uh {pause} beeping out parts that you don't want included in the meeting so, you know you can say things like," Well, this should probably not be on the record, but beep" PhD C: OK, OK. I got that. Professor D: Yeah. We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we spent a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a fair amount of time early on just talk dealing with this issue about op w e e {vocalsound} we realized," well, people are speaking in an impromptu way and they might say something that would embarrass them or others later" , and, how do you get around that PhD C: OK. Professor D: so in the consent form it says, well you {disfmarker} we will look at the transcripts later and if there's something that you're {pause} unhappy with, yeah. PhD C: OK, and you can say {disfmarker} OK. Professor D: But you don't want to just totally excise it because um uh, well you have to be careful about excising it, how {disfmarker} how you excise it keeping the timing right and so forth so that at the moment tho th the idea we're running with is {disfmarker} is h putting the beep over it. PhD C: OK. Grad H: Yeah, you can either beep or it can be silence. I {disfmarker} I couldn't decide. which was the right way to do it. PhD E: Ah, yeah. Grad H: Beep is good auditorily, PhD C: Yeah. Grad H: if someone is listening to it, there's no mistake that it's been beeped out, PhD C: Yeah. Grad H: but for software it's probably better for it to be silence. PhD A: No, no. You can {disfmarker} you know, you could make a m as long as you keep using the same beep, people could make a model of that beep, Postdoc F: Hmm. PhD A: and {disfmarker} Postdoc F: I like that idea. Grad H: Yep. And I use {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's, uh {pause} it's an A below middle C beep, PhD B: I think the beep is a really good idea. PhD A: Yeah. Postdoc F: It's very clear. Then you don't think it's a long pause. PhD B: Also {disfmarker} PhD A: Yeah, it's more obvious that there was something there than if there's just silence. Grad H: so PhD C: Yeah. Postdoc F: Yeah. Professor D: Yeah, that {disfmarker} I mean, he's {disfmarker} he's removing the old {pause} thing PhD E: Yeah Professor D: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} Grad H: Yep. PhD A: Yea - right. Right. But I mean if you just replaced it with silence, {pause} it's not clear whether that's really silence or {disfmarker} Grad H: Yeah, it's not {disfmarker} PhD C: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Postdoc F: Yeah, I agree. Professor D: Yeah. PhD E: Yeah. Grad H: Yep. Postdoc F: One {disfmarker} one question. Do you do it on all channels? Grad H: Of course. Postdoc F: Interesting. I like that. Professor D: Yeah. Postdoc F: Yeah, I like that. Grad H: Yeah you have to do it on all channels because it's, uh {pause} audible. Postdoc F: Very clear. Very clear. Grad H: Uh, it's {disfmarker} it's potentially audible, you could potentially recover it. Professor D: Ke - keep a back door. Postdoc F: Well, the other thing that {disfmarker} you know, I mean the {disfmarker} the alternative might be to s Grad H: Yeah. Well, I {disfmarker} I haven't thrown away any of the meetings that I beeped. Actually yours is the only one that I beeped and then, uh {pause} the ar DARPA meeting. PhD B: Notice how quiet I am. Grad H: Sorry, and then the DARPA meeting I just excised completely, Postdoc F: Yeah. Grad H: so it's in a private directory. PhD B: You have some people who only have beeps as their speech in these meetings. Postdoc F: That's great. Yeah. Professor D: OK. PhD A: They're easy to find, then. Professor D: Alright, so, uh {pause} I think we should, uh {pause} uh, go on to the digits? Postdoc F: I have one concept a t I {disfmarker} I want to say, which is that I think it's nice that you're preserving the time relations, Grad H: OK. Postdoc F: s so you're {disfmarker} you're not just cutting {disfmarker} you're not doing scissor snips. You're {disfmarker} you're keeping the, uh {pause} the time duration of a {disfmarker} de - deleted {disfmarker} deleted part. Grad H: Right. PhD B: Yeah, definitely. Professor D: Yeah. Postdoc F: OK, good, digits. Grad H: Yeah, since we wanna {pause} possibly synchronize these things as well. Oh, I should have done that. Postdoc F: It's great. Grad H: Shoot. Oh well. PhD B: So I guess if there's an overlap, {pause} like, if I'm saying something that's {pause} bleepable and somebody else overlaps during it they also get bleeped, too? Professor D: Yeah. Oh Grad H: You'll lose it. There's no way around that. Professor D: Yeah. Um {pause} I d I did {disfmarker} before we do the digits, I did also wanna remind people, uh {pause} {vocalsound} please do send me, you know, uh thoughts for an agenda, Grad H: Agenda? Professor D: yeah that {disfmarker} that would be that'd be good. Postdoc F: Good. Professor D: Eh So that, uh, people's ideas don't get Grad H: Thursday crept up on me this week. Professor D: yeah, well it does creep up, doesn't it? PhD B: And, I wanted to say, I think this is really interesting {pause} analysis. Professor D: OK. Postdoc F: Thank you. Grad H: It's cool stuff, definitely. PhD B: I meant to say that before I started off on the {pause} Switchboard stuff. Postdoc F: Thank you. Grad H: I was gonna say" can you do that for the other meetings, PhD B: It's neat. Grad H: can you do it for them?" PhD B: Yeah. Grad H: And, no actually, you can't. PhD A: Actually {disfmarker} actually I {disfmarker} I thought that's what you were giving us was another meeting and I was like," Oh, OK!" PhD B: Does it take {disfmarker} Postdoc F: Thank you. Yeah. Grad H:" Ooo, cool!" Postdoc F: Aw, thanks. PhD B: How long does it {pause} take, just briefly, like {pause} t to {disfmarker} {pause} OK. {pause} to label the, Postdoc F: No. I have the script now, so, I mean, it can work off the, uh {pause} other thing, Grad H: It's {disfmarker} As soon as we get labels, yep. PhD B: OK. PhD A: But it has to be hand - labeled first? Postdoc F: but {disfmarker} Uh, well, yeah. Because, uh {pause} well, I mean {pause} once his {disfmarker} his algorithm is up and running then we can do it that way. Grad H: If it works well enough. Right now it's not. Not quite to the point where it works. PhD B: OK. Postdoc F: But {pause} I {disfmarker} I just worked off of my PhD B: It's really neat. Professor D: OK, go ahead Postdoc F: Thanks. Appreciate that. I think {disfmarker} what I {disfmarker} what this has, uh, caused me {disfmarker} so this discussion caused me to wanna subdivide these further. I'm gonna take a look at the, uh {pause} backchannels, how much we have anal I hope to have that for next time. PhD A: That'd be interesting. Grad H: Yeah, my {disfmarker} my algorithm worked great actually on these, but when you wear it like that or with the uh, lapel {pause} or if you have it very far from your face, that's when it starts {pause} failing. PhD A: Mm - hmm. Oh. PhD B: Well, I can wear it, I mean if you {disfmarker} Grad H: It doesn't matter. PhD B: OK. Grad H: I mean, we want it to work, PhD A: It's too late now. Grad H: right? I {disfmarker} I don't want {pause} to change the way we do the meeting. PhD B: I feel like this troublemaker. Grad H: It's uh {disfmarker} {pause} so, it was just a comment on the software, not a comment on {vocalsound} prescriptions on how you wear microphones. PhD B: OK. Professor D: OK, that's {disfmarker} let's {disfmarker} let's {disfmarker} let's do digits. Grad H: Get the bolts," whh whh" Postdoc F: Let's do it. OK. Grad H: OK. PhD B: I'm sorry. Grad H: OK, thank you. Postdoc F: Do you want us to put a mark on the bottom of these when they've actually been read, or do you just {pause} i i the only one that wasn't read is {disfmarker} is known, so we don't do it. OK.

Members of the team discussed options to encode aspects of conversation that cannot be captured through microphones. overlaps, as well as methods to deduce the length of pauses and the reasons behind them. This led to discussing how else to document the conversations, and archive each participant's responses separately.

tr-sq-660

tr-sq-660_0

What was said about the deadline? Grad A: OK, we're recording. Professor F: We can say the word" zero" all we want, PhD G: I'm doing some Professor F: but just {disfmarker} PhD G: square brackets, coffee sipping, square brackets. PhD B: That's not allowed, I think. Postdoc C: Cur - curly brackets. Grad E: Is that voiced or unvoiced? Grad A: Curly brackets. PhD B: Curly brackets. Professor F: Curly brackets. Grad A: Right. PhD B: Oops. Professor F: Well, correction for transcribers. PhD G: Mmm! {comment} {vocalsound} Gar - darn! Professor F: Yeah. Postdoc C: Channel two. Grad A: Do we use square brackets for anything? Postdoc C: Yeah. Uh {disfmarker} Grad E: These poor transcribers. Professor F: u Postdoc C: Not ri not right now. I mean {disfmarker} No. PhD D: There's gonna be some zeros from this morning's meeting because I noticed that Professor F: u PhD D: Barry, I think maybe you turned your mike off before the digits were {disfmarker} Oh, was it during digits? Oh, so it doesn't matter. Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: It's still not a good idea. PhD B: So it's not {disfmarker} it's not that bad if it's at the end, but it's {disfmarker} in the beginning, it's {pause} bad. PhD D: Yeah. Yeah. Grad A: Yeah, you wanna {disfmarker} you wanna keep them on so you get {pause} good noise {disfmarker} noise floors, through the whole meeting. Postdoc C: That's interesting. Hmm. Professor F: Uh, I probably just should have left it on. Yeah I did have to run, but {disfmarker} Grad E: Is there any way to change that in the software? Grad A: Change what in the software? Grad E: Where like you just don't {disfmarker} like if you {disfmarker} if it starts catching zeros, like in the driver or something {disfmarker} in the card, or somewhere in the hardware {disfmarker} Where if you start seeing zeros on w across one channel, you just add some {vocalsound} random, @ @ {comment} noise floor {disfmarker} like a small noise floor. Grad A: I mean certainly we could do that, but I don't think that's a good idea. We can do that in post - processing if {disfmarker} if the application needs it. Grad E: Yeah. PhD B: Manual post - processing. Professor F: Well, I {disfmarker} u I actually don't know what the default {comment} is anymore as to how we're using the {disfmarker} the front - end stuff but {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} when we use the ICSI front - end, Grad A: As an argument. Professor F: but um, there is an {disfmarker} there is an o an option in {disfmarker} in RASTA, which, um, {vocalsound} in when I first put it in, uh, back in the days when I actually wrote things, uh, {vocalsound} I {pause} did actually put in a random bit or so that was in it, Grad E: OK. Professor F: but {vocalsound} then I realized that putting in a random bit was equivalent to adding uh {disfmarker} adding flat spectrum, Grad E: Right. Professor F: and it was a lot faster to just add a constant to the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to the spectrum. So then I just started doing that Grad E: Mmm. OK. Professor F: instead of calling" rand" {comment} or something, Grad E: Right. Professor F: so. So it d it does that. Gee! Here we all are! Grad A: Uh, so the only agenda items were Jane {disfmarker} was Jane wanted to talk about some of the IBM transcription process. Professor F: There's an agenda? Grad A: I sort of {vocalsound} condensed the three things you said into that. And then just {disfmarker} I only have like, this afternoon and maybe tomorrow morning to get anything done before I go to Japan for ten days. So if there's anything that n absolutely, desperately needs to be done, you should let me know now. Professor F: Uh, and you just sent off a Eurospeech paper, so. PhD G: Right. I hope they accept it. Professor F: Right. PhD G: I mean, I {disfmarker} both actu as {disfmarker} as a submission and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know, as a paper. Um {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} Grad A: Well yeah, you sent it in {pause} late. Professor F: Yeah, I guess you {disfmarker} first you have to do the first one, Grad A: Yeah. Professor F: and then {disfmarker} Yeah. PhD G: We actually exceeded the delayed deadline by o another day, so. PhD B: Oops. Professor F: Oh they {disfmarker} they had some extension that they announced or something? PhD G: Well yeah. Liz had sent them a note saying" could we please {pause} have another" {comment} {pause} I don't know," three days" or something, and they said yes. PhD D: And then she said" Did I say three? Grad A: Oh, PhD D: I meant four." Grad A: that was the other thing uh, PhD G: But u Grad A: uh, Dave Gelbart sent me email, I think he sent it to you too, {comment} that um, there's a special topic, section in si in Eurospeech on new, corp corpors corpora. And it's not due until like May fifteenth. Professor F: Oh this isn't the Aurora one? Grad A: No. Professor F: It's another one? Grad A: It's a different one. PhD B: No it's {disfmarker} Yeah. Yeah. Grad E: Huh! Grad A: And uh, Professor F: Oh! PhD B: I got this mail from {disfmarker} Grad A: I s forwarded it to Jane as I thought being the most relevant person. Um {disfmarker} So, I thought it was highly relevant {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Yeah I'm {disfmarker} Professor F: That's {disfmarker} Grad A: have you {disfmarker} did you look at the URL? Postdoc C: Yeah. I think so too. Um, I haven't gotten over to there yet, Grad A: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: but what {disfmarker} our discussion yesterday, I really {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I wanna submit one. PhD B: Was this {pause} SmartKom message? I think {pause} Christoph Draxler sent this, Postdoc C: Yeah. And, you offered to {disfmarker} to join me, if you want me to. Grad A: I'll help, PhD B: yeah. Grad A: but obviously I can't, really do, most of it, Postdoc C: Yeah. Yeah, that's right. PhD G: I think several people {disfmarker} sent this, Grad A: so. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Uh - huh. PhD G: yeah. Grad A: But any {disfmarker} any help you need I can certainly provide. Professor F: Well, PhD G: Yeah. Professor F: that's {disfmarker} that's a great idea. PhD G: Well {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there were some interesting results in this paper, though. For instance that Morgan {disfmarker} uh, accounted for fifty - six percent of the Robustness meetings in terms of number of words. Grad A: Wow. Postdoc C: In {disfmarker} in terms of what? In term PhD G: Number of words. Postdoc C: One? Wow! OK. Grad A: That's just cuz he talks really fast. Postdoc C: Do you mean, Professor F: n No. Grad A: I know PhD B: Oh. Short words. Postdoc C: because {disfmarker} is it partly, eh, c correctly identified words? Or is it {disfmarker} or just overall volume? PhD G: No. Well, according to the transcripts. Grad A: But re well regardless. I think it's {disfmarker} he's {disfmarker} he's in all of them, Postdoc C: Oh. OK. Professor F: Yeah. PhD G: I mean, we didn't mention Morgan by name Grad A: and he talks a lot. PhD G: we just {disfmarker} Grad A: One participant. Professor F: Well {disfmarker} we have now, but {disfmarker} PhD G: We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} something about {disfmarker} Grad A: Did you identify him as a senior {pause} member? PhD G: No, we as identify him as the person dominating the conversation. Professor F: Well. Grad A: Yeah. Postdoc C: OK. Professor F: I mean I get these AARP things, but I'm not se really senior yet, but {disfmarker} PhD G: Right Professor F: Um, PhD G: Hmm. Professor F: but uh, other than that delightful result, what was the rest of the paper about? PhD G: Um, well it was about {disfmarker} it had three sections Professor F: You sent it to me but I haven't seen it yet. PhD G: uh {disfmarker} three kinds of uh results, if you will. Uh, the one was that the {disfmarker} just the {disfmarker} the amount of overlap Grad A: The good, the bad, and the ugly. PhD G: um, s in terms of {disfmarker} in terms of number of words and also we computed something called a" spurt" , which is essentially a stretch of speech with uh, no pauses exceeding five hundred milliseconds. Um, and we computed how many overlapped i uh spurts there were and how many overlapped words there were. {vocalsound} Um, for four different {pause} corpora, the Meeting Recorder meetings, the Robustness meetings Switchboard and CallHome, and, found {disfmarker} and sort of compared the numbers. Um, and found that the, uh, you know, as you might expect the Meeting Recorder {pause} meetings had the most overlap uh, but next were Switchboard and CallHome, which both had roughly the same, almost identical in fact, and the Robustness meetings were {disfmarker} had the least, so {disfmarker} One sort of unexpected result there is that uh two - party telephone conversations have {vocalsound} about the same amount of overlap, Grad A: I'm surprised. PhD G: sort of in gen you know {disfmarker} order of magnitude - wise as, uh {disfmarker} as face - to - face meetings with multiple {disfmarker} Grad A: I have {disfmarker} I had better start changing all my slides! PhD G: Yeah. Also, I {disfmarker} in the Levinson, the pragmatics book, {comment} in you know, uh, textbook, {vocalsound} there's {disfmarker} I found this great quote where he says {vocalsound} you know {disfmarker} you know, how people {disfmarker} it talks about how uh {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how people are so good at turn taking, Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Yeah. PhD G: and {vocalsound} so {disfmarker} they're so good that {vocalsound} generally, u the overlapped speech does not {disfmarker} is less than five percent. Postdoc C: Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. PhD G: So, this is way more than five percent. Grad E: Did he mean face {disfmarker} like face - to - face? Or {disfmarker}? PhD G: Well, in real conversations, Grad E: Hmm. PhD G: everyday conversations. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: It's s what these conversation analysts have been studying for years and years there. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD B: But {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Well, of course, no, it doesn't necessarily go against what he said, cuz he said" generally speaking" . In order to {disfmarker} to go against that kind of a claim you'd have to big canvassing. Grad A: Hmm. PhD B: And in f PhD G: Well, he {disfmarker} he made a claim {disfmarker} Grad A: Well {disfmarker} PhD G: Well {disfmarker} Grad A: PhD B: But {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah, we {disfmarker} we have pretty limited sample here. PhD B: Five percent of time or five percent of what? Grad A: Yeah, I was gonna ask that too. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Exactly. PhD G: Well it's time. PhD B: Yeah, so {disfmarker} Postdoc C: It's {disfmarker} i it's not against his conclusion, PhD G: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but still {disfmarker} but still {disfmarker} u Postdoc C: it just says that it's a bi bell curve, and that, {vocalsound} you have something that has a nice range, in your sampling. PhD G: Yeah. So there are slight {disfmarker} There are differences in how you measure it, but still it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You know, the difference between um {disfmarker} between that number and what we have in meetings, which is more like, {vocalsound} you know, close to {disfmarker} in meetings like these, uh {disfmarker} you know, close to twenty percent. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor F: But what was it like, say, in the Robustness meeting, for instance? PhD G: That {disfmarker} Grad A: But {disfmarker} PhD G: Robustness meeting? It was {vocalsound} about half of the r So, {vocalsound} in terms of number of words, it's like seventeen or eigh eighteen percent for the Meeting Recorder meetings and {vocalsound} about half that for, {vocalsound} uh, the Robustness. Professor F: Maybe ten percent? Grad A: But I don't know if that's really a fair way of comparing between, multi - party, conversations and two - party conversations. Yeah. I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know. PhD B: Then {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} then you have to {disfmarker} Grad A: I mean that's just something {disfmarker} PhD D: Yeah, I just wonder if you have to normalize by the numbers of speakers or something. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD B: Then {disfmarker} Yeah, then normalize by {disfmarker} by something like that, Postdoc C: Yeah, that's a good point. PhD G: Well, we didn't get to look at that, PhD B: yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD G: but this obvious thing to see if {disfmarker} if there's a dependence on the number of uh {disfmarker} participants. Postdoc C: Good idea. Grad A: I mean {disfmarker} I bet there's a weak dependence. I'm sure it's {disfmarker} it's not a real strong one. PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: Right. Grad A: Right? Because you PhD D: Cuz not everybody talks. Grad A: Right. PhD G: Right. PhD D: Yeah. Grad A: You have a lot of {disfmarker} a lot of two - party, subsets within the meeting. PhD G: Right. Postdoc C: Uh - huh. Grad A: Well regardless {disfmarker} it's an interesting result regardless. PhD G: So {disfmarker} Right. Postdoc C: Yes, that's right. PhD G: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} and we also d computed this both with and without backchannels, Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: so you might think that backchannels have a special status because they're essentially just {disfmarker} Grad A: Uh - huh. So, did {disfmarker} we all said" uh - huh" and nodded at the same time, PhD G: R right. Grad A: so. PhD G: But, even if you take out all the backchannels {disfmarker} so basically you treat backchannels l as nonspeech, as pauses, Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: you still have significant overlap. You know, it goes down from maybe {disfmarker} For Switchboard it goes down from {disfmarker} I don't know {disfmarker} f um {disfmarker} {comment} I don't know {disfmarker} f fourteen percent of the words to maybe {vocalsound} uh I don't know, eleven percent or something {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's not a dramatic change, Grad A: Mm - hmm. PhD G: so it's {disfmarker} Anyway, so it's uh {disfmarker} That was {disfmarker} that was one set of {pause} results, and then the second one was just basically the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the stuff we had in the {disfmarker} in the HLT paper on how overlaps effect the {pause} recognition performance. Postdoc C: Hmm. Grad A: Nope. Right. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: And we rescored things um, a little bit more carefully. We also fixed the transcripts in {disfmarker} in numerous ways. Uh, but mostly we added one {disfmarker} one number, which was what if you {pause} uh, basically score ignoring all {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} the conjecture from the HLT results was that {vocalsound} most of the added recognition error is from insertions {vocalsound} due to background speech. So, we scored {vocalsound} all the recognition results, {vocalsound} uh, in such a way that the uh {disfmarker} Grad A: Oh by the way, who's on channel four? You're getting a lot of breath. PhD B: Yeah. I j was just wondering. Grad E: That's {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah. Grad E: That's me. PhD G: uh, well Don's been working hard. Grad E: That's right. PhD G: OK, so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so if you have the foreground speaker speaking here, and then there's some background speech, may be overlapping it somehow, um, and this is the time bin that we used, then of course you're gonna get insertion errors here and here. Grad A: Right. PhD G: Right? So we scored everything, and I must say the NIST scoring tools are pretty nice for this, where you just basically ignore everything outside of the, {vocalsound} uh, region that was deemed to be foreground speech. And where that was we had to use the t forced alignment, uh, results from s for {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} That's somewhat {disfmarker} that's somewhat subject to error, but still we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh, Don did some ha hand - checking and {disfmarker} and we think that {disfmarker} based on that, we think that the results are you know, valid, although of course, some error is gonna be in there. But basically what we found is after we take out these regions {disfmarker} so we only score the regions that were certified as foreground speech, {comment} {vocalsound} the recognition error went down to almost {vocalsound} uh, the {pause} level of the non - overlapped {pause} speech. So that means that {vocalsound} even if you do have background speech, if you can somehow separate out or find where it is, {vocalsound} uh, the recognizer does a good job, Grad A: That's great. PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: even though there is this back Grad A: Yeah, I guess that doesn't surprise me, because, with the close - talking mikes, the {disfmarker} the signal will be so much stronger. PhD G: Right. Right. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Um, Grad A: What {disfmarker} what sort of normalization do you do? PhD G: so {disfmarker} Uh, well, we just {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} we do {disfmarker} u you know, vit Grad A: I mean in you recognizer, in the SRI recognizer. PhD G: Well, we do uh, VTL {disfmarker} {vocalsound} vocal tract length normalization, w and we uh {disfmarker} you know, we {disfmarker} we uh, {vocalsound} make all the features have zero mean and unit variance. Grad A: Over an entire utterance? Professor F: And {disfmarker} Grad A: Or windowed? PhD G: Over {disfmarker} over the entire c over the entire channel. PhD B: Don't {pause} train {disfmarker} PhD G: Over the {disfmarker} Grad A: Hmm. PhD G: but you know. Um, now we didn't re - align the recognizer for this. We just took the old {disfmarker} So this is actually a sub - optimal way of doing it, Grad A: Right. Professor F: Right. PhD G: right? So we took the old recognition output and we just scored it differently. So the recognizer didn't have the benefit of knowing where the foreground speech {disfmarker} a start Professor F: Were you including the {disfmarker} the lapel {pause} in this? PhD G: Yes. Professor F: And did the {disfmarker} did {disfmarker} did the la did the {disfmarker} the problems with the lapel go away also? Or {disfmarker} PhD G: Um, it {disfmarker} Yeah. Professor F: fray for {disfmarker} for insertions? PhD G: It u not per {disfmarker} I mean, not completely, but yes, Professor F: Less so. PhD G: dramatically. So we have to um {disfmarker} Professor F: I mean, you still {disfmarker} PhD G: Well I should bring the {disfmarker} should bring the table with results. Maybe we can look at it {pause} Monday. Professor F: I would presume that you still would have somewhat higher error with the lapel for insertions than {disfmarker} PhD G: Yes. It's {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah. PhD G: Yes. Yeah. Professor F: Cuz again, looking forward to the non - close miked case, I think that we s still {disfmarker} PhD G: Mm - hmm. Grad A: I'm not looking forward to it. Professor F: i it's the high signal - to - noise ratio PhD G: Right. Professor F: here that {disfmarker} that helps you. PhD G: u s Right. So {disfmarker} so that was number {disfmarker} that was the second set of {disfmarker} uh, the second section. And then, {vocalsound} the third thing was, we looked at, {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh, what we call" interrupts" , although that's {disfmarker} that may be {vocalsound} a misnomer, but basically {vocalsound} we looked at cases where {disfmarker} Uh, so we {disfmarker} we used the punctuation from the original transcripts and we inferred the beginnings and ends of sentences. So, you know {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Di - did you use upper - lower case also, or not? PhD G: Um {disfmarker} Postdoc C: U upper lower case or no? PhD G: Hmm? Postdoc C: OK. PhD G: No, we only used, you know, uh periods, uh, question marks and {pause} exclamation. And we know that there's th that's not a very g I mean, we miss a lot of them, Postdoc C: Yeah. That's OK but {disfmarker} PhD G: but {disfmarker} but it's f i i Postdoc C: Comma also or not? PhD G: No commas. No. And then {vocalsound} we looked at locations where, uh, if you have overlapping speech and someone else starts a sentence, you know, where do these {disfmarker} where do other people start their {vocalsound} turns {disfmarker} not turns really, but you know, sentences, PhD B: Ah. PhD G: um {disfmarker} So we only looked at cases where there was a foreground speaker and then at the to at the {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} the foreground speaker started into their sentence and then someone else started later. PhD B: Somewhere in between the start and the end? PhD G: OK? And so what {disfmarker} PhD B: OK. PhD G: Sorry? PhD B: Somewhere in between the start and the end of the foreground? PhD G: Yes. Uh, so that such that there was overlap between the two sentences. PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: So, the {disfmarker} the question was how can we {disfmarker} what can we say about the places where the second or {disfmarker} or actually, several second speakers, {vocalsound} um {pause} start their {pause}" interrupts" , as we call them. PhD D: Three words from the end. Grad A: At pause boundaries. PhD G: w And we looked at this in terms of um {disfmarker} Grad A: On T - closures, only. PhD G: So {disfmarker} so we had {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we had um u to {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for the purposes of this analysis, we tagged the word sequences, and {disfmarker} and we time - aligned them. Um, and we considered it interrupt {disfmarker} if it occurred in the middle of a word, we basically {disfmarker} you know, considered that to be a interrupt as if it were at {disfmarker} at the beginning of the word. So that, {vocalsound} if any part of the word was overlapped, it was considered an interrupted {pause} word. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: And then we looked at the {disfmarker} the locatio the, {vocalsound} um, you know, the features that {disfmarker} the tags because we had tagged these word strings, {comment} {vocalsound} um, that {disfmarker} that occurred right before these {disfmarker} these uh, interrupt locations. PhD B: Tag by uh PhD G: And the tags we looked at are {vocalsound} the spurt tag, which basically says {disfmarker} or actually {disfmarker} Sorry. End of spurt. So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} whether there was a pause essentially here, because spurts are a {disfmarker} defined as being you know, five hundred milliseconds or longer pauses, and then we had things like discourse markers, uh, backchannels, uh, disfluencies. um, uh, filled pauses {disfmarker} So disfluen the D's are for, {vocalsound} um, {vocalsound} the interruption points of a disfluency, so, where you hesitate, or where you start the repair there. Uh, what else do we had. Uh, repeated {disfmarker} you know, repeated words is another of that kind of disfluencies and so forth. So we had both the beginnings and ends of these {disfmarker} uh so, the end of a filled pause and the end of a discourse marker. And we just eyeballed {disfmarker} I mean {vocalsound} we didn't really hand - tag all of these things. We just {pause} looked at the distribution of words, and so every {vocalsound}" so yeah" , and" OK" , uh, and" uh - huh" were {disfmarker} were the {disfmarker} were deemed to be backchannels and {vocalsound}" wow" and" so" and {vocalsound} uh" right" , uh were um {disfmarker} {pause} Not" right" ." Right" is a backchannel. But so, we sort of {disfmarker} just based on the lexical {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um, identity of the words, we {disfmarker} we tagged them as one of these things. And of course the d the interruption points we got from the original transcripts. So, and then we looked at the disti so we looked at the {pause} distribution of these different kinds of tags, overall uh, and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and particularly at the interruption points. And uh, we found that there is a marked difference so that for instance after {disfmarker} so at the end after a discourse marker or after backchannel or after filled pause, you're much more likely to be interrupted {vocalsound} than before. OK? And also of course after spurt ends, which means basically in p inside pauses. So pauses are always an opportunity for {disfmarker} So we have this little histogram which shows these distributions and, {vocalsound} um, PhD D: I wonder {disfmarker} PhD G: you know, it's {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's not {disfmarker} No big surprises, but it is {pause} sort of interesting from {disfmarker} Grad A: It's nice to actually measure it though. PhD G: Yeah. PhD D: I wonder about the cause and effect there. In other words uh {pause} if you weren't going to pause you {disfmarker} you will because you're g being interrupted. PhD G: Well we're ne PhD D: Uh {disfmarker} PhD G: Right. There's no statement about cause and effect. PhD D: Yeah, right. No, no, no. PhD G: This is just a statistical correlation, PhD D: Right, I {disfmarker} I see. Yeah. PhD G: yeah. Professor F: But he {disfmarker} yeah, he's {disfmarker} he's right, y I mean maybe you weren't intending to pause at all, but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You were intending to stop for fifty - seven milliseconds, PhD G: Right. Professor F: but then Chuck came in PhD G: Right. PhD D: Yeah. Professor F: and so you {vocalsound} paused for a second PhD G: Right. Anyway. {comment} So, Professor F: or more. PhD G: uh, and that was basically it. And {disfmarker} and we {disfmarker} so we wrote this and then, {vocalsound} we found we were at six pages, and then we started {vocalsound} cutting furiously PhD B: Oops. PhD G: and {vocalsound} threw out half of the {vocalsound} material again, and uh played with the LaTeX stuff and {disfmarker} Grad A: Made the font smaller and the narrows longer. PhD G: uh, and {disfmarker} until it fi PhD B: Font smaller, yeah. PhD G: No, no. W well, d you couldn't really make everything smaller PhD B: Put the abstract end. PhD G: but we s we put {disfmarker} Oh, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Grad A: Took out white space. PhD G: you know the {disfmarker} the gap between the two columns is like ten millimeters, PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: so I d shrunk it to eight millimeters and that helped some. And stuff like that. PhD D: Wasn't there {disfmarker} wasn't there some result, Andreas {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah {disfmarker} PhD D: I {disfmarker} I thought maybe Liz presented this at some conference a while ago about {vocalsound} uh, backchannels PhD G: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. PhD D: uh, and that they tend to happen when uh {pause} the pitch drops. You know you get a falling pitch. And so that's when people tend to backchannel. PhD G: Yeah. Well {disfmarker} PhD D: Uh - i i do you rem PhD G: y We didn't talk about, uh, prosodic, uh, properties at all, PhD D: Right. Right. But {disfmarker} PhD G: although that's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I take it that's something that uh Don will {disfmarker} will look at Grad E: Yeah, we're gonna be looking at that. PhD G: now that we have the data and we have the alignment, so. This is purely based on you know the words PhD D: Mm - hmm. PhD G: and {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I have a reference for that though. Uh - huh. PhD D: Oh you do. PhD G: Yeah. PhD D: So am I recalling correctly? PhD G: Anyway, so. Postdoc C: Well, I didn't know about Liz's finding on that, PhD D: About {disfmarker} Postdoc C: but I know of another paper that talks about something PhD D: Uh - huh. Postdoc C: that {disfmarker} PhD D: Hmm. Grad E: I'd like to see that reference too. Postdoc C: OK. PhD D: It made me think about a cool little device that could be built to uh {disfmarker} to handle those people that call you on the phone and just like to talk and talk and talk. And you just have this little detector that listens for these {vocalsound} drops in pitch and gives them the backchannel. And so then you {vocalsound} hook that to the phone and go off Grad A: Yeah. Uh - huh. PhD D: and do the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} do whatever you r wanna do, PhD G: Oh yeah. Well {disfmarker} PhD D: while that thing keeps them busy. PhD G: There's actually {disfmarker} uh there's this a former student of here from Berkeley, Nigel {disfmarker} Nigel Ward. PhD D: Uh - huh. Sure. PhD G: Do you know him? PhD D: Yeah. PhD G: He did a system uh, in {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he lives in Japan now, and he did this backchanneling, automatic backchanneling system. Professor F: Right. PhD G: It's a very {disfmarker} PhD D: Oh! PhD G: So, exactly what you describe, PhD D: Huh. PhD G: but for Japanese. And it's apparently {disfmarker} for Japa - in Japanese it's really important that you backchannel. It's really impolite if you don't, and {disfmarker} So. Professor F: Huh. Actually for a lot of these people I think you could just sort of backchannel continuously and it would {pause} pretty much be fine. PhD D: It wouldn't matter? Yeah. Grad E: Yeah. That's w That's what I do. PhD D: Random intervals. Grad A: There was {disfmarker} there was of course a Monty Python sketch with that. Where the barber who was afraid of scissors was playing a {disfmarker} a tape of clipping sounds, and saying" uh - huh" ," yeah" ," how about them sports teams?" PhD G: Anyway. So the paper's on - line and y I {disfmarker} I think I uh {disfmarker} I CC'ed a message to Meeting Recorder with the URL so you can get it. Grad A: Yep. Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: Printed it out, haven't read it yet. Professor F: Yeah. PhD G: Um, uh one more thing. So I {disfmarker} I'm actually {disfmarker} {vocalsound} about to send Brian Kingbury an email saying where he can find the {disfmarker} the s the m the material he wanted for the s for the speech recognition experiment, so {disfmarker} but I haven't sent it out yet because actually my desktop locked up, like I can't type anything. Uh b so if there's any suggestions you have for that I was just gonna send him the {disfmarker} PhD D: Is it the same directory that you had suggested? PhD G: I made a directory. I called it um {disfmarker} Postdoc C: He still has his Unix account here, you know. PhD G: Well this isn't {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD G: He does? Postdoc C: And he {disfmarker} and he's {disfmarker} PhD G: Yeah but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but he has to {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I'd hafta add him to Meeting Recorder, I guess, PhD G: he prefe he said he would prefer FTP Postdoc C: but {disfmarker} OK. PhD G: and also, um, the other person that wants it {disfmarker} There is one person at SRI who wants to look at the {vocalsound} um, you know, the uh {disfmarker} the data we have so far, Postdoc C: OK. PhD G: and so I figured that FTP is the best {pause} approach. So what I did is I um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} @ @ {comment} I made a n new directory after Chuck said that would c that was gonna be a good thing. Uh, so it's" FTP {vocalsound} {pause} pub Grad A: Pub real. PhD G: real" {disfmarker} Exactly. MTGC {disfmarker} What is it again? CR {disfmarker} Grad A: Ask Dan Ellis. Professor F: u R D {disfmarker} RDR, yeah. PhD G: Or {disfmarker} Yeah. Right? The same {disfmarker} the same as the mailing list, Professor F: Yeah, PhD G: and {disfmarker} Professor F: the {disfmarker} {pause} No vowels. PhD G: Yeah. Um, Professor F: Yeah PhD G: and then under there {disfmarker} Um actually {disfmarker} Oh and this directory, {vocalsound} is not readable. It's only uh, accessible. So, {vocalsound} in other words, to access anything under there, you have to {vocalsound} be told what the name is. Grad A: Right. PhD G: So that's sort of a g {vocalsound} quick and dirty way of doing access control. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: So {disfmarker} uh, and the directory for this I call it I" ASR zero point one" because it's sort of meant for recognition. Professor F: So anyone who hears this meeting now knows the {disfmarker} Grad A: Beta? PhD G: And then {disfmarker} then in there I have a file that lists all the other {vocalsound} files, so that someone can get that file and then know the file names and therefore download them. If you don't know the file names you can't {disfmarker} Professor F: Is that a dash or a dot in there? PhD G: I mean you can {disfmarker} Grad A: Don't {disfmarker} don't {disfmarker} don't say. PhD G: Dash. Anyway. So all I {disfmarker} all I was gonna do there was stick the {disfmarker} the transcripts after we {disfmarker} the way that we munged them for scoring, because that's what he cares about, and {disfmarker} um, and also {disfmarker} and then the {disfmarker} the {pause} waveforms that Don segmented. I mean, just basically tar them all up f I mean {disfmarker} w for each meeting I tar them all into one tar file and G - zip them and stick them there. Grad A: I uh, put digits in my own home directory {disfmarker} home FTP directory, PhD G: And so. Grad A: but I'll probably move them there as well. PhD G: Oh, OK. PhD D: So we could point Mari to this also for her {vocalsound} March O - one request? PhD G: OK. Yeah. March O - one. PhD D: Or {disfmarker} PhD G: Oh! PhD D: You n Remember she was {disfmarker} PhD G: Oh she wanted that also? PhD D: Well she was saying that it would be nice if we had {disfmarker} they had a {disfmarker} Or was she talking {disfmarker} Yeah. She was saying it would be nice if they had eh {pause} the same set, so that when they did experiments they could compare. PhD G: Right, but they don't have a recognizer even. PhD D: Yeah. Grad E: Um {disfmarker} I PhD G: But yeah, we can send {disfmarker} I can CC Mari on this so that she knows {disfmarker} PhD D: Yeah. So, for the thing that {disfmarker} Postdoc C: That's good. PhD D: We need to give Brian the beeps file, PhD G: Right. PhD D: so I was gonna probably put it {disfmarker} Grad A: We can put it in the same place. Just put in another directory. PhD D: Yeah, it I'll make another directory. PhD G: Well, make ano make another directory. PhD D: Yeah. Exactly. PhD G: You don't n m PhD D: Yeah. PhD G: Yeah. Grad E: And, Andreas, um, sampled? PhD G: Yeah. They are? Grad E: I think so. Yeah. Um, so either we should regenerate the original {vocalsound} versions, {comment} {pause} or um, we should just make a note of it. PhD G: OK. Oh. Beca - Well {disfmarker} OK, because in one directory there's two versions. Grad E: Yeah, that's the first meeting I cut both versions. Just to check which w if there is a significant difference. PhD G: OK. And so I {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} OK so {disfmarker} but for the other meetings it's the downsampled version that you have. Grad E: They're all downsampled, yeah. PhD G: Oh, OK. Oh that's th important to know, OK so we should probably {disfmarker} uh {pause} give them the non - downsampled versions. Grad E: Yeah. So {disfmarker} PhD G: OK. Alright, then I'll hold off on that and I'll wait for you um {disfmarker} Grad E: Probably by tomorrow PhD G: gen Grad E: I can {disfmarker} I'll send you an email. PhD G: OK. Alright. OK. Yeah, definitely they should have the full bandwidth version, Grad E: Yeah, because I mean {disfmarker} I I think Liz decided to go ahead with the {pause} downsampled versions cuz we can {disfmarker} There was no s like, r significant difference. PhD G: yeah. OK. Well, it takes {disfmarker} it takes up less disk space, for one thing. Grad E: It does take up less disk space, and apparently it did even better {pause} than the original {disfmarker} than the original versions, PhD G: Yeah. Yeah. Grad E: which you know, is just, probably random. PhD G: Right. Yeah, it was a small difference Grad E: But, um {pause} they probably w want the originals. PhD G: but yeah. Yeah. OK. OK, good. Good that {disfmarker} Well, it's a good thing that {disfmarker} Grad A: OK, I think we're losing, Don and Andreas at three - thirty, right? OK. Grad E: Hey mon hafta booga. PhD G: Yeah. Professor F: So, that's why it was good to have Andreas, say these things but {disfmarker} So, we should probably talk about the IBM transcription process stuff that {disfmarker} Postdoc C: OK. So, um you know that Adam created um, a b a script to generate the beep file? Professor F: Hmm. Postdoc C: To then create something to send to IBM. And, um, you {disfmarker} you should probably talk about that. But {disfmarker} but you were gonna to use the {pause} originally transcribed file because I tightened the time bins and that's also the one that they had already {vocalsound} in trying to debug the first stage of this. And uh, my understanding was that, um {disfmarker} I haven't {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I haven't listened to it yet, Grad A: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: but it sounded very good and {disfmarker} and I understand that you guys {vocalsound} were going to have a meeting today, before this meeting. Grad A: It was just to talk about how to generate it. Um, just so that while I'm gone, you can regenerate it if you decide to do it a different way. So uh, Chuck and Thilo should, now more or less know how to generate the file Postdoc C: Excellent. OK. Grad A: and, {vocalsound} the other thing Chuck pointed out is that, um, {vocalsound} since this one is hand - marked, {vocalsound} there are discourse boundaries. Right? So {disfmarker} so when one person is speaking, there's breaks. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Grad A: Whereas Thilo's won't have that. So what {disfmarker} what we're probably gonna do is just write a script, that if two, chunks are very close to each other on the same channel we'll just merge them. Postdoc C: Oh! OK. Ah, interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, sure. Yeah, sure. Makes sense. Grad A: So, uh, and that will get around the problem of, the, {vocalsound} you know" one word beep, one word beep, one word beep, one word beep" . Postdoc C: Yeah. Ah! Clever. Yes. Clever. Yeah. Excellent. PhD D: Yeah, in fact after our meeting uh, this morning Thilo came in and said that {vocalsound} um, there could be {pause} other differences between {vocalsound} the uh {pause} already transcribed meeting with the beeps in it and one that has {pause} just r been run through his process. Postdoc C: And that's the purpose. Yeah. PhD D: So tomorrow, {vocalsound} when we go to make the um {pause} uh, chunked file {vocalsound} for IBM, we're going to actually compare the two. So he's gonna run his process on that same meeting, Postdoc C: Great idea! PhD D: and then we're gonna do the beep - ify on both, and listen to them and see if we notice any real differences. PhD G: Beep - ify! Postdoc C: OK, now one thing that prevented us from apply you {disfmarker} you from applying {disfmarker} Exactly. The training {disfmarker} So that is the training meeting. OK. PhD D: Yeah, w and we know that. Wel - uh we just wanna if {disfmarker} if there're any major differences between {vocalsound} doing it on the hand Postdoc C: Uh - huh. Oh, interesting. Ah! Grad A: Hmm. Postdoc C: OK. Interesting idea. Great. PhD G: So this training meeting, uh w un is that uh {pause} some data where we have uh very um, {vocalsound} you know, accurate {pause} time marks? for {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I went back and hand - marked the {pause} ba the bins, I ment I mentioned that last week. PhD G: OK, yeah. PhD D: But the {disfmarker} but there's {disfmarker} yeah, but there is this one issue with them in that there're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} there are time boundaries in there that occur in the middle of speech. PhD G: Because {disfmarker} PhD D: So {disfmarker} Like when we went t to um {disfmarker} When I was listening to the original file that Adam had, it's like you {disfmarker} you hear a word then you hear a beep {vocalsound} and then you hear the continuation of what is the same sentence. Grad A: That's on the other channel. That's because of channel overlap. PhD D: Well, and {disfmarker} and so the {disfmarker} th Postdoc C: Hmm. Grad A: It's {disfmarker} i PhD D: So there are these chunks that look like uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that have uh {disfmarker} Grad A: I mean that's not gonna be true of the foreground speaker. That'll only be if it's the background speaker. PhD D: Right. So you'll {disfmarker} you'll have a chunk of, you know, channel {vocalsound} A which starts at zero and ends at ten, and then the same channel starting at eleven, ending at fifteen, and then again, starting at sixteen, ending at twenty. Right, so that's three chunks where {vocalsound} actually we w can just make one chunk out of that which is A, zero, twenty. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: Yeah. Grad A: That's what I just said, Postdoc C: Sure. Sure. Grad A: yeah. PhD D: Yeah. So I just wanted to make sure that it was clear. Postdoc C: Yeah, I thought that was {disfmarker} PhD D: So {vocalsound} if you were to use these, you have to be careful not to pull out these individual {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD G: Oh! I mean it {disfmarker} Right, I mean w I mean what I would {disfmarker} I was interested in is having {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a se having time marks for the beginnings and ends of speech by each speaker. Grad A: Well, that's definitely a problem. PhD G: Uh, because we could use that to fine tune our alignment process Grad A: Battery. PhD D: Yeah. PhD G: to make it more accurate. PhD B: Battery? PhD D: Mm - hmm. PhD G: So {disfmarker} uh, it {disfmarker} I don't care that you know, there's actually abutting segments that we have to join together. That's fine. PhD D: OK. PhD G: But what we do care about is that {vocalsound} the beginnings and ends um {pause} are actually close to the speech {vocalsound} inside of that PhD D: Yeah, I think Jane tightened these up by hand. PhD G: uh {disfmarker} PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD G: OK, so what is the {disfmarker} sort of how tight are they? Professor F: Uh, it looks much better. PhD B: Yeah. Looks good. Postdoc C: They were, um, reasonably tight, but not excruciatingly tight. PhD G: Oh. Postdoc C: That would've taken more time. I just wanted to get it so tha So that if you have like" yeah" {comment} in a {disfmarker} swimming in a big bin, then it's {disfmarker} PhD G: No, no! I don Grad A: Let me make a note on yours. PhD G: actually I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: I {disfmarker} it's f That's fine because we don't want to {disfmarker} th that's perfectly fine. In fact it's good. You always want to have a little bit of pause or nonspeech around the speech, say for recognition purposes. Uh, but just {disfmarker} just u w you know get an id I just wanted to have an idea of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of how much extra you allowed um {disfmarker} so that I can interpret the numbers if I compared that with a forced alignment segmentation. Postdoc C: I can't answer that, PhD G: So. Postdoc C: but {disfmarker} but my main goal was {pause} um, in these areas where you have a three - way overlap {vocalsound} and one of the overlaps involves" yeah" , {vocalsound} and it's swimming in this huge bin, {vocalsound} I wanted to get it so that it was clo more closely localized. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Right. But are we talking about, I don't know, {pause} a {vocalsound} {pause} tenth of a second? a {disfmarker}? You know? How {disfmarker} how much {disfmarker} how much extra would you allow at most {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I {disfmarker} I wanted to {disfmarker} I wanted it to be able to {disfmarker} l he be heard normally, PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: so that if you {disfmarker} if you play {pause} back that bin and have it in the mode where it stops at the boundary, {vocalsound} it sounds like a normal word. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: It doesn't sound like the person {disfmarker} i it sounds normal. It's as if the person could've stopped there. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: And it wouldn't have been an awkward place to stop. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: Now sometimes you know, it's {disfmarker} these are involved in places where there was no time. And so, {vocalsound} {vocalsound} there wouldn't be {pause} a gap afterwards because {disfmarker} PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: I mean some cases, there're some people {pause} um, who {disfmarker} who have very long {pause} segments of discourse where, {vocalsound} you know, they'll {disfmarker} they'll breath {pause} and then I put a break. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: But other than that, it's really pretty continuous and this includes things like going from one sentence into the {disfmarker} u one utterance into the next, one sentence into the next, um, w without really stopping. I mean {disfmarker} i they, i you know in writing you have this {vocalsound} two spaces and a big gap PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: you know. PhD G: Right. Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} but uh {pause} {vocalsound} i some people are planning and, you know, I mean, a lot {disfmarker} we always are planning {pause} what we're going to say next. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: But uh, in which case, the gap between {pause} these two complete syntactic units, {vocalsound} um, which of course n spoken things are not always complete syntactically, but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but it would be a shorter p shorter break {vocalsound} than {vocalsound} maybe you might like. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: But the goal there was to {pause} not have {vocalsound} the text be so {disfmarker} so crudely {pause} parsed in a time bin. I mean, because {vocalsound} from a discourse m purpose {pause} it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's more {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's more useful to be able to see {disfmarker} and also you know, from a speech recognition purpose my impression is that {vocalsound} if you have too long a unit, it's {disfmarker} it doesn't help you very much either, cuz of the memory. PhD G: Well, yeah. That's fine. Postdoc C: So, that means that {vocalsound} the amount of time after something is variable depending partly on context, but my general goal {vocalsound} when there was {pause} sufficient space, room, pause {pause} after it {pause} to have it be {pause} kind of a natural feeling {pause} gap. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: Which I c I don't know what it would be quantified as. You know, Wally Chafe says that {vocalsound} um, {vocalsound} in producing narratives, the spurts that people use {vocalsound} tend to be, {vocalsound} uh, that the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} what would be a pause might be something like two {disfmarker} two seconds. PhD G: Mmm. Postdoc C: And um, that would be, you know one speaker. The discourse {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the people who look at turn taking often do use {disfmarker} PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: I was interested that you chose uh, {vocalsound} you know um, {comment} the {disfmarker} you know that you use cuz I think that's a unit that would be more consistent with sociolinguistics. Yeah. PhD G: Well we chose um, you know, half a second because {vocalsound} if {disfmarker} if you go much larger, you have a {disfmarker} y you know, your {disfmarker} your statement about how much overlap there is becomes less, {vocalsound} um, precise, Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: because you include more of actual pause time into what you consider overlap speech. Um, so, it's sort of a compromise, PhD B: Yeah. {comment} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah, I also used I think something around zero point five seconds for the speech - nonspeech detector {disfmarker} PhD G: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's also based {disfmarker} I mean Liz suggested that value based on {vocalsound} the distribution of pause times that you see in Switchboard and {disfmarker} and other corpora. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: Um {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} PhD B: for the minimum silence length. PhD G: Mm - hmm. I see. PhD B: So. PhD G: Yeah. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: In any case, this {disfmarker} this uh, meeting {pause} that I hand {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I hand - adjusted two of them I mentioned before, PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: and I sent {disfmarker} I sent email, PhD G: OK, Postdoc C: so {disfmarker} PhD G: So {disfmarker} so at some point we will try to fine - tune our forced alignment Postdoc C: And I sent the {comment} {pause} path. PhD G: maybe using those as references because you know, what you would do is you would play with different parameters. And to get an object You need an objective {vocalsound} measure of how closely you can align the models to the actual speech. And that's where your your data would be {pause} very important to have. So, I will {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah and hopefully the new meetings {pause} which will start from the channelized version will {disfmarker} will have better time boundaries {pause} and alignments. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Right. Postdoc C: But I like this idea of {disfmarker} uh, for our purposes for the {disfmarker} for the IBM preparation, {vocalsound} uh, n having these {pause} joined together, PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. Postdoc C: and uh {disfmarker} It makes a lot of sense. And in terms of transcription, it would be easy to do it that way. PhD G: Yeah. Postdoc C: The way that they have with the longer units, PhD G: Yeah. Postdoc C: not having to fuss with adding these units at this time. PhD B: Yeah. Whi - which could have one drawback. If there is uh a backchannel in between those three things, PhD G: Right. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD B: the {disfmarker} the n the backchannel will {disfmarker} will occur at the end of {disfmarker} of those three. Postdoc C: Yes. PhD B: And {disfmarker} and in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the previous version where in the n which is used now, {vocalsound} there, the backchannel would {disfmarker} would be in - between there somewhere, so. Postdoc C: I see. PhD B: That would be more natural Postdoc C: Yeah. Well, PhD B: but {disfmarker} Postdoc C: that's {disfmarker} that's right, but you know, thi this brings me to the other f stage of this which I discussed with you earlier today, PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: which is {vocalsound} the second stage is {vocalsound} um, w what to do {pause} in terms of the transcribers adjustment of these data. I discussed this with you too. Um, the tr so the idea initially was, we would get {vocalsound} uh, for the new meetings, so the e EDU meetings, that {vocalsound} Thilo ha has now presegmented all of them for us, on a channel by channel basis. And um, so, I've assigned {disfmarker} I've {disfmarker} I've assigned them to our transcribers and um, so far I've discussed it with one, with uh {disfmarker} And I had a {pause} about an hour discussion with her about this yesterday, we went through {vocalsound} uh EDU - one, at some extent. And it occurred to me that {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} that {vocalsound} basically what we have in this kind of a format is {disfmarker} you could consider it as a staggered mixed file, we had some discussion over the weekend a about {disfmarker} at {disfmarker} at this other meeting that we were all a at {disfmarker} um, {vocalsound} about whether the tran the IBM transcribers should hear a single channel audio, or a mixed channel audio. And um, {vocalsound} in {disfmarker} in a way, by {disfmarker} by having this {disfmarker} this chunk and then the backchannel {vocalsound} after it, it's like a stagal staggered mixed channel. And um, {vocalsound} it occurred {pause} to me in my discussion with her yesterday that um, um, the {disfmarker} {pause} the {disfmarker} the maximal gain, it's {disfmarker} from the IBM {pause} people, may be in long stretches of connected speech. So it's basically a whole bunch of words {vocalsound} which they can really do, because of the continuity within that person's turn. So, what I'm thinking, and it may be that not all meetings will be good for this, {comment} but {disfmarker} but what I'm thinking is that {vocalsound} in the EDU meetings, they tend to be {vocalsound} driven by a couple of dominant speakers. And, if the chunked files focused on the dominant speakers, {vocalsound} then, when {disfmarker} when it got s patched together when it comes back from IBM, we can add the backchannels. It seems to me {vocalsound} that {vocalsound} um, you know, the backchannels per - se wouldn't be so hard, but then there's this question of the time {pause} @ @ {comment} uh, marking, and whether the beeps would be {vocalsound} uh y y y And I'm not exactly sure how that {disfmarker} how that would work with the {disfmarker} with the backchannels. And, so um {disfmarker} And certainly things that are {vocalsound} intrusions of multiple words, {vocalsound} taken out of context and displaced in time from where they occurred, {vocalsound} that would be hard. So, m my {vocalsound} thought is {pause} i I'm having this transcriber go through {vocalsound} the EDU - one meeting, and indicate a start time {nonvocalsound} f for each dominant speaker, endpoi end time for each dominant speaker, and the idea that {vocalsound} these units would be generated for the dominant speakers, {vocalsound} and maybe not for the other channels. Grad A: Yeah the only, um, disadvantage of that is, then it's hard to use an automatic method to do that. The advantage is that it's probably faster to do that than it is to use the automated method and correct it. So. Postdoc C: Well, it {disfmarker} Grad A: We'll just have to see. Postdoc C: OK. I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think um, you know, the original plan was that the transcriber would adjust the t the boundaries, and all that for all the channels but, {vocalsound} you know, that is so time - consuming, and since we have a bottleneck here, we want to get IBM things that are usable s as soon as possible, then this seemed to me it'd be a way of gett to get them a flood of data, which would be useful when it comes back to us. And um {disfmarker} Grad A: Yeah. Postdoc C: Oh also, at the same time she {disfmarker} when she goes through this, she'll be {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} If there's anything that {vocalsound} was encoded as a pause, but really has something transcribable in it, {vocalsound} then she's going to {vocalsound} uh, make a mark {disfmarker} w uh, so you know, so {vocalsound} that {disfmarker} that bin would be marked as it {disfmarker} as double dots and she'll just add an S. And in the other {disfmarker} in the other case, if it's marked as speech, {vocalsound} and really there's nothing transcribable in it, then she's going to put a s dash, and I'll go through and it {disfmarker} and um, you know, with a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} with a substitution command, get it so that it's clear that those are the other category. I'll just, you know, recode them. But um, {vocalsound} um, the transcribable events {pause} that um, I'm considering in this, {vocalsound} uh, continue to be {vocalsound} laugh, as well as speech, and cough and things like that, so I'm not stripping out anything, just {disfmarker} just you know, being very lenient in what's considered speech. Yeah? PhD D: Jane? In terms of the {disfmarker} this new procedure you're suggesting, {vocalsound} um, u what is the {disfmarker} Grad A: It's not that different. PhD D: So I'm a little confused, because how do we know where to put beeps? Is it {disfmarker} i d y is it {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Oh, OK. Grad A: Transcriber will do it. Postdoc C: So what it {disfmarker} what it {disfmarker} what it involves is {disfmarker} is really a s uh, {vocalsound} uh, the original pr procedure, but {vocalsound} only applied to {pause} uh, a certain {pause} strategically chosen {pause} s aspect of the data. Grad A: We pick the easy parts of the data basically, Postdoc C: So {disfmarker} Grad A: and transcriber marks it by hand. Postdoc C: You got it. Grad A: And because {disfmarker} PhD D: But after we've done Thilo's thing. Grad A: No. Postdoc C: Yes! Grad A: Oh, after. Oh, OK, Postdoc C: Yes! Grad A: I didn't {disfmarker} I didn't understand that. Postdoc C: Oh yeah! Grad A: OK. PhD B: So, I'm @ @ {disfmarker} now I'm confused. Postdoc C: OK. We start with your presegmented version {disfmarker} PhD G: OK, and I'm leaving. Grad E: Yeah, I have to go as well. PhD G: So, um {disfmarker} Grad A: OK, leave the mikes on, and just put them on the table. Grad E: OK. Thanks. Postdoc C: We start with the presegmented version {disfmarker} Grad A: Let me mark you as no digits. PhD B: You start with the presegmentation, r {vocalsound} yeah? Postdoc C: Yeah. And then um, {vocalsound} the transcriber, {vocalsound} instead of going painstakingly through all the channels and moving the boundaries around, and deciding if it's speech or not, but not transcribing anything. OK? Instead of doing that, which was our original plan, {vocalsound} the tra They focus on the dominant speaker {disfmarker} PhD D: Mm - hmm. They just {vocalsound} do that on {pause} the main channels. Postdoc C: Yeah. So what they do is they identify who's the di dominant speaker, and when the speaker starts. PhD D: OK. PhD B: Yeah? OK. Postdoc C: So I mean, you're still gonna {disfmarker} PhD B: And you just {disfmarker} Postdoc C: So we're {disfmarker} It's based on your se presegmentation, that's the basic {pause} thing. PhD B: and you just use the s the segments of the dominant speaker then? For {disfmarker} for sending to {disfmarker} to IBM or {disfmarker}? Postdoc C: Yeah. Exactly. PhD D: So, now Jane, my question is {vocalsound} when they're all done adjusting the w time boundaries for the dominant speaker, {comment} have they then also erased the time boundaries for the other ones? Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Uh No. No, no. Huh - uh. S PhD D: So how will we know who {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: That's {disfmarker} that's why she's notating the start and end points of the dominant speakers. So, on a {disfmarker} you know, so {vocalsound} i in EDU - one, i as far as I listened to it, you start off with a {disfmarker} a s section by Jerry. So Jerry starts at minute so - and - so, and goes until minute so - and - so. And then Mark Paskin comes in. And he starts at {vocalsound} minute such - and - such, and goes on till minute so - and - so. OK. And then {vocalsound} meanwhile, she's listening to {vocalsound} {pause} both of these guys'channels, determining if there're any cases of misclassification of speech as nothing, and nothing as speech, PhD D: Mm - hmm. OK. Postdoc C: and {vocalsound} a and adding a tag if that happens. PhD D: So she does the adjustments on those guys? Postdoc C: But you know, I wanted to say, his segmentation is so good, that {vocalsound} um, the part that I listened to with her yesterday {vocalsound} didn't need any adjustments of the bins. PhD B: On that meeting. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: So far we haven't. So this is not gonna be a major part of the process, at least {disfmarker} least not in {disfmarker} not on ones that {disfmarker} that really {disfmarker} PhD D: So if you don't have to adjust the bins, why not just do what it {disfmarker} for all the channels? Postdoc C: Mm - hmm? PhD D: Why not just throw all the channels to IBM? Postdoc C: Well there's the question o of {pause} whether {disfmarker} Well, OK. She i It's a question of how much time we want our transcriber to invest here {vocalsound} when she's gonna have to invest that when it comes back from IBM anyway. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: So if it's only inserting" mm - hmm" s here and there, then, wouldn't that be something that would be just as efficient to do at this end, instead of having it go through I B M, then be patched together, then be double checked here. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Right. PhD B: Yeah. But {disfmarker} But then we could just use the {disfmarker} the output of the detector, and do the beeping on it, and send it to I B PhD D: Without having her check anything. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: Right. Postdoc C: Well, I guess {disfmarker} Grad A: I think we just {disfmarker} we just have to listen to it and see how good they are. PhD B: For some meetings, I'm {disfmarker} I'm sure it {disfmarker} i n Postdoc C: I'm {disfmarker} I'm open to that, it was {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah, if it's working well, PhD B: That's {disfmarker} And some {disfmarker} on some meetings it's good. Professor F: that sounds like a good idea since as you say you have to do stuff with the other end anyway. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Well yea OK, good. I mean the detector, this {disfmarker} PhD D: Yeah, I mean we have to fix it when it comes back anyhow. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Now, you were saying that they {disfmarker} they differ in how well they work depending on channel s sys systems and stuff. PhD B: Yeah. So we should perhaps just select meetings on which the speech - nonspeech detection works well, Postdoc C: But EDU is great. PhD B: and just use, {vocalsound} those meetings to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to send to IBM and, do the other ones. Grad A: Release to begin with. Postdoc C: How interesting. You know {disfmarker} Professor F: What's the problem {disfmarker} the l I forget. Is the problem the lapel, or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} PhD B: Uh, it really depends. Um, my {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} my impression is that it's better for meetings with fewer speakers, and it's better for {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for meetings where nobody is breathing. Professor F: Oh, PhD B: Yeah, Professor F: the dead meetings. PhD B: get {disfmarker} That's it. PhD D: So in fact this might suggest an alternative sort of a {disfmarker} a c a hybrid between these two things. Grad A: No, the undead meeting, yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah. Yeah? PhD D: So the {disfmarker} the one suggestion is you know we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we run Thilo's thing and then we have somebody go and adjust all the time boundaries PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah? PhD D: and we send it to IBM. The other one is {vocalsound} we just run his thing and send it to IBM. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: There's a {disfmarker} a another possibility if we find that there are some problems, PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. PhD D: and that is {vocalsound} if we go ahead and we {vocalsound} just run his, and we generate the beeps file, then we have somebody listen beeps file. PhD B: Yeah. And erase {disfmarker} PhD D: And they listen to each section and say" yes, no" whether that section is PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Is intelligible. PhD D: i i intelligible or not. And it just {disfmarker} You know, there's a little interface which will {disfmarker} for all the" yes" - es it {disfmarker} then that will be the final {vocalsound} beep file. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: Blech. Postdoc C: That's interesting! Cuz that's {disfmarker} that's directly related to the e end task. Grad A: Stress test. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: How interesting! PhD D: Yeah. I mean it wouldn't be that much fun for a transcriber to sit there, hear it, beep, yes or no. PhD B: Nope. Professor F: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know. PhD D: But it would be quick. Professor F: It would be {disfmarker} kind of quick but they're still listening to everything. PhD D: But there's no adjusting. And that's what's slow. There's no adjusting of time boundaries. Postdoc C: Well, {vocalsound} eh, listening does take time too. PhD D: Yeah. Professor F: Yeah. I don't know, I {disfmarker} I think I'm {disfmarker} I'm really tending towards {disfmarker} Grad A: One and a half times real time. Professor F: I mean, {vocalsound} what's the worst that happens? Do the transcribers {disfmarker} I mean as long as th on the other end they can say there's {disfmarker} there's something {disfmarker} conventions so that they say" huh?" PhD D: Yeah. Right. They {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} Professor F: and then we can flag those later. PhD D: Yeah. That's true. Professor F: i i It {disfmarker} i PhD D: We can just catch it at the {disfmarker} catch everything at this side. Professor F: Yeah. PhD D: Well maybe that's the best way to go, Postdoc C: How interesting! PhD D: just {disfmarker} Grad A: I mean it just depends on how {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Well EDU {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah, Grad A: Sorry, go ahead. PhD B: u u u Postdoc C: So I was gonna say, EDU - one is good enough, PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: maybe we could include it in this {disfmarker} in this set of uh, this stuff we send. PhD B: Yeah there's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think there are some meetings where it would {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} It's possible like this. Grad A: Yeah I {disfmarker} I think, we won't know until we generate a bunch of beep files automatically, listen to them and see how bad they are. PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD D: We won't be able to s include it with this first thing, Grad A: If {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Hmm. Oh, OK. PhD D: because there's a part of the process of the beep file which requires knowing the normalization coefficients. Postdoc C: Oh, I see. PhD D: And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So a Grad A: That's not hard to do. Just {disfmarker} it takes {disfmarker} you know, it just takes five minutes rather than, taking a second. PhD D: OK PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: So. I just hand {disfmarker} hard - coded it. PhD D: Right, except I don't think that {disfmarker} the c the instructions for doing that was in that directory, right? I {disfmarker} I didn't see where you had gener Grad A: No, but it's easy enough to do. PhD B: What {disfmarker} Professor F: But I {disfmarker} but I have a {disfmarker} PhD B: Doing the gain? It's no problem. Adjusting the gain? PhD D: n Doing th No, getting the coefficients, for each channel. PhD B: Yeah, that's no problem. Postdoc C: Know what numbers. PhD D: OK. So we just run that one {disfmarker} Grad A: There are lots of ways to do it. PhD B: We can do that. Grad A: I have one program that'll do it. You can find other programs. PhD B: Yeah. I {disfmarker} I used it, so. PhD D: We just run that Grad A: Yep. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: J - sound - stat? OK. Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: Minus D, capital D. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I have {pause} another suggestion on that, which is, {vocalsound} since, really what this is, is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is trying to in the large, send the right thing to them and there is gonna be this {disfmarker} this post - processing step, um, why don't we check through a bunch of things by sampling it? PhD D: Mm - hmm. Professor F: Right? In other words, rather than, um, uh, saying we're gonna listen to everything {disfmarker} Grad A: I didn't mean listen to everything, I meant, just see if they're any good. Professor F: Yeah. So y you do a bunch of meetings, you listen to {disfmarker} to a little bit here and there, PhD D: Yeah. Professor F: if it sounds like it's almost always right and there's not any big problem you send it to them. PhD D: Send it to them. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: OK. Professor F: And, you know, then they'll send us back what we {disfmarker} w what {disfmarker} what they send back to us, Postdoc C: Oh, that'd be great. Professor F: and we'll {disfmarker} we'll fix things up and {vocalsound} some meetings will cost more time to fix up than others. Grad A: We should {disfmarker} Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: And we should just double - check with Brian on a few simple conventions on how they should mark things. PhD B: Sure. PhD D: OK. When they {disfmarker} when there's either no speech in there, PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. PhD D: or {vocalsound} something they don't understand, Postdoc C: Yeah. Mm - hmm. PhD D: things like that. Grad A: Yeah, cuz @ @ uh what I had originally said to Brian was well they'll have to mark, when they can't distinguish between the foreground and background, Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: because I thought that was gonna be the most prevalent. But if we send them without editing, then we're also gonna hafta have m uh, notations for words that are cut off, PhD D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Grad A: and other sorts of, uh, acoustic problems. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: They do already. PhD D: And they may just guess at what those cut - off words are, Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD D: but w I mean we're gonna adjust {disfmarker} everything when we come back {disfmarker} Grad A: But what {disfmarker} what we would like them to do is be conservative so that they should only write down the transcript if they're sure. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: And otherwise they should mark it so that we can check. PhD B: Mark it. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: Well, we have the unintelligibility {pause} convention. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: And actually they have one also, Grad A: Right. Postdoc C: which {disfmarker} Professor F: i Can I maybe have {disfmarker} have an order of {disfmarker} it's probably in your paper that I haven't looked at lately, but {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Certainty. Professor F: Uh, an order of magnitude notion of {disfmarker} of how {disfmarker} on a good meeting, how often uh, do you get segments that come in the middle of words and so forth, and uh {disfmarker} in a bad meeting how {vocalsound} often? PhD B: Uh. Postdoc C: Was is it in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what is the t Professor F: Well he's saying, you know, that the {disfmarker} the EDU meeting was a good {disfmarker} good meeting, Postdoc C: In a good meeting, what? PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah. Professor F: right? Postdoc C: Oh I see, Professor F: Uh, and so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so it was almost {disfmarker} it was almost always doing the right thing. Postdoc C: the characteristics. Professor F: So I wanted to get some sense of what {disfmarker} what almost always meant. And then, uh in a bad meeting, {vocalsound} or p some meetings where he said oh he's had some problems, what does that mean? Postdoc C: Uh - huh. OK. Professor F: So I mean does one of the does it mean one percent and ten percent? Or does it mean {vocalsound} five percent and fifty percent? Postdoc C: OK. Professor F: Uh {disfmarker} PhD B: So {disfmarker} Professor F: Or {disfmarker} Maybe percentage isn't the right word, Postdoc C: Just PhD B: Yeah th Professor F: but you know how many {disfmarker} how many per minute, or {disfmarker} You know. PhD B: Yeah, the {disfmarker} the problem is that, nnn, the numbers Ian gave in the paper is just uh, some frame error rate. So that's {disfmarker} that's not really {disfmarker} {vocalsound} What will be effective for {disfmarker} for the transcribers, is {disfmarker} They have to {disfmarker} yeah, in in they have to insure that that's a real s spurt or something. And {disfmarker} but, {vocalsound} the numbers {disfmarker} Oops. Um {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Hmm! PhD B: Let me think. So the {pause} speech {disfmarker} the amount of speech that is missed by the {pause} detector, for a good meeting, I th is around {pause} or under one percent, I would say. But there can be {disfmarker} Yeah. For {disfmarker} yeah, but there can be more {disfmarker} There's {disfmarker} There's more amount speech {disfmarker} uh, more amount of {disfmarker} Yeah well, the detector says there is speech, but there is none. So that {disfmarker} that can be a lot when {disfmarker} when it's really a breathy channel. Professor F: But I think that's less of a problem. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: They'll just listen. It's just wasted time. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: And th and that's for a good meeting. Now what about in a meeting that you said we've {disfmarker} you've had some more trouble with? PhD B: I can't {comment} really {disfmarker} hhh, {comment} {pause} Tsk. {comment} I {pause} don't have really representative numbers, I think. That's really {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I did {pause} this on {disfmarker} on four meetings and only five minutes of {disfmarker} of every meet of {disfmarker} of these meetings so, {vocalsound} it's not {disfmarker} not that representative, but, it's perhaps, Fff. Um {disfmarker} Yeah, it's perhaps then {disfmarker} it's perhaps five percent of something, which s uh the {disfmarker} the frames {disfmarker} speech frames which are {disfmarker} which are missed, but um, I can't {disfmarker} can't really tell. Professor F: Right. So I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So i Sometime, we might wanna go back and look at it more in terms of {vocalsound} how many times is there a spurt that's {disfmarker} that's uh, interrupted? PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Professor F: Something like that? Postdoc C: The other problem is, that when it {disfmarker} when it uh d i on the breathy ones, where you get {vocalsound} {vocalsound} breathing, uh, inti indicated as speech. Professor F: And {disfmarker} PhD B: So {disfmarker} Postdoc C: And I guess we could just indicate to the transcribers not to {pause} encode that if they {disfmarker} We could still do the beep file. Professor F: Yeah again I {disfmarker} I think that that is probably less of a problem because if you're {disfmarker} if there's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If {disfmarker} if a {disfmarker} if a word is {disfmarker} is split, then they might have to listen to it a few times to really understand that they can't quite get it. Postdoc C: OK. OK. PhD B: But {disfmarker} Postdoc C: OK. Professor F: Whereas if they listen {nonvocalsound} to it and there's {disfmarker} don't hear any speech I think they'd probably just listen to it once. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: So there'd {disfmarker} you'd think there'd be a {disfmarker} a factor of three or four in {disfmarker} in, uh, cost function, Postdoc C: OK. Professor F: you know, between them or something. PhD B: Yeah, so {disfmarker} but I think that's {disfmarker} n that really doesn't happen very often that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that a word is cut in the middle or something. That's {disfmarker} that's really not {disfmarker} not normal. Professor F: So {disfmarker} so what you're saying is that nearly always what happens when there's a problem is that {disfmarker} is that uh, there's {vocalsound} some uh, uh nonspeech that uh {disfmarker} that is b interpreted as speech. PhD B: That is marked as speech. Yeah. Yeah. Professor F: Well then, we really should just send the stuff. Postdoc C: That would be great. Professor F: Right? Because that doesn't do any harm. PhD B: Yeah, it's {disfmarker} Professor F: You know, if they {disfmarker} they hear you know, a dog bark and they say what was the word, they {comment} you know, they {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah, I als I {disfmarker} Professor F: Ruff ruff! PhD B: Yeah I also thought of {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there are really some channels where it is almost {comment} um, only bre breathing in it. And to {disfmarker} to re - run's Professor F: Yeah? PhD B: Eh, um. Yeah. I've got a {disfmarker} a {pause} P - a {pause} method with loops into the cross - correlation with the PZM mike, and then to reject everything which {disfmarker} which seems to be breath. Professor F: Uh - huh. PhD B: So, I could run this on those breathy channels, and perhaps throw out {disfmarker} Grad A: That's a good idea. Postdoc C: Wow, that's a great idea. Professor F: Yeah. But I think {disfmarker} I th Again, I think that sort of {disfmarker} that that would be good, PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: and what that'll do is just cut the time a little further. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Professor F: But I think none of this is stuff that really needs somebody doing these {disfmarker} these uh, uh, explicit markings. PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: Excellent. Oh, I'd be delighted with that, I {disfmarker} I was very impressed with the {disfmarker} with the result. Yeah. Professor F: Yeah, cuz the other thing that was concerning me about it was that it seemed kind of specialized to the EDU meeting, and {disfmarker} and that then when you get a meeting like this or something, PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and you have a b a bunch of different dominant speakers Postdoc C: Oh yeah, interesting. Professor F: you know, how are you gonna handle it. Postdoc C: Oh yeah. Professor F: Whereas this sounds like a more general solution Postdoc C: Oh yeah, I pr I much prefer this, Professor F: is {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I was just trying to find a way {disfmarker} Cuz I {disfmarker} I don't think the staggered mixed channel is awfully good as a way of handling overlaps. Professor F: Yeah. Uh - huh. Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} but uh {disfmarker} PhD D: Well good. That {disfmarker} that really simplifies thing then. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD D: And we can just, you know, get the meeting, process it, put the beeps file, send it off to IBM. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD D: You know? PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: With very little {pause} work on our side. PhD B: Process it, hear into it. I would {disfmarker} PhD D: Do what? PhD B: Um, {pause} listen to it, and then {disfmarker} Grad A: Or at least sample it. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Well, sample it. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Sample it. Professor F: I {disfmarker} I would just use some samples, PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. Professor F: make sure you don't send them three hours of" bzzz" {comment} or something. PhD D: Yeah. PhD B: No. PhD D: Yeah. Right. PhD B: That won't be good. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD D: Yeah. Yeah that would be very good. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: And then we can you know {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah. PhD D: That'll oughta be a good way to get the pipeline going. Postdoc C: Oh, I'd be delighted. Yeah. PhD B: And there's {disfmarker} there's one point which I {comment} uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah, which {disfmarker} which I r {vocalsound} we covered when I {disfmarker} when I r listened to one of the EDU meetings, Professor F: Great. PhD B: and that's {vocalsound} that somebody is playing sound from his laptop. Grad A: Uh - huh PhD B: And i {vocalsound} the speech - nonspeech detector just assigns randomly the speech to {disfmarker} to one of the channels, so. Uh - I haven't - I didn't think of {disfmarker} of s of {vocalsound} this before, Grad A: What can you do? PhD B: but what {disfmarker} what shall we do about s things like this? Postdoc C: Well you were suggesting {disfmarker} You suggested maybe just not sending that part of the meeting. Grad A: Yep. Mmm. Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} PhD B: But, sometimes the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the laptop is in the background and some {disfmarker} somebody is {disfmarker} is talking, and, {vocalsound} that's really a little bit confusing, but {disfmarker} Grad A: It's a little bit confusing. Professor F: That's life. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: I mean, {comment} what're we gonna do? PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: Even a hand - transcription would {disfmarker} PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: Do you {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: a hand - transcriber would have trouble with that. PhD B: Yeah, Grad A: So. PhD B: that's {disfmarker} that's a second question," what {disfmarker} what will different transcribers do with {disfmarker} with the laptop sound?" Postdoc C: Would you {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} Professor F: What was the l what was the laptop sound? Postdoc C: Yeah, go ahead. Professor F: I mean was it speech, PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: or was it {disfmarker} PhD B: It's speech. Professor F: Great. Postdoc C: Well, so {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} So my standard approach has been if it's not someone close - miked, then, they don't end up on one of the close - miked channels. They end up on a different channel. And we have any number of channels available, Professor F: Uh - huh. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: I mean it's an infinite number of channels. PhD B: But, Postdoc C: So just put them on some other channel. PhD B: when thi when this is sent to {disfmarker} to the I M - eh, I B M transcribers, I don't know if {disfmarker} if they can tell that's really {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Yeah, that's right. Grad A: Yeah cuz there will be no channel on which it is foreground. PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. Grad A: Uh {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Well, they have a convention, in their own procedures, {vocalsound} which is for a background {pause} sound. Grad A: Right, but, uh, in general I don't think we want them transcribing the background, cuz that would be too much work. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: Right? For it {disfmarker} because in the overlap sections, then they'll PhD D: Well I don't think Jane's saying they're gonna transcribe it, but they'll just mark it as being {disfmarker} there's some background stuff there, Grad A: But that's gonna be all over the place. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD D: right? Grad A: How w how will they tell the difference between that sort of background and the dormal {disfmarker} normal background of two people talking at once? PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Oh, I think {disfmarker} I think it'd be easy to to say" background laptop" . Grad A: How would they know that? PhD D: But wait a minute, why would they treat them differently? PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Well because one of them {disfmarker} Grad A: Because otherwise it's gonna be too much work for them to mark it. They'll be marking it all over the place. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Oh, I s background laptop or, background LT {vocalsound} {vocalsound} wouldn't take any time. Grad A: Sure, but how are they gonna tell bet the difference between that and two people just talking at the same time? Postdoc C: And {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Oh, you can tell. Acoustically, can't you tell? PhD B: It's really good sound, so {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Oh is it? Oh! Professor F: Well, I mean, isn't there a category something like uh," sounds for someone for whom there is no i close mike" ? PhD B: Yeah that would be very important, Grad A: But how do we d how do we do that for the I B M folks? Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD B: yeah. Grad A: How can they tell that? PhD D: Well we may just have to do it when it gets back here. Grad A: Yes, that's my opinion as well. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: So we don't do anything for it {disfmarker} with it. Postdoc C: OK. PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: That sounds good. Grad A: And they'll just mark it however they mark it, Postdoc C: That sounds good. PhD D: Yeah. Grad A: and we'll correct it when it comes back. PhD B: So th Professor F: Yeah. PhD B: there was a category for @ @ {comment} speech. Postdoc C: OK. Grad A: Yeah, the default. Postdoc C: Yeah, s a Grad A: No, not default. PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: Well, as it comes back, we have a uh {disfmarker} when we can use the channelized interface for encoding it, then it'll be easy for us to handle. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but if {disfmarker} if out of context, they can't tell if it's a channeled speak uh, you know, a close - miked speaker or not, {vocalsound} then that would be confusing to them. PhD B: OK. Grad A: Right. PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: I don't know, I {disfmarker} it doesn't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} Either way would be fine with me, I don't really care. Professor F: Yeah. So. Shall we uh, do digits and get out of here? Grad A: Yep. Postdoc C: I have o I have one question. Do you think we should send the um {disfmarker} that whole meeting to them and not worry about pre - processing it? Professor F: Yes ma'Postdoc C: Or {disfmarker} Uh, what I mean is {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} we should {vocalsound} leave the {vocalsound} part with the audio in the uh, beep file that we send to IBM for that one, or should we {vocalsound} start after the {disfmarker} that part of the meeting is over in what we send. Professor F: Which part? PhD B: With {disfmarker} Postdoc C: So, the part where they're using sounds from their {disfmarker} from their laptops. PhD B: with the laptop sound, or {disfmarker}? just {disfmarker} Postdoc C: w If we have speech from the laptop should we just uh, excise that from what we send to IBM, or should we {vocalsound} i give it to them and let them do with it what they can? PhD D: I think we should just {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it's gonna be too much work if we hafta {vocalsound} worry about that I think. Postdoc C: OK, that'd be nice to have a {disfmarker} a uniform procedure. PhD D: Yeah, I think if we just {disfmarker} m send it all to them. you know. Grad A: Worry about it when we get back. Postdoc C: Good. And see how well they do. PhD D: Let {disfmarker} Yeah, worry about it when we get back in. Postdoc C: And give them freedom to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to indicate if it's just not workable. Professor F: Yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah, PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: OK, Professor F: Yeah. Postdoc C: excellent. Professor F: Cuz, I wouldn't {disfmarker} don't think we would mind {pause} having that {pause} transcribed, if they did it. Grad A: I think {disfmarker} PhD D: Yeah, e Grad A: As I say, we'll just have to listen to it and see how horrible it is. Postdoc C: Yeah, yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: Sample it, rather. Postdoc C: OK. Alright. PhD B: I think that {disfmarker} that will be a little bit of a problem PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: That's great. PhD B: as it really switches around between {vocalsound} two different channels, I think. Grad A: Mm - hmm, and {disfmarker} and they're very {disfmarker} it's very audible? on the close - talking channels? PhD B: What {disfmarker} what I would {disfmarker} Yeah. Grad A: Oh well. I mean, it's the same problem as the lapel mike. Professor F: Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: But {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Oh, interesting. PhD B: Comparable, yeah. Professor F: Yeah. PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: OK, alright. Digits. Professor F: Let's do digits. Postdoc C: OK, so we read the transcript number first, right? Grad A: Are we gonna do it altogether or separately? PhD B: So {disfmarker} What time is it? Professor F: Uh, {vocalsound} why don't we do it together, Postdoc C: Uh, quarter to four. PhD B: Oh, OK. Professor F: that's {disfmarker} that's a nice fast way to do it. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Professor F: One, two, three, go! Postdoc C: It's kind of interesting if there're any more errors in these, {vocalsound} than we had the first set. Grad A: Nnn, yeah, I think there probably will be. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Do you guys plug your ears when you do it? Grad A: I do. PhD B: No. Postdoc C: I usually do. PhD D: I do. PhD B: I don't. Postdoc C: I didn't this time. PhD D: You don't? PhD B: No. Professor F: I haven't been, PhD D: How can you do that? Professor F: no. PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Professor F: Uh, concentration. PhD B: Perhaps there are {vocalsound} lots of errors in it PhD D: Gah! Grad A: Total concentration. Are you guys ready? PhD D: You hate to have your ears plugged? Professor F: Yeah. PhD D: Really?

There is a slight worry about the acceptance of the paper submitted to Eurospeech as the deadline was exceeded.

tr-sq-661

tr-sq-661_0

What were the contents of the paper? Grad A: OK, we're recording. Professor F: We can say the word" zero" all we want, PhD G: I'm doing some Professor F: but just {disfmarker} PhD G: square brackets, coffee sipping, square brackets. PhD B: That's not allowed, I think. Postdoc C: Cur - curly brackets. Grad E: Is that voiced or unvoiced? Grad A: Curly brackets. PhD B: Curly brackets. Professor F: Curly brackets. Grad A: Right. PhD B: Oops. Professor F: Well, correction for transcribers. PhD G: Mmm! {comment} {vocalsound} Gar - darn! Professor F: Yeah. Postdoc C: Channel two. Grad A: Do we use square brackets for anything? Postdoc C: Yeah. Uh {disfmarker} Grad E: These poor transcribers. Professor F: u Postdoc C: Not ri not right now. I mean {disfmarker} No. PhD D: There's gonna be some zeros from this morning's meeting because I noticed that Professor F: u PhD D: Barry, I think maybe you turned your mike off before the digits were {disfmarker} Oh, was it during digits? Oh, so it doesn't matter. Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: It's still not a good idea. PhD B: So it's not {disfmarker} it's not that bad if it's at the end, but it's {disfmarker} in the beginning, it's {pause} bad. PhD D: Yeah. Yeah. Grad A: Yeah, you wanna {disfmarker} you wanna keep them on so you get {pause} good noise {disfmarker} noise floors, through the whole meeting. Postdoc C: That's interesting. Hmm. Professor F: Uh, I probably just should have left it on. Yeah I did have to run, but {disfmarker} Grad E: Is there any way to change that in the software? Grad A: Change what in the software? Grad E: Where like you just don't {disfmarker} like if you {disfmarker} if it starts catching zeros, like in the driver or something {disfmarker} in the card, or somewhere in the hardware {disfmarker} Where if you start seeing zeros on w across one channel, you just add some {vocalsound} random, @ @ {comment} noise floor {disfmarker} like a small noise floor. Grad A: I mean certainly we could do that, but I don't think that's a good idea. We can do that in post - processing if {disfmarker} if the application needs it. Grad E: Yeah. PhD B: Manual post - processing. Professor F: Well, I {disfmarker} u I actually don't know what the default {comment} is anymore as to how we're using the {disfmarker} the front - end stuff but {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} when we use the ICSI front - end, Grad A: As an argument. Professor F: but um, there is an {disfmarker} there is an o an option in {disfmarker} in RASTA, which, um, {vocalsound} in when I first put it in, uh, back in the days when I actually wrote things, uh, {vocalsound} I {pause} did actually put in a random bit or so that was in it, Grad E: OK. Professor F: but {vocalsound} then I realized that putting in a random bit was equivalent to adding uh {disfmarker} adding flat spectrum, Grad E: Right. Professor F: and it was a lot faster to just add a constant to the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to the spectrum. So then I just started doing that Grad E: Mmm. OK. Professor F: instead of calling" rand" {comment} or something, Grad E: Right. Professor F: so. So it d it does that. Gee! Here we all are! Grad A: Uh, so the only agenda items were Jane {disfmarker} was Jane wanted to talk about some of the IBM transcription process. Professor F: There's an agenda? Grad A: I sort of {vocalsound} condensed the three things you said into that. And then just {disfmarker} I only have like, this afternoon and maybe tomorrow morning to get anything done before I go to Japan for ten days. So if there's anything that n absolutely, desperately needs to be done, you should let me know now. Professor F: Uh, and you just sent off a Eurospeech paper, so. PhD G: Right. I hope they accept it. Professor F: Right. PhD G: I mean, I {disfmarker} both actu as {disfmarker} as a submission and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know, as a paper. Um {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} Grad A: Well yeah, you sent it in {pause} late. Professor F: Yeah, I guess you {disfmarker} first you have to do the first one, Grad A: Yeah. Professor F: and then {disfmarker} Yeah. PhD G: We actually exceeded the delayed deadline by o another day, so. PhD B: Oops. Professor F: Oh they {disfmarker} they had some extension that they announced or something? PhD G: Well yeah. Liz had sent them a note saying" could we please {pause} have another" {comment} {pause} I don't know," three days" or something, and they said yes. PhD D: And then she said" Did I say three? Grad A: Oh, PhD D: I meant four." Grad A: that was the other thing uh, PhD G: But u Grad A: uh, Dave Gelbart sent me email, I think he sent it to you too, {comment} that um, there's a special topic, section in si in Eurospeech on new, corp corpors corpora. And it's not due until like May fifteenth. Professor F: Oh this isn't the Aurora one? Grad A: No. Professor F: It's another one? Grad A: It's a different one. PhD B: No it's {disfmarker} Yeah. Yeah. Grad E: Huh! Grad A: And uh, Professor F: Oh! PhD B: I got this mail from {disfmarker} Grad A: I s forwarded it to Jane as I thought being the most relevant person. Um {disfmarker} So, I thought it was highly relevant {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Yeah I'm {disfmarker} Professor F: That's {disfmarker} Grad A: have you {disfmarker} did you look at the URL? Postdoc C: Yeah. I think so too. Um, I haven't gotten over to there yet, Grad A: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: but what {disfmarker} our discussion yesterday, I really {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I wanna submit one. PhD B: Was this {pause} SmartKom message? I think {pause} Christoph Draxler sent this, Postdoc C: Yeah. And, you offered to {disfmarker} to join me, if you want me to. Grad A: I'll help, PhD B: yeah. Grad A: but obviously I can't, really do, most of it, Postdoc C: Yeah. Yeah, that's right. PhD G: I think several people {disfmarker} sent this, Grad A: so. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Uh - huh. PhD G: yeah. Grad A: But any {disfmarker} any help you need I can certainly provide. Professor F: Well, PhD G: Yeah. Professor F: that's {disfmarker} that's a great idea. PhD G: Well {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there were some interesting results in this paper, though. For instance that Morgan {disfmarker} uh, accounted for fifty - six percent of the Robustness meetings in terms of number of words. Grad A: Wow. Postdoc C: In {disfmarker} in terms of what? In term PhD G: Number of words. Postdoc C: One? Wow! OK. Grad A: That's just cuz he talks really fast. Postdoc C: Do you mean, Professor F: n No. Grad A: I know PhD B: Oh. Short words. Postdoc C: because {disfmarker} is it partly, eh, c correctly identified words? Or is it {disfmarker} or just overall volume? PhD G: No. Well, according to the transcripts. Grad A: But re well regardless. I think it's {disfmarker} he's {disfmarker} he's in all of them, Postdoc C: Oh. OK. Professor F: Yeah. PhD G: I mean, we didn't mention Morgan by name Grad A: and he talks a lot. PhD G: we just {disfmarker} Grad A: One participant. Professor F: Well {disfmarker} we have now, but {disfmarker} PhD G: We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} something about {disfmarker} Grad A: Did you identify him as a senior {pause} member? PhD G: No, we as identify him as the person dominating the conversation. Professor F: Well. Grad A: Yeah. Postdoc C: OK. Professor F: I mean I get these AARP things, but I'm not se really senior yet, but {disfmarker} PhD G: Right Professor F: Um, PhD G: Hmm. Professor F: but uh, other than that delightful result, what was the rest of the paper about? PhD G: Um, well it was about {disfmarker} it had three sections Professor F: You sent it to me but I haven't seen it yet. PhD G: uh {disfmarker} three kinds of uh results, if you will. Uh, the one was that the {disfmarker} just the {disfmarker} the amount of overlap Grad A: The good, the bad, and the ugly. PhD G: um, s in terms of {disfmarker} in terms of number of words and also we computed something called a" spurt" , which is essentially a stretch of speech with uh, no pauses exceeding five hundred milliseconds. Um, and we computed how many overlapped i uh spurts there were and how many overlapped words there were. {vocalsound} Um, for four different {pause} corpora, the Meeting Recorder meetings, the Robustness meetings Switchboard and CallHome, and, found {disfmarker} and sort of compared the numbers. Um, and found that the, uh, you know, as you might expect the Meeting Recorder {pause} meetings had the most overlap uh, but next were Switchboard and CallHome, which both had roughly the same, almost identical in fact, and the Robustness meetings were {disfmarker} had the least, so {disfmarker} One sort of unexpected result there is that uh two - party telephone conversations have {vocalsound} about the same amount of overlap, Grad A: I'm surprised. PhD G: sort of in gen you know {disfmarker} order of magnitude - wise as, uh {disfmarker} as face - to - face meetings with multiple {disfmarker} Grad A: I have {disfmarker} I had better start changing all my slides! PhD G: Yeah. Also, I {disfmarker} in the Levinson, the pragmatics book, {comment} in you know, uh, textbook, {vocalsound} there's {disfmarker} I found this great quote where he says {vocalsound} you know {disfmarker} you know, how people {disfmarker} it talks about how uh {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how people are so good at turn taking, Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Yeah. PhD G: and {vocalsound} so {disfmarker} they're so good that {vocalsound} generally, u the overlapped speech does not {disfmarker} is less than five percent. Postdoc C: Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. PhD G: So, this is way more than five percent. Grad E: Did he mean face {disfmarker} like face - to - face? Or {disfmarker}? PhD G: Well, in real conversations, Grad E: Hmm. PhD G: everyday conversations. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: It's s what these conversation analysts have been studying for years and years there. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD B: But {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Well, of course, no, it doesn't necessarily go against what he said, cuz he said" generally speaking" . In order to {disfmarker} to go against that kind of a claim you'd have to big canvassing. Grad A: Hmm. PhD B: And in f PhD G: Well, he {disfmarker} he made a claim {disfmarker} Grad A: Well {disfmarker} PhD G: Well {disfmarker} Grad A: PhD B: But {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah, we {disfmarker} we have pretty limited sample here. PhD B: Five percent of time or five percent of what? Grad A: Yeah, I was gonna ask that too. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Exactly. PhD G: Well it's time. PhD B: Yeah, so {disfmarker} Postdoc C: It's {disfmarker} i it's not against his conclusion, PhD G: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but still {disfmarker} but still {disfmarker} u Postdoc C: it just says that it's a bi bell curve, and that, {vocalsound} you have something that has a nice range, in your sampling. PhD G: Yeah. So there are slight {disfmarker} There are differences in how you measure it, but still it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You know, the difference between um {disfmarker} between that number and what we have in meetings, which is more like, {vocalsound} you know, close to {disfmarker} in meetings like these, uh {disfmarker} you know, close to twenty percent. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor F: But what was it like, say, in the Robustness meeting, for instance? PhD G: That {disfmarker} Grad A: But {disfmarker} PhD G: Robustness meeting? It was {vocalsound} about half of the r So, {vocalsound} in terms of number of words, it's like seventeen or eigh eighteen percent for the Meeting Recorder meetings and {vocalsound} about half that for, {vocalsound} uh, the Robustness. Professor F: Maybe ten percent? Grad A: But I don't know if that's really a fair way of comparing between, multi - party, conversations and two - party conversations. Yeah. I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know. PhD B: Then {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} then you have to {disfmarker} Grad A: I mean that's just something {disfmarker} PhD D: Yeah, I just wonder if you have to normalize by the numbers of speakers or something. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD B: Then {disfmarker} Yeah, then normalize by {disfmarker} by something like that, Postdoc C: Yeah, that's a good point. PhD G: Well, we didn't get to look at that, PhD B: yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD G: but this obvious thing to see if {disfmarker} if there's a dependence on the number of uh {disfmarker} participants. Postdoc C: Good idea. Grad A: I mean {disfmarker} I bet there's a weak dependence. I'm sure it's {disfmarker} it's not a real strong one. PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: Right. Grad A: Right? Because you PhD D: Cuz not everybody talks. Grad A: Right. PhD G: Right. PhD D: Yeah. Grad A: You have a lot of {disfmarker} a lot of two - party, subsets within the meeting. PhD G: Right. Postdoc C: Uh - huh. Grad A: Well regardless {disfmarker} it's an interesting result regardless. PhD G: So {disfmarker} Right. Postdoc C: Yes, that's right. PhD G: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} and we also d computed this both with and without backchannels, Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: so you might think that backchannels have a special status because they're essentially just {disfmarker} Grad A: Uh - huh. So, did {disfmarker} we all said" uh - huh" and nodded at the same time, PhD G: R right. Grad A: so. PhD G: But, even if you take out all the backchannels {disfmarker} so basically you treat backchannels l as nonspeech, as pauses, Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: you still have significant overlap. You know, it goes down from maybe {disfmarker} For Switchboard it goes down from {disfmarker} I don't know {disfmarker} f um {disfmarker} {comment} I don't know {disfmarker} f fourteen percent of the words to maybe {vocalsound} uh I don't know, eleven percent or something {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's not a dramatic change, Grad A: Mm - hmm. PhD G: so it's {disfmarker} Anyway, so it's uh {disfmarker} That was {disfmarker} that was one set of {pause} results, and then the second one was just basically the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the stuff we had in the {disfmarker} in the HLT paper on how overlaps effect the {pause} recognition performance. Postdoc C: Hmm. Grad A: Nope. Right. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: And we rescored things um, a little bit more carefully. We also fixed the transcripts in {disfmarker} in numerous ways. Uh, but mostly we added one {disfmarker} one number, which was what if you {pause} uh, basically score ignoring all {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} the conjecture from the HLT results was that {vocalsound} most of the added recognition error is from insertions {vocalsound} due to background speech. So, we scored {vocalsound} all the recognition results, {vocalsound} uh, in such a way that the uh {disfmarker} Grad A: Oh by the way, who's on channel four? You're getting a lot of breath. PhD B: Yeah. I j was just wondering. Grad E: That's {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah. Grad E: That's me. PhD G: uh, well Don's been working hard. Grad E: That's right. PhD G: OK, so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so if you have the foreground speaker speaking here, and then there's some background speech, may be overlapping it somehow, um, and this is the time bin that we used, then of course you're gonna get insertion errors here and here. Grad A: Right. PhD G: Right? So we scored everything, and I must say the NIST scoring tools are pretty nice for this, where you just basically ignore everything outside of the, {vocalsound} uh, region that was deemed to be foreground speech. And where that was we had to use the t forced alignment, uh, results from s for {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} That's somewhat {disfmarker} that's somewhat subject to error, but still we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh, Don did some ha hand - checking and {disfmarker} and we think that {disfmarker} based on that, we think that the results are you know, valid, although of course, some error is gonna be in there. But basically what we found is after we take out these regions {disfmarker} so we only score the regions that were certified as foreground speech, {comment} {vocalsound} the recognition error went down to almost {vocalsound} uh, the {pause} level of the non - overlapped {pause} speech. So that means that {vocalsound} even if you do have background speech, if you can somehow separate out or find where it is, {vocalsound} uh, the recognizer does a good job, Grad A: That's great. PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: even though there is this back Grad A: Yeah, I guess that doesn't surprise me, because, with the close - talking mikes, the {disfmarker} the signal will be so much stronger. PhD G: Right. Right. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Um, Grad A: What {disfmarker} what sort of normalization do you do? PhD G: so {disfmarker} Uh, well, we just {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} we do {disfmarker} u you know, vit Grad A: I mean in you recognizer, in the SRI recognizer. PhD G: Well, we do uh, VTL {disfmarker} {vocalsound} vocal tract length normalization, w and we uh {disfmarker} you know, we {disfmarker} we uh, {vocalsound} make all the features have zero mean and unit variance. Grad A: Over an entire utterance? Professor F: And {disfmarker} Grad A: Or windowed? PhD G: Over {disfmarker} over the entire c over the entire channel. PhD B: Don't {pause} train {disfmarker} PhD G: Over the {disfmarker} Grad A: Hmm. PhD G: but you know. Um, now we didn't re - align the recognizer for this. We just took the old {disfmarker} So this is actually a sub - optimal way of doing it, Grad A: Right. Professor F: Right. PhD G: right? So we took the old recognition output and we just scored it differently. So the recognizer didn't have the benefit of knowing where the foreground speech {disfmarker} a start Professor F: Were you including the {disfmarker} the lapel {pause} in this? PhD G: Yes. Professor F: And did the {disfmarker} did {disfmarker} did the la did the {disfmarker} the problems with the lapel go away also? Or {disfmarker} PhD G: Um, it {disfmarker} Yeah. Professor F: fray for {disfmarker} for insertions? PhD G: It u not per {disfmarker} I mean, not completely, but yes, Professor F: Less so. PhD G: dramatically. So we have to um {disfmarker} Professor F: I mean, you still {disfmarker} PhD G: Well I should bring the {disfmarker} should bring the table with results. Maybe we can look at it {pause} Monday. Professor F: I would presume that you still would have somewhat higher error with the lapel for insertions than {disfmarker} PhD G: Yes. It's {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah. PhD G: Yes. Yeah. Professor F: Cuz again, looking forward to the non - close miked case, I think that we s still {disfmarker} PhD G: Mm - hmm. Grad A: I'm not looking forward to it. Professor F: i it's the high signal - to - noise ratio PhD G: Right. Professor F: here that {disfmarker} that helps you. PhD G: u s Right. So {disfmarker} so that was number {disfmarker} that was the second set of {disfmarker} uh, the second section. And then, {vocalsound} the third thing was, we looked at, {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh, what we call" interrupts" , although that's {disfmarker} that may be {vocalsound} a misnomer, but basically {vocalsound} we looked at cases where {disfmarker} Uh, so we {disfmarker} we used the punctuation from the original transcripts and we inferred the beginnings and ends of sentences. So, you know {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Di - did you use upper - lower case also, or not? PhD G: Um {disfmarker} Postdoc C: U upper lower case or no? PhD G: Hmm? Postdoc C: OK. PhD G: No, we only used, you know, uh periods, uh, question marks and {pause} exclamation. And we know that there's th that's not a very g I mean, we miss a lot of them, Postdoc C: Yeah. That's OK but {disfmarker} PhD G: but {disfmarker} but it's f i i Postdoc C: Comma also or not? PhD G: No commas. No. And then {vocalsound} we looked at locations where, uh, if you have overlapping speech and someone else starts a sentence, you know, where do these {disfmarker} where do other people start their {vocalsound} turns {disfmarker} not turns really, but you know, sentences, PhD B: Ah. PhD G: um {disfmarker} So we only looked at cases where there was a foreground speaker and then at the to at the {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} the foreground speaker started into their sentence and then someone else started later. PhD B: Somewhere in between the start and the end? PhD G: OK? And so what {disfmarker} PhD B: OK. PhD G: Sorry? PhD B: Somewhere in between the start and the end of the foreground? PhD G: Yes. Uh, so that such that there was overlap between the two sentences. PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: So, the {disfmarker} the question was how can we {disfmarker} what can we say about the places where the second or {disfmarker} or actually, several second speakers, {vocalsound} um {pause} start their {pause}" interrupts" , as we call them. PhD D: Three words from the end. Grad A: At pause boundaries. PhD G: w And we looked at this in terms of um {disfmarker} Grad A: On T - closures, only. PhD G: So {disfmarker} so we had {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we had um u to {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for the purposes of this analysis, we tagged the word sequences, and {disfmarker} and we time - aligned them. Um, and we considered it interrupt {disfmarker} if it occurred in the middle of a word, we basically {disfmarker} you know, considered that to be a interrupt as if it were at {disfmarker} at the beginning of the word. So that, {vocalsound} if any part of the word was overlapped, it was considered an interrupted {pause} word. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: And then we looked at the {disfmarker} the locatio the, {vocalsound} um, you know, the features that {disfmarker} the tags because we had tagged these word strings, {comment} {vocalsound} um, that {disfmarker} that occurred right before these {disfmarker} these uh, interrupt locations. PhD B: Tag by uh PhD G: And the tags we looked at are {vocalsound} the spurt tag, which basically says {disfmarker} or actually {disfmarker} Sorry. End of spurt. So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} whether there was a pause essentially here, because spurts are a {disfmarker} defined as being you know, five hundred milliseconds or longer pauses, and then we had things like discourse markers, uh, backchannels, uh, disfluencies. um, uh, filled pauses {disfmarker} So disfluen the D's are for, {vocalsound} um, {vocalsound} the interruption points of a disfluency, so, where you hesitate, or where you start the repair there. Uh, what else do we had. Uh, repeated {disfmarker} you know, repeated words is another of that kind of disfluencies and so forth. So we had both the beginnings and ends of these {disfmarker} uh so, the end of a filled pause and the end of a discourse marker. And we just eyeballed {disfmarker} I mean {vocalsound} we didn't really hand - tag all of these things. We just {pause} looked at the distribution of words, and so every {vocalsound}" so yeah" , and" OK" , uh, and" uh - huh" were {disfmarker} were the {disfmarker} were deemed to be backchannels and {vocalsound}" wow" and" so" and {vocalsound} uh" right" , uh were um {disfmarker} {pause} Not" right" ." Right" is a backchannel. But so, we sort of {disfmarker} just based on the lexical {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um, identity of the words, we {disfmarker} we tagged them as one of these things. And of course the d the interruption points we got from the original transcripts. So, and then we looked at the disti so we looked at the {pause} distribution of these different kinds of tags, overall uh, and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and particularly at the interruption points. And uh, we found that there is a marked difference so that for instance after {disfmarker} so at the end after a discourse marker or after backchannel or after filled pause, you're much more likely to be interrupted {vocalsound} than before. OK? And also of course after spurt ends, which means basically in p inside pauses. So pauses are always an opportunity for {disfmarker} So we have this little histogram which shows these distributions and, {vocalsound} um, PhD D: I wonder {disfmarker} PhD G: you know, it's {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's not {disfmarker} No big surprises, but it is {pause} sort of interesting from {disfmarker} Grad A: It's nice to actually measure it though. PhD G: Yeah. PhD D: I wonder about the cause and effect there. In other words uh {pause} if you weren't going to pause you {disfmarker} you will because you're g being interrupted. PhD G: Well we're ne PhD D: Uh {disfmarker} PhD G: Right. There's no statement about cause and effect. PhD D: Yeah, right. No, no, no. PhD G: This is just a statistical correlation, PhD D: Right, I {disfmarker} I see. Yeah. PhD G: yeah. Professor F: But he {disfmarker} yeah, he's {disfmarker} he's right, y I mean maybe you weren't intending to pause at all, but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You were intending to stop for fifty - seven milliseconds, PhD G: Right. Professor F: but then Chuck came in PhD G: Right. PhD D: Yeah. Professor F: and so you {vocalsound} paused for a second PhD G: Right. Anyway. {comment} So, Professor F: or more. PhD G: uh, and that was basically it. And {disfmarker} and we {disfmarker} so we wrote this and then, {vocalsound} we found we were at six pages, and then we started {vocalsound} cutting furiously PhD B: Oops. PhD G: and {vocalsound} threw out half of the {vocalsound} material again, and uh played with the LaTeX stuff and {disfmarker} Grad A: Made the font smaller and the narrows longer. PhD G: uh, and {disfmarker} until it fi PhD B: Font smaller, yeah. PhD G: No, no. W well, d you couldn't really make everything smaller PhD B: Put the abstract end. PhD G: but we s we put {disfmarker} Oh, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Grad A: Took out white space. PhD G: you know the {disfmarker} the gap between the two columns is like ten millimeters, PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: so I d shrunk it to eight millimeters and that helped some. And stuff like that. PhD D: Wasn't there {disfmarker} wasn't there some result, Andreas {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah {disfmarker} PhD D: I {disfmarker} I thought maybe Liz presented this at some conference a while ago about {vocalsound} uh, backchannels PhD G: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. PhD D: uh, and that they tend to happen when uh {pause} the pitch drops. You know you get a falling pitch. And so that's when people tend to backchannel. PhD G: Yeah. Well {disfmarker} PhD D: Uh - i i do you rem PhD G: y We didn't talk about, uh, prosodic, uh, properties at all, PhD D: Right. Right. But {disfmarker} PhD G: although that's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I take it that's something that uh Don will {disfmarker} will look at Grad E: Yeah, we're gonna be looking at that. PhD G: now that we have the data and we have the alignment, so. This is purely based on you know the words PhD D: Mm - hmm. PhD G: and {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I have a reference for that though. Uh - huh. PhD D: Oh you do. PhD G: Yeah. PhD D: So am I recalling correctly? PhD G: Anyway, so. Postdoc C: Well, I didn't know about Liz's finding on that, PhD D: About {disfmarker} Postdoc C: but I know of another paper that talks about something PhD D: Uh - huh. Postdoc C: that {disfmarker} PhD D: Hmm. Grad E: I'd like to see that reference too. Postdoc C: OK. PhD D: It made me think about a cool little device that could be built to uh {disfmarker} to handle those people that call you on the phone and just like to talk and talk and talk. And you just have this little detector that listens for these {vocalsound} drops in pitch and gives them the backchannel. And so then you {vocalsound} hook that to the phone and go off Grad A: Yeah. Uh - huh. PhD D: and do the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} do whatever you r wanna do, PhD G: Oh yeah. Well {disfmarker} PhD D: while that thing keeps them busy. PhD G: There's actually {disfmarker} uh there's this a former student of here from Berkeley, Nigel {disfmarker} Nigel Ward. PhD D: Uh - huh. Sure. PhD G: Do you know him? PhD D: Yeah. PhD G: He did a system uh, in {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he lives in Japan now, and he did this backchanneling, automatic backchanneling system. Professor F: Right. PhD G: It's a very {disfmarker} PhD D: Oh! PhD G: So, exactly what you describe, PhD D: Huh. PhD G: but for Japanese. And it's apparently {disfmarker} for Japa - in Japanese it's really important that you backchannel. It's really impolite if you don't, and {disfmarker} So. Professor F: Huh. Actually for a lot of these people I think you could just sort of backchannel continuously and it would {pause} pretty much be fine. PhD D: It wouldn't matter? Yeah. Grad E: Yeah. That's w That's what I do. PhD D: Random intervals. Grad A: There was {disfmarker} there was of course a Monty Python sketch with that. Where the barber who was afraid of scissors was playing a {disfmarker} a tape of clipping sounds, and saying" uh - huh" ," yeah" ," how about them sports teams?" PhD G: Anyway. So the paper's on - line and y I {disfmarker} I think I uh {disfmarker} I CC'ed a message to Meeting Recorder with the URL so you can get it. Grad A: Yep. Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: Printed it out, haven't read it yet. Professor F: Yeah. PhD G: Um, uh one more thing. So I {disfmarker} I'm actually {disfmarker} {vocalsound} about to send Brian Kingbury an email saying where he can find the {disfmarker} the s the m the material he wanted for the s for the speech recognition experiment, so {disfmarker} but I haven't sent it out yet because actually my desktop locked up, like I can't type anything. Uh b so if there's any suggestions you have for that I was just gonna send him the {disfmarker} PhD D: Is it the same directory that you had suggested? PhD G: I made a directory. I called it um {disfmarker} Postdoc C: He still has his Unix account here, you know. PhD G: Well this isn't {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD G: He does? Postdoc C: And he {disfmarker} and he's {disfmarker} PhD G: Yeah but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but he has to {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I'd hafta add him to Meeting Recorder, I guess, PhD G: he prefe he said he would prefer FTP Postdoc C: but {disfmarker} OK. PhD G: and also, um, the other person that wants it {disfmarker} There is one person at SRI who wants to look at the {vocalsound} um, you know, the uh {disfmarker} the data we have so far, Postdoc C: OK. PhD G: and so I figured that FTP is the best {pause} approach. So what I did is I um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} @ @ {comment} I made a n new directory after Chuck said that would c that was gonna be a good thing. Uh, so it's" FTP {vocalsound} {pause} pub Grad A: Pub real. PhD G: real" {disfmarker} Exactly. MTGC {disfmarker} What is it again? CR {disfmarker} Grad A: Ask Dan Ellis. Professor F: u R D {disfmarker} RDR, yeah. PhD G: Or {disfmarker} Yeah. Right? The same {disfmarker} the same as the mailing list, Professor F: Yeah, PhD G: and {disfmarker} Professor F: the {disfmarker} {pause} No vowels. PhD G: Yeah. Um, Professor F: Yeah PhD G: and then under there {disfmarker} Um actually {disfmarker} Oh and this directory, {vocalsound} is not readable. It's only uh, accessible. So, {vocalsound} in other words, to access anything under there, you have to {vocalsound} be told what the name is. Grad A: Right. PhD G: So that's sort of a g {vocalsound} quick and dirty way of doing access control. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: So {disfmarker} uh, and the directory for this I call it I" ASR zero point one" because it's sort of meant for recognition. Professor F: So anyone who hears this meeting now knows the {disfmarker} Grad A: Beta? PhD G: And then {disfmarker} then in there I have a file that lists all the other {vocalsound} files, so that someone can get that file and then know the file names and therefore download them. If you don't know the file names you can't {disfmarker} Professor F: Is that a dash or a dot in there? PhD G: I mean you can {disfmarker} Grad A: Don't {disfmarker} don't {disfmarker} don't say. PhD G: Dash. Anyway. So all I {disfmarker} all I was gonna do there was stick the {disfmarker} the transcripts after we {disfmarker} the way that we munged them for scoring, because that's what he cares about, and {disfmarker} um, and also {disfmarker} and then the {disfmarker} the {pause} waveforms that Don segmented. I mean, just basically tar them all up f I mean {disfmarker} w for each meeting I tar them all into one tar file and G - zip them and stick them there. Grad A: I uh, put digits in my own home directory {disfmarker} home FTP directory, PhD G: And so. Grad A: but I'll probably move them there as well. PhD G: Oh, OK. PhD D: So we could point Mari to this also for her {vocalsound} March O - one request? PhD G: OK. Yeah. March O - one. PhD D: Or {disfmarker} PhD G: Oh! PhD D: You n Remember she was {disfmarker} PhD G: Oh she wanted that also? PhD D: Well she was saying that it would be nice if we had {disfmarker} they had a {disfmarker} Or was she talking {disfmarker} Yeah. She was saying it would be nice if they had eh {pause} the same set, so that when they did experiments they could compare. PhD G: Right, but they don't have a recognizer even. PhD D: Yeah. Grad E: Um {disfmarker} I PhD G: But yeah, we can send {disfmarker} I can CC Mari on this so that she knows {disfmarker} PhD D: Yeah. So, for the thing that {disfmarker} Postdoc C: That's good. PhD D: We need to give Brian the beeps file, PhD G: Right. PhD D: so I was gonna probably put it {disfmarker} Grad A: We can put it in the same place. Just put in another directory. PhD D: Yeah, it I'll make another directory. PhD G: Well, make ano make another directory. PhD D: Yeah. Exactly. PhD G: You don't n m PhD D: Yeah. PhD G: Yeah. Grad E: And, Andreas, um, sampled? PhD G: Yeah. They are? Grad E: I think so. Yeah. Um, so either we should regenerate the original {vocalsound} versions, {comment} {pause} or um, we should just make a note of it. PhD G: OK. Oh. Beca - Well {disfmarker} OK, because in one directory there's two versions. Grad E: Yeah, that's the first meeting I cut both versions. Just to check which w if there is a significant difference. PhD G: OK. And so I {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} OK so {disfmarker} but for the other meetings it's the downsampled version that you have. Grad E: They're all downsampled, yeah. PhD G: Oh, OK. Oh that's th important to know, OK so we should probably {disfmarker} uh {pause} give them the non - downsampled versions. Grad E: Yeah. So {disfmarker} PhD G: OK. Alright, then I'll hold off on that and I'll wait for you um {disfmarker} Grad E: Probably by tomorrow PhD G: gen Grad E: I can {disfmarker} I'll send you an email. PhD G: OK. Alright. OK. Yeah, definitely they should have the full bandwidth version, Grad E: Yeah, because I mean {disfmarker} I I think Liz decided to go ahead with the {pause} downsampled versions cuz we can {disfmarker} There was no s like, r significant difference. PhD G: yeah. OK. Well, it takes {disfmarker} it takes up less disk space, for one thing. Grad E: It does take up less disk space, and apparently it did even better {pause} than the original {disfmarker} than the original versions, PhD G: Yeah. Yeah. Grad E: which you know, is just, probably random. PhD G: Right. Yeah, it was a small difference Grad E: But, um {pause} they probably w want the originals. PhD G: but yeah. Yeah. OK. OK, good. Good that {disfmarker} Well, it's a good thing that {disfmarker} Grad A: OK, I think we're losing, Don and Andreas at three - thirty, right? OK. Grad E: Hey mon hafta booga. PhD G: Yeah. Professor F: So, that's why it was good to have Andreas, say these things but {disfmarker} So, we should probably talk about the IBM transcription process stuff that {disfmarker} Postdoc C: OK. So, um you know that Adam created um, a b a script to generate the beep file? Professor F: Hmm. Postdoc C: To then create something to send to IBM. And, um, you {disfmarker} you should probably talk about that. But {disfmarker} but you were gonna to use the {pause} originally transcribed file because I tightened the time bins and that's also the one that they had already {vocalsound} in trying to debug the first stage of this. And uh, my understanding was that, um {disfmarker} I haven't {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I haven't listened to it yet, Grad A: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: but it sounded very good and {disfmarker} and I understand that you guys {vocalsound} were going to have a meeting today, before this meeting. Grad A: It was just to talk about how to generate it. Um, just so that while I'm gone, you can regenerate it if you decide to do it a different way. So uh, Chuck and Thilo should, now more or less know how to generate the file Postdoc C: Excellent. OK. Grad A: and, {vocalsound} the other thing Chuck pointed out is that, um, {vocalsound} since this one is hand - marked, {vocalsound} there are discourse boundaries. Right? So {disfmarker} so when one person is speaking, there's breaks. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Grad A: Whereas Thilo's won't have that. So what {disfmarker} what we're probably gonna do is just write a script, that if two, chunks are very close to each other on the same channel we'll just merge them. Postdoc C: Oh! OK. Ah, interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, sure. Yeah, sure. Makes sense. Grad A: So, uh, and that will get around the problem of, the, {vocalsound} you know" one word beep, one word beep, one word beep, one word beep" . Postdoc C: Yeah. Ah! Clever. Yes. Clever. Yeah. Excellent. PhD D: Yeah, in fact after our meeting uh, this morning Thilo came in and said that {vocalsound} um, there could be {pause} other differences between {vocalsound} the uh {pause} already transcribed meeting with the beeps in it and one that has {pause} just r been run through his process. Postdoc C: And that's the purpose. Yeah. PhD D: So tomorrow, {vocalsound} when we go to make the um {pause} uh, chunked file {vocalsound} for IBM, we're going to actually compare the two. So he's gonna run his process on that same meeting, Postdoc C: Great idea! PhD D: and then we're gonna do the beep - ify on both, and listen to them and see if we notice any real differences. PhD G: Beep - ify! Postdoc C: OK, now one thing that prevented us from apply you {disfmarker} you from applying {disfmarker} Exactly. The training {disfmarker} So that is the training meeting. OK. PhD D: Yeah, w and we know that. Wel - uh we just wanna if {disfmarker} if there're any major differences between {vocalsound} doing it on the hand Postdoc C: Uh - huh. Oh, interesting. Ah! Grad A: Hmm. Postdoc C: OK. Interesting idea. Great. PhD G: So this training meeting, uh w un is that uh {pause} some data where we have uh very um, {vocalsound} you know, accurate {pause} time marks? for {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I went back and hand - marked the {pause} ba the bins, I ment I mentioned that last week. PhD G: OK, yeah. PhD D: But the {disfmarker} but there's {disfmarker} yeah, but there is this one issue with them in that there're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} there are time boundaries in there that occur in the middle of speech. PhD G: Because {disfmarker} PhD D: So {disfmarker} Like when we went t to um {disfmarker} When I was listening to the original file that Adam had, it's like you {disfmarker} you hear a word then you hear a beep {vocalsound} and then you hear the continuation of what is the same sentence. Grad A: That's on the other channel. That's because of channel overlap. PhD D: Well, and {disfmarker} and so the {disfmarker} th Postdoc C: Hmm. Grad A: It's {disfmarker} i PhD D: So there are these chunks that look like uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that have uh {disfmarker} Grad A: I mean that's not gonna be true of the foreground speaker. That'll only be if it's the background speaker. PhD D: Right. So you'll {disfmarker} you'll have a chunk of, you know, channel {vocalsound} A which starts at zero and ends at ten, and then the same channel starting at eleven, ending at fifteen, and then again, starting at sixteen, ending at twenty. Right, so that's three chunks where {vocalsound} actually we w can just make one chunk out of that which is A, zero, twenty. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: Yeah. Grad A: That's what I just said, Postdoc C: Sure. Sure. Grad A: yeah. PhD D: Yeah. So I just wanted to make sure that it was clear. Postdoc C: Yeah, I thought that was {disfmarker} PhD D: So {vocalsound} if you were to use these, you have to be careful not to pull out these individual {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD G: Oh! I mean it {disfmarker} Right, I mean w I mean what I would {disfmarker} I was interested in is having {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a se having time marks for the beginnings and ends of speech by each speaker. Grad A: Well, that's definitely a problem. PhD G: Uh, because we could use that to fine tune our alignment process Grad A: Battery. PhD D: Yeah. PhD G: to make it more accurate. PhD B: Battery? PhD D: Mm - hmm. PhD G: So {disfmarker} uh, it {disfmarker} I don't care that you know, there's actually abutting segments that we have to join together. That's fine. PhD D: OK. PhD G: But what we do care about is that {vocalsound} the beginnings and ends um {pause} are actually close to the speech {vocalsound} inside of that PhD D: Yeah, I think Jane tightened these up by hand. PhD G: uh {disfmarker} PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD G: OK, so what is the {disfmarker} sort of how tight are they? Professor F: Uh, it looks much better. PhD B: Yeah. Looks good. Postdoc C: They were, um, reasonably tight, but not excruciatingly tight. PhD G: Oh. Postdoc C: That would've taken more time. I just wanted to get it so tha So that if you have like" yeah" {comment} in a {disfmarker} swimming in a big bin, then it's {disfmarker} PhD G: No, no! I don Grad A: Let me make a note on yours. PhD G: actually I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: I {disfmarker} it's f That's fine because we don't want to {disfmarker} th that's perfectly fine. In fact it's good. You always want to have a little bit of pause or nonspeech around the speech, say for recognition purposes. Uh, but just {disfmarker} just u w you know get an id I just wanted to have an idea of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of how much extra you allowed um {disfmarker} so that I can interpret the numbers if I compared that with a forced alignment segmentation. Postdoc C: I can't answer that, PhD G: So. Postdoc C: but {disfmarker} but my main goal was {pause} um, in these areas where you have a three - way overlap {vocalsound} and one of the overlaps involves" yeah" , {vocalsound} and it's swimming in this huge bin, {vocalsound} I wanted to get it so that it was clo more closely localized. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Right. But are we talking about, I don't know, {pause} a {vocalsound} {pause} tenth of a second? a {disfmarker}? You know? How {disfmarker} how much {disfmarker} how much extra would you allow at most {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I {disfmarker} I wanted to {disfmarker} I wanted it to be able to {disfmarker} l he be heard normally, PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: so that if you {disfmarker} if you play {pause} back that bin and have it in the mode where it stops at the boundary, {vocalsound} it sounds like a normal word. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: It doesn't sound like the person {disfmarker} i it sounds normal. It's as if the person could've stopped there. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: And it wouldn't have been an awkward place to stop. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: Now sometimes you know, it's {disfmarker} these are involved in places where there was no time. And so, {vocalsound} {vocalsound} there wouldn't be {pause} a gap afterwards because {disfmarker} PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: I mean some cases, there're some people {pause} um, who {disfmarker} who have very long {pause} segments of discourse where, {vocalsound} you know, they'll {disfmarker} they'll breath {pause} and then I put a break. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: But other than that, it's really pretty continuous and this includes things like going from one sentence into the {disfmarker} u one utterance into the next, one sentence into the next, um, w without really stopping. I mean {disfmarker} i they, i you know in writing you have this {vocalsound} two spaces and a big gap PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: you know. PhD G: Right. Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} but uh {pause} {vocalsound} i some people are planning and, you know, I mean, a lot {disfmarker} we always are planning {pause} what we're going to say next. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: But uh, in which case, the gap between {pause} these two complete syntactic units, {vocalsound} um, which of course n spoken things are not always complete syntactically, but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but it would be a shorter p shorter break {vocalsound} than {vocalsound} maybe you might like. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: But the goal there was to {pause} not have {vocalsound} the text be so {disfmarker} so crudely {pause} parsed in a time bin. I mean, because {vocalsound} from a discourse m purpose {pause} it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's more {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's more useful to be able to see {disfmarker} and also you know, from a speech recognition purpose my impression is that {vocalsound} if you have too long a unit, it's {disfmarker} it doesn't help you very much either, cuz of the memory. PhD G: Well, yeah. That's fine. Postdoc C: So, that means that {vocalsound} the amount of time after something is variable depending partly on context, but my general goal {vocalsound} when there was {pause} sufficient space, room, pause {pause} after it {pause} to have it be {pause} kind of a natural feeling {pause} gap. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: Which I c I don't know what it would be quantified as. You know, Wally Chafe says that {vocalsound} um, {vocalsound} in producing narratives, the spurts that people use {vocalsound} tend to be, {vocalsound} uh, that the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} what would be a pause might be something like two {disfmarker} two seconds. PhD G: Mmm. Postdoc C: And um, that would be, you know one speaker. The discourse {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the people who look at turn taking often do use {disfmarker} PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: I was interested that you chose uh, {vocalsound} you know um, {comment} the {disfmarker} you know that you use cuz I think that's a unit that would be more consistent with sociolinguistics. Yeah. PhD G: Well we chose um, you know, half a second because {vocalsound} if {disfmarker} if you go much larger, you have a {disfmarker} y you know, your {disfmarker} your statement about how much overlap there is becomes less, {vocalsound} um, precise, Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: because you include more of actual pause time into what you consider overlap speech. Um, so, it's sort of a compromise, PhD B: Yeah. {comment} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah, I also used I think something around zero point five seconds for the speech - nonspeech detector {disfmarker} PhD G: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's also based {disfmarker} I mean Liz suggested that value based on {vocalsound} the distribution of pause times that you see in Switchboard and {disfmarker} and other corpora. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: Um {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} PhD B: for the minimum silence length. PhD G: Mm - hmm. I see. PhD B: So. PhD G: Yeah. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: In any case, this {disfmarker} this uh, meeting {pause} that I hand {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I hand - adjusted two of them I mentioned before, PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: and I sent {disfmarker} I sent email, PhD G: OK, Postdoc C: so {disfmarker} PhD G: So {disfmarker} so at some point we will try to fine - tune our forced alignment Postdoc C: And I sent the {comment} {pause} path. PhD G: maybe using those as references because you know, what you would do is you would play with different parameters. And to get an object You need an objective {vocalsound} measure of how closely you can align the models to the actual speech. And that's where your your data would be {pause} very important to have. So, I will {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah and hopefully the new meetings {pause} which will start from the channelized version will {disfmarker} will have better time boundaries {pause} and alignments. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Right. Postdoc C: But I like this idea of {disfmarker} uh, for our purposes for the {disfmarker} for the IBM preparation, {vocalsound} uh, n having these {pause} joined together, PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. Postdoc C: and uh {disfmarker} It makes a lot of sense. And in terms of transcription, it would be easy to do it that way. PhD G: Yeah. Postdoc C: The way that they have with the longer units, PhD G: Yeah. Postdoc C: not having to fuss with adding these units at this time. PhD B: Yeah. Whi - which could have one drawback. If there is uh a backchannel in between those three things, PhD G: Right. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD B: the {disfmarker} the n the backchannel will {disfmarker} will occur at the end of {disfmarker} of those three. Postdoc C: Yes. PhD B: And {disfmarker} and in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the previous version where in the n which is used now, {vocalsound} there, the backchannel would {disfmarker} would be in - between there somewhere, so. Postdoc C: I see. PhD B: That would be more natural Postdoc C: Yeah. Well, PhD B: but {disfmarker} Postdoc C: that's {disfmarker} that's right, but you know, thi this brings me to the other f stage of this which I discussed with you earlier today, PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: which is {vocalsound} the second stage is {vocalsound} um, w what to do {pause} in terms of the transcribers adjustment of these data. I discussed this with you too. Um, the tr so the idea initially was, we would get {vocalsound} uh, for the new meetings, so the e EDU meetings, that {vocalsound} Thilo ha has now presegmented all of them for us, on a channel by channel basis. And um, so, I've assigned {disfmarker} I've {disfmarker} I've assigned them to our transcribers and um, so far I've discussed it with one, with uh {disfmarker} And I had a {pause} about an hour discussion with her about this yesterday, we went through {vocalsound} uh EDU - one, at some extent. And it occurred to me that {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} that {vocalsound} basically what we have in this kind of a format is {disfmarker} you could consider it as a staggered mixed file, we had some discussion over the weekend a about {disfmarker} at {disfmarker} at this other meeting that we were all a at {disfmarker} um, {vocalsound} about whether the tran the IBM transcribers should hear a single channel audio, or a mixed channel audio. And um, {vocalsound} in {disfmarker} in a way, by {disfmarker} by having this {disfmarker} this chunk and then the backchannel {vocalsound} after it, it's like a stagal staggered mixed channel. And um, {vocalsound} it occurred {pause} to me in my discussion with her yesterday that um, um, the {disfmarker} {pause} the {disfmarker} the maximal gain, it's {disfmarker} from the IBM {pause} people, may be in long stretches of connected speech. So it's basically a whole bunch of words {vocalsound} which they can really do, because of the continuity within that person's turn. So, what I'm thinking, and it may be that not all meetings will be good for this, {comment} but {disfmarker} but what I'm thinking is that {vocalsound} in the EDU meetings, they tend to be {vocalsound} driven by a couple of dominant speakers. And, if the chunked files focused on the dominant speakers, {vocalsound} then, when {disfmarker} when it got s patched together when it comes back from IBM, we can add the backchannels. It seems to me {vocalsound} that {vocalsound} um, you know, the backchannels per - se wouldn't be so hard, but then there's this question of the time {pause} @ @ {comment} uh, marking, and whether the beeps would be {vocalsound} uh y y y And I'm not exactly sure how that {disfmarker} how that would work with the {disfmarker} with the backchannels. And, so um {disfmarker} And certainly things that are {vocalsound} intrusions of multiple words, {vocalsound} taken out of context and displaced in time from where they occurred, {vocalsound} that would be hard. So, m my {vocalsound} thought is {pause} i I'm having this transcriber go through {vocalsound} the EDU - one meeting, and indicate a start time {nonvocalsound} f for each dominant speaker, endpoi end time for each dominant speaker, and the idea that {vocalsound} these units would be generated for the dominant speakers, {vocalsound} and maybe not for the other channels. Grad A: Yeah the only, um, disadvantage of that is, then it's hard to use an automatic method to do that. The advantage is that it's probably faster to do that than it is to use the automated method and correct it. So. Postdoc C: Well, it {disfmarker} Grad A: We'll just have to see. Postdoc C: OK. I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think um, you know, the original plan was that the transcriber would adjust the t the boundaries, and all that for all the channels but, {vocalsound} you know, that is so time - consuming, and since we have a bottleneck here, we want to get IBM things that are usable s as soon as possible, then this seemed to me it'd be a way of gett to get them a flood of data, which would be useful when it comes back to us. And um {disfmarker} Grad A: Yeah. Postdoc C: Oh also, at the same time she {disfmarker} when she goes through this, she'll be {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} If there's anything that {vocalsound} was encoded as a pause, but really has something transcribable in it, {vocalsound} then she's going to {vocalsound} uh, make a mark {disfmarker} w uh, so you know, so {vocalsound} that {disfmarker} that bin would be marked as it {disfmarker} as double dots and she'll just add an S. And in the other {disfmarker} in the other case, if it's marked as speech, {vocalsound} and really there's nothing transcribable in it, then she's going to put a s dash, and I'll go through and it {disfmarker} and um, you know, with a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} with a substitution command, get it so that it's clear that those are the other category. I'll just, you know, recode them. But um, {vocalsound} um, the transcribable events {pause} that um, I'm considering in this, {vocalsound} uh, continue to be {vocalsound} laugh, as well as speech, and cough and things like that, so I'm not stripping out anything, just {disfmarker} just you know, being very lenient in what's considered speech. Yeah? PhD D: Jane? In terms of the {disfmarker} this new procedure you're suggesting, {vocalsound} um, u what is the {disfmarker} Grad A: It's not that different. PhD D: So I'm a little confused, because how do we know where to put beeps? Is it {disfmarker} i d y is it {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Oh, OK. Grad A: Transcriber will do it. Postdoc C: So what it {disfmarker} what it {disfmarker} what it involves is {disfmarker} is really a s uh, {vocalsound} uh, the original pr procedure, but {vocalsound} only applied to {pause} uh, a certain {pause} strategically chosen {pause} s aspect of the data. Grad A: We pick the easy parts of the data basically, Postdoc C: So {disfmarker} Grad A: and transcriber marks it by hand. Postdoc C: You got it. Grad A: And because {disfmarker} PhD D: But after we've done Thilo's thing. Grad A: No. Postdoc C: Yes! Grad A: Oh, after. Oh, OK, Postdoc C: Yes! Grad A: I didn't {disfmarker} I didn't understand that. Postdoc C: Oh yeah! Grad A: OK. PhD B: So, I'm @ @ {disfmarker} now I'm confused. Postdoc C: OK. We start with your presegmented version {disfmarker} PhD G: OK, and I'm leaving. Grad E: Yeah, I have to go as well. PhD G: So, um {disfmarker} Grad A: OK, leave the mikes on, and just put them on the table. Grad E: OK. Thanks. Postdoc C: We start with the presegmented version {disfmarker} Grad A: Let me mark you as no digits. PhD B: You start with the presegmentation, r {vocalsound} yeah? Postdoc C: Yeah. And then um, {vocalsound} the transcriber, {vocalsound} instead of going painstakingly through all the channels and moving the boundaries around, and deciding if it's speech or not, but not transcribing anything. OK? Instead of doing that, which was our original plan, {vocalsound} the tra They focus on the dominant speaker {disfmarker} PhD D: Mm - hmm. They just {vocalsound} do that on {pause} the main channels. Postdoc C: Yeah. So what they do is they identify who's the di dominant speaker, and when the speaker starts. PhD D: OK. PhD B: Yeah? OK. Postdoc C: So I mean, you're still gonna {disfmarker} PhD B: And you just {disfmarker} Postdoc C: So we're {disfmarker} It's based on your se presegmentation, that's the basic {pause} thing. PhD B: and you just use the s the segments of the dominant speaker then? For {disfmarker} for sending to {disfmarker} to IBM or {disfmarker}? Postdoc C: Yeah. Exactly. PhD D: So, now Jane, my question is {vocalsound} when they're all done adjusting the w time boundaries for the dominant speaker, {comment} have they then also erased the time boundaries for the other ones? Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Uh No. No, no. Huh - uh. S PhD D: So how will we know who {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: That's {disfmarker} that's why she's notating the start and end points of the dominant speakers. So, on a {disfmarker} you know, so {vocalsound} i in EDU - one, i as far as I listened to it, you start off with a {disfmarker} a s section by Jerry. So Jerry starts at minute so - and - so, and goes until minute so - and - so. And then Mark Paskin comes in. And he starts at {vocalsound} minute such - and - such, and goes on till minute so - and - so. OK. And then {vocalsound} meanwhile, she's listening to {vocalsound} {pause} both of these guys'channels, determining if there're any cases of misclassification of speech as nothing, and nothing as speech, PhD D: Mm - hmm. OK. Postdoc C: and {vocalsound} a and adding a tag if that happens. PhD D: So she does the adjustments on those guys? Postdoc C: But you know, I wanted to say, his segmentation is so good, that {vocalsound} um, the part that I listened to with her yesterday {vocalsound} didn't need any adjustments of the bins. PhD B: On that meeting. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: So far we haven't. So this is not gonna be a major part of the process, at least {disfmarker} least not in {disfmarker} not on ones that {disfmarker} that really {disfmarker} PhD D: So if you don't have to adjust the bins, why not just do what it {disfmarker} for all the channels? Postdoc C: Mm - hmm? PhD D: Why not just throw all the channels to IBM? Postdoc C: Well there's the question o of {pause} whether {disfmarker} Well, OK. She i It's a question of how much time we want our transcriber to invest here {vocalsound} when she's gonna have to invest that when it comes back from IBM anyway. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: So if it's only inserting" mm - hmm" s here and there, then, wouldn't that be something that would be just as efficient to do at this end, instead of having it go through I B M, then be patched together, then be double checked here. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Right. PhD B: Yeah. But {disfmarker} But then we could just use the {disfmarker} the output of the detector, and do the beeping on it, and send it to I B PhD D: Without having her check anything. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: Right. Postdoc C: Well, I guess {disfmarker} Grad A: I think we just {disfmarker} we just have to listen to it and see how good they are. PhD B: For some meetings, I'm {disfmarker} I'm sure it {disfmarker} i n Postdoc C: I'm {disfmarker} I'm open to that, it was {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah, if it's working well, PhD B: That's {disfmarker} And some {disfmarker} on some meetings it's good. Professor F: that sounds like a good idea since as you say you have to do stuff with the other end anyway. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Well yea OK, good. I mean the detector, this {disfmarker} PhD D: Yeah, I mean we have to fix it when it comes back anyhow. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Now, you were saying that they {disfmarker} they differ in how well they work depending on channel s sys systems and stuff. PhD B: Yeah. So we should perhaps just select meetings on which the speech - nonspeech detection works well, Postdoc C: But EDU is great. PhD B: and just use, {vocalsound} those meetings to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to send to IBM and, do the other ones. Grad A: Release to begin with. Postdoc C: How interesting. You know {disfmarker} Professor F: What's the problem {disfmarker} the l I forget. Is the problem the lapel, or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} PhD B: Uh, it really depends. Um, my {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} my impression is that it's better for meetings with fewer speakers, and it's better for {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for meetings where nobody is breathing. Professor F: Oh, PhD B: Yeah, Professor F: the dead meetings. PhD B: get {disfmarker} That's it. PhD D: So in fact this might suggest an alternative sort of a {disfmarker} a c a hybrid between these two things. Grad A: No, the undead meeting, yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah. Yeah? PhD D: So the {disfmarker} the one suggestion is you know we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we run Thilo's thing and then we have somebody go and adjust all the time boundaries PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah? PhD D: and we send it to IBM. The other one is {vocalsound} we just run his thing and send it to IBM. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: There's a {disfmarker} a another possibility if we find that there are some problems, PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. PhD D: and that is {vocalsound} if we go ahead and we {vocalsound} just run his, and we generate the beeps file, then we have somebody listen beeps file. PhD B: Yeah. And erase {disfmarker} PhD D: And they listen to each section and say" yes, no" whether that section is PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Is intelligible. PhD D: i i intelligible or not. And it just {disfmarker} You know, there's a little interface which will {disfmarker} for all the" yes" - es it {disfmarker} then that will be the final {vocalsound} beep file. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: Blech. Postdoc C: That's interesting! Cuz that's {disfmarker} that's directly related to the e end task. Grad A: Stress test. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: How interesting! PhD D: Yeah. I mean it wouldn't be that much fun for a transcriber to sit there, hear it, beep, yes or no. PhD B: Nope. Professor F: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know. PhD D: But it would be quick. Professor F: It would be {disfmarker} kind of quick but they're still listening to everything. PhD D: But there's no adjusting. And that's what's slow. There's no adjusting of time boundaries. Postdoc C: Well, {vocalsound} eh, listening does take time too. PhD D: Yeah. Professor F: Yeah. I don't know, I {disfmarker} I think I'm {disfmarker} I'm really tending towards {disfmarker} Grad A: One and a half times real time. Professor F: I mean, {vocalsound} what's the worst that happens? Do the transcribers {disfmarker} I mean as long as th on the other end they can say there's {disfmarker} there's something {disfmarker} conventions so that they say" huh?" PhD D: Yeah. Right. They {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} Professor F: and then we can flag those later. PhD D: Yeah. That's true. Professor F: i i It {disfmarker} i PhD D: We can just catch it at the {disfmarker} catch everything at this side. Professor F: Yeah. PhD D: Well maybe that's the best way to go, Postdoc C: How interesting! PhD D: just {disfmarker} Grad A: I mean it just depends on how {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Well EDU {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah, Grad A: Sorry, go ahead. PhD B: u u u Postdoc C: So I was gonna say, EDU - one is good enough, PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: maybe we could include it in this {disfmarker} in this set of uh, this stuff we send. PhD B: Yeah there's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think there are some meetings where it would {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} It's possible like this. Grad A: Yeah I {disfmarker} I think, we won't know until we generate a bunch of beep files automatically, listen to them and see how bad they are. PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD D: We won't be able to s include it with this first thing, Grad A: If {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Hmm. Oh, OK. PhD D: because there's a part of the process of the beep file which requires knowing the normalization coefficients. Postdoc C: Oh, I see. PhD D: And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So a Grad A: That's not hard to do. Just {disfmarker} it takes {disfmarker} you know, it just takes five minutes rather than, taking a second. PhD D: OK PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: So. I just hand {disfmarker} hard - coded it. PhD D: Right, except I don't think that {disfmarker} the c the instructions for doing that was in that directory, right? I {disfmarker} I didn't see where you had gener Grad A: No, but it's easy enough to do. PhD B: What {disfmarker} Professor F: But I {disfmarker} but I have a {disfmarker} PhD B: Doing the gain? It's no problem. Adjusting the gain? PhD D: n Doing th No, getting the coefficients, for each channel. PhD B: Yeah, that's no problem. Postdoc C: Know what numbers. PhD D: OK. So we just run that one {disfmarker} Grad A: There are lots of ways to do it. PhD B: We can do that. Grad A: I have one program that'll do it. You can find other programs. PhD B: Yeah. I {disfmarker} I used it, so. PhD D: We just run that Grad A: Yep. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: J - sound - stat? OK. Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: Minus D, capital D. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I have {pause} another suggestion on that, which is, {vocalsound} since, really what this is, is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is trying to in the large, send the right thing to them and there is gonna be this {disfmarker} this post - processing step, um, why don't we check through a bunch of things by sampling it? PhD D: Mm - hmm. Professor F: Right? In other words, rather than, um, uh, saying we're gonna listen to everything {disfmarker} Grad A: I didn't mean listen to everything, I meant, just see if they're any good. Professor F: Yeah. So y you do a bunch of meetings, you listen to {disfmarker} to a little bit here and there, PhD D: Yeah. Professor F: if it sounds like it's almost always right and there's not any big problem you send it to them. PhD D: Send it to them. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: OK. Professor F: And, you know, then they'll send us back what we {disfmarker} w what {disfmarker} what they send back to us, Postdoc C: Oh, that'd be great. Professor F: and we'll {disfmarker} we'll fix things up and {vocalsound} some meetings will cost more time to fix up than others. Grad A: We should {disfmarker} Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: And we should just double - check with Brian on a few simple conventions on how they should mark things. PhD B: Sure. PhD D: OK. When they {disfmarker} when there's either no speech in there, PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. PhD D: or {vocalsound} something they don't understand, Postdoc C: Yeah. Mm - hmm. PhD D: things like that. Grad A: Yeah, cuz @ @ uh what I had originally said to Brian was well they'll have to mark, when they can't distinguish between the foreground and background, Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: because I thought that was gonna be the most prevalent. But if we send them without editing, then we're also gonna hafta have m uh, notations for words that are cut off, PhD D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Grad A: and other sorts of, uh, acoustic problems. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: They do already. PhD D: And they may just guess at what those cut - off words are, Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD D: but w I mean we're gonna adjust {disfmarker} everything when we come back {disfmarker} Grad A: But what {disfmarker} what we would like them to do is be conservative so that they should only write down the transcript if they're sure. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: And otherwise they should mark it so that we can check. PhD B: Mark it. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: Well, we have the unintelligibility {pause} convention. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: And actually they have one also, Grad A: Right. Postdoc C: which {disfmarker} Professor F: i Can I maybe have {disfmarker} have an order of {disfmarker} it's probably in your paper that I haven't looked at lately, but {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Certainty. Professor F: Uh, an order of magnitude notion of {disfmarker} of how {disfmarker} on a good meeting, how often uh, do you get segments that come in the middle of words and so forth, and uh {disfmarker} in a bad meeting how {vocalsound} often? PhD B: Uh. Postdoc C: Was is it in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what is the t Professor F: Well he's saying, you know, that the {disfmarker} the EDU meeting was a good {disfmarker} good meeting, Postdoc C: In a good meeting, what? PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah. Professor F: right? Postdoc C: Oh I see, Professor F: Uh, and so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so it was almost {disfmarker} it was almost always doing the right thing. Postdoc C: the characteristics. Professor F: So I wanted to get some sense of what {disfmarker} what almost always meant. And then, uh in a bad meeting, {vocalsound} or p some meetings where he said oh he's had some problems, what does that mean? Postdoc C: Uh - huh. OK. Professor F: So I mean does one of the does it mean one percent and ten percent? Or does it mean {vocalsound} five percent and fifty percent? Postdoc C: OK. Professor F: Uh {disfmarker} PhD B: So {disfmarker} Professor F: Or {disfmarker} Maybe percentage isn't the right word, Postdoc C: Just PhD B: Yeah th Professor F: but you know how many {disfmarker} how many per minute, or {disfmarker} You know. PhD B: Yeah, the {disfmarker} the problem is that, nnn, the numbers Ian gave in the paper is just uh, some frame error rate. So that's {disfmarker} that's not really {disfmarker} {vocalsound} What will be effective for {disfmarker} for the transcribers, is {disfmarker} They have to {disfmarker} yeah, in in they have to insure that that's a real s spurt or something. And {disfmarker} but, {vocalsound} the numbers {disfmarker} Oops. Um {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Hmm! PhD B: Let me think. So the {pause} speech {disfmarker} the amount of speech that is missed by the {pause} detector, for a good meeting, I th is around {pause} or under one percent, I would say. But there can be {disfmarker} Yeah. For {disfmarker} yeah, but there can be more {disfmarker} There's {disfmarker} There's more amount speech {disfmarker} uh, more amount of {disfmarker} Yeah well, the detector says there is speech, but there is none. So that {disfmarker} that can be a lot when {disfmarker} when it's really a breathy channel. Professor F: But I think that's less of a problem. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: They'll just listen. It's just wasted time. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: And th and that's for a good meeting. Now what about in a meeting that you said we've {disfmarker} you've had some more trouble with? PhD B: I can't {comment} really {disfmarker} hhh, {comment} {pause} Tsk. {comment} I {pause} don't have really representative numbers, I think. That's really {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I did {pause} this on {disfmarker} on four meetings and only five minutes of {disfmarker} of every meet of {disfmarker} of these meetings so, {vocalsound} it's not {disfmarker} not that representative, but, it's perhaps, Fff. Um {disfmarker} Yeah, it's perhaps then {disfmarker} it's perhaps five percent of something, which s uh the {disfmarker} the frames {disfmarker} speech frames which are {disfmarker} which are missed, but um, I can't {disfmarker} can't really tell. Professor F: Right. So I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So i Sometime, we might wanna go back and look at it more in terms of {vocalsound} how many times is there a spurt that's {disfmarker} that's uh, interrupted? PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Professor F: Something like that? Postdoc C: The other problem is, that when it {disfmarker} when it uh d i on the breathy ones, where you get {vocalsound} {vocalsound} breathing, uh, inti indicated as speech. Professor F: And {disfmarker} PhD B: So {disfmarker} Postdoc C: And I guess we could just indicate to the transcribers not to {pause} encode that if they {disfmarker} We could still do the beep file. Professor F: Yeah again I {disfmarker} I think that that is probably less of a problem because if you're {disfmarker} if there's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If {disfmarker} if a {disfmarker} if a word is {disfmarker} is split, then they might have to listen to it a few times to really understand that they can't quite get it. Postdoc C: OK. OK. PhD B: But {disfmarker} Postdoc C: OK. Professor F: Whereas if they listen {nonvocalsound} to it and there's {disfmarker} don't hear any speech I think they'd probably just listen to it once. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: So there'd {disfmarker} you'd think there'd be a {disfmarker} a factor of three or four in {disfmarker} in, uh, cost function, Postdoc C: OK. Professor F: you know, between them or something. PhD B: Yeah, so {disfmarker} but I think that's {disfmarker} n that really doesn't happen very often that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that a word is cut in the middle or something. That's {disfmarker} that's really not {disfmarker} not normal. Professor F: So {disfmarker} so what you're saying is that nearly always what happens when there's a problem is that {disfmarker} is that uh, there's {vocalsound} some uh, uh nonspeech that uh {disfmarker} that is b interpreted as speech. PhD B: That is marked as speech. Yeah. Yeah. Professor F: Well then, we really should just send the stuff. Postdoc C: That would be great. Professor F: Right? Because that doesn't do any harm. PhD B: Yeah, it's {disfmarker} Professor F: You know, if they {disfmarker} they hear you know, a dog bark and they say what was the word, they {comment} you know, they {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah, I als I {disfmarker} Professor F: Ruff ruff! PhD B: Yeah I also thought of {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there are really some channels where it is almost {comment} um, only bre breathing in it. And to {disfmarker} to re - run's Professor F: Yeah? PhD B: Eh, um. Yeah. I've got a {disfmarker} a {pause} P - a {pause} method with loops into the cross - correlation with the PZM mike, and then to reject everything which {disfmarker} which seems to be breath. Professor F: Uh - huh. PhD B: So, I could run this on those breathy channels, and perhaps throw out {disfmarker} Grad A: That's a good idea. Postdoc C: Wow, that's a great idea. Professor F: Yeah. But I think {disfmarker} I th Again, I think that sort of {disfmarker} that that would be good, PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: and what that'll do is just cut the time a little further. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Professor F: But I think none of this is stuff that really needs somebody doing these {disfmarker} these uh, uh, explicit markings. PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: Excellent. Oh, I'd be delighted with that, I {disfmarker} I was very impressed with the {disfmarker} with the result. Yeah. Professor F: Yeah, cuz the other thing that was concerning me about it was that it seemed kind of specialized to the EDU meeting, and {disfmarker} and that then when you get a meeting like this or something, PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and you have a b a bunch of different dominant speakers Postdoc C: Oh yeah, interesting. Professor F: you know, how are you gonna handle it. Postdoc C: Oh yeah. Professor F: Whereas this sounds like a more general solution Postdoc C: Oh yeah, I pr I much prefer this, Professor F: is {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I was just trying to find a way {disfmarker} Cuz I {disfmarker} I don't think the staggered mixed channel is awfully good as a way of handling overlaps. Professor F: Yeah. Uh - huh. Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} but uh {disfmarker} PhD D: Well good. That {disfmarker} that really simplifies thing then. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD D: And we can just, you know, get the meeting, process it, put the beeps file, send it off to IBM. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD D: You know? PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: With very little {pause} work on our side. PhD B: Process it, hear into it. I would {disfmarker} PhD D: Do what? PhD B: Um, {pause} listen to it, and then {disfmarker} Grad A: Or at least sample it. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Well, sample it. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Sample it. Professor F: I {disfmarker} I would just use some samples, PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. Professor F: make sure you don't send them three hours of" bzzz" {comment} or something. PhD D: Yeah. PhD B: No. PhD D: Yeah. Right. PhD B: That won't be good. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD D: Yeah. Yeah that would be very good. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: And then we can you know {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah. PhD D: That'll oughta be a good way to get the pipeline going. Postdoc C: Oh, I'd be delighted. Yeah. PhD B: And there's {disfmarker} there's one point which I {comment} uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah, which {disfmarker} which I r {vocalsound} we covered when I {disfmarker} when I r listened to one of the EDU meetings, Professor F: Great. PhD B: and that's {vocalsound} that somebody is playing sound from his laptop. Grad A: Uh - huh PhD B: And i {vocalsound} the speech - nonspeech detector just assigns randomly the speech to {disfmarker} to one of the channels, so. Uh - I haven't - I didn't think of {disfmarker} of s of {vocalsound} this before, Grad A: What can you do? PhD B: but what {disfmarker} what shall we do about s things like this? Postdoc C: Well you were suggesting {disfmarker} You suggested maybe just not sending that part of the meeting. Grad A: Yep. Mmm. Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} PhD B: But, sometimes the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the laptop is in the background and some {disfmarker} somebody is {disfmarker} is talking, and, {vocalsound} that's really a little bit confusing, but {disfmarker} Grad A: It's a little bit confusing. Professor F: That's life. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: I mean, {comment} what're we gonna do? PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: Even a hand - transcription would {disfmarker} PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: Do you {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: a hand - transcriber would have trouble with that. PhD B: Yeah, Grad A: So. PhD B: that's {disfmarker} that's a second question," what {disfmarker} what will different transcribers do with {disfmarker} with the laptop sound?" Postdoc C: Would you {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} Professor F: What was the l what was the laptop sound? Postdoc C: Yeah, go ahead. Professor F: I mean was it speech, PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: or was it {disfmarker} PhD B: It's speech. Professor F: Great. Postdoc C: Well, so {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} So my standard approach has been if it's not someone close - miked, then, they don't end up on one of the close - miked channels. They end up on a different channel. And we have any number of channels available, Professor F: Uh - huh. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: I mean it's an infinite number of channels. PhD B: But, Postdoc C: So just put them on some other channel. PhD B: when thi when this is sent to {disfmarker} to the I M - eh, I B M transcribers, I don't know if {disfmarker} if they can tell that's really {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Yeah, that's right. Grad A: Yeah cuz there will be no channel on which it is foreground. PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. Grad A: Uh {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Well, they have a convention, in their own procedures, {vocalsound} which is for a background {pause} sound. Grad A: Right, but, uh, in general I don't think we want them transcribing the background, cuz that would be too much work. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: Right? For it {disfmarker} because in the overlap sections, then they'll PhD D: Well I don't think Jane's saying they're gonna transcribe it, but they'll just mark it as being {disfmarker} there's some background stuff there, Grad A: But that's gonna be all over the place. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD D: right? Grad A: How w how will they tell the difference between that sort of background and the dormal {disfmarker} normal background of two people talking at once? PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Oh, I think {disfmarker} I think it'd be easy to to say" background laptop" . Grad A: How would they know that? PhD D: But wait a minute, why would they treat them differently? PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Well because one of them {disfmarker} Grad A: Because otherwise it's gonna be too much work for them to mark it. They'll be marking it all over the place. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Oh, I s background laptop or, background LT {vocalsound} {vocalsound} wouldn't take any time. Grad A: Sure, but how are they gonna tell bet the difference between that and two people just talking at the same time? Postdoc C: And {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Oh, you can tell. Acoustically, can't you tell? PhD B: It's really good sound, so {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Oh is it? Oh! Professor F: Well, I mean, isn't there a category something like uh," sounds for someone for whom there is no i close mike" ? PhD B: Yeah that would be very important, Grad A: But how do we d how do we do that for the I B M folks? Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD B: yeah. Grad A: How can they tell that? PhD D: Well we may just have to do it when it gets back here. Grad A: Yes, that's my opinion as well. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: So we don't do anything for it {disfmarker} with it. Postdoc C: OK. PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: That sounds good. Grad A: And they'll just mark it however they mark it, Postdoc C: That sounds good. PhD D: Yeah. Grad A: and we'll correct it when it comes back. PhD B: So th Professor F: Yeah. PhD B: there was a category for @ @ {comment} speech. Postdoc C: OK. Grad A: Yeah, the default. Postdoc C: Yeah, s a Grad A: No, not default. PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: Well, as it comes back, we have a uh {disfmarker} when we can use the channelized interface for encoding it, then it'll be easy for us to handle. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but if {disfmarker} if out of context, they can't tell if it's a channeled speak uh, you know, a close - miked speaker or not, {vocalsound} then that would be confusing to them. PhD B: OK. Grad A: Right. PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: I don't know, I {disfmarker} it doesn't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} Either way would be fine with me, I don't really care. Professor F: Yeah. So. Shall we uh, do digits and get out of here? Grad A: Yep. Postdoc C: I have o I have one question. Do you think we should send the um {disfmarker} that whole meeting to them and not worry about pre - processing it? Professor F: Yes ma'Postdoc C: Or {disfmarker} Uh, what I mean is {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} we should {vocalsound} leave the {vocalsound} part with the audio in the uh, beep file that we send to IBM for that one, or should we {vocalsound} start after the {disfmarker} that part of the meeting is over in what we send. Professor F: Which part? PhD B: With {disfmarker} Postdoc C: So, the part where they're using sounds from their {disfmarker} from their laptops. PhD B: with the laptop sound, or {disfmarker}? just {disfmarker} Postdoc C: w If we have speech from the laptop should we just uh, excise that from what we send to IBM, or should we {vocalsound} i give it to them and let them do with it what they can? PhD D: I think we should just {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it's gonna be too much work if we hafta {vocalsound} worry about that I think. Postdoc C: OK, that'd be nice to have a {disfmarker} a uniform procedure. PhD D: Yeah, I think if we just {disfmarker} m send it all to them. you know. Grad A: Worry about it when we get back. Postdoc C: Good. And see how well they do. PhD D: Let {disfmarker} Yeah, worry about it when we get back in. Postdoc C: And give them freedom to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to indicate if it's just not workable. Professor F: Yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah, PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: OK, Professor F: Yeah. Postdoc C: excellent. Professor F: Cuz, I wouldn't {disfmarker} don't think we would mind {pause} having that {pause} transcribed, if they did it. Grad A: I think {disfmarker} PhD D: Yeah, e Grad A: As I say, we'll just have to listen to it and see how horrible it is. Postdoc C: Yeah, yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: Sample it, rather. Postdoc C: OK. Alright. PhD B: I think that {disfmarker} that will be a little bit of a problem PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: That's great. PhD B: as it really switches around between {vocalsound} two different channels, I think. Grad A: Mm - hmm, and {disfmarker} and they're very {disfmarker} it's very audible? on the close - talking channels? PhD B: What {disfmarker} what I would {disfmarker} Yeah. Grad A: Oh well. I mean, it's the same problem as the lapel mike. Professor F: Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: But {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Oh, interesting. PhD B: Comparable, yeah. Professor F: Yeah. PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: OK, alright. Digits. Professor F: Let's do digits. Postdoc C: OK, so we read the transcript number first, right? Grad A: Are we gonna do it altogether or separately? PhD B: So {disfmarker} What time is it? Professor F: Uh, {vocalsound} why don't we do it together, Postdoc C: Uh, quarter to four. PhD B: Oh, OK. Professor F: that's {disfmarker} that's a nice fast way to do it. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Professor F: One, two, three, go! Postdoc C: It's kind of interesting if there're any more errors in these, {vocalsound} than we had the first set. Grad A: Nnn, yeah, I think there probably will be. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Do you guys plug your ears when you do it? Grad A: I do. PhD B: No. Postdoc C: I usually do. PhD D: I do. PhD B: I don't. Postdoc C: I didn't this time. PhD D: You don't? PhD B: No. Professor F: I haven't been, PhD D: How can you do that? Professor F: no. PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Professor F: Uh, concentration. PhD B: Perhaps there are {vocalsound} lots of errors in it PhD D: Gah! Grad A: Total concentration. Are you guys ready? PhD D: You hate to have your ears plugged? Professor F: Yeah. PhD D: Really?

As to the content of the paper, the overlap statistics have not been normalised against the number of participants in the conversation, although the dependency is probably going to be a weak one. Additionally, the correlation between pauses in speech and interruptions does not provide a cause-and-effect link for these phenomena.

tr-sq-662

tr-sq-662_0

What statistics were included in the paper? Grad A: OK, we're recording. Professor F: We can say the word" zero" all we want, PhD G: I'm doing some Professor F: but just {disfmarker} PhD G: square brackets, coffee sipping, square brackets. PhD B: That's not allowed, I think. Postdoc C: Cur - curly brackets. Grad E: Is that voiced or unvoiced? Grad A: Curly brackets. PhD B: Curly brackets. Professor F: Curly brackets. Grad A: Right. PhD B: Oops. Professor F: Well, correction for transcribers. PhD G: Mmm! {comment} {vocalsound} Gar - darn! Professor F: Yeah. Postdoc C: Channel two. Grad A: Do we use square brackets for anything? Postdoc C: Yeah. Uh {disfmarker} Grad E: These poor transcribers. Professor F: u Postdoc C: Not ri not right now. I mean {disfmarker} No. PhD D: There's gonna be some zeros from this morning's meeting because I noticed that Professor F: u PhD D: Barry, I think maybe you turned your mike off before the digits were {disfmarker} Oh, was it during digits? Oh, so it doesn't matter. Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: It's still not a good idea. PhD B: So it's not {disfmarker} it's not that bad if it's at the end, but it's {disfmarker} in the beginning, it's {pause} bad. PhD D: Yeah. Yeah. Grad A: Yeah, you wanna {disfmarker} you wanna keep them on so you get {pause} good noise {disfmarker} noise floors, through the whole meeting. Postdoc C: That's interesting. Hmm. Professor F: Uh, I probably just should have left it on. Yeah I did have to run, but {disfmarker} Grad E: Is there any way to change that in the software? Grad A: Change what in the software? Grad E: Where like you just don't {disfmarker} like if you {disfmarker} if it starts catching zeros, like in the driver or something {disfmarker} in the card, or somewhere in the hardware {disfmarker} Where if you start seeing zeros on w across one channel, you just add some {vocalsound} random, @ @ {comment} noise floor {disfmarker} like a small noise floor. Grad A: I mean certainly we could do that, but I don't think that's a good idea. We can do that in post - processing if {disfmarker} if the application needs it. Grad E: Yeah. PhD B: Manual post - processing. Professor F: Well, I {disfmarker} u I actually don't know what the default {comment} is anymore as to how we're using the {disfmarker} the front - end stuff but {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} when we use the ICSI front - end, Grad A: As an argument. Professor F: but um, there is an {disfmarker} there is an o an option in {disfmarker} in RASTA, which, um, {vocalsound} in when I first put it in, uh, back in the days when I actually wrote things, uh, {vocalsound} I {pause} did actually put in a random bit or so that was in it, Grad E: OK. Professor F: but {vocalsound} then I realized that putting in a random bit was equivalent to adding uh {disfmarker} adding flat spectrum, Grad E: Right. Professor F: and it was a lot faster to just add a constant to the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to the spectrum. So then I just started doing that Grad E: Mmm. OK. Professor F: instead of calling" rand" {comment} or something, Grad E: Right. Professor F: so. So it d it does that. Gee! Here we all are! Grad A: Uh, so the only agenda items were Jane {disfmarker} was Jane wanted to talk about some of the IBM transcription process. Professor F: There's an agenda? Grad A: I sort of {vocalsound} condensed the three things you said into that. And then just {disfmarker} I only have like, this afternoon and maybe tomorrow morning to get anything done before I go to Japan for ten days. So if there's anything that n absolutely, desperately needs to be done, you should let me know now. Professor F: Uh, and you just sent off a Eurospeech paper, so. PhD G: Right. I hope they accept it. Professor F: Right. PhD G: I mean, I {disfmarker} both actu as {disfmarker} as a submission and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know, as a paper. Um {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} Grad A: Well yeah, you sent it in {pause} late. Professor F: Yeah, I guess you {disfmarker} first you have to do the first one, Grad A: Yeah. Professor F: and then {disfmarker} Yeah. PhD G: We actually exceeded the delayed deadline by o another day, so. PhD B: Oops. Professor F: Oh they {disfmarker} they had some extension that they announced or something? PhD G: Well yeah. Liz had sent them a note saying" could we please {pause} have another" {comment} {pause} I don't know," three days" or something, and they said yes. PhD D: And then she said" Did I say three? Grad A: Oh, PhD D: I meant four." Grad A: that was the other thing uh, PhD G: But u Grad A: uh, Dave Gelbart sent me email, I think he sent it to you too, {comment} that um, there's a special topic, section in si in Eurospeech on new, corp corpors corpora. And it's not due until like May fifteenth. Professor F: Oh this isn't the Aurora one? Grad A: No. Professor F: It's another one? Grad A: It's a different one. PhD B: No it's {disfmarker} Yeah. Yeah. Grad E: Huh! Grad A: And uh, Professor F: Oh! PhD B: I got this mail from {disfmarker} Grad A: I s forwarded it to Jane as I thought being the most relevant person. Um {disfmarker} So, I thought it was highly relevant {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Yeah I'm {disfmarker} Professor F: That's {disfmarker} Grad A: have you {disfmarker} did you look at the URL? Postdoc C: Yeah. I think so too. Um, I haven't gotten over to there yet, Grad A: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: but what {disfmarker} our discussion yesterday, I really {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I wanna submit one. PhD B: Was this {pause} SmartKom message? I think {pause} Christoph Draxler sent this, Postdoc C: Yeah. And, you offered to {disfmarker} to join me, if you want me to. Grad A: I'll help, PhD B: yeah. Grad A: but obviously I can't, really do, most of it, Postdoc C: Yeah. Yeah, that's right. PhD G: I think several people {disfmarker} sent this, Grad A: so. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Uh - huh. PhD G: yeah. Grad A: But any {disfmarker} any help you need I can certainly provide. Professor F: Well, PhD G: Yeah. Professor F: that's {disfmarker} that's a great idea. PhD G: Well {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there were some interesting results in this paper, though. For instance that Morgan {disfmarker} uh, accounted for fifty - six percent of the Robustness meetings in terms of number of words. Grad A: Wow. Postdoc C: In {disfmarker} in terms of what? In term PhD G: Number of words. Postdoc C: One? Wow! OK. Grad A: That's just cuz he talks really fast. Postdoc C: Do you mean, Professor F: n No. Grad A: I know PhD B: Oh. Short words. Postdoc C: because {disfmarker} is it partly, eh, c correctly identified words? Or is it {disfmarker} or just overall volume? PhD G: No. Well, according to the transcripts. Grad A: But re well regardless. I think it's {disfmarker} he's {disfmarker} he's in all of them, Postdoc C: Oh. OK. Professor F: Yeah. PhD G: I mean, we didn't mention Morgan by name Grad A: and he talks a lot. PhD G: we just {disfmarker} Grad A: One participant. Professor F: Well {disfmarker} we have now, but {disfmarker} PhD G: We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} something about {disfmarker} Grad A: Did you identify him as a senior {pause} member? PhD G: No, we as identify him as the person dominating the conversation. Professor F: Well. Grad A: Yeah. Postdoc C: OK. Professor F: I mean I get these AARP things, but I'm not se really senior yet, but {disfmarker} PhD G: Right Professor F: Um, PhD G: Hmm. Professor F: but uh, other than that delightful result, what was the rest of the paper about? PhD G: Um, well it was about {disfmarker} it had three sections Professor F: You sent it to me but I haven't seen it yet. PhD G: uh {disfmarker} three kinds of uh results, if you will. Uh, the one was that the {disfmarker} just the {disfmarker} the amount of overlap Grad A: The good, the bad, and the ugly. PhD G: um, s in terms of {disfmarker} in terms of number of words and also we computed something called a" spurt" , which is essentially a stretch of speech with uh, no pauses exceeding five hundred milliseconds. Um, and we computed how many overlapped i uh spurts there were and how many overlapped words there were. {vocalsound} Um, for four different {pause} corpora, the Meeting Recorder meetings, the Robustness meetings Switchboard and CallHome, and, found {disfmarker} and sort of compared the numbers. Um, and found that the, uh, you know, as you might expect the Meeting Recorder {pause} meetings had the most overlap uh, but next were Switchboard and CallHome, which both had roughly the same, almost identical in fact, and the Robustness meetings were {disfmarker} had the least, so {disfmarker} One sort of unexpected result there is that uh two - party telephone conversations have {vocalsound} about the same amount of overlap, Grad A: I'm surprised. PhD G: sort of in gen you know {disfmarker} order of magnitude - wise as, uh {disfmarker} as face - to - face meetings with multiple {disfmarker} Grad A: I have {disfmarker} I had better start changing all my slides! PhD G: Yeah. Also, I {disfmarker} in the Levinson, the pragmatics book, {comment} in you know, uh, textbook, {vocalsound} there's {disfmarker} I found this great quote where he says {vocalsound} you know {disfmarker} you know, how people {disfmarker} it talks about how uh {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how people are so good at turn taking, Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Yeah. PhD G: and {vocalsound} so {disfmarker} they're so good that {vocalsound} generally, u the overlapped speech does not {disfmarker} is less than five percent. Postdoc C: Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. PhD G: So, this is way more than five percent. Grad E: Did he mean face {disfmarker} like face - to - face? Or {disfmarker}? PhD G: Well, in real conversations, Grad E: Hmm. PhD G: everyday conversations. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: It's s what these conversation analysts have been studying for years and years there. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD B: But {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Well, of course, no, it doesn't necessarily go against what he said, cuz he said" generally speaking" . In order to {disfmarker} to go against that kind of a claim you'd have to big canvassing. Grad A: Hmm. PhD B: And in f PhD G: Well, he {disfmarker} he made a claim {disfmarker} Grad A: Well {disfmarker} PhD G: Well {disfmarker} Grad A: PhD B: But {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah, we {disfmarker} we have pretty limited sample here. PhD B: Five percent of time or five percent of what? Grad A: Yeah, I was gonna ask that too. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Exactly. PhD G: Well it's time. PhD B: Yeah, so {disfmarker} Postdoc C: It's {disfmarker} i it's not against his conclusion, PhD G: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but still {disfmarker} but still {disfmarker} u Postdoc C: it just says that it's a bi bell curve, and that, {vocalsound} you have something that has a nice range, in your sampling. PhD G: Yeah. So there are slight {disfmarker} There are differences in how you measure it, but still it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You know, the difference between um {disfmarker} between that number and what we have in meetings, which is more like, {vocalsound} you know, close to {disfmarker} in meetings like these, uh {disfmarker} you know, close to twenty percent. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor F: But what was it like, say, in the Robustness meeting, for instance? PhD G: That {disfmarker} Grad A: But {disfmarker} PhD G: Robustness meeting? It was {vocalsound} about half of the r So, {vocalsound} in terms of number of words, it's like seventeen or eigh eighteen percent for the Meeting Recorder meetings and {vocalsound} about half that for, {vocalsound} uh, the Robustness. Professor F: Maybe ten percent? Grad A: But I don't know if that's really a fair way of comparing between, multi - party, conversations and two - party conversations. Yeah. I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know. PhD B: Then {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} then you have to {disfmarker} Grad A: I mean that's just something {disfmarker} PhD D: Yeah, I just wonder if you have to normalize by the numbers of speakers or something. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD B: Then {disfmarker} Yeah, then normalize by {disfmarker} by something like that, Postdoc C: Yeah, that's a good point. PhD G: Well, we didn't get to look at that, PhD B: yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD G: but this obvious thing to see if {disfmarker} if there's a dependence on the number of uh {disfmarker} participants. Postdoc C: Good idea. Grad A: I mean {disfmarker} I bet there's a weak dependence. I'm sure it's {disfmarker} it's not a real strong one. PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: Right. Grad A: Right? Because you PhD D: Cuz not everybody talks. Grad A: Right. PhD G: Right. PhD D: Yeah. Grad A: You have a lot of {disfmarker} a lot of two - party, subsets within the meeting. PhD G: Right. Postdoc C: Uh - huh. Grad A: Well regardless {disfmarker} it's an interesting result regardless. PhD G: So {disfmarker} Right. Postdoc C: Yes, that's right. PhD G: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} and we also d computed this both with and without backchannels, Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: so you might think that backchannels have a special status because they're essentially just {disfmarker} Grad A: Uh - huh. So, did {disfmarker} we all said" uh - huh" and nodded at the same time, PhD G: R right. Grad A: so. PhD G: But, even if you take out all the backchannels {disfmarker} so basically you treat backchannels l as nonspeech, as pauses, Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: you still have significant overlap. You know, it goes down from maybe {disfmarker} For Switchboard it goes down from {disfmarker} I don't know {disfmarker} f um {disfmarker} {comment} I don't know {disfmarker} f fourteen percent of the words to maybe {vocalsound} uh I don't know, eleven percent or something {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's not a dramatic change, Grad A: Mm - hmm. PhD G: so it's {disfmarker} Anyway, so it's uh {disfmarker} That was {disfmarker} that was one set of {pause} results, and then the second one was just basically the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the stuff we had in the {disfmarker} in the HLT paper on how overlaps effect the {pause} recognition performance. Postdoc C: Hmm. Grad A: Nope. Right. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: And we rescored things um, a little bit more carefully. We also fixed the transcripts in {disfmarker} in numerous ways. Uh, but mostly we added one {disfmarker} one number, which was what if you {pause} uh, basically score ignoring all {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} the conjecture from the HLT results was that {vocalsound} most of the added recognition error is from insertions {vocalsound} due to background speech. So, we scored {vocalsound} all the recognition results, {vocalsound} uh, in such a way that the uh {disfmarker} Grad A: Oh by the way, who's on channel four? You're getting a lot of breath. PhD B: Yeah. I j was just wondering. Grad E: That's {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah. Grad E: That's me. PhD G: uh, well Don's been working hard. Grad E: That's right. PhD G: OK, so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so if you have the foreground speaker speaking here, and then there's some background speech, may be overlapping it somehow, um, and this is the time bin that we used, then of course you're gonna get insertion errors here and here. Grad A: Right. PhD G: Right? So we scored everything, and I must say the NIST scoring tools are pretty nice for this, where you just basically ignore everything outside of the, {vocalsound} uh, region that was deemed to be foreground speech. And where that was we had to use the t forced alignment, uh, results from s for {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} That's somewhat {disfmarker} that's somewhat subject to error, but still we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh, Don did some ha hand - checking and {disfmarker} and we think that {disfmarker} based on that, we think that the results are you know, valid, although of course, some error is gonna be in there. But basically what we found is after we take out these regions {disfmarker} so we only score the regions that were certified as foreground speech, {comment} {vocalsound} the recognition error went down to almost {vocalsound} uh, the {pause} level of the non - overlapped {pause} speech. So that means that {vocalsound} even if you do have background speech, if you can somehow separate out or find where it is, {vocalsound} uh, the recognizer does a good job, Grad A: That's great. PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: even though there is this back Grad A: Yeah, I guess that doesn't surprise me, because, with the close - talking mikes, the {disfmarker} the signal will be so much stronger. PhD G: Right. Right. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Um, Grad A: What {disfmarker} what sort of normalization do you do? PhD G: so {disfmarker} Uh, well, we just {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} we do {disfmarker} u you know, vit Grad A: I mean in you recognizer, in the SRI recognizer. PhD G: Well, we do uh, VTL {disfmarker} {vocalsound} vocal tract length normalization, w and we uh {disfmarker} you know, we {disfmarker} we uh, {vocalsound} make all the features have zero mean and unit variance. Grad A: Over an entire utterance? Professor F: And {disfmarker} Grad A: Or windowed? PhD G: Over {disfmarker} over the entire c over the entire channel. PhD B: Don't {pause} train {disfmarker} PhD G: Over the {disfmarker} Grad A: Hmm. PhD G: but you know. Um, now we didn't re - align the recognizer for this. We just took the old {disfmarker} So this is actually a sub - optimal way of doing it, Grad A: Right. Professor F: Right. PhD G: right? So we took the old recognition output and we just scored it differently. So the recognizer didn't have the benefit of knowing where the foreground speech {disfmarker} a start Professor F: Were you including the {disfmarker} the lapel {pause} in this? PhD G: Yes. Professor F: And did the {disfmarker} did {disfmarker} did the la did the {disfmarker} the problems with the lapel go away also? Or {disfmarker} PhD G: Um, it {disfmarker} Yeah. Professor F: fray for {disfmarker} for insertions? PhD G: It u not per {disfmarker} I mean, not completely, but yes, Professor F: Less so. PhD G: dramatically. So we have to um {disfmarker} Professor F: I mean, you still {disfmarker} PhD G: Well I should bring the {disfmarker} should bring the table with results. Maybe we can look at it {pause} Monday. Professor F: I would presume that you still would have somewhat higher error with the lapel for insertions than {disfmarker} PhD G: Yes. It's {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah. PhD G: Yes. Yeah. Professor F: Cuz again, looking forward to the non - close miked case, I think that we s still {disfmarker} PhD G: Mm - hmm. Grad A: I'm not looking forward to it. Professor F: i it's the high signal - to - noise ratio PhD G: Right. Professor F: here that {disfmarker} that helps you. PhD G: u s Right. So {disfmarker} so that was number {disfmarker} that was the second set of {disfmarker} uh, the second section. And then, {vocalsound} the third thing was, we looked at, {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh, what we call" interrupts" , although that's {disfmarker} that may be {vocalsound} a misnomer, but basically {vocalsound} we looked at cases where {disfmarker} Uh, so we {disfmarker} we used the punctuation from the original transcripts and we inferred the beginnings and ends of sentences. So, you know {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Di - did you use upper - lower case also, or not? PhD G: Um {disfmarker} Postdoc C: U upper lower case or no? PhD G: Hmm? Postdoc C: OK. PhD G: No, we only used, you know, uh periods, uh, question marks and {pause} exclamation. And we know that there's th that's not a very g I mean, we miss a lot of them, Postdoc C: Yeah. That's OK but {disfmarker} PhD G: but {disfmarker} but it's f i i Postdoc C: Comma also or not? PhD G: No commas. No. And then {vocalsound} we looked at locations where, uh, if you have overlapping speech and someone else starts a sentence, you know, where do these {disfmarker} where do other people start their {vocalsound} turns {disfmarker} not turns really, but you know, sentences, PhD B: Ah. PhD G: um {disfmarker} So we only looked at cases where there was a foreground speaker and then at the to at the {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} the foreground speaker started into their sentence and then someone else started later. PhD B: Somewhere in between the start and the end? PhD G: OK? And so what {disfmarker} PhD B: OK. PhD G: Sorry? PhD B: Somewhere in between the start and the end of the foreground? PhD G: Yes. Uh, so that such that there was overlap between the two sentences. PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: So, the {disfmarker} the question was how can we {disfmarker} what can we say about the places where the second or {disfmarker} or actually, several second speakers, {vocalsound} um {pause} start their {pause}" interrupts" , as we call them. PhD D: Three words from the end. Grad A: At pause boundaries. PhD G: w And we looked at this in terms of um {disfmarker} Grad A: On T - closures, only. PhD G: So {disfmarker} so we had {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we had um u to {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for the purposes of this analysis, we tagged the word sequences, and {disfmarker} and we time - aligned them. Um, and we considered it interrupt {disfmarker} if it occurred in the middle of a word, we basically {disfmarker} you know, considered that to be a interrupt as if it were at {disfmarker} at the beginning of the word. So that, {vocalsound} if any part of the word was overlapped, it was considered an interrupted {pause} word. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: And then we looked at the {disfmarker} the locatio the, {vocalsound} um, you know, the features that {disfmarker} the tags because we had tagged these word strings, {comment} {vocalsound} um, that {disfmarker} that occurred right before these {disfmarker} these uh, interrupt locations. PhD B: Tag by uh PhD G: And the tags we looked at are {vocalsound} the spurt tag, which basically says {disfmarker} or actually {disfmarker} Sorry. End of spurt. So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} whether there was a pause essentially here, because spurts are a {disfmarker} defined as being you know, five hundred milliseconds or longer pauses, and then we had things like discourse markers, uh, backchannels, uh, disfluencies. um, uh, filled pauses {disfmarker} So disfluen the D's are for, {vocalsound} um, {vocalsound} the interruption points of a disfluency, so, where you hesitate, or where you start the repair there. Uh, what else do we had. Uh, repeated {disfmarker} you know, repeated words is another of that kind of disfluencies and so forth. So we had both the beginnings and ends of these {disfmarker} uh so, the end of a filled pause and the end of a discourse marker. And we just eyeballed {disfmarker} I mean {vocalsound} we didn't really hand - tag all of these things. We just {pause} looked at the distribution of words, and so every {vocalsound}" so yeah" , and" OK" , uh, and" uh - huh" were {disfmarker} were the {disfmarker} were deemed to be backchannels and {vocalsound}" wow" and" so" and {vocalsound} uh" right" , uh were um {disfmarker} {pause} Not" right" ." Right" is a backchannel. But so, we sort of {disfmarker} just based on the lexical {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um, identity of the words, we {disfmarker} we tagged them as one of these things. And of course the d the interruption points we got from the original transcripts. So, and then we looked at the disti so we looked at the {pause} distribution of these different kinds of tags, overall uh, and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and particularly at the interruption points. And uh, we found that there is a marked difference so that for instance after {disfmarker} so at the end after a discourse marker or after backchannel or after filled pause, you're much more likely to be interrupted {vocalsound} than before. OK? And also of course after spurt ends, which means basically in p inside pauses. So pauses are always an opportunity for {disfmarker} So we have this little histogram which shows these distributions and, {vocalsound} um, PhD D: I wonder {disfmarker} PhD G: you know, it's {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's not {disfmarker} No big surprises, but it is {pause} sort of interesting from {disfmarker} Grad A: It's nice to actually measure it though. PhD G: Yeah. PhD D: I wonder about the cause and effect there. In other words uh {pause} if you weren't going to pause you {disfmarker} you will because you're g being interrupted. PhD G: Well we're ne PhD D: Uh {disfmarker} PhD G: Right. There's no statement about cause and effect. PhD D: Yeah, right. No, no, no. PhD G: This is just a statistical correlation, PhD D: Right, I {disfmarker} I see. Yeah. PhD G: yeah. Professor F: But he {disfmarker} yeah, he's {disfmarker} he's right, y I mean maybe you weren't intending to pause at all, but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You were intending to stop for fifty - seven milliseconds, PhD G: Right. Professor F: but then Chuck came in PhD G: Right. PhD D: Yeah. Professor F: and so you {vocalsound} paused for a second PhD G: Right. Anyway. {comment} So, Professor F: or more. PhD G: uh, and that was basically it. And {disfmarker} and we {disfmarker} so we wrote this and then, {vocalsound} we found we were at six pages, and then we started {vocalsound} cutting furiously PhD B: Oops. PhD G: and {vocalsound} threw out half of the {vocalsound} material again, and uh played with the LaTeX stuff and {disfmarker} Grad A: Made the font smaller and the narrows longer. PhD G: uh, and {disfmarker} until it fi PhD B: Font smaller, yeah. PhD G: No, no. W well, d you couldn't really make everything smaller PhD B: Put the abstract end. PhD G: but we s we put {disfmarker} Oh, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Grad A: Took out white space. PhD G: you know the {disfmarker} the gap between the two columns is like ten millimeters, PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: so I d shrunk it to eight millimeters and that helped some. And stuff like that. PhD D: Wasn't there {disfmarker} wasn't there some result, Andreas {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah {disfmarker} PhD D: I {disfmarker} I thought maybe Liz presented this at some conference a while ago about {vocalsound} uh, backchannels PhD G: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. PhD D: uh, and that they tend to happen when uh {pause} the pitch drops. You know you get a falling pitch. And so that's when people tend to backchannel. PhD G: Yeah. Well {disfmarker} PhD D: Uh - i i do you rem PhD G: y We didn't talk about, uh, prosodic, uh, properties at all, PhD D: Right. Right. But {disfmarker} PhD G: although that's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I take it that's something that uh Don will {disfmarker} will look at Grad E: Yeah, we're gonna be looking at that. PhD G: now that we have the data and we have the alignment, so. This is purely based on you know the words PhD D: Mm - hmm. PhD G: and {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I have a reference for that though. Uh - huh. PhD D: Oh you do. PhD G: Yeah. PhD D: So am I recalling correctly? PhD G: Anyway, so. Postdoc C: Well, I didn't know about Liz's finding on that, PhD D: About {disfmarker} Postdoc C: but I know of another paper that talks about something PhD D: Uh - huh. Postdoc C: that {disfmarker} PhD D: Hmm. Grad E: I'd like to see that reference too. Postdoc C: OK. PhD D: It made me think about a cool little device that could be built to uh {disfmarker} to handle those people that call you on the phone and just like to talk and talk and talk. And you just have this little detector that listens for these {vocalsound} drops in pitch and gives them the backchannel. And so then you {vocalsound} hook that to the phone and go off Grad A: Yeah. Uh - huh. PhD D: and do the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} do whatever you r wanna do, PhD G: Oh yeah. Well {disfmarker} PhD D: while that thing keeps them busy. PhD G: There's actually {disfmarker} uh there's this a former student of here from Berkeley, Nigel {disfmarker} Nigel Ward. PhD D: Uh - huh. Sure. PhD G: Do you know him? PhD D: Yeah. PhD G: He did a system uh, in {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he lives in Japan now, and he did this backchanneling, automatic backchanneling system. Professor F: Right. PhD G: It's a very {disfmarker} PhD D: Oh! PhD G: So, exactly what you describe, PhD D: Huh. PhD G: but for Japanese. And it's apparently {disfmarker} for Japa - in Japanese it's really important that you backchannel. It's really impolite if you don't, and {disfmarker} So. Professor F: Huh. Actually for a lot of these people I think you could just sort of backchannel continuously and it would {pause} pretty much be fine. PhD D: It wouldn't matter? Yeah. Grad E: Yeah. That's w That's what I do. PhD D: Random intervals. Grad A: There was {disfmarker} there was of course a Monty Python sketch with that. Where the barber who was afraid of scissors was playing a {disfmarker} a tape of clipping sounds, and saying" uh - huh" ," yeah" ," how about them sports teams?" PhD G: Anyway. So the paper's on - line and y I {disfmarker} I think I uh {disfmarker} I CC'ed a message to Meeting Recorder with the URL so you can get it. Grad A: Yep. Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: Printed it out, haven't read it yet. Professor F: Yeah. PhD G: Um, uh one more thing. So I {disfmarker} I'm actually {disfmarker} {vocalsound} about to send Brian Kingbury an email saying where he can find the {disfmarker} the s the m the material he wanted for the s for the speech recognition experiment, so {disfmarker} but I haven't sent it out yet because actually my desktop locked up, like I can't type anything. Uh b so if there's any suggestions you have for that I was just gonna send him the {disfmarker} PhD D: Is it the same directory that you had suggested? PhD G: I made a directory. I called it um {disfmarker} Postdoc C: He still has his Unix account here, you know. PhD G: Well this isn't {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD G: He does? Postdoc C: And he {disfmarker} and he's {disfmarker} PhD G: Yeah but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but he has to {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I'd hafta add him to Meeting Recorder, I guess, PhD G: he prefe he said he would prefer FTP Postdoc C: but {disfmarker} OK. PhD G: and also, um, the other person that wants it {disfmarker} There is one person at SRI who wants to look at the {vocalsound} um, you know, the uh {disfmarker} the data we have so far, Postdoc C: OK. PhD G: and so I figured that FTP is the best {pause} approach. So what I did is I um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} @ @ {comment} I made a n new directory after Chuck said that would c that was gonna be a good thing. Uh, so it's" FTP {vocalsound} {pause} pub Grad A: Pub real. PhD G: real" {disfmarker} Exactly. MTGC {disfmarker} What is it again? CR {disfmarker} Grad A: Ask Dan Ellis. Professor F: u R D {disfmarker} RDR, yeah. PhD G: Or {disfmarker} Yeah. Right? The same {disfmarker} the same as the mailing list, Professor F: Yeah, PhD G: and {disfmarker} Professor F: the {disfmarker} {pause} No vowels. PhD G: Yeah. Um, Professor F: Yeah PhD G: and then under there {disfmarker} Um actually {disfmarker} Oh and this directory, {vocalsound} is not readable. It's only uh, accessible. So, {vocalsound} in other words, to access anything under there, you have to {vocalsound} be told what the name is. Grad A: Right. PhD G: So that's sort of a g {vocalsound} quick and dirty way of doing access control. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: So {disfmarker} uh, and the directory for this I call it I" ASR zero point one" because it's sort of meant for recognition. Professor F: So anyone who hears this meeting now knows the {disfmarker} Grad A: Beta? PhD G: And then {disfmarker} then in there I have a file that lists all the other {vocalsound} files, so that someone can get that file and then know the file names and therefore download them. If you don't know the file names you can't {disfmarker} Professor F: Is that a dash or a dot in there? PhD G: I mean you can {disfmarker} Grad A: Don't {disfmarker} don't {disfmarker} don't say. PhD G: Dash. Anyway. So all I {disfmarker} all I was gonna do there was stick the {disfmarker} the transcripts after we {disfmarker} the way that we munged them for scoring, because that's what he cares about, and {disfmarker} um, and also {disfmarker} and then the {disfmarker} the {pause} waveforms that Don segmented. I mean, just basically tar them all up f I mean {disfmarker} w for each meeting I tar them all into one tar file and G - zip them and stick them there. Grad A: I uh, put digits in my own home directory {disfmarker} home FTP directory, PhD G: And so. Grad A: but I'll probably move them there as well. PhD G: Oh, OK. PhD D: So we could point Mari to this also for her {vocalsound} March O - one request? PhD G: OK. Yeah. March O - one. PhD D: Or {disfmarker} PhD G: Oh! PhD D: You n Remember she was {disfmarker} PhD G: Oh she wanted that also? PhD D: Well she was saying that it would be nice if we had {disfmarker} they had a {disfmarker} Or was she talking {disfmarker} Yeah. She was saying it would be nice if they had eh {pause} the same set, so that when they did experiments they could compare. PhD G: Right, but they don't have a recognizer even. PhD D: Yeah. Grad E: Um {disfmarker} I PhD G: But yeah, we can send {disfmarker} I can CC Mari on this so that she knows {disfmarker} PhD D: Yeah. So, for the thing that {disfmarker} Postdoc C: That's good. PhD D: We need to give Brian the beeps file, PhD G: Right. PhD D: so I was gonna probably put it {disfmarker} Grad A: We can put it in the same place. Just put in another directory. PhD D: Yeah, it I'll make another directory. PhD G: Well, make ano make another directory. PhD D: Yeah. Exactly. PhD G: You don't n m PhD D: Yeah. PhD G: Yeah. Grad E: And, Andreas, um, sampled? PhD G: Yeah. They are? Grad E: I think so. Yeah. Um, so either we should regenerate the original {vocalsound} versions, {comment} {pause} or um, we should just make a note of it. PhD G: OK. Oh. Beca - Well {disfmarker} OK, because in one directory there's two versions. Grad E: Yeah, that's the first meeting I cut both versions. Just to check which w if there is a significant difference. PhD G: OK. And so I {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} OK so {disfmarker} but for the other meetings it's the downsampled version that you have. Grad E: They're all downsampled, yeah. PhD G: Oh, OK. Oh that's th important to know, OK so we should probably {disfmarker} uh {pause} give them the non - downsampled versions. Grad E: Yeah. So {disfmarker} PhD G: OK. Alright, then I'll hold off on that and I'll wait for you um {disfmarker} Grad E: Probably by tomorrow PhD G: gen Grad E: I can {disfmarker} I'll send you an email. PhD G: OK. Alright. OK. Yeah, definitely they should have the full bandwidth version, Grad E: Yeah, because I mean {disfmarker} I I think Liz decided to go ahead with the {pause} downsampled versions cuz we can {disfmarker} There was no s like, r significant difference. PhD G: yeah. OK. Well, it takes {disfmarker} it takes up less disk space, for one thing. Grad E: It does take up less disk space, and apparently it did even better {pause} than the original {disfmarker} than the original versions, PhD G: Yeah. Yeah. Grad E: which you know, is just, probably random. PhD G: Right. Yeah, it was a small difference Grad E: But, um {pause} they probably w want the originals. PhD G: but yeah. Yeah. OK. OK, good. Good that {disfmarker} Well, it's a good thing that {disfmarker} Grad A: OK, I think we're losing, Don and Andreas at three - thirty, right? OK. Grad E: Hey mon hafta booga. PhD G: Yeah. Professor F: So, that's why it was good to have Andreas, say these things but {disfmarker} So, we should probably talk about the IBM transcription process stuff that {disfmarker} Postdoc C: OK. So, um you know that Adam created um, a b a script to generate the beep file? Professor F: Hmm. Postdoc C: To then create something to send to IBM. And, um, you {disfmarker} you should probably talk about that. But {disfmarker} but you were gonna to use the {pause} originally transcribed file because I tightened the time bins and that's also the one that they had already {vocalsound} in trying to debug the first stage of this. And uh, my understanding was that, um {disfmarker} I haven't {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I haven't listened to it yet, Grad A: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: but it sounded very good and {disfmarker} and I understand that you guys {vocalsound} were going to have a meeting today, before this meeting. Grad A: It was just to talk about how to generate it. Um, just so that while I'm gone, you can regenerate it if you decide to do it a different way. So uh, Chuck and Thilo should, now more or less know how to generate the file Postdoc C: Excellent. OK. Grad A: and, {vocalsound} the other thing Chuck pointed out is that, um, {vocalsound} since this one is hand - marked, {vocalsound} there are discourse boundaries. Right? So {disfmarker} so when one person is speaking, there's breaks. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Grad A: Whereas Thilo's won't have that. So what {disfmarker} what we're probably gonna do is just write a script, that if two, chunks are very close to each other on the same channel we'll just merge them. Postdoc C: Oh! OK. Ah, interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, sure. Yeah, sure. Makes sense. Grad A: So, uh, and that will get around the problem of, the, {vocalsound} you know" one word beep, one word beep, one word beep, one word beep" . Postdoc C: Yeah. Ah! Clever. Yes. Clever. Yeah. Excellent. PhD D: Yeah, in fact after our meeting uh, this morning Thilo came in and said that {vocalsound} um, there could be {pause} other differences between {vocalsound} the uh {pause} already transcribed meeting with the beeps in it and one that has {pause} just r been run through his process. Postdoc C: And that's the purpose. Yeah. PhD D: So tomorrow, {vocalsound} when we go to make the um {pause} uh, chunked file {vocalsound} for IBM, we're going to actually compare the two. So he's gonna run his process on that same meeting, Postdoc C: Great idea! PhD D: and then we're gonna do the beep - ify on both, and listen to them and see if we notice any real differences. PhD G: Beep - ify! Postdoc C: OK, now one thing that prevented us from apply you {disfmarker} you from applying {disfmarker} Exactly. The training {disfmarker} So that is the training meeting. OK. PhD D: Yeah, w and we know that. Wel - uh we just wanna if {disfmarker} if there're any major differences between {vocalsound} doing it on the hand Postdoc C: Uh - huh. Oh, interesting. Ah! Grad A: Hmm. Postdoc C: OK. Interesting idea. Great. PhD G: So this training meeting, uh w un is that uh {pause} some data where we have uh very um, {vocalsound} you know, accurate {pause} time marks? for {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I went back and hand - marked the {pause} ba the bins, I ment I mentioned that last week. PhD G: OK, yeah. PhD D: But the {disfmarker} but there's {disfmarker} yeah, but there is this one issue with them in that there're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} there are time boundaries in there that occur in the middle of speech. PhD G: Because {disfmarker} PhD D: So {disfmarker} Like when we went t to um {disfmarker} When I was listening to the original file that Adam had, it's like you {disfmarker} you hear a word then you hear a beep {vocalsound} and then you hear the continuation of what is the same sentence. Grad A: That's on the other channel. That's because of channel overlap. PhD D: Well, and {disfmarker} and so the {disfmarker} th Postdoc C: Hmm. Grad A: It's {disfmarker} i PhD D: So there are these chunks that look like uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that have uh {disfmarker} Grad A: I mean that's not gonna be true of the foreground speaker. That'll only be if it's the background speaker. PhD D: Right. So you'll {disfmarker} you'll have a chunk of, you know, channel {vocalsound} A which starts at zero and ends at ten, and then the same channel starting at eleven, ending at fifteen, and then again, starting at sixteen, ending at twenty. Right, so that's three chunks where {vocalsound} actually we w can just make one chunk out of that which is A, zero, twenty. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: Yeah. Grad A: That's what I just said, Postdoc C: Sure. Sure. Grad A: yeah. PhD D: Yeah. So I just wanted to make sure that it was clear. Postdoc C: Yeah, I thought that was {disfmarker} PhD D: So {vocalsound} if you were to use these, you have to be careful not to pull out these individual {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD G: Oh! I mean it {disfmarker} Right, I mean w I mean what I would {disfmarker} I was interested in is having {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a se having time marks for the beginnings and ends of speech by each speaker. Grad A: Well, that's definitely a problem. PhD G: Uh, because we could use that to fine tune our alignment process Grad A: Battery. PhD D: Yeah. PhD G: to make it more accurate. PhD B: Battery? PhD D: Mm - hmm. PhD G: So {disfmarker} uh, it {disfmarker} I don't care that you know, there's actually abutting segments that we have to join together. That's fine. PhD D: OK. PhD G: But what we do care about is that {vocalsound} the beginnings and ends um {pause} are actually close to the speech {vocalsound} inside of that PhD D: Yeah, I think Jane tightened these up by hand. PhD G: uh {disfmarker} PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD G: OK, so what is the {disfmarker} sort of how tight are they? Professor F: Uh, it looks much better. PhD B: Yeah. Looks good. Postdoc C: They were, um, reasonably tight, but not excruciatingly tight. PhD G: Oh. Postdoc C: That would've taken more time. I just wanted to get it so tha So that if you have like" yeah" {comment} in a {disfmarker} swimming in a big bin, then it's {disfmarker} PhD G: No, no! I don Grad A: Let me make a note on yours. PhD G: actually I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: I {disfmarker} it's f That's fine because we don't want to {disfmarker} th that's perfectly fine. In fact it's good. You always want to have a little bit of pause or nonspeech around the speech, say for recognition purposes. Uh, but just {disfmarker} just u w you know get an id I just wanted to have an idea of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of how much extra you allowed um {disfmarker} so that I can interpret the numbers if I compared that with a forced alignment segmentation. Postdoc C: I can't answer that, PhD G: So. Postdoc C: but {disfmarker} but my main goal was {pause} um, in these areas where you have a three - way overlap {vocalsound} and one of the overlaps involves" yeah" , {vocalsound} and it's swimming in this huge bin, {vocalsound} I wanted to get it so that it was clo more closely localized. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Right. But are we talking about, I don't know, {pause} a {vocalsound} {pause} tenth of a second? a {disfmarker}? You know? How {disfmarker} how much {disfmarker} how much extra would you allow at most {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I {disfmarker} I wanted to {disfmarker} I wanted it to be able to {disfmarker} l he be heard normally, PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: so that if you {disfmarker} if you play {pause} back that bin and have it in the mode where it stops at the boundary, {vocalsound} it sounds like a normal word. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: It doesn't sound like the person {disfmarker} i it sounds normal. It's as if the person could've stopped there. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: And it wouldn't have been an awkward place to stop. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: Now sometimes you know, it's {disfmarker} these are involved in places where there was no time. And so, {vocalsound} {vocalsound} there wouldn't be {pause} a gap afterwards because {disfmarker} PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: I mean some cases, there're some people {pause} um, who {disfmarker} who have very long {pause} segments of discourse where, {vocalsound} you know, they'll {disfmarker} they'll breath {pause} and then I put a break. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: But other than that, it's really pretty continuous and this includes things like going from one sentence into the {disfmarker} u one utterance into the next, one sentence into the next, um, w without really stopping. I mean {disfmarker} i they, i you know in writing you have this {vocalsound} two spaces and a big gap PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: you know. PhD G: Right. Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} but uh {pause} {vocalsound} i some people are planning and, you know, I mean, a lot {disfmarker} we always are planning {pause} what we're going to say next. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: But uh, in which case, the gap between {pause} these two complete syntactic units, {vocalsound} um, which of course n spoken things are not always complete syntactically, but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but it would be a shorter p shorter break {vocalsound} than {vocalsound} maybe you might like. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: But the goal there was to {pause} not have {vocalsound} the text be so {disfmarker} so crudely {pause} parsed in a time bin. I mean, because {vocalsound} from a discourse m purpose {pause} it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's more {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's more useful to be able to see {disfmarker} and also you know, from a speech recognition purpose my impression is that {vocalsound} if you have too long a unit, it's {disfmarker} it doesn't help you very much either, cuz of the memory. PhD G: Well, yeah. That's fine. Postdoc C: So, that means that {vocalsound} the amount of time after something is variable depending partly on context, but my general goal {vocalsound} when there was {pause} sufficient space, room, pause {pause} after it {pause} to have it be {pause} kind of a natural feeling {pause} gap. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: Which I c I don't know what it would be quantified as. You know, Wally Chafe says that {vocalsound} um, {vocalsound} in producing narratives, the spurts that people use {vocalsound} tend to be, {vocalsound} uh, that the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} what would be a pause might be something like two {disfmarker} two seconds. PhD G: Mmm. Postdoc C: And um, that would be, you know one speaker. The discourse {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the people who look at turn taking often do use {disfmarker} PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: I was interested that you chose uh, {vocalsound} you know um, {comment} the {disfmarker} you know that you use cuz I think that's a unit that would be more consistent with sociolinguistics. Yeah. PhD G: Well we chose um, you know, half a second because {vocalsound} if {disfmarker} if you go much larger, you have a {disfmarker} y you know, your {disfmarker} your statement about how much overlap there is becomes less, {vocalsound} um, precise, Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: because you include more of actual pause time into what you consider overlap speech. Um, so, it's sort of a compromise, PhD B: Yeah. {comment} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah, I also used I think something around zero point five seconds for the speech - nonspeech detector {disfmarker} PhD G: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's also based {disfmarker} I mean Liz suggested that value based on {vocalsound} the distribution of pause times that you see in Switchboard and {disfmarker} and other corpora. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: Um {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} PhD B: for the minimum silence length. PhD G: Mm - hmm. I see. PhD B: So. PhD G: Yeah. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: In any case, this {disfmarker} this uh, meeting {pause} that I hand {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I hand - adjusted two of them I mentioned before, PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: and I sent {disfmarker} I sent email, PhD G: OK, Postdoc C: so {disfmarker} PhD G: So {disfmarker} so at some point we will try to fine - tune our forced alignment Postdoc C: And I sent the {comment} {pause} path. PhD G: maybe using those as references because you know, what you would do is you would play with different parameters. And to get an object You need an objective {vocalsound} measure of how closely you can align the models to the actual speech. And that's where your your data would be {pause} very important to have. So, I will {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah and hopefully the new meetings {pause} which will start from the channelized version will {disfmarker} will have better time boundaries {pause} and alignments. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Right. Postdoc C: But I like this idea of {disfmarker} uh, for our purposes for the {disfmarker} for the IBM preparation, {vocalsound} uh, n having these {pause} joined together, PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. Postdoc C: and uh {disfmarker} It makes a lot of sense. And in terms of transcription, it would be easy to do it that way. PhD G: Yeah. Postdoc C: The way that they have with the longer units, PhD G: Yeah. Postdoc C: not having to fuss with adding these units at this time. PhD B: Yeah. Whi - which could have one drawback. If there is uh a backchannel in between those three things, PhD G: Right. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD B: the {disfmarker} the n the backchannel will {disfmarker} will occur at the end of {disfmarker} of those three. Postdoc C: Yes. PhD B: And {disfmarker} and in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the previous version where in the n which is used now, {vocalsound} there, the backchannel would {disfmarker} would be in - between there somewhere, so. Postdoc C: I see. PhD B: That would be more natural Postdoc C: Yeah. Well, PhD B: but {disfmarker} Postdoc C: that's {disfmarker} that's right, but you know, thi this brings me to the other f stage of this which I discussed with you earlier today, PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: which is {vocalsound} the second stage is {vocalsound} um, w what to do {pause} in terms of the transcribers adjustment of these data. I discussed this with you too. Um, the tr so the idea initially was, we would get {vocalsound} uh, for the new meetings, so the e EDU meetings, that {vocalsound} Thilo ha has now presegmented all of them for us, on a channel by channel basis. And um, so, I've assigned {disfmarker} I've {disfmarker} I've assigned them to our transcribers and um, so far I've discussed it with one, with uh {disfmarker} And I had a {pause} about an hour discussion with her about this yesterday, we went through {vocalsound} uh EDU - one, at some extent. And it occurred to me that {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} that {vocalsound} basically what we have in this kind of a format is {disfmarker} you could consider it as a staggered mixed file, we had some discussion over the weekend a about {disfmarker} at {disfmarker} at this other meeting that we were all a at {disfmarker} um, {vocalsound} about whether the tran the IBM transcribers should hear a single channel audio, or a mixed channel audio. And um, {vocalsound} in {disfmarker} in a way, by {disfmarker} by having this {disfmarker} this chunk and then the backchannel {vocalsound} after it, it's like a stagal staggered mixed channel. And um, {vocalsound} it occurred {pause} to me in my discussion with her yesterday that um, um, the {disfmarker} {pause} the {disfmarker} the maximal gain, it's {disfmarker} from the IBM {pause} people, may be in long stretches of connected speech. So it's basically a whole bunch of words {vocalsound} which they can really do, because of the continuity within that person's turn. So, what I'm thinking, and it may be that not all meetings will be good for this, {comment} but {disfmarker} but what I'm thinking is that {vocalsound} in the EDU meetings, they tend to be {vocalsound} driven by a couple of dominant speakers. And, if the chunked files focused on the dominant speakers, {vocalsound} then, when {disfmarker} when it got s patched together when it comes back from IBM, we can add the backchannels. It seems to me {vocalsound} that {vocalsound} um, you know, the backchannels per - se wouldn't be so hard, but then there's this question of the time {pause} @ @ {comment} uh, marking, and whether the beeps would be {vocalsound} uh y y y And I'm not exactly sure how that {disfmarker} how that would work with the {disfmarker} with the backchannels. And, so um {disfmarker} And certainly things that are {vocalsound} intrusions of multiple words, {vocalsound} taken out of context and displaced in time from where they occurred, {vocalsound} that would be hard. So, m my {vocalsound} thought is {pause} i I'm having this transcriber go through {vocalsound} the EDU - one meeting, and indicate a start time {nonvocalsound} f for each dominant speaker, endpoi end time for each dominant speaker, and the idea that {vocalsound} these units would be generated for the dominant speakers, {vocalsound} and maybe not for the other channels. Grad A: Yeah the only, um, disadvantage of that is, then it's hard to use an automatic method to do that. The advantage is that it's probably faster to do that than it is to use the automated method and correct it. So. Postdoc C: Well, it {disfmarker} Grad A: We'll just have to see. Postdoc C: OK. I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think um, you know, the original plan was that the transcriber would adjust the t the boundaries, and all that for all the channels but, {vocalsound} you know, that is so time - consuming, and since we have a bottleneck here, we want to get IBM things that are usable s as soon as possible, then this seemed to me it'd be a way of gett to get them a flood of data, which would be useful when it comes back to us. And um {disfmarker} Grad A: Yeah. Postdoc C: Oh also, at the same time she {disfmarker} when she goes through this, she'll be {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} If there's anything that {vocalsound} was encoded as a pause, but really has something transcribable in it, {vocalsound} then she's going to {vocalsound} uh, make a mark {disfmarker} w uh, so you know, so {vocalsound} that {disfmarker} that bin would be marked as it {disfmarker} as double dots and she'll just add an S. And in the other {disfmarker} in the other case, if it's marked as speech, {vocalsound} and really there's nothing transcribable in it, then she's going to put a s dash, and I'll go through and it {disfmarker} and um, you know, with a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} with a substitution command, get it so that it's clear that those are the other category. I'll just, you know, recode them. But um, {vocalsound} um, the transcribable events {pause} that um, I'm considering in this, {vocalsound} uh, continue to be {vocalsound} laugh, as well as speech, and cough and things like that, so I'm not stripping out anything, just {disfmarker} just you know, being very lenient in what's considered speech. Yeah? PhD D: Jane? In terms of the {disfmarker} this new procedure you're suggesting, {vocalsound} um, u what is the {disfmarker} Grad A: It's not that different. PhD D: So I'm a little confused, because how do we know where to put beeps? Is it {disfmarker} i d y is it {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Oh, OK. Grad A: Transcriber will do it. Postdoc C: So what it {disfmarker} what it {disfmarker} what it involves is {disfmarker} is really a s uh, {vocalsound} uh, the original pr procedure, but {vocalsound} only applied to {pause} uh, a certain {pause} strategically chosen {pause} s aspect of the data. Grad A: We pick the easy parts of the data basically, Postdoc C: So {disfmarker} Grad A: and transcriber marks it by hand. Postdoc C: You got it. Grad A: And because {disfmarker} PhD D: But after we've done Thilo's thing. Grad A: No. Postdoc C: Yes! Grad A: Oh, after. Oh, OK, Postdoc C: Yes! Grad A: I didn't {disfmarker} I didn't understand that. Postdoc C: Oh yeah! Grad A: OK. PhD B: So, I'm @ @ {disfmarker} now I'm confused. Postdoc C: OK. We start with your presegmented version {disfmarker} PhD G: OK, and I'm leaving. Grad E: Yeah, I have to go as well. PhD G: So, um {disfmarker} Grad A: OK, leave the mikes on, and just put them on the table. Grad E: OK. Thanks. Postdoc C: We start with the presegmented version {disfmarker} Grad A: Let me mark you as no digits. PhD B: You start with the presegmentation, r {vocalsound} yeah? Postdoc C: Yeah. And then um, {vocalsound} the transcriber, {vocalsound} instead of going painstakingly through all the channels and moving the boundaries around, and deciding if it's speech or not, but not transcribing anything. OK? Instead of doing that, which was our original plan, {vocalsound} the tra They focus on the dominant speaker {disfmarker} PhD D: Mm - hmm. They just {vocalsound} do that on {pause} the main channels. Postdoc C: Yeah. So what they do is they identify who's the di dominant speaker, and when the speaker starts. PhD D: OK. PhD B: Yeah? OK. Postdoc C: So I mean, you're still gonna {disfmarker} PhD B: And you just {disfmarker} Postdoc C: So we're {disfmarker} It's based on your se presegmentation, that's the basic {pause} thing. PhD B: and you just use the s the segments of the dominant speaker then? For {disfmarker} for sending to {disfmarker} to IBM or {disfmarker}? Postdoc C: Yeah. Exactly. PhD D: So, now Jane, my question is {vocalsound} when they're all done adjusting the w time boundaries for the dominant speaker, {comment} have they then also erased the time boundaries for the other ones? Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Uh No. No, no. Huh - uh. S PhD D: So how will we know who {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: That's {disfmarker} that's why she's notating the start and end points of the dominant speakers. So, on a {disfmarker} you know, so {vocalsound} i in EDU - one, i as far as I listened to it, you start off with a {disfmarker} a s section by Jerry. So Jerry starts at minute so - and - so, and goes until minute so - and - so. And then Mark Paskin comes in. And he starts at {vocalsound} minute such - and - such, and goes on till minute so - and - so. OK. And then {vocalsound} meanwhile, she's listening to {vocalsound} {pause} both of these guys'channels, determining if there're any cases of misclassification of speech as nothing, and nothing as speech, PhD D: Mm - hmm. OK. Postdoc C: and {vocalsound} a and adding a tag if that happens. PhD D: So she does the adjustments on those guys? Postdoc C: But you know, I wanted to say, his segmentation is so good, that {vocalsound} um, the part that I listened to with her yesterday {vocalsound} didn't need any adjustments of the bins. PhD B: On that meeting. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: So far we haven't. So this is not gonna be a major part of the process, at least {disfmarker} least not in {disfmarker} not on ones that {disfmarker} that really {disfmarker} PhD D: So if you don't have to adjust the bins, why not just do what it {disfmarker} for all the channels? Postdoc C: Mm - hmm? PhD D: Why not just throw all the channels to IBM? Postdoc C: Well there's the question o of {pause} whether {disfmarker} Well, OK. She i It's a question of how much time we want our transcriber to invest here {vocalsound} when she's gonna have to invest that when it comes back from IBM anyway. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: So if it's only inserting" mm - hmm" s here and there, then, wouldn't that be something that would be just as efficient to do at this end, instead of having it go through I B M, then be patched together, then be double checked here. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Right. PhD B: Yeah. But {disfmarker} But then we could just use the {disfmarker} the output of the detector, and do the beeping on it, and send it to I B PhD D: Without having her check anything. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: Right. Postdoc C: Well, I guess {disfmarker} Grad A: I think we just {disfmarker} we just have to listen to it and see how good they are. PhD B: For some meetings, I'm {disfmarker} I'm sure it {disfmarker} i n Postdoc C: I'm {disfmarker} I'm open to that, it was {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah, if it's working well, PhD B: That's {disfmarker} And some {disfmarker} on some meetings it's good. Professor F: that sounds like a good idea since as you say you have to do stuff with the other end anyway. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Well yea OK, good. I mean the detector, this {disfmarker} PhD D: Yeah, I mean we have to fix it when it comes back anyhow. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Now, you were saying that they {disfmarker} they differ in how well they work depending on channel s sys systems and stuff. PhD B: Yeah. So we should perhaps just select meetings on which the speech - nonspeech detection works well, Postdoc C: But EDU is great. PhD B: and just use, {vocalsound} those meetings to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to send to IBM and, do the other ones. Grad A: Release to begin with. Postdoc C: How interesting. You know {disfmarker} Professor F: What's the problem {disfmarker} the l I forget. Is the problem the lapel, or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} PhD B: Uh, it really depends. Um, my {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} my impression is that it's better for meetings with fewer speakers, and it's better for {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for meetings where nobody is breathing. Professor F: Oh, PhD B: Yeah, Professor F: the dead meetings. PhD B: get {disfmarker} That's it. PhD D: So in fact this might suggest an alternative sort of a {disfmarker} a c a hybrid between these two things. Grad A: No, the undead meeting, yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah. Yeah? PhD D: So the {disfmarker} the one suggestion is you know we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we run Thilo's thing and then we have somebody go and adjust all the time boundaries PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah? PhD D: and we send it to IBM. The other one is {vocalsound} we just run his thing and send it to IBM. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: There's a {disfmarker} a another possibility if we find that there are some problems, PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. PhD D: and that is {vocalsound} if we go ahead and we {vocalsound} just run his, and we generate the beeps file, then we have somebody listen beeps file. PhD B: Yeah. And erase {disfmarker} PhD D: And they listen to each section and say" yes, no" whether that section is PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Is intelligible. PhD D: i i intelligible or not. And it just {disfmarker} You know, there's a little interface which will {disfmarker} for all the" yes" - es it {disfmarker} then that will be the final {vocalsound} beep file. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: Blech. Postdoc C: That's interesting! Cuz that's {disfmarker} that's directly related to the e end task. Grad A: Stress test. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: How interesting! PhD D: Yeah. I mean it wouldn't be that much fun for a transcriber to sit there, hear it, beep, yes or no. PhD B: Nope. Professor F: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know. PhD D: But it would be quick. Professor F: It would be {disfmarker} kind of quick but they're still listening to everything. PhD D: But there's no adjusting. And that's what's slow. There's no adjusting of time boundaries. Postdoc C: Well, {vocalsound} eh, listening does take time too. PhD D: Yeah. Professor F: Yeah. I don't know, I {disfmarker} I think I'm {disfmarker} I'm really tending towards {disfmarker} Grad A: One and a half times real time. Professor F: I mean, {vocalsound} what's the worst that happens? Do the transcribers {disfmarker} I mean as long as th on the other end they can say there's {disfmarker} there's something {disfmarker} conventions so that they say" huh?" PhD D: Yeah. Right. They {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} Professor F: and then we can flag those later. PhD D: Yeah. That's true. Professor F: i i It {disfmarker} i PhD D: We can just catch it at the {disfmarker} catch everything at this side. Professor F: Yeah. PhD D: Well maybe that's the best way to go, Postdoc C: How interesting! PhD D: just {disfmarker} Grad A: I mean it just depends on how {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Well EDU {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah, Grad A: Sorry, go ahead. PhD B: u u u Postdoc C: So I was gonna say, EDU - one is good enough, PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: maybe we could include it in this {disfmarker} in this set of uh, this stuff we send. PhD B: Yeah there's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think there are some meetings where it would {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} It's possible like this. Grad A: Yeah I {disfmarker} I think, we won't know until we generate a bunch of beep files automatically, listen to them and see how bad they are. PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD D: We won't be able to s include it with this first thing, Grad A: If {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Hmm. Oh, OK. PhD D: because there's a part of the process of the beep file which requires knowing the normalization coefficients. Postdoc C: Oh, I see. PhD D: And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So a Grad A: That's not hard to do. Just {disfmarker} it takes {disfmarker} you know, it just takes five minutes rather than, taking a second. PhD D: OK PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: So. I just hand {disfmarker} hard - coded it. PhD D: Right, except I don't think that {disfmarker} the c the instructions for doing that was in that directory, right? I {disfmarker} I didn't see where you had gener Grad A: No, but it's easy enough to do. PhD B: What {disfmarker} Professor F: But I {disfmarker} but I have a {disfmarker} PhD B: Doing the gain? It's no problem. Adjusting the gain? PhD D: n Doing th No, getting the coefficients, for each channel. PhD B: Yeah, that's no problem. Postdoc C: Know what numbers. PhD D: OK. So we just run that one {disfmarker} Grad A: There are lots of ways to do it. PhD B: We can do that. Grad A: I have one program that'll do it. You can find other programs. PhD B: Yeah. I {disfmarker} I used it, so. PhD D: We just run that Grad A: Yep. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: J - sound - stat? OK. Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: Minus D, capital D. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I have {pause} another suggestion on that, which is, {vocalsound} since, really what this is, is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is trying to in the large, send the right thing to them and there is gonna be this {disfmarker} this post - processing step, um, why don't we check through a bunch of things by sampling it? PhD D: Mm - hmm. Professor F: Right? In other words, rather than, um, uh, saying we're gonna listen to everything {disfmarker} Grad A: I didn't mean listen to everything, I meant, just see if they're any good. Professor F: Yeah. So y you do a bunch of meetings, you listen to {disfmarker} to a little bit here and there, PhD D: Yeah. Professor F: if it sounds like it's almost always right and there's not any big problem you send it to them. PhD D: Send it to them. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: OK. Professor F: And, you know, then they'll send us back what we {disfmarker} w what {disfmarker} what they send back to us, Postdoc C: Oh, that'd be great. Professor F: and we'll {disfmarker} we'll fix things up and {vocalsound} some meetings will cost more time to fix up than others. Grad A: We should {disfmarker} Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: And we should just double - check with Brian on a few simple conventions on how they should mark things. PhD B: Sure. PhD D: OK. When they {disfmarker} when there's either no speech in there, PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. PhD D: or {vocalsound} something they don't understand, Postdoc C: Yeah. Mm - hmm. PhD D: things like that. Grad A: Yeah, cuz @ @ uh what I had originally said to Brian was well they'll have to mark, when they can't distinguish between the foreground and background, Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: because I thought that was gonna be the most prevalent. But if we send them without editing, then we're also gonna hafta have m uh, notations for words that are cut off, PhD D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Grad A: and other sorts of, uh, acoustic problems. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: They do already. PhD D: And they may just guess at what those cut - off words are, Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD D: but w I mean we're gonna adjust {disfmarker} everything when we come back {disfmarker} Grad A: But what {disfmarker} what we would like them to do is be conservative so that they should only write down the transcript if they're sure. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: And otherwise they should mark it so that we can check. PhD B: Mark it. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: Well, we have the unintelligibility {pause} convention. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: And actually they have one also, Grad A: Right. Postdoc C: which {disfmarker} Professor F: i Can I maybe have {disfmarker} have an order of {disfmarker} it's probably in your paper that I haven't looked at lately, but {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Certainty. Professor F: Uh, an order of magnitude notion of {disfmarker} of how {disfmarker} on a good meeting, how often uh, do you get segments that come in the middle of words and so forth, and uh {disfmarker} in a bad meeting how {vocalsound} often? PhD B: Uh. Postdoc C: Was is it in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what is the t Professor F: Well he's saying, you know, that the {disfmarker} the EDU meeting was a good {disfmarker} good meeting, Postdoc C: In a good meeting, what? PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah. Professor F: right? Postdoc C: Oh I see, Professor F: Uh, and so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so it was almost {disfmarker} it was almost always doing the right thing. Postdoc C: the characteristics. Professor F: So I wanted to get some sense of what {disfmarker} what almost always meant. And then, uh in a bad meeting, {vocalsound} or p some meetings where he said oh he's had some problems, what does that mean? Postdoc C: Uh - huh. OK. Professor F: So I mean does one of the does it mean one percent and ten percent? Or does it mean {vocalsound} five percent and fifty percent? Postdoc C: OK. Professor F: Uh {disfmarker} PhD B: So {disfmarker} Professor F: Or {disfmarker} Maybe percentage isn't the right word, Postdoc C: Just PhD B: Yeah th Professor F: but you know how many {disfmarker} how many per minute, or {disfmarker} You know. PhD B: Yeah, the {disfmarker} the problem is that, nnn, the numbers Ian gave in the paper is just uh, some frame error rate. So that's {disfmarker} that's not really {disfmarker} {vocalsound} What will be effective for {disfmarker} for the transcribers, is {disfmarker} They have to {disfmarker} yeah, in in they have to insure that that's a real s spurt or something. And {disfmarker} but, {vocalsound} the numbers {disfmarker} Oops. Um {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Hmm! PhD B: Let me think. So the {pause} speech {disfmarker} the amount of speech that is missed by the {pause} detector, for a good meeting, I th is around {pause} or under one percent, I would say. But there can be {disfmarker} Yeah. For {disfmarker} yeah, but there can be more {disfmarker} There's {disfmarker} There's more amount speech {disfmarker} uh, more amount of {disfmarker} Yeah well, the detector says there is speech, but there is none. So that {disfmarker} that can be a lot when {disfmarker} when it's really a breathy channel. Professor F: But I think that's less of a problem. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: They'll just listen. It's just wasted time. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: And th and that's for a good meeting. Now what about in a meeting that you said we've {disfmarker} you've had some more trouble with? PhD B: I can't {comment} really {disfmarker} hhh, {comment} {pause} Tsk. {comment} I {pause} don't have really representative numbers, I think. That's really {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I did {pause} this on {disfmarker} on four meetings and only five minutes of {disfmarker} of every meet of {disfmarker} of these meetings so, {vocalsound} it's not {disfmarker} not that representative, but, it's perhaps, Fff. Um {disfmarker} Yeah, it's perhaps then {disfmarker} it's perhaps five percent of something, which s uh the {disfmarker} the frames {disfmarker} speech frames which are {disfmarker} which are missed, but um, I can't {disfmarker} can't really tell. Professor F: Right. So I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So i Sometime, we might wanna go back and look at it more in terms of {vocalsound} how many times is there a spurt that's {disfmarker} that's uh, interrupted? PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Professor F: Something like that? Postdoc C: The other problem is, that when it {disfmarker} when it uh d i on the breathy ones, where you get {vocalsound} {vocalsound} breathing, uh, inti indicated as speech. Professor F: And {disfmarker} PhD B: So {disfmarker} Postdoc C: And I guess we could just indicate to the transcribers not to {pause} encode that if they {disfmarker} We could still do the beep file. Professor F: Yeah again I {disfmarker} I think that that is probably less of a problem because if you're {disfmarker} if there's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If {disfmarker} if a {disfmarker} if a word is {disfmarker} is split, then they might have to listen to it a few times to really understand that they can't quite get it. Postdoc C: OK. OK. PhD B: But {disfmarker} Postdoc C: OK. Professor F: Whereas if they listen {nonvocalsound} to it and there's {disfmarker} don't hear any speech I think they'd probably just listen to it once. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: So there'd {disfmarker} you'd think there'd be a {disfmarker} a factor of three or four in {disfmarker} in, uh, cost function, Postdoc C: OK. Professor F: you know, between them or something. PhD B: Yeah, so {disfmarker} but I think that's {disfmarker} n that really doesn't happen very often that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that a word is cut in the middle or something. That's {disfmarker} that's really not {disfmarker} not normal. Professor F: So {disfmarker} so what you're saying is that nearly always what happens when there's a problem is that {disfmarker} is that uh, there's {vocalsound} some uh, uh nonspeech that uh {disfmarker} that is b interpreted as speech. PhD B: That is marked as speech. Yeah. Yeah. Professor F: Well then, we really should just send the stuff. Postdoc C: That would be great. Professor F: Right? Because that doesn't do any harm. PhD B: Yeah, it's {disfmarker} Professor F: You know, if they {disfmarker} they hear you know, a dog bark and they say what was the word, they {comment} you know, they {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah, I als I {disfmarker} Professor F: Ruff ruff! PhD B: Yeah I also thought of {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there are really some channels where it is almost {comment} um, only bre breathing in it. And to {disfmarker} to re - run's Professor F: Yeah? PhD B: Eh, um. Yeah. I've got a {disfmarker} a {pause} P - a {pause} method with loops into the cross - correlation with the PZM mike, and then to reject everything which {disfmarker} which seems to be breath. Professor F: Uh - huh. PhD B: So, I could run this on those breathy channels, and perhaps throw out {disfmarker} Grad A: That's a good idea. Postdoc C: Wow, that's a great idea. Professor F: Yeah. But I think {disfmarker} I th Again, I think that sort of {disfmarker} that that would be good, PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: and what that'll do is just cut the time a little further. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Professor F: But I think none of this is stuff that really needs somebody doing these {disfmarker} these uh, uh, explicit markings. PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: Excellent. Oh, I'd be delighted with that, I {disfmarker} I was very impressed with the {disfmarker} with the result. Yeah. Professor F: Yeah, cuz the other thing that was concerning me about it was that it seemed kind of specialized to the EDU meeting, and {disfmarker} and that then when you get a meeting like this or something, PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and you have a b a bunch of different dominant speakers Postdoc C: Oh yeah, interesting. Professor F: you know, how are you gonna handle it. Postdoc C: Oh yeah. Professor F: Whereas this sounds like a more general solution Postdoc C: Oh yeah, I pr I much prefer this, Professor F: is {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I was just trying to find a way {disfmarker} Cuz I {disfmarker} I don't think the staggered mixed channel is awfully good as a way of handling overlaps. Professor F: Yeah. Uh - huh. Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} but uh {disfmarker} PhD D: Well good. That {disfmarker} that really simplifies thing then. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD D: And we can just, you know, get the meeting, process it, put the beeps file, send it off to IBM. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD D: You know? PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: With very little {pause} work on our side. PhD B: Process it, hear into it. I would {disfmarker} PhD D: Do what? PhD B: Um, {pause} listen to it, and then {disfmarker} Grad A: Or at least sample it. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Well, sample it. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Sample it. Professor F: I {disfmarker} I would just use some samples, PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. Professor F: make sure you don't send them three hours of" bzzz" {comment} or something. PhD D: Yeah. PhD B: No. PhD D: Yeah. Right. PhD B: That won't be good. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD D: Yeah. Yeah that would be very good. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: And then we can you know {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah. PhD D: That'll oughta be a good way to get the pipeline going. Postdoc C: Oh, I'd be delighted. Yeah. PhD B: And there's {disfmarker} there's one point which I {comment} uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah, which {disfmarker} which I r {vocalsound} we covered when I {disfmarker} when I r listened to one of the EDU meetings, Professor F: Great. PhD B: and that's {vocalsound} that somebody is playing sound from his laptop. Grad A: Uh - huh PhD B: And i {vocalsound} the speech - nonspeech detector just assigns randomly the speech to {disfmarker} to one of the channels, so. Uh - I haven't - I didn't think of {disfmarker} of s of {vocalsound} this before, Grad A: What can you do? PhD B: but what {disfmarker} what shall we do about s things like this? Postdoc C: Well you were suggesting {disfmarker} You suggested maybe just not sending that part of the meeting. Grad A: Yep. Mmm. Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} PhD B: But, sometimes the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the laptop is in the background and some {disfmarker} somebody is {disfmarker} is talking, and, {vocalsound} that's really a little bit confusing, but {disfmarker} Grad A: It's a little bit confusing. Professor F: That's life. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: I mean, {comment} what're we gonna do? PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: Even a hand - transcription would {disfmarker} PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: Do you {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: a hand - transcriber would have trouble with that. PhD B: Yeah, Grad A: So. PhD B: that's {disfmarker} that's a second question," what {disfmarker} what will different transcribers do with {disfmarker} with the laptop sound?" Postdoc C: Would you {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} Professor F: What was the l what was the laptop sound? Postdoc C: Yeah, go ahead. Professor F: I mean was it speech, PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: or was it {disfmarker} PhD B: It's speech. Professor F: Great. Postdoc C: Well, so {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} So my standard approach has been if it's not someone close - miked, then, they don't end up on one of the close - miked channels. They end up on a different channel. And we have any number of channels available, Professor F: Uh - huh. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: I mean it's an infinite number of channels. PhD B: But, Postdoc C: So just put them on some other channel. PhD B: when thi when this is sent to {disfmarker} to the I M - eh, I B M transcribers, I don't know if {disfmarker} if they can tell that's really {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Yeah, that's right. Grad A: Yeah cuz there will be no channel on which it is foreground. PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. Grad A: Uh {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Well, they have a convention, in their own procedures, {vocalsound} which is for a background {pause} sound. Grad A: Right, but, uh, in general I don't think we want them transcribing the background, cuz that would be too much work. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: Right? For it {disfmarker} because in the overlap sections, then they'll PhD D: Well I don't think Jane's saying they're gonna transcribe it, but they'll just mark it as being {disfmarker} there's some background stuff there, Grad A: But that's gonna be all over the place. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD D: right? Grad A: How w how will they tell the difference between that sort of background and the dormal {disfmarker} normal background of two people talking at once? PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Oh, I think {disfmarker} I think it'd be easy to to say" background laptop" . Grad A: How would they know that? PhD D: But wait a minute, why would they treat them differently? PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Well because one of them {disfmarker} Grad A: Because otherwise it's gonna be too much work for them to mark it. They'll be marking it all over the place. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Oh, I s background laptop or, background LT {vocalsound} {vocalsound} wouldn't take any time. Grad A: Sure, but how are they gonna tell bet the difference between that and two people just talking at the same time? Postdoc C: And {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Oh, you can tell. Acoustically, can't you tell? PhD B: It's really good sound, so {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Oh is it? Oh! Professor F: Well, I mean, isn't there a category something like uh," sounds for someone for whom there is no i close mike" ? PhD B: Yeah that would be very important, Grad A: But how do we d how do we do that for the I B M folks? Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD B: yeah. Grad A: How can they tell that? PhD D: Well we may just have to do it when it gets back here. Grad A: Yes, that's my opinion as well. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: So we don't do anything for it {disfmarker} with it. Postdoc C: OK. PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: That sounds good. Grad A: And they'll just mark it however they mark it, Postdoc C: That sounds good. PhD D: Yeah. Grad A: and we'll correct it when it comes back. PhD B: So th Professor F: Yeah. PhD B: there was a category for @ @ {comment} speech. Postdoc C: OK. Grad A: Yeah, the default. Postdoc C: Yeah, s a Grad A: No, not default. PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: Well, as it comes back, we have a uh {disfmarker} when we can use the channelized interface for encoding it, then it'll be easy for us to handle. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but if {disfmarker} if out of context, they can't tell if it's a channeled speak uh, you know, a close - miked speaker or not, {vocalsound} then that would be confusing to them. PhD B: OK. Grad A: Right. PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: I don't know, I {disfmarker} it doesn't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} Either way would be fine with me, I don't really care. Professor F: Yeah. So. Shall we uh, do digits and get out of here? Grad A: Yep. Postdoc C: I have o I have one question. Do you think we should send the um {disfmarker} that whole meeting to them and not worry about pre - processing it? Professor F: Yes ma'Postdoc C: Or {disfmarker} Uh, what I mean is {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} we should {vocalsound} leave the {vocalsound} part with the audio in the uh, beep file that we send to IBM for that one, or should we {vocalsound} start after the {disfmarker} that part of the meeting is over in what we send. Professor F: Which part? PhD B: With {disfmarker} Postdoc C: So, the part where they're using sounds from their {disfmarker} from their laptops. PhD B: with the laptop sound, or {disfmarker}? just {disfmarker} Postdoc C: w If we have speech from the laptop should we just uh, excise that from what we send to IBM, or should we {vocalsound} i give it to them and let them do with it what they can? PhD D: I think we should just {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it's gonna be too much work if we hafta {vocalsound} worry about that I think. Postdoc C: OK, that'd be nice to have a {disfmarker} a uniform procedure. PhD D: Yeah, I think if we just {disfmarker} m send it all to them. you know. Grad A: Worry about it when we get back. Postdoc C: Good. And see how well they do. PhD D: Let {disfmarker} Yeah, worry about it when we get back in. Postdoc C: And give them freedom to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to indicate if it's just not workable. Professor F: Yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah, PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: OK, Professor F: Yeah. Postdoc C: excellent. Professor F: Cuz, I wouldn't {disfmarker} don't think we would mind {pause} having that {pause} transcribed, if they did it. Grad A: I think {disfmarker} PhD D: Yeah, e Grad A: As I say, we'll just have to listen to it and see how horrible it is. Postdoc C: Yeah, yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: Sample it, rather. Postdoc C: OK. Alright. PhD B: I think that {disfmarker} that will be a little bit of a problem PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: That's great. PhD B: as it really switches around between {vocalsound} two different channels, I think. Grad A: Mm - hmm, and {disfmarker} and they're very {disfmarker} it's very audible? on the close - talking channels? PhD B: What {disfmarker} what I would {disfmarker} Yeah. Grad A: Oh well. I mean, it's the same problem as the lapel mike. Professor F: Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: But {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Oh, interesting. PhD B: Comparable, yeah. Professor F: Yeah. PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: OK, alright. Digits. Professor F: Let's do digits. Postdoc C: OK, so we read the transcript number first, right? Grad A: Are we gonna do it altogether or separately? PhD B: So {disfmarker} What time is it? Professor F: Uh, {vocalsound} why don't we do it together, Postdoc C: Uh, quarter to four. PhD B: Oh, OK. Professor F: that's {disfmarker} that's a nice fast way to do it. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Professor F: One, two, three, go! Postdoc C: It's kind of interesting if there're any more errors in these, {vocalsound} than we had the first set. Grad A: Nnn, yeah, I think there probably will be. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Do you guys plug your ears when you do it? Grad A: I do. PhD B: No. Postdoc C: I usually do. PhD D: I do. PhD B: I don't. Postdoc C: I didn't this time. PhD D: You don't? PhD B: No. Professor F: I haven't been, PhD D: How can you do that? Professor F: no. PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Professor F: Uh, concentration. PhD B: Perhaps there are {vocalsound} lots of errors in it PhD D: Gah! Grad A: Total concentration. Are you guys ready? PhD D: You hate to have your ears plugged? Professor F: Yeah. PhD D: Really?

The statistics in the paper are based on the transcripts of two meetings and two telephone conversation corpora. In the first two, the overlapped words vary between 9% and 18%. The telephone conversation results were in-between and very similar to each other.

tr-sq-663

tr-sq-663_0

What pre-processing was needed for the IBM transcripts? Grad A: OK, we're recording. Professor F: We can say the word" zero" all we want, PhD G: I'm doing some Professor F: but just {disfmarker} PhD G: square brackets, coffee sipping, square brackets. PhD B: That's not allowed, I think. Postdoc C: Cur - curly brackets. Grad E: Is that voiced or unvoiced? Grad A: Curly brackets. PhD B: Curly brackets. Professor F: Curly brackets. Grad A: Right. PhD B: Oops. Professor F: Well, correction for transcribers. PhD G: Mmm! {comment} {vocalsound} Gar - darn! Professor F: Yeah. Postdoc C: Channel two. Grad A: Do we use square brackets for anything? Postdoc C: Yeah. Uh {disfmarker} Grad E: These poor transcribers. Professor F: u Postdoc C: Not ri not right now. I mean {disfmarker} No. PhD D: There's gonna be some zeros from this morning's meeting because I noticed that Professor F: u PhD D: Barry, I think maybe you turned your mike off before the digits were {disfmarker} Oh, was it during digits? Oh, so it doesn't matter. Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: It's still not a good idea. PhD B: So it's not {disfmarker} it's not that bad if it's at the end, but it's {disfmarker} in the beginning, it's {pause} bad. PhD D: Yeah. Yeah. Grad A: Yeah, you wanna {disfmarker} you wanna keep them on so you get {pause} good noise {disfmarker} noise floors, through the whole meeting. Postdoc C: That's interesting. Hmm. Professor F: Uh, I probably just should have left it on. Yeah I did have to run, but {disfmarker} Grad E: Is there any way to change that in the software? Grad A: Change what in the software? Grad E: Where like you just don't {disfmarker} like if you {disfmarker} if it starts catching zeros, like in the driver or something {disfmarker} in the card, or somewhere in the hardware {disfmarker} Where if you start seeing zeros on w across one channel, you just add some {vocalsound} random, @ @ {comment} noise floor {disfmarker} like a small noise floor. Grad A: I mean certainly we could do that, but I don't think that's a good idea. We can do that in post - processing if {disfmarker} if the application needs it. Grad E: Yeah. PhD B: Manual post - processing. Professor F: Well, I {disfmarker} u I actually don't know what the default {comment} is anymore as to how we're using the {disfmarker} the front - end stuff but {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} when we use the ICSI front - end, Grad A: As an argument. Professor F: but um, there is an {disfmarker} there is an o an option in {disfmarker} in RASTA, which, um, {vocalsound} in when I first put it in, uh, back in the days when I actually wrote things, uh, {vocalsound} I {pause} did actually put in a random bit or so that was in it, Grad E: OK. Professor F: but {vocalsound} then I realized that putting in a random bit was equivalent to adding uh {disfmarker} adding flat spectrum, Grad E: Right. Professor F: and it was a lot faster to just add a constant to the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to the spectrum. So then I just started doing that Grad E: Mmm. OK. Professor F: instead of calling" rand" {comment} or something, Grad E: Right. Professor F: so. So it d it does that. Gee! Here we all are! Grad A: Uh, so the only agenda items were Jane {disfmarker} was Jane wanted to talk about some of the IBM transcription process. Professor F: There's an agenda? Grad A: I sort of {vocalsound} condensed the three things you said into that. And then just {disfmarker} I only have like, this afternoon and maybe tomorrow morning to get anything done before I go to Japan for ten days. So if there's anything that n absolutely, desperately needs to be done, you should let me know now. Professor F: Uh, and you just sent off a Eurospeech paper, so. PhD G: Right. I hope they accept it. Professor F: Right. PhD G: I mean, I {disfmarker} both actu as {disfmarker} as a submission and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know, as a paper. Um {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} Grad A: Well yeah, you sent it in {pause} late. Professor F: Yeah, I guess you {disfmarker} first you have to do the first one, Grad A: Yeah. Professor F: and then {disfmarker} Yeah. PhD G: We actually exceeded the delayed deadline by o another day, so. PhD B: Oops. Professor F: Oh they {disfmarker} they had some extension that they announced or something? PhD G: Well yeah. Liz had sent them a note saying" could we please {pause} have another" {comment} {pause} I don't know," three days" or something, and they said yes. PhD D: And then she said" Did I say three? Grad A: Oh, PhD D: I meant four." Grad A: that was the other thing uh, PhD G: But u Grad A: uh, Dave Gelbart sent me email, I think he sent it to you too, {comment} that um, there's a special topic, section in si in Eurospeech on new, corp corpors corpora. And it's not due until like May fifteenth. Professor F: Oh this isn't the Aurora one? Grad A: No. Professor F: It's another one? Grad A: It's a different one. PhD B: No it's {disfmarker} Yeah. Yeah. Grad E: Huh! Grad A: And uh, Professor F: Oh! PhD B: I got this mail from {disfmarker} Grad A: I s forwarded it to Jane as I thought being the most relevant person. Um {disfmarker} So, I thought it was highly relevant {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Yeah I'm {disfmarker} Professor F: That's {disfmarker} Grad A: have you {disfmarker} did you look at the URL? Postdoc C: Yeah. I think so too. Um, I haven't gotten over to there yet, Grad A: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: but what {disfmarker} our discussion yesterday, I really {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I wanna submit one. PhD B: Was this {pause} SmartKom message? I think {pause} Christoph Draxler sent this, Postdoc C: Yeah. And, you offered to {disfmarker} to join me, if you want me to. Grad A: I'll help, PhD B: yeah. Grad A: but obviously I can't, really do, most of it, Postdoc C: Yeah. Yeah, that's right. PhD G: I think several people {disfmarker} sent this, Grad A: so. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Uh - huh. PhD G: yeah. Grad A: But any {disfmarker} any help you need I can certainly provide. Professor F: Well, PhD G: Yeah. Professor F: that's {disfmarker} that's a great idea. PhD G: Well {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there were some interesting results in this paper, though. For instance that Morgan {disfmarker} uh, accounted for fifty - six percent of the Robustness meetings in terms of number of words. Grad A: Wow. Postdoc C: In {disfmarker} in terms of what? In term PhD G: Number of words. Postdoc C: One? Wow! OK. Grad A: That's just cuz he talks really fast. Postdoc C: Do you mean, Professor F: n No. Grad A: I know PhD B: Oh. Short words. Postdoc C: because {disfmarker} is it partly, eh, c correctly identified words? Or is it {disfmarker} or just overall volume? PhD G: No. Well, according to the transcripts. Grad A: But re well regardless. I think it's {disfmarker} he's {disfmarker} he's in all of them, Postdoc C: Oh. OK. Professor F: Yeah. PhD G: I mean, we didn't mention Morgan by name Grad A: and he talks a lot. PhD G: we just {disfmarker} Grad A: One participant. Professor F: Well {disfmarker} we have now, but {disfmarker} PhD G: We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} something about {disfmarker} Grad A: Did you identify him as a senior {pause} member? PhD G: No, we as identify him as the person dominating the conversation. Professor F: Well. Grad A: Yeah. Postdoc C: OK. Professor F: I mean I get these AARP things, but I'm not se really senior yet, but {disfmarker} PhD G: Right Professor F: Um, PhD G: Hmm. Professor F: but uh, other than that delightful result, what was the rest of the paper about? PhD G: Um, well it was about {disfmarker} it had three sections Professor F: You sent it to me but I haven't seen it yet. PhD G: uh {disfmarker} three kinds of uh results, if you will. Uh, the one was that the {disfmarker} just the {disfmarker} the amount of overlap Grad A: The good, the bad, and the ugly. PhD G: um, s in terms of {disfmarker} in terms of number of words and also we computed something called a" spurt" , which is essentially a stretch of speech with uh, no pauses exceeding five hundred milliseconds. Um, and we computed how many overlapped i uh spurts there were and how many overlapped words there were. {vocalsound} Um, for four different {pause} corpora, the Meeting Recorder meetings, the Robustness meetings Switchboard and CallHome, and, found {disfmarker} and sort of compared the numbers. Um, and found that the, uh, you know, as you might expect the Meeting Recorder {pause} meetings had the most overlap uh, but next were Switchboard and CallHome, which both had roughly the same, almost identical in fact, and the Robustness meetings were {disfmarker} had the least, so {disfmarker} One sort of unexpected result there is that uh two - party telephone conversations have {vocalsound} about the same amount of overlap, Grad A: I'm surprised. PhD G: sort of in gen you know {disfmarker} order of magnitude - wise as, uh {disfmarker} as face - to - face meetings with multiple {disfmarker} Grad A: I have {disfmarker} I had better start changing all my slides! PhD G: Yeah. Also, I {disfmarker} in the Levinson, the pragmatics book, {comment} in you know, uh, textbook, {vocalsound} there's {disfmarker} I found this great quote where he says {vocalsound} you know {disfmarker} you know, how people {disfmarker} it talks about how uh {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how people are so good at turn taking, Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Yeah. PhD G: and {vocalsound} so {disfmarker} they're so good that {vocalsound} generally, u the overlapped speech does not {disfmarker} is less than five percent. Postdoc C: Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. PhD G: So, this is way more than five percent. Grad E: Did he mean face {disfmarker} like face - to - face? Or {disfmarker}? PhD G: Well, in real conversations, Grad E: Hmm. PhD G: everyday conversations. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: It's s what these conversation analysts have been studying for years and years there. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD B: But {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Well, of course, no, it doesn't necessarily go against what he said, cuz he said" generally speaking" . In order to {disfmarker} to go against that kind of a claim you'd have to big canvassing. Grad A: Hmm. PhD B: And in f PhD G: Well, he {disfmarker} he made a claim {disfmarker} Grad A: Well {disfmarker} PhD G: Well {disfmarker} Grad A: PhD B: But {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah, we {disfmarker} we have pretty limited sample here. PhD B: Five percent of time or five percent of what? Grad A: Yeah, I was gonna ask that too. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Exactly. PhD G: Well it's time. PhD B: Yeah, so {disfmarker} Postdoc C: It's {disfmarker} i it's not against his conclusion, PhD G: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but still {disfmarker} but still {disfmarker} u Postdoc C: it just says that it's a bi bell curve, and that, {vocalsound} you have something that has a nice range, in your sampling. PhD G: Yeah. So there are slight {disfmarker} There are differences in how you measure it, but still it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You know, the difference between um {disfmarker} between that number and what we have in meetings, which is more like, {vocalsound} you know, close to {disfmarker} in meetings like these, uh {disfmarker} you know, close to twenty percent. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor F: But what was it like, say, in the Robustness meeting, for instance? PhD G: That {disfmarker} Grad A: But {disfmarker} PhD G: Robustness meeting? It was {vocalsound} about half of the r So, {vocalsound} in terms of number of words, it's like seventeen or eigh eighteen percent for the Meeting Recorder meetings and {vocalsound} about half that for, {vocalsound} uh, the Robustness. Professor F: Maybe ten percent? Grad A: But I don't know if that's really a fair way of comparing between, multi - party, conversations and two - party conversations. Yeah. I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know. PhD B: Then {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} then you have to {disfmarker} Grad A: I mean that's just something {disfmarker} PhD D: Yeah, I just wonder if you have to normalize by the numbers of speakers or something. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD B: Then {disfmarker} Yeah, then normalize by {disfmarker} by something like that, Postdoc C: Yeah, that's a good point. PhD G: Well, we didn't get to look at that, PhD B: yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD G: but this obvious thing to see if {disfmarker} if there's a dependence on the number of uh {disfmarker} participants. Postdoc C: Good idea. Grad A: I mean {disfmarker} I bet there's a weak dependence. I'm sure it's {disfmarker} it's not a real strong one. PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: Right. Grad A: Right? Because you PhD D: Cuz not everybody talks. Grad A: Right. PhD G: Right. PhD D: Yeah. Grad A: You have a lot of {disfmarker} a lot of two - party, subsets within the meeting. PhD G: Right. Postdoc C: Uh - huh. Grad A: Well regardless {disfmarker} it's an interesting result regardless. PhD G: So {disfmarker} Right. Postdoc C: Yes, that's right. PhD G: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} and we also d computed this both with and without backchannels, Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: so you might think that backchannels have a special status because they're essentially just {disfmarker} Grad A: Uh - huh. So, did {disfmarker} we all said" uh - huh" and nodded at the same time, PhD G: R right. Grad A: so. PhD G: But, even if you take out all the backchannels {disfmarker} so basically you treat backchannels l as nonspeech, as pauses, Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: you still have significant overlap. You know, it goes down from maybe {disfmarker} For Switchboard it goes down from {disfmarker} I don't know {disfmarker} f um {disfmarker} {comment} I don't know {disfmarker} f fourteen percent of the words to maybe {vocalsound} uh I don't know, eleven percent or something {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's not a dramatic change, Grad A: Mm - hmm. PhD G: so it's {disfmarker} Anyway, so it's uh {disfmarker} That was {disfmarker} that was one set of {pause} results, and then the second one was just basically the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the stuff we had in the {disfmarker} in the HLT paper on how overlaps effect the {pause} recognition performance. Postdoc C: Hmm. Grad A: Nope. Right. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: And we rescored things um, a little bit more carefully. We also fixed the transcripts in {disfmarker} in numerous ways. Uh, but mostly we added one {disfmarker} one number, which was what if you {pause} uh, basically score ignoring all {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} the conjecture from the HLT results was that {vocalsound} most of the added recognition error is from insertions {vocalsound} due to background speech. So, we scored {vocalsound} all the recognition results, {vocalsound} uh, in such a way that the uh {disfmarker} Grad A: Oh by the way, who's on channel four? You're getting a lot of breath. PhD B: Yeah. I j was just wondering. Grad E: That's {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah. Grad E: That's me. PhD G: uh, well Don's been working hard. Grad E: That's right. PhD G: OK, so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so if you have the foreground speaker speaking here, and then there's some background speech, may be overlapping it somehow, um, and this is the time bin that we used, then of course you're gonna get insertion errors here and here. Grad A: Right. PhD G: Right? So we scored everything, and I must say the NIST scoring tools are pretty nice for this, where you just basically ignore everything outside of the, {vocalsound} uh, region that was deemed to be foreground speech. And where that was we had to use the t forced alignment, uh, results from s for {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} That's somewhat {disfmarker} that's somewhat subject to error, but still we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh, Don did some ha hand - checking and {disfmarker} and we think that {disfmarker} based on that, we think that the results are you know, valid, although of course, some error is gonna be in there. But basically what we found is after we take out these regions {disfmarker} so we only score the regions that were certified as foreground speech, {comment} {vocalsound} the recognition error went down to almost {vocalsound} uh, the {pause} level of the non - overlapped {pause} speech. So that means that {vocalsound} even if you do have background speech, if you can somehow separate out or find where it is, {vocalsound} uh, the recognizer does a good job, Grad A: That's great. PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: even though there is this back Grad A: Yeah, I guess that doesn't surprise me, because, with the close - talking mikes, the {disfmarker} the signal will be so much stronger. PhD G: Right. Right. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Um, Grad A: What {disfmarker} what sort of normalization do you do? PhD G: so {disfmarker} Uh, well, we just {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} we do {disfmarker} u you know, vit Grad A: I mean in you recognizer, in the SRI recognizer. PhD G: Well, we do uh, VTL {disfmarker} {vocalsound} vocal tract length normalization, w and we uh {disfmarker} you know, we {disfmarker} we uh, {vocalsound} make all the features have zero mean and unit variance. Grad A: Over an entire utterance? Professor F: And {disfmarker} Grad A: Or windowed? PhD G: Over {disfmarker} over the entire c over the entire channel. PhD B: Don't {pause} train {disfmarker} PhD G: Over the {disfmarker} Grad A: Hmm. PhD G: but you know. Um, now we didn't re - align the recognizer for this. We just took the old {disfmarker} So this is actually a sub - optimal way of doing it, Grad A: Right. Professor F: Right. PhD G: right? So we took the old recognition output and we just scored it differently. So the recognizer didn't have the benefit of knowing where the foreground speech {disfmarker} a start Professor F: Were you including the {disfmarker} the lapel {pause} in this? PhD G: Yes. Professor F: And did the {disfmarker} did {disfmarker} did the la did the {disfmarker} the problems with the lapel go away also? Or {disfmarker} PhD G: Um, it {disfmarker} Yeah. Professor F: fray for {disfmarker} for insertions? PhD G: It u not per {disfmarker} I mean, not completely, but yes, Professor F: Less so. PhD G: dramatically. So we have to um {disfmarker} Professor F: I mean, you still {disfmarker} PhD G: Well I should bring the {disfmarker} should bring the table with results. Maybe we can look at it {pause} Monday. Professor F: I would presume that you still would have somewhat higher error with the lapel for insertions than {disfmarker} PhD G: Yes. It's {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah. PhD G: Yes. Yeah. Professor F: Cuz again, looking forward to the non - close miked case, I think that we s still {disfmarker} PhD G: Mm - hmm. Grad A: I'm not looking forward to it. Professor F: i it's the high signal - to - noise ratio PhD G: Right. Professor F: here that {disfmarker} that helps you. PhD G: u s Right. So {disfmarker} so that was number {disfmarker} that was the second set of {disfmarker} uh, the second section. And then, {vocalsound} the third thing was, we looked at, {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh, what we call" interrupts" , although that's {disfmarker} that may be {vocalsound} a misnomer, but basically {vocalsound} we looked at cases where {disfmarker} Uh, so we {disfmarker} we used the punctuation from the original transcripts and we inferred the beginnings and ends of sentences. So, you know {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Di - did you use upper - lower case also, or not? PhD G: Um {disfmarker} Postdoc C: U upper lower case or no? PhD G: Hmm? Postdoc C: OK. PhD G: No, we only used, you know, uh periods, uh, question marks and {pause} exclamation. And we know that there's th that's not a very g I mean, we miss a lot of them, Postdoc C: Yeah. That's OK but {disfmarker} PhD G: but {disfmarker} but it's f i i Postdoc C: Comma also or not? PhD G: No commas. No. And then {vocalsound} we looked at locations where, uh, if you have overlapping speech and someone else starts a sentence, you know, where do these {disfmarker} where do other people start their {vocalsound} turns {disfmarker} not turns really, but you know, sentences, PhD B: Ah. PhD G: um {disfmarker} So we only looked at cases where there was a foreground speaker and then at the to at the {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} the foreground speaker started into their sentence and then someone else started later. PhD B: Somewhere in between the start and the end? PhD G: OK? And so what {disfmarker} PhD B: OK. PhD G: Sorry? PhD B: Somewhere in between the start and the end of the foreground? PhD G: Yes. Uh, so that such that there was overlap between the two sentences. PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: So, the {disfmarker} the question was how can we {disfmarker} what can we say about the places where the second or {disfmarker} or actually, several second speakers, {vocalsound} um {pause} start their {pause}" interrupts" , as we call them. PhD D: Three words from the end. Grad A: At pause boundaries. PhD G: w And we looked at this in terms of um {disfmarker} Grad A: On T - closures, only. PhD G: So {disfmarker} so we had {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we had um u to {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for the purposes of this analysis, we tagged the word sequences, and {disfmarker} and we time - aligned them. Um, and we considered it interrupt {disfmarker} if it occurred in the middle of a word, we basically {disfmarker} you know, considered that to be a interrupt as if it were at {disfmarker} at the beginning of the word. So that, {vocalsound} if any part of the word was overlapped, it was considered an interrupted {pause} word. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: And then we looked at the {disfmarker} the locatio the, {vocalsound} um, you know, the features that {disfmarker} the tags because we had tagged these word strings, {comment} {vocalsound} um, that {disfmarker} that occurred right before these {disfmarker} these uh, interrupt locations. PhD B: Tag by uh PhD G: And the tags we looked at are {vocalsound} the spurt tag, which basically says {disfmarker} or actually {disfmarker} Sorry. End of spurt. So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} whether there was a pause essentially here, because spurts are a {disfmarker} defined as being you know, five hundred milliseconds or longer pauses, and then we had things like discourse markers, uh, backchannels, uh, disfluencies. um, uh, filled pauses {disfmarker} So disfluen the D's are for, {vocalsound} um, {vocalsound} the interruption points of a disfluency, so, where you hesitate, or where you start the repair there. Uh, what else do we had. Uh, repeated {disfmarker} you know, repeated words is another of that kind of disfluencies and so forth. So we had both the beginnings and ends of these {disfmarker} uh so, the end of a filled pause and the end of a discourse marker. And we just eyeballed {disfmarker} I mean {vocalsound} we didn't really hand - tag all of these things. We just {pause} looked at the distribution of words, and so every {vocalsound}" so yeah" , and" OK" , uh, and" uh - huh" were {disfmarker} were the {disfmarker} were deemed to be backchannels and {vocalsound}" wow" and" so" and {vocalsound} uh" right" , uh were um {disfmarker} {pause} Not" right" ." Right" is a backchannel. But so, we sort of {disfmarker} just based on the lexical {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um, identity of the words, we {disfmarker} we tagged them as one of these things. And of course the d the interruption points we got from the original transcripts. So, and then we looked at the disti so we looked at the {pause} distribution of these different kinds of tags, overall uh, and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and particularly at the interruption points. And uh, we found that there is a marked difference so that for instance after {disfmarker} so at the end after a discourse marker or after backchannel or after filled pause, you're much more likely to be interrupted {vocalsound} than before. OK? And also of course after spurt ends, which means basically in p inside pauses. So pauses are always an opportunity for {disfmarker} So we have this little histogram which shows these distributions and, {vocalsound} um, PhD D: I wonder {disfmarker} PhD G: you know, it's {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's not {disfmarker} No big surprises, but it is {pause} sort of interesting from {disfmarker} Grad A: It's nice to actually measure it though. PhD G: Yeah. PhD D: I wonder about the cause and effect there. In other words uh {pause} if you weren't going to pause you {disfmarker} you will because you're g being interrupted. PhD G: Well we're ne PhD D: Uh {disfmarker} PhD G: Right. There's no statement about cause and effect. PhD D: Yeah, right. No, no, no. PhD G: This is just a statistical correlation, PhD D: Right, I {disfmarker} I see. Yeah. PhD G: yeah. Professor F: But he {disfmarker} yeah, he's {disfmarker} he's right, y I mean maybe you weren't intending to pause at all, but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You were intending to stop for fifty - seven milliseconds, PhD G: Right. Professor F: but then Chuck came in PhD G: Right. PhD D: Yeah. Professor F: and so you {vocalsound} paused for a second PhD G: Right. Anyway. {comment} So, Professor F: or more. PhD G: uh, and that was basically it. And {disfmarker} and we {disfmarker} so we wrote this and then, {vocalsound} we found we were at six pages, and then we started {vocalsound} cutting furiously PhD B: Oops. PhD G: and {vocalsound} threw out half of the {vocalsound} material again, and uh played with the LaTeX stuff and {disfmarker} Grad A: Made the font smaller and the narrows longer. PhD G: uh, and {disfmarker} until it fi PhD B: Font smaller, yeah. PhD G: No, no. W well, d you couldn't really make everything smaller PhD B: Put the abstract end. PhD G: but we s we put {disfmarker} Oh, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Grad A: Took out white space. PhD G: you know the {disfmarker} the gap between the two columns is like ten millimeters, PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: so I d shrunk it to eight millimeters and that helped some. And stuff like that. PhD D: Wasn't there {disfmarker} wasn't there some result, Andreas {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah {disfmarker} PhD D: I {disfmarker} I thought maybe Liz presented this at some conference a while ago about {vocalsound} uh, backchannels PhD G: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. PhD D: uh, and that they tend to happen when uh {pause} the pitch drops. You know you get a falling pitch. And so that's when people tend to backchannel. PhD G: Yeah. Well {disfmarker} PhD D: Uh - i i do you rem PhD G: y We didn't talk about, uh, prosodic, uh, properties at all, PhD D: Right. Right. But {disfmarker} PhD G: although that's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I take it that's something that uh Don will {disfmarker} will look at Grad E: Yeah, we're gonna be looking at that. PhD G: now that we have the data and we have the alignment, so. This is purely based on you know the words PhD D: Mm - hmm. PhD G: and {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I have a reference for that though. Uh - huh. PhD D: Oh you do. PhD G: Yeah. PhD D: So am I recalling correctly? PhD G: Anyway, so. Postdoc C: Well, I didn't know about Liz's finding on that, PhD D: About {disfmarker} Postdoc C: but I know of another paper that talks about something PhD D: Uh - huh. Postdoc C: that {disfmarker} PhD D: Hmm. Grad E: I'd like to see that reference too. Postdoc C: OK. PhD D: It made me think about a cool little device that could be built to uh {disfmarker} to handle those people that call you on the phone and just like to talk and talk and talk. And you just have this little detector that listens for these {vocalsound} drops in pitch and gives them the backchannel. And so then you {vocalsound} hook that to the phone and go off Grad A: Yeah. Uh - huh. PhD D: and do the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} do whatever you r wanna do, PhD G: Oh yeah. Well {disfmarker} PhD D: while that thing keeps them busy. PhD G: There's actually {disfmarker} uh there's this a former student of here from Berkeley, Nigel {disfmarker} Nigel Ward. PhD D: Uh - huh. Sure. PhD G: Do you know him? PhD D: Yeah. PhD G: He did a system uh, in {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he lives in Japan now, and he did this backchanneling, automatic backchanneling system. Professor F: Right. PhD G: It's a very {disfmarker} PhD D: Oh! PhD G: So, exactly what you describe, PhD D: Huh. PhD G: but for Japanese. And it's apparently {disfmarker} for Japa - in Japanese it's really important that you backchannel. It's really impolite if you don't, and {disfmarker} So. Professor F: Huh. Actually for a lot of these people I think you could just sort of backchannel continuously and it would {pause} pretty much be fine. PhD D: It wouldn't matter? Yeah. Grad E: Yeah. That's w That's what I do. PhD D: Random intervals. Grad A: There was {disfmarker} there was of course a Monty Python sketch with that. Where the barber who was afraid of scissors was playing a {disfmarker} a tape of clipping sounds, and saying" uh - huh" ," yeah" ," how about them sports teams?" PhD G: Anyway. So the paper's on - line and y I {disfmarker} I think I uh {disfmarker} I CC'ed a message to Meeting Recorder with the URL so you can get it. Grad A: Yep. Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: Printed it out, haven't read it yet. Professor F: Yeah. PhD G: Um, uh one more thing. So I {disfmarker} I'm actually {disfmarker} {vocalsound} about to send Brian Kingbury an email saying where he can find the {disfmarker} the s the m the material he wanted for the s for the speech recognition experiment, so {disfmarker} but I haven't sent it out yet because actually my desktop locked up, like I can't type anything. Uh b so if there's any suggestions you have for that I was just gonna send him the {disfmarker} PhD D: Is it the same directory that you had suggested? PhD G: I made a directory. I called it um {disfmarker} Postdoc C: He still has his Unix account here, you know. PhD G: Well this isn't {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD G: He does? Postdoc C: And he {disfmarker} and he's {disfmarker} PhD G: Yeah but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but he has to {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I'd hafta add him to Meeting Recorder, I guess, PhD G: he prefe he said he would prefer FTP Postdoc C: but {disfmarker} OK. PhD G: and also, um, the other person that wants it {disfmarker} There is one person at SRI who wants to look at the {vocalsound} um, you know, the uh {disfmarker} the data we have so far, Postdoc C: OK. PhD G: and so I figured that FTP is the best {pause} approach. So what I did is I um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} @ @ {comment} I made a n new directory after Chuck said that would c that was gonna be a good thing. Uh, so it's" FTP {vocalsound} {pause} pub Grad A: Pub real. PhD G: real" {disfmarker} Exactly. MTGC {disfmarker} What is it again? CR {disfmarker} Grad A: Ask Dan Ellis. Professor F: u R D {disfmarker} RDR, yeah. PhD G: Or {disfmarker} Yeah. Right? The same {disfmarker} the same as the mailing list, Professor F: Yeah, PhD G: and {disfmarker} Professor F: the {disfmarker} {pause} No vowels. PhD G: Yeah. Um, Professor F: Yeah PhD G: and then under there {disfmarker} Um actually {disfmarker} Oh and this directory, {vocalsound} is not readable. It's only uh, accessible. So, {vocalsound} in other words, to access anything under there, you have to {vocalsound} be told what the name is. Grad A: Right. PhD G: So that's sort of a g {vocalsound} quick and dirty way of doing access control. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: So {disfmarker} uh, and the directory for this I call it I" ASR zero point one" because it's sort of meant for recognition. Professor F: So anyone who hears this meeting now knows the {disfmarker} Grad A: Beta? PhD G: And then {disfmarker} then in there I have a file that lists all the other {vocalsound} files, so that someone can get that file and then know the file names and therefore download them. If you don't know the file names you can't {disfmarker} Professor F: Is that a dash or a dot in there? PhD G: I mean you can {disfmarker} Grad A: Don't {disfmarker} don't {disfmarker} don't say. PhD G: Dash. Anyway. So all I {disfmarker} all I was gonna do there was stick the {disfmarker} the transcripts after we {disfmarker} the way that we munged them for scoring, because that's what he cares about, and {disfmarker} um, and also {disfmarker} and then the {disfmarker} the {pause} waveforms that Don segmented. I mean, just basically tar them all up f I mean {disfmarker} w for each meeting I tar them all into one tar file and G - zip them and stick them there. Grad A: I uh, put digits in my own home directory {disfmarker} home FTP directory, PhD G: And so. Grad A: but I'll probably move them there as well. PhD G: Oh, OK. PhD D: So we could point Mari to this also for her {vocalsound} March O - one request? PhD G: OK. Yeah. March O - one. PhD D: Or {disfmarker} PhD G: Oh! PhD D: You n Remember she was {disfmarker} PhD G: Oh she wanted that also? PhD D: Well she was saying that it would be nice if we had {disfmarker} they had a {disfmarker} Or was she talking {disfmarker} Yeah. She was saying it would be nice if they had eh {pause} the same set, so that when they did experiments they could compare. PhD G: Right, but they don't have a recognizer even. PhD D: Yeah. Grad E: Um {disfmarker} I PhD G: But yeah, we can send {disfmarker} I can CC Mari on this so that she knows {disfmarker} PhD D: Yeah. So, for the thing that {disfmarker} Postdoc C: That's good. PhD D: We need to give Brian the beeps file, PhD G: Right. PhD D: so I was gonna probably put it {disfmarker} Grad A: We can put it in the same place. Just put in another directory. PhD D: Yeah, it I'll make another directory. PhD G: Well, make ano make another directory. PhD D: Yeah. Exactly. PhD G: You don't n m PhD D: Yeah. PhD G: Yeah. Grad E: And, Andreas, um, sampled? PhD G: Yeah. They are? Grad E: I think so. Yeah. Um, so either we should regenerate the original {vocalsound} versions, {comment} {pause} or um, we should just make a note of it. PhD G: OK. Oh. Beca - Well {disfmarker} OK, because in one directory there's two versions. Grad E: Yeah, that's the first meeting I cut both versions. Just to check which w if there is a significant difference. PhD G: OK. And so I {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} OK so {disfmarker} but for the other meetings it's the downsampled version that you have. Grad E: They're all downsampled, yeah. PhD G: Oh, OK. Oh that's th important to know, OK so we should probably {disfmarker} uh {pause} give them the non - downsampled versions. Grad E: Yeah. So {disfmarker} PhD G: OK. Alright, then I'll hold off on that and I'll wait for you um {disfmarker} Grad E: Probably by tomorrow PhD G: gen Grad E: I can {disfmarker} I'll send you an email. PhD G: OK. Alright. OK. Yeah, definitely they should have the full bandwidth version, Grad E: Yeah, because I mean {disfmarker} I I think Liz decided to go ahead with the {pause} downsampled versions cuz we can {disfmarker} There was no s like, r significant difference. PhD G: yeah. OK. Well, it takes {disfmarker} it takes up less disk space, for one thing. Grad E: It does take up less disk space, and apparently it did even better {pause} than the original {disfmarker} than the original versions, PhD G: Yeah. Yeah. Grad E: which you know, is just, probably random. PhD G: Right. Yeah, it was a small difference Grad E: But, um {pause} they probably w want the originals. PhD G: but yeah. Yeah. OK. OK, good. Good that {disfmarker} Well, it's a good thing that {disfmarker} Grad A: OK, I think we're losing, Don and Andreas at three - thirty, right? OK. Grad E: Hey mon hafta booga. PhD G: Yeah. Professor F: So, that's why it was good to have Andreas, say these things but {disfmarker} So, we should probably talk about the IBM transcription process stuff that {disfmarker} Postdoc C: OK. So, um you know that Adam created um, a b a script to generate the beep file? Professor F: Hmm. Postdoc C: To then create something to send to IBM. And, um, you {disfmarker} you should probably talk about that. But {disfmarker} but you were gonna to use the {pause} originally transcribed file because I tightened the time bins and that's also the one that they had already {vocalsound} in trying to debug the first stage of this. And uh, my understanding was that, um {disfmarker} I haven't {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I haven't listened to it yet, Grad A: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: but it sounded very good and {disfmarker} and I understand that you guys {vocalsound} were going to have a meeting today, before this meeting. Grad A: It was just to talk about how to generate it. Um, just so that while I'm gone, you can regenerate it if you decide to do it a different way. So uh, Chuck and Thilo should, now more or less know how to generate the file Postdoc C: Excellent. OK. Grad A: and, {vocalsound} the other thing Chuck pointed out is that, um, {vocalsound} since this one is hand - marked, {vocalsound} there are discourse boundaries. Right? So {disfmarker} so when one person is speaking, there's breaks. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Grad A: Whereas Thilo's won't have that. So what {disfmarker} what we're probably gonna do is just write a script, that if two, chunks are very close to each other on the same channel we'll just merge them. Postdoc C: Oh! OK. Ah, interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, sure. Yeah, sure. Makes sense. Grad A: So, uh, and that will get around the problem of, the, {vocalsound} you know" one word beep, one word beep, one word beep, one word beep" . Postdoc C: Yeah. Ah! Clever. Yes. Clever. Yeah. Excellent. PhD D: Yeah, in fact after our meeting uh, this morning Thilo came in and said that {vocalsound} um, there could be {pause} other differences between {vocalsound} the uh {pause} already transcribed meeting with the beeps in it and one that has {pause} just r been run through his process. Postdoc C: And that's the purpose. Yeah. PhD D: So tomorrow, {vocalsound} when we go to make the um {pause} uh, chunked file {vocalsound} for IBM, we're going to actually compare the two. So he's gonna run his process on that same meeting, Postdoc C: Great idea! PhD D: and then we're gonna do the beep - ify on both, and listen to them and see if we notice any real differences. PhD G: Beep - ify! Postdoc C: OK, now one thing that prevented us from apply you {disfmarker} you from applying {disfmarker} Exactly. The training {disfmarker} So that is the training meeting. OK. PhD D: Yeah, w and we know that. Wel - uh we just wanna if {disfmarker} if there're any major differences between {vocalsound} doing it on the hand Postdoc C: Uh - huh. Oh, interesting. Ah! Grad A: Hmm. Postdoc C: OK. Interesting idea. Great. PhD G: So this training meeting, uh w un is that uh {pause} some data where we have uh very um, {vocalsound} you know, accurate {pause} time marks? for {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I went back and hand - marked the {pause} ba the bins, I ment I mentioned that last week. PhD G: OK, yeah. PhD D: But the {disfmarker} but there's {disfmarker} yeah, but there is this one issue with them in that there're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} there are time boundaries in there that occur in the middle of speech. PhD G: Because {disfmarker} PhD D: So {disfmarker} Like when we went t to um {disfmarker} When I was listening to the original file that Adam had, it's like you {disfmarker} you hear a word then you hear a beep {vocalsound} and then you hear the continuation of what is the same sentence. Grad A: That's on the other channel. That's because of channel overlap. PhD D: Well, and {disfmarker} and so the {disfmarker} th Postdoc C: Hmm. Grad A: It's {disfmarker} i PhD D: So there are these chunks that look like uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that have uh {disfmarker} Grad A: I mean that's not gonna be true of the foreground speaker. That'll only be if it's the background speaker. PhD D: Right. So you'll {disfmarker} you'll have a chunk of, you know, channel {vocalsound} A which starts at zero and ends at ten, and then the same channel starting at eleven, ending at fifteen, and then again, starting at sixteen, ending at twenty. Right, so that's three chunks where {vocalsound} actually we w can just make one chunk out of that which is A, zero, twenty. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: Yeah. Grad A: That's what I just said, Postdoc C: Sure. Sure. Grad A: yeah. PhD D: Yeah. So I just wanted to make sure that it was clear. Postdoc C: Yeah, I thought that was {disfmarker} PhD D: So {vocalsound} if you were to use these, you have to be careful not to pull out these individual {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD G: Oh! I mean it {disfmarker} Right, I mean w I mean what I would {disfmarker} I was interested in is having {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a se having time marks for the beginnings and ends of speech by each speaker. Grad A: Well, that's definitely a problem. PhD G: Uh, because we could use that to fine tune our alignment process Grad A: Battery. PhD D: Yeah. PhD G: to make it more accurate. PhD B: Battery? PhD D: Mm - hmm. PhD G: So {disfmarker} uh, it {disfmarker} I don't care that you know, there's actually abutting segments that we have to join together. That's fine. PhD D: OK. PhD G: But what we do care about is that {vocalsound} the beginnings and ends um {pause} are actually close to the speech {vocalsound} inside of that PhD D: Yeah, I think Jane tightened these up by hand. PhD G: uh {disfmarker} PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD G: OK, so what is the {disfmarker} sort of how tight are they? Professor F: Uh, it looks much better. PhD B: Yeah. Looks good. Postdoc C: They were, um, reasonably tight, but not excruciatingly tight. PhD G: Oh. Postdoc C: That would've taken more time. I just wanted to get it so tha So that if you have like" yeah" {comment} in a {disfmarker} swimming in a big bin, then it's {disfmarker} PhD G: No, no! I don Grad A: Let me make a note on yours. PhD G: actually I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: I {disfmarker} it's f That's fine because we don't want to {disfmarker} th that's perfectly fine. In fact it's good. You always want to have a little bit of pause or nonspeech around the speech, say for recognition purposes. Uh, but just {disfmarker} just u w you know get an id I just wanted to have an idea of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of how much extra you allowed um {disfmarker} so that I can interpret the numbers if I compared that with a forced alignment segmentation. Postdoc C: I can't answer that, PhD G: So. Postdoc C: but {disfmarker} but my main goal was {pause} um, in these areas where you have a three - way overlap {vocalsound} and one of the overlaps involves" yeah" , {vocalsound} and it's swimming in this huge bin, {vocalsound} I wanted to get it so that it was clo more closely localized. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Right. But are we talking about, I don't know, {pause} a {vocalsound} {pause} tenth of a second? a {disfmarker}? You know? How {disfmarker} how much {disfmarker} how much extra would you allow at most {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I {disfmarker} I wanted to {disfmarker} I wanted it to be able to {disfmarker} l he be heard normally, PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: so that if you {disfmarker} if you play {pause} back that bin and have it in the mode where it stops at the boundary, {vocalsound} it sounds like a normal word. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: It doesn't sound like the person {disfmarker} i it sounds normal. It's as if the person could've stopped there. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: And it wouldn't have been an awkward place to stop. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: Now sometimes you know, it's {disfmarker} these are involved in places where there was no time. And so, {vocalsound} {vocalsound} there wouldn't be {pause} a gap afterwards because {disfmarker} PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: I mean some cases, there're some people {pause} um, who {disfmarker} who have very long {pause} segments of discourse where, {vocalsound} you know, they'll {disfmarker} they'll breath {pause} and then I put a break. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: But other than that, it's really pretty continuous and this includes things like going from one sentence into the {disfmarker} u one utterance into the next, one sentence into the next, um, w without really stopping. I mean {disfmarker} i they, i you know in writing you have this {vocalsound} two spaces and a big gap PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: you know. PhD G: Right. Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} but uh {pause} {vocalsound} i some people are planning and, you know, I mean, a lot {disfmarker} we always are planning {pause} what we're going to say next. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: But uh, in which case, the gap between {pause} these two complete syntactic units, {vocalsound} um, which of course n spoken things are not always complete syntactically, but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but it would be a shorter p shorter break {vocalsound} than {vocalsound} maybe you might like. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: But the goal there was to {pause} not have {vocalsound} the text be so {disfmarker} so crudely {pause} parsed in a time bin. I mean, because {vocalsound} from a discourse m purpose {pause} it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's more {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's more useful to be able to see {disfmarker} and also you know, from a speech recognition purpose my impression is that {vocalsound} if you have too long a unit, it's {disfmarker} it doesn't help you very much either, cuz of the memory. PhD G: Well, yeah. That's fine. Postdoc C: So, that means that {vocalsound} the amount of time after something is variable depending partly on context, but my general goal {vocalsound} when there was {pause} sufficient space, room, pause {pause} after it {pause} to have it be {pause} kind of a natural feeling {pause} gap. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: Which I c I don't know what it would be quantified as. You know, Wally Chafe says that {vocalsound} um, {vocalsound} in producing narratives, the spurts that people use {vocalsound} tend to be, {vocalsound} uh, that the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} what would be a pause might be something like two {disfmarker} two seconds. PhD G: Mmm. Postdoc C: And um, that would be, you know one speaker. The discourse {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the people who look at turn taking often do use {disfmarker} PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: I was interested that you chose uh, {vocalsound} you know um, {comment} the {disfmarker} you know that you use cuz I think that's a unit that would be more consistent with sociolinguistics. Yeah. PhD G: Well we chose um, you know, half a second because {vocalsound} if {disfmarker} if you go much larger, you have a {disfmarker} y you know, your {disfmarker} your statement about how much overlap there is becomes less, {vocalsound} um, precise, Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: because you include more of actual pause time into what you consider overlap speech. Um, so, it's sort of a compromise, PhD B: Yeah. {comment} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah, I also used I think something around zero point five seconds for the speech - nonspeech detector {disfmarker} PhD G: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's also based {disfmarker} I mean Liz suggested that value based on {vocalsound} the distribution of pause times that you see in Switchboard and {disfmarker} and other corpora. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: Um {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} PhD B: for the minimum silence length. PhD G: Mm - hmm. I see. PhD B: So. PhD G: Yeah. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: In any case, this {disfmarker} this uh, meeting {pause} that I hand {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I hand - adjusted two of them I mentioned before, PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: and I sent {disfmarker} I sent email, PhD G: OK, Postdoc C: so {disfmarker} PhD G: So {disfmarker} so at some point we will try to fine - tune our forced alignment Postdoc C: And I sent the {comment} {pause} path. PhD G: maybe using those as references because you know, what you would do is you would play with different parameters. And to get an object You need an objective {vocalsound} measure of how closely you can align the models to the actual speech. And that's where your your data would be {pause} very important to have. So, I will {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah and hopefully the new meetings {pause} which will start from the channelized version will {disfmarker} will have better time boundaries {pause} and alignments. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Right. Postdoc C: But I like this idea of {disfmarker} uh, for our purposes for the {disfmarker} for the IBM preparation, {vocalsound} uh, n having these {pause} joined together, PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. Postdoc C: and uh {disfmarker} It makes a lot of sense. And in terms of transcription, it would be easy to do it that way. PhD G: Yeah. Postdoc C: The way that they have with the longer units, PhD G: Yeah. Postdoc C: not having to fuss with adding these units at this time. PhD B: Yeah. Whi - which could have one drawback. If there is uh a backchannel in between those three things, PhD G: Right. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD B: the {disfmarker} the n the backchannel will {disfmarker} will occur at the end of {disfmarker} of those three. Postdoc C: Yes. PhD B: And {disfmarker} and in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the previous version where in the n which is used now, {vocalsound} there, the backchannel would {disfmarker} would be in - between there somewhere, so. Postdoc C: I see. PhD B: That would be more natural Postdoc C: Yeah. Well, PhD B: but {disfmarker} Postdoc C: that's {disfmarker} that's right, but you know, thi this brings me to the other f stage of this which I discussed with you earlier today, PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: which is {vocalsound} the second stage is {vocalsound} um, w what to do {pause} in terms of the transcribers adjustment of these data. I discussed this with you too. Um, the tr so the idea initially was, we would get {vocalsound} uh, for the new meetings, so the e EDU meetings, that {vocalsound} Thilo ha has now presegmented all of them for us, on a channel by channel basis. And um, so, I've assigned {disfmarker} I've {disfmarker} I've assigned them to our transcribers and um, so far I've discussed it with one, with uh {disfmarker} And I had a {pause} about an hour discussion with her about this yesterday, we went through {vocalsound} uh EDU - one, at some extent. And it occurred to me that {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} that {vocalsound} basically what we have in this kind of a format is {disfmarker} you could consider it as a staggered mixed file, we had some discussion over the weekend a about {disfmarker} at {disfmarker} at this other meeting that we were all a at {disfmarker} um, {vocalsound} about whether the tran the IBM transcribers should hear a single channel audio, or a mixed channel audio. And um, {vocalsound} in {disfmarker} in a way, by {disfmarker} by having this {disfmarker} this chunk and then the backchannel {vocalsound} after it, it's like a stagal staggered mixed channel. And um, {vocalsound} it occurred {pause} to me in my discussion with her yesterday that um, um, the {disfmarker} {pause} the {disfmarker} the maximal gain, it's {disfmarker} from the IBM {pause} people, may be in long stretches of connected speech. So it's basically a whole bunch of words {vocalsound} which they can really do, because of the continuity within that person's turn. So, what I'm thinking, and it may be that not all meetings will be good for this, {comment} but {disfmarker} but what I'm thinking is that {vocalsound} in the EDU meetings, they tend to be {vocalsound} driven by a couple of dominant speakers. And, if the chunked files focused on the dominant speakers, {vocalsound} then, when {disfmarker} when it got s patched together when it comes back from IBM, we can add the backchannels. It seems to me {vocalsound} that {vocalsound} um, you know, the backchannels per - se wouldn't be so hard, but then there's this question of the time {pause} @ @ {comment} uh, marking, and whether the beeps would be {vocalsound} uh y y y And I'm not exactly sure how that {disfmarker} how that would work with the {disfmarker} with the backchannels. And, so um {disfmarker} And certainly things that are {vocalsound} intrusions of multiple words, {vocalsound} taken out of context and displaced in time from where they occurred, {vocalsound} that would be hard. So, m my {vocalsound} thought is {pause} i I'm having this transcriber go through {vocalsound} the EDU - one meeting, and indicate a start time {nonvocalsound} f for each dominant speaker, endpoi end time for each dominant speaker, and the idea that {vocalsound} these units would be generated for the dominant speakers, {vocalsound} and maybe not for the other channels. Grad A: Yeah the only, um, disadvantage of that is, then it's hard to use an automatic method to do that. The advantage is that it's probably faster to do that than it is to use the automated method and correct it. So. Postdoc C: Well, it {disfmarker} Grad A: We'll just have to see. Postdoc C: OK. I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think um, you know, the original plan was that the transcriber would adjust the t the boundaries, and all that for all the channels but, {vocalsound} you know, that is so time - consuming, and since we have a bottleneck here, we want to get IBM things that are usable s as soon as possible, then this seemed to me it'd be a way of gett to get them a flood of data, which would be useful when it comes back to us. And um {disfmarker} Grad A: Yeah. Postdoc C: Oh also, at the same time she {disfmarker} when she goes through this, she'll be {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} If there's anything that {vocalsound} was encoded as a pause, but really has something transcribable in it, {vocalsound} then she's going to {vocalsound} uh, make a mark {disfmarker} w uh, so you know, so {vocalsound} that {disfmarker} that bin would be marked as it {disfmarker} as double dots and she'll just add an S. And in the other {disfmarker} in the other case, if it's marked as speech, {vocalsound} and really there's nothing transcribable in it, then she's going to put a s dash, and I'll go through and it {disfmarker} and um, you know, with a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} with a substitution command, get it so that it's clear that those are the other category. I'll just, you know, recode them. But um, {vocalsound} um, the transcribable events {pause} that um, I'm considering in this, {vocalsound} uh, continue to be {vocalsound} laugh, as well as speech, and cough and things like that, so I'm not stripping out anything, just {disfmarker} just you know, being very lenient in what's considered speech. Yeah? PhD D: Jane? In terms of the {disfmarker} this new procedure you're suggesting, {vocalsound} um, u what is the {disfmarker} Grad A: It's not that different. PhD D: So I'm a little confused, because how do we know where to put beeps? Is it {disfmarker} i d y is it {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Oh, OK. Grad A: Transcriber will do it. Postdoc C: So what it {disfmarker} what it {disfmarker} what it involves is {disfmarker} is really a s uh, {vocalsound} uh, the original pr procedure, but {vocalsound} only applied to {pause} uh, a certain {pause} strategically chosen {pause} s aspect of the data. Grad A: We pick the easy parts of the data basically, Postdoc C: So {disfmarker} Grad A: and transcriber marks it by hand. Postdoc C: You got it. Grad A: And because {disfmarker} PhD D: But after we've done Thilo's thing. Grad A: No. Postdoc C: Yes! Grad A: Oh, after. Oh, OK, Postdoc C: Yes! Grad A: I didn't {disfmarker} I didn't understand that. Postdoc C: Oh yeah! Grad A: OK. PhD B: So, I'm @ @ {disfmarker} now I'm confused. Postdoc C: OK. We start with your presegmented version {disfmarker} PhD G: OK, and I'm leaving. Grad E: Yeah, I have to go as well. PhD G: So, um {disfmarker} Grad A: OK, leave the mikes on, and just put them on the table. Grad E: OK. Thanks. Postdoc C: We start with the presegmented version {disfmarker} Grad A: Let me mark you as no digits. PhD B: You start with the presegmentation, r {vocalsound} yeah? Postdoc C: Yeah. And then um, {vocalsound} the transcriber, {vocalsound} instead of going painstakingly through all the channels and moving the boundaries around, and deciding if it's speech or not, but not transcribing anything. OK? Instead of doing that, which was our original plan, {vocalsound} the tra They focus on the dominant speaker {disfmarker} PhD D: Mm - hmm. They just {vocalsound} do that on {pause} the main channels. Postdoc C: Yeah. So what they do is they identify who's the di dominant speaker, and when the speaker starts. PhD D: OK. PhD B: Yeah? OK. Postdoc C: So I mean, you're still gonna {disfmarker} PhD B: And you just {disfmarker} Postdoc C: So we're {disfmarker} It's based on your se presegmentation, that's the basic {pause} thing. PhD B: and you just use the s the segments of the dominant speaker then? For {disfmarker} for sending to {disfmarker} to IBM or {disfmarker}? Postdoc C: Yeah. Exactly. PhD D: So, now Jane, my question is {vocalsound} when they're all done adjusting the w time boundaries for the dominant speaker, {comment} have they then also erased the time boundaries for the other ones? Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Uh No. No, no. Huh - uh. S PhD D: So how will we know who {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: That's {disfmarker} that's why she's notating the start and end points of the dominant speakers. So, on a {disfmarker} you know, so {vocalsound} i in EDU - one, i as far as I listened to it, you start off with a {disfmarker} a s section by Jerry. So Jerry starts at minute so - and - so, and goes until minute so - and - so. And then Mark Paskin comes in. And he starts at {vocalsound} minute such - and - such, and goes on till minute so - and - so. OK. And then {vocalsound} meanwhile, she's listening to {vocalsound} {pause} both of these guys'channels, determining if there're any cases of misclassification of speech as nothing, and nothing as speech, PhD D: Mm - hmm. OK. Postdoc C: and {vocalsound} a and adding a tag if that happens. PhD D: So she does the adjustments on those guys? Postdoc C: But you know, I wanted to say, his segmentation is so good, that {vocalsound} um, the part that I listened to with her yesterday {vocalsound} didn't need any adjustments of the bins. PhD B: On that meeting. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: So far we haven't. So this is not gonna be a major part of the process, at least {disfmarker} least not in {disfmarker} not on ones that {disfmarker} that really {disfmarker} PhD D: So if you don't have to adjust the bins, why not just do what it {disfmarker} for all the channels? Postdoc C: Mm - hmm? PhD D: Why not just throw all the channels to IBM? Postdoc C: Well there's the question o of {pause} whether {disfmarker} Well, OK. She i It's a question of how much time we want our transcriber to invest here {vocalsound} when she's gonna have to invest that when it comes back from IBM anyway. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: So if it's only inserting" mm - hmm" s here and there, then, wouldn't that be something that would be just as efficient to do at this end, instead of having it go through I B M, then be patched together, then be double checked here. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Right. PhD B: Yeah. But {disfmarker} But then we could just use the {disfmarker} the output of the detector, and do the beeping on it, and send it to I B PhD D: Without having her check anything. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: Right. Postdoc C: Well, I guess {disfmarker} Grad A: I think we just {disfmarker} we just have to listen to it and see how good they are. PhD B: For some meetings, I'm {disfmarker} I'm sure it {disfmarker} i n Postdoc C: I'm {disfmarker} I'm open to that, it was {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah, if it's working well, PhD B: That's {disfmarker} And some {disfmarker} on some meetings it's good. Professor F: that sounds like a good idea since as you say you have to do stuff with the other end anyway. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Well yea OK, good. I mean the detector, this {disfmarker} PhD D: Yeah, I mean we have to fix it when it comes back anyhow. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Now, you were saying that they {disfmarker} they differ in how well they work depending on channel s sys systems and stuff. PhD B: Yeah. So we should perhaps just select meetings on which the speech - nonspeech detection works well, Postdoc C: But EDU is great. PhD B: and just use, {vocalsound} those meetings to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to send to IBM and, do the other ones. Grad A: Release to begin with. Postdoc C: How interesting. You know {disfmarker} Professor F: What's the problem {disfmarker} the l I forget. Is the problem the lapel, or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} PhD B: Uh, it really depends. Um, my {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} my impression is that it's better for meetings with fewer speakers, and it's better for {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for meetings where nobody is breathing. Professor F: Oh, PhD B: Yeah, Professor F: the dead meetings. PhD B: get {disfmarker} That's it. PhD D: So in fact this might suggest an alternative sort of a {disfmarker} a c a hybrid between these two things. Grad A: No, the undead meeting, yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah. Yeah? PhD D: So the {disfmarker} the one suggestion is you know we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we run Thilo's thing and then we have somebody go and adjust all the time boundaries PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah? PhD D: and we send it to IBM. The other one is {vocalsound} we just run his thing and send it to IBM. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: There's a {disfmarker} a another possibility if we find that there are some problems, PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. PhD D: and that is {vocalsound} if we go ahead and we {vocalsound} just run his, and we generate the beeps file, then we have somebody listen beeps file. PhD B: Yeah. And erase {disfmarker} PhD D: And they listen to each section and say" yes, no" whether that section is PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Is intelligible. PhD D: i i intelligible or not. And it just {disfmarker} You know, there's a little interface which will {disfmarker} for all the" yes" - es it {disfmarker} then that will be the final {vocalsound} beep file. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: Blech. Postdoc C: That's interesting! Cuz that's {disfmarker} that's directly related to the e end task. Grad A: Stress test. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: How interesting! PhD D: Yeah. I mean it wouldn't be that much fun for a transcriber to sit there, hear it, beep, yes or no. PhD B: Nope. Professor F: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know. PhD D: But it would be quick. Professor F: It would be {disfmarker} kind of quick but they're still listening to everything. PhD D: But there's no adjusting. And that's what's slow. There's no adjusting of time boundaries. Postdoc C: Well, {vocalsound} eh, listening does take time too. PhD D: Yeah. Professor F: Yeah. I don't know, I {disfmarker} I think I'm {disfmarker} I'm really tending towards {disfmarker} Grad A: One and a half times real time. Professor F: I mean, {vocalsound} what's the worst that happens? Do the transcribers {disfmarker} I mean as long as th on the other end they can say there's {disfmarker} there's something {disfmarker} conventions so that they say" huh?" PhD D: Yeah. Right. They {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} Professor F: and then we can flag those later. PhD D: Yeah. That's true. Professor F: i i It {disfmarker} i PhD D: We can just catch it at the {disfmarker} catch everything at this side. Professor F: Yeah. PhD D: Well maybe that's the best way to go, Postdoc C: How interesting! PhD D: just {disfmarker} Grad A: I mean it just depends on how {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Well EDU {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah, Grad A: Sorry, go ahead. PhD B: u u u Postdoc C: So I was gonna say, EDU - one is good enough, PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: maybe we could include it in this {disfmarker} in this set of uh, this stuff we send. PhD B: Yeah there's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think there are some meetings where it would {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} It's possible like this. Grad A: Yeah I {disfmarker} I think, we won't know until we generate a bunch of beep files automatically, listen to them and see how bad they are. PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD D: We won't be able to s include it with this first thing, Grad A: If {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Hmm. Oh, OK. PhD D: because there's a part of the process of the beep file which requires knowing the normalization coefficients. Postdoc C: Oh, I see. PhD D: And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So a Grad A: That's not hard to do. Just {disfmarker} it takes {disfmarker} you know, it just takes five minutes rather than, taking a second. PhD D: OK PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: So. I just hand {disfmarker} hard - coded it. PhD D: Right, except I don't think that {disfmarker} the c the instructions for doing that was in that directory, right? I {disfmarker} I didn't see where you had gener Grad A: No, but it's easy enough to do. PhD B: What {disfmarker} Professor F: But I {disfmarker} but I have a {disfmarker} PhD B: Doing the gain? It's no problem. Adjusting the gain? PhD D: n Doing th No, getting the coefficients, for each channel. PhD B: Yeah, that's no problem. Postdoc C: Know what numbers. PhD D: OK. So we just run that one {disfmarker} Grad A: There are lots of ways to do it. PhD B: We can do that. Grad A: I have one program that'll do it. You can find other programs. PhD B: Yeah. I {disfmarker} I used it, so. PhD D: We just run that Grad A: Yep. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: J - sound - stat? OK. Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: Minus D, capital D. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I have {pause} another suggestion on that, which is, {vocalsound} since, really what this is, is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is trying to in the large, send the right thing to them and there is gonna be this {disfmarker} this post - processing step, um, why don't we check through a bunch of things by sampling it? PhD D: Mm - hmm. Professor F: Right? In other words, rather than, um, uh, saying we're gonna listen to everything {disfmarker} Grad A: I didn't mean listen to everything, I meant, just see if they're any good. Professor F: Yeah. So y you do a bunch of meetings, you listen to {disfmarker} to a little bit here and there, PhD D: Yeah. Professor F: if it sounds like it's almost always right and there's not any big problem you send it to them. PhD D: Send it to them. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: OK. Professor F: And, you know, then they'll send us back what we {disfmarker} w what {disfmarker} what they send back to us, Postdoc C: Oh, that'd be great. Professor F: and we'll {disfmarker} we'll fix things up and {vocalsound} some meetings will cost more time to fix up than others. Grad A: We should {disfmarker} Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: And we should just double - check with Brian on a few simple conventions on how they should mark things. PhD B: Sure. PhD D: OK. When they {disfmarker} when there's either no speech in there, PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. PhD D: or {vocalsound} something they don't understand, Postdoc C: Yeah. Mm - hmm. PhD D: things like that. Grad A: Yeah, cuz @ @ uh what I had originally said to Brian was well they'll have to mark, when they can't distinguish between the foreground and background, Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: because I thought that was gonna be the most prevalent. But if we send them without editing, then we're also gonna hafta have m uh, notations for words that are cut off, PhD D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Grad A: and other sorts of, uh, acoustic problems. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: They do already. PhD D: And they may just guess at what those cut - off words are, Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD D: but w I mean we're gonna adjust {disfmarker} everything when we come back {disfmarker} Grad A: But what {disfmarker} what we would like them to do is be conservative so that they should only write down the transcript if they're sure. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: And otherwise they should mark it so that we can check. PhD B: Mark it. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: Well, we have the unintelligibility {pause} convention. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: And actually they have one also, Grad A: Right. Postdoc C: which {disfmarker} Professor F: i Can I maybe have {disfmarker} have an order of {disfmarker} it's probably in your paper that I haven't looked at lately, but {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Certainty. Professor F: Uh, an order of magnitude notion of {disfmarker} of how {disfmarker} on a good meeting, how often uh, do you get segments that come in the middle of words and so forth, and uh {disfmarker} in a bad meeting how {vocalsound} often? PhD B: Uh. Postdoc C: Was is it in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what is the t Professor F: Well he's saying, you know, that the {disfmarker} the EDU meeting was a good {disfmarker} good meeting, Postdoc C: In a good meeting, what? PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah. Professor F: right? Postdoc C: Oh I see, Professor F: Uh, and so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so it was almost {disfmarker} it was almost always doing the right thing. Postdoc C: the characteristics. Professor F: So I wanted to get some sense of what {disfmarker} what almost always meant. And then, uh in a bad meeting, {vocalsound} or p some meetings where he said oh he's had some problems, what does that mean? Postdoc C: Uh - huh. OK. Professor F: So I mean does one of the does it mean one percent and ten percent? Or does it mean {vocalsound} five percent and fifty percent? Postdoc C: OK. Professor F: Uh {disfmarker} PhD B: So {disfmarker} Professor F: Or {disfmarker} Maybe percentage isn't the right word, Postdoc C: Just PhD B: Yeah th Professor F: but you know how many {disfmarker} how many per minute, or {disfmarker} You know. PhD B: Yeah, the {disfmarker} the problem is that, nnn, the numbers Ian gave in the paper is just uh, some frame error rate. So that's {disfmarker} that's not really {disfmarker} {vocalsound} What will be effective for {disfmarker} for the transcribers, is {disfmarker} They have to {disfmarker} yeah, in in they have to insure that that's a real s spurt or something. And {disfmarker} but, {vocalsound} the numbers {disfmarker} Oops. Um {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Hmm! PhD B: Let me think. So the {pause} speech {disfmarker} the amount of speech that is missed by the {pause} detector, for a good meeting, I th is around {pause} or under one percent, I would say. But there can be {disfmarker} Yeah. For {disfmarker} yeah, but there can be more {disfmarker} There's {disfmarker} There's more amount speech {disfmarker} uh, more amount of {disfmarker} Yeah well, the detector says there is speech, but there is none. So that {disfmarker} that can be a lot when {disfmarker} when it's really a breathy channel. Professor F: But I think that's less of a problem. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: They'll just listen. It's just wasted time. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: And th and that's for a good meeting. Now what about in a meeting that you said we've {disfmarker} you've had some more trouble with? PhD B: I can't {comment} really {disfmarker} hhh, {comment} {pause} Tsk. {comment} I {pause} don't have really representative numbers, I think. That's really {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I did {pause} this on {disfmarker} on four meetings and only five minutes of {disfmarker} of every meet of {disfmarker} of these meetings so, {vocalsound} it's not {disfmarker} not that representative, but, it's perhaps, Fff. Um {disfmarker} Yeah, it's perhaps then {disfmarker} it's perhaps five percent of something, which s uh the {disfmarker} the frames {disfmarker} speech frames which are {disfmarker} which are missed, but um, I can't {disfmarker} can't really tell. Professor F: Right. So I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So i Sometime, we might wanna go back and look at it more in terms of {vocalsound} how many times is there a spurt that's {disfmarker} that's uh, interrupted? PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Professor F: Something like that? Postdoc C: The other problem is, that when it {disfmarker} when it uh d i on the breathy ones, where you get {vocalsound} {vocalsound} breathing, uh, inti indicated as speech. Professor F: And {disfmarker} PhD B: So {disfmarker} Postdoc C: And I guess we could just indicate to the transcribers not to {pause} encode that if they {disfmarker} We could still do the beep file. Professor F: Yeah again I {disfmarker} I think that that is probably less of a problem because if you're {disfmarker} if there's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If {disfmarker} if a {disfmarker} if a word is {disfmarker} is split, then they might have to listen to it a few times to really understand that they can't quite get it. Postdoc C: OK. OK. PhD B: But {disfmarker} Postdoc C: OK. Professor F: Whereas if they listen {nonvocalsound} to it and there's {disfmarker} don't hear any speech I think they'd probably just listen to it once. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: So there'd {disfmarker} you'd think there'd be a {disfmarker} a factor of three or four in {disfmarker} in, uh, cost function, Postdoc C: OK. Professor F: you know, between them or something. PhD B: Yeah, so {disfmarker} but I think that's {disfmarker} n that really doesn't happen very often that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that a word is cut in the middle or something. That's {disfmarker} that's really not {disfmarker} not normal. Professor F: So {disfmarker} so what you're saying is that nearly always what happens when there's a problem is that {disfmarker} is that uh, there's {vocalsound} some uh, uh nonspeech that uh {disfmarker} that is b interpreted as speech. PhD B: That is marked as speech. Yeah. Yeah. Professor F: Well then, we really should just send the stuff. Postdoc C: That would be great. Professor F: Right? Because that doesn't do any harm. PhD B: Yeah, it's {disfmarker} Professor F: You know, if they {disfmarker} they hear you know, a dog bark and they say what was the word, they {comment} you know, they {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah, I als I {disfmarker} Professor F: Ruff ruff! PhD B: Yeah I also thought of {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there are really some channels where it is almost {comment} um, only bre breathing in it. And to {disfmarker} to re - run's Professor F: Yeah? PhD B: Eh, um. Yeah. I've got a {disfmarker} a {pause} P - a {pause} method with loops into the cross - correlation with the PZM mike, and then to reject everything which {disfmarker} which seems to be breath. Professor F: Uh - huh. PhD B: So, I could run this on those breathy channels, and perhaps throw out {disfmarker} Grad A: That's a good idea. Postdoc C: Wow, that's a great idea. Professor F: Yeah. But I think {disfmarker} I th Again, I think that sort of {disfmarker} that that would be good, PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: and what that'll do is just cut the time a little further. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Professor F: But I think none of this is stuff that really needs somebody doing these {disfmarker} these uh, uh, explicit markings. PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: Excellent. Oh, I'd be delighted with that, I {disfmarker} I was very impressed with the {disfmarker} with the result. Yeah. Professor F: Yeah, cuz the other thing that was concerning me about it was that it seemed kind of specialized to the EDU meeting, and {disfmarker} and that then when you get a meeting like this or something, PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and you have a b a bunch of different dominant speakers Postdoc C: Oh yeah, interesting. Professor F: you know, how are you gonna handle it. Postdoc C: Oh yeah. Professor F: Whereas this sounds like a more general solution Postdoc C: Oh yeah, I pr I much prefer this, Professor F: is {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I was just trying to find a way {disfmarker} Cuz I {disfmarker} I don't think the staggered mixed channel is awfully good as a way of handling overlaps. Professor F: Yeah. Uh - huh. Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} but uh {disfmarker} PhD D: Well good. That {disfmarker} that really simplifies thing then. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD D: And we can just, you know, get the meeting, process it, put the beeps file, send it off to IBM. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD D: You know? PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: With very little {pause} work on our side. PhD B: Process it, hear into it. I would {disfmarker} PhD D: Do what? PhD B: Um, {pause} listen to it, and then {disfmarker} Grad A: Or at least sample it. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Well, sample it. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Sample it. Professor F: I {disfmarker} I would just use some samples, PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. Professor F: make sure you don't send them three hours of" bzzz" {comment} or something. PhD D: Yeah. PhD B: No. PhD D: Yeah. Right. PhD B: That won't be good. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD D: Yeah. Yeah that would be very good. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: And then we can you know {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah. PhD D: That'll oughta be a good way to get the pipeline going. Postdoc C: Oh, I'd be delighted. Yeah. PhD B: And there's {disfmarker} there's one point which I {comment} uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah, which {disfmarker} which I r {vocalsound} we covered when I {disfmarker} when I r listened to one of the EDU meetings, Professor F: Great. PhD B: and that's {vocalsound} that somebody is playing sound from his laptop. Grad A: Uh - huh PhD B: And i {vocalsound} the speech - nonspeech detector just assigns randomly the speech to {disfmarker} to one of the channels, so. Uh - I haven't - I didn't think of {disfmarker} of s of {vocalsound} this before, Grad A: What can you do? PhD B: but what {disfmarker} what shall we do about s things like this? Postdoc C: Well you were suggesting {disfmarker} You suggested maybe just not sending that part of the meeting. Grad A: Yep. Mmm. Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} PhD B: But, sometimes the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the laptop is in the background and some {disfmarker} somebody is {disfmarker} is talking, and, {vocalsound} that's really a little bit confusing, but {disfmarker} Grad A: It's a little bit confusing. Professor F: That's life. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: I mean, {comment} what're we gonna do? PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: Even a hand - transcription would {disfmarker} PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: Do you {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: a hand - transcriber would have trouble with that. PhD B: Yeah, Grad A: So. PhD B: that's {disfmarker} that's a second question," what {disfmarker} what will different transcribers do with {disfmarker} with the laptop sound?" Postdoc C: Would you {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} Professor F: What was the l what was the laptop sound? Postdoc C: Yeah, go ahead. Professor F: I mean was it speech, PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: or was it {disfmarker} PhD B: It's speech. Professor F: Great. Postdoc C: Well, so {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} So my standard approach has been if it's not someone close - miked, then, they don't end up on one of the close - miked channels. They end up on a different channel. And we have any number of channels available, Professor F: Uh - huh. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: I mean it's an infinite number of channels. PhD B: But, Postdoc C: So just put them on some other channel. PhD B: when thi when this is sent to {disfmarker} to the I M - eh, I B M transcribers, I don't know if {disfmarker} if they can tell that's really {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Yeah, that's right. Grad A: Yeah cuz there will be no channel on which it is foreground. PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. Grad A: Uh {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Well, they have a convention, in their own procedures, {vocalsound} which is for a background {pause} sound. Grad A: Right, but, uh, in general I don't think we want them transcribing the background, cuz that would be too much work. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: Right? For it {disfmarker} because in the overlap sections, then they'll PhD D: Well I don't think Jane's saying they're gonna transcribe it, but they'll just mark it as being {disfmarker} there's some background stuff there, Grad A: But that's gonna be all over the place. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD D: right? Grad A: How w how will they tell the difference between that sort of background and the dormal {disfmarker} normal background of two people talking at once? PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Oh, I think {disfmarker} I think it'd be easy to to say" background laptop" . Grad A: How would they know that? PhD D: But wait a minute, why would they treat them differently? PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Well because one of them {disfmarker} Grad A: Because otherwise it's gonna be too much work for them to mark it. They'll be marking it all over the place. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Oh, I s background laptop or, background LT {vocalsound} {vocalsound} wouldn't take any time. Grad A: Sure, but how are they gonna tell bet the difference between that and two people just talking at the same time? Postdoc C: And {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Oh, you can tell. Acoustically, can't you tell? PhD B: It's really good sound, so {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Oh is it? Oh! Professor F: Well, I mean, isn't there a category something like uh," sounds for someone for whom there is no i close mike" ? PhD B: Yeah that would be very important, Grad A: But how do we d how do we do that for the I B M folks? Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD B: yeah. Grad A: How can they tell that? PhD D: Well we may just have to do it when it gets back here. Grad A: Yes, that's my opinion as well. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: So we don't do anything for it {disfmarker} with it. Postdoc C: OK. PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: That sounds good. Grad A: And they'll just mark it however they mark it, Postdoc C: That sounds good. PhD D: Yeah. Grad A: and we'll correct it when it comes back. PhD B: So th Professor F: Yeah. PhD B: there was a category for @ @ {comment} speech. Postdoc C: OK. Grad A: Yeah, the default. Postdoc C: Yeah, s a Grad A: No, not default. PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: Well, as it comes back, we have a uh {disfmarker} when we can use the channelized interface for encoding it, then it'll be easy for us to handle. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but if {disfmarker} if out of context, they can't tell if it's a channeled speak uh, you know, a close - miked speaker or not, {vocalsound} then that would be confusing to them. PhD B: OK. Grad A: Right. PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: I don't know, I {disfmarker} it doesn't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} Either way would be fine with me, I don't really care. Professor F: Yeah. So. Shall we uh, do digits and get out of here? Grad A: Yep. Postdoc C: I have o I have one question. Do you think we should send the um {disfmarker} that whole meeting to them and not worry about pre - processing it? Professor F: Yes ma'Postdoc C: Or {disfmarker} Uh, what I mean is {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} we should {vocalsound} leave the {vocalsound} part with the audio in the uh, beep file that we send to IBM for that one, or should we {vocalsound} start after the {disfmarker} that part of the meeting is over in what we send. Professor F: Which part? PhD B: With {disfmarker} Postdoc C: So, the part where they're using sounds from their {disfmarker} from their laptops. PhD B: with the laptop sound, or {disfmarker}? just {disfmarker} Postdoc C: w If we have speech from the laptop should we just uh, excise that from what we send to IBM, or should we {vocalsound} i give it to them and let them do with it what they can? PhD D: I think we should just {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it's gonna be too much work if we hafta {vocalsound} worry about that I think. Postdoc C: OK, that'd be nice to have a {disfmarker} a uniform procedure. PhD D: Yeah, I think if we just {disfmarker} m send it all to them. you know. Grad A: Worry about it when we get back. Postdoc C: Good. And see how well they do. PhD D: Let {disfmarker} Yeah, worry about it when we get back in. Postdoc C: And give them freedom to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to indicate if it's just not workable. Professor F: Yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah, PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: OK, Professor F: Yeah. Postdoc C: excellent. Professor F: Cuz, I wouldn't {disfmarker} don't think we would mind {pause} having that {pause} transcribed, if they did it. Grad A: I think {disfmarker} PhD D: Yeah, e Grad A: As I say, we'll just have to listen to it and see how horrible it is. Postdoc C: Yeah, yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: Sample it, rather. Postdoc C: OK. Alright. PhD B: I think that {disfmarker} that will be a little bit of a problem PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: That's great. PhD B: as it really switches around between {vocalsound} two different channels, I think. Grad A: Mm - hmm, and {disfmarker} and they're very {disfmarker} it's very audible? on the close - talking channels? PhD B: What {disfmarker} what I would {disfmarker} Yeah. Grad A: Oh well. I mean, it's the same problem as the lapel mike. Professor F: Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: But {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Oh, interesting. PhD B: Comparable, yeah. Professor F: Yeah. PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: OK, alright. Digits. Professor F: Let's do digits. Postdoc C: OK, so we read the transcript number first, right? Grad A: Are we gonna do it altogether or separately? PhD B: So {disfmarker} What time is it? Professor F: Uh, {vocalsound} why don't we do it together, Postdoc C: Uh, quarter to four. PhD B: Oh, OK. Professor F: that's {disfmarker} that's a nice fast way to do it. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Professor F: One, two, three, go! Postdoc C: It's kind of interesting if there're any more errors in these, {vocalsound} than we had the first set. Grad A: Nnn, yeah, I think there probably will be. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Do you guys plug your ears when you do it? Grad A: I do. PhD B: No. Postdoc C: I usually do. PhD D: I do. PhD B: I don't. Postdoc C: I didn't this time. PhD D: You don't? PhD B: No. Professor F: I haven't been, PhD D: How can you do that? Professor F: no. PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Professor F: Uh, concentration. PhD B: Perhaps there are {vocalsound} lots of errors in it PhD D: Gah! Grad A: Total concentration. Are you guys ready? PhD D: You hate to have your ears plugged? Professor F: Yeah. PhD D: Really?

Before that, the files will be automatically pre-segmented into speech/non-speech bins and the beeps will be inserted.

tr-sq-664

tr-sq-664_0

What would help the transcribers? Grad A: OK, we're recording. Professor F: We can say the word" zero" all we want, PhD G: I'm doing some Professor F: but just {disfmarker} PhD G: square brackets, coffee sipping, square brackets. PhD B: That's not allowed, I think. Postdoc C: Cur - curly brackets. Grad E: Is that voiced or unvoiced? Grad A: Curly brackets. PhD B: Curly brackets. Professor F: Curly brackets. Grad A: Right. PhD B: Oops. Professor F: Well, correction for transcribers. PhD G: Mmm! {comment} {vocalsound} Gar - darn! Professor F: Yeah. Postdoc C: Channel two. Grad A: Do we use square brackets for anything? Postdoc C: Yeah. Uh {disfmarker} Grad E: These poor transcribers. Professor F: u Postdoc C: Not ri not right now. I mean {disfmarker} No. PhD D: There's gonna be some zeros from this morning's meeting because I noticed that Professor F: u PhD D: Barry, I think maybe you turned your mike off before the digits were {disfmarker} Oh, was it during digits? Oh, so it doesn't matter. Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: It's still not a good idea. PhD B: So it's not {disfmarker} it's not that bad if it's at the end, but it's {disfmarker} in the beginning, it's {pause} bad. PhD D: Yeah. Yeah. Grad A: Yeah, you wanna {disfmarker} you wanna keep them on so you get {pause} good noise {disfmarker} noise floors, through the whole meeting. Postdoc C: That's interesting. Hmm. Professor F: Uh, I probably just should have left it on. Yeah I did have to run, but {disfmarker} Grad E: Is there any way to change that in the software? Grad A: Change what in the software? Grad E: Where like you just don't {disfmarker} like if you {disfmarker} if it starts catching zeros, like in the driver or something {disfmarker} in the card, or somewhere in the hardware {disfmarker} Where if you start seeing zeros on w across one channel, you just add some {vocalsound} random, @ @ {comment} noise floor {disfmarker} like a small noise floor. Grad A: I mean certainly we could do that, but I don't think that's a good idea. We can do that in post - processing if {disfmarker} if the application needs it. Grad E: Yeah. PhD B: Manual post - processing. Professor F: Well, I {disfmarker} u I actually don't know what the default {comment} is anymore as to how we're using the {disfmarker} the front - end stuff but {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} when we use the ICSI front - end, Grad A: As an argument. Professor F: but um, there is an {disfmarker} there is an o an option in {disfmarker} in RASTA, which, um, {vocalsound} in when I first put it in, uh, back in the days when I actually wrote things, uh, {vocalsound} I {pause} did actually put in a random bit or so that was in it, Grad E: OK. Professor F: but {vocalsound} then I realized that putting in a random bit was equivalent to adding uh {disfmarker} adding flat spectrum, Grad E: Right. Professor F: and it was a lot faster to just add a constant to the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to the spectrum. So then I just started doing that Grad E: Mmm. OK. Professor F: instead of calling" rand" {comment} or something, Grad E: Right. Professor F: so. So it d it does that. Gee! Here we all are! Grad A: Uh, so the only agenda items were Jane {disfmarker} was Jane wanted to talk about some of the IBM transcription process. Professor F: There's an agenda? Grad A: I sort of {vocalsound} condensed the three things you said into that. And then just {disfmarker} I only have like, this afternoon and maybe tomorrow morning to get anything done before I go to Japan for ten days. So if there's anything that n absolutely, desperately needs to be done, you should let me know now. Professor F: Uh, and you just sent off a Eurospeech paper, so. PhD G: Right. I hope they accept it. Professor F: Right. PhD G: I mean, I {disfmarker} both actu as {disfmarker} as a submission and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know, as a paper. Um {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} Grad A: Well yeah, you sent it in {pause} late. Professor F: Yeah, I guess you {disfmarker} first you have to do the first one, Grad A: Yeah. Professor F: and then {disfmarker} Yeah. PhD G: We actually exceeded the delayed deadline by o another day, so. PhD B: Oops. Professor F: Oh they {disfmarker} they had some extension that they announced or something? PhD G: Well yeah. Liz had sent them a note saying" could we please {pause} have another" {comment} {pause} I don't know," three days" or something, and they said yes. PhD D: And then she said" Did I say three? Grad A: Oh, PhD D: I meant four." Grad A: that was the other thing uh, PhD G: But u Grad A: uh, Dave Gelbart sent me email, I think he sent it to you too, {comment} that um, there's a special topic, section in si in Eurospeech on new, corp corpors corpora. And it's not due until like May fifteenth. Professor F: Oh this isn't the Aurora one? Grad A: No. Professor F: It's another one? Grad A: It's a different one. PhD B: No it's {disfmarker} Yeah. Yeah. Grad E: Huh! Grad A: And uh, Professor F: Oh! PhD B: I got this mail from {disfmarker} Grad A: I s forwarded it to Jane as I thought being the most relevant person. Um {disfmarker} So, I thought it was highly relevant {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Yeah I'm {disfmarker} Professor F: That's {disfmarker} Grad A: have you {disfmarker} did you look at the URL? Postdoc C: Yeah. I think so too. Um, I haven't gotten over to there yet, Grad A: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: but what {disfmarker} our discussion yesterday, I really {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I wanna submit one. PhD B: Was this {pause} SmartKom message? I think {pause} Christoph Draxler sent this, Postdoc C: Yeah. And, you offered to {disfmarker} to join me, if you want me to. Grad A: I'll help, PhD B: yeah. Grad A: but obviously I can't, really do, most of it, Postdoc C: Yeah. Yeah, that's right. PhD G: I think several people {disfmarker} sent this, Grad A: so. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Uh - huh. PhD G: yeah. Grad A: But any {disfmarker} any help you need I can certainly provide. Professor F: Well, PhD G: Yeah. Professor F: that's {disfmarker} that's a great idea. PhD G: Well {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there were some interesting results in this paper, though. For instance that Morgan {disfmarker} uh, accounted for fifty - six percent of the Robustness meetings in terms of number of words. Grad A: Wow. Postdoc C: In {disfmarker} in terms of what? In term PhD G: Number of words. Postdoc C: One? Wow! OK. Grad A: That's just cuz he talks really fast. Postdoc C: Do you mean, Professor F: n No. Grad A: I know PhD B: Oh. Short words. Postdoc C: because {disfmarker} is it partly, eh, c correctly identified words? Or is it {disfmarker} or just overall volume? PhD G: No. Well, according to the transcripts. Grad A: But re well regardless. I think it's {disfmarker} he's {disfmarker} he's in all of them, Postdoc C: Oh. OK. Professor F: Yeah. PhD G: I mean, we didn't mention Morgan by name Grad A: and he talks a lot. PhD G: we just {disfmarker} Grad A: One participant. Professor F: Well {disfmarker} we have now, but {disfmarker} PhD G: We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} something about {disfmarker} Grad A: Did you identify him as a senior {pause} member? PhD G: No, we as identify him as the person dominating the conversation. Professor F: Well. Grad A: Yeah. Postdoc C: OK. Professor F: I mean I get these AARP things, but I'm not se really senior yet, but {disfmarker} PhD G: Right Professor F: Um, PhD G: Hmm. Professor F: but uh, other than that delightful result, what was the rest of the paper about? PhD G: Um, well it was about {disfmarker} it had three sections Professor F: You sent it to me but I haven't seen it yet. PhD G: uh {disfmarker} three kinds of uh results, if you will. Uh, the one was that the {disfmarker} just the {disfmarker} the amount of overlap Grad A: The good, the bad, and the ugly. PhD G: um, s in terms of {disfmarker} in terms of number of words and also we computed something called a" spurt" , which is essentially a stretch of speech with uh, no pauses exceeding five hundred milliseconds. Um, and we computed how many overlapped i uh spurts there were and how many overlapped words there were. {vocalsound} Um, for four different {pause} corpora, the Meeting Recorder meetings, the Robustness meetings Switchboard and CallHome, and, found {disfmarker} and sort of compared the numbers. Um, and found that the, uh, you know, as you might expect the Meeting Recorder {pause} meetings had the most overlap uh, but next were Switchboard and CallHome, which both had roughly the same, almost identical in fact, and the Robustness meetings were {disfmarker} had the least, so {disfmarker} One sort of unexpected result there is that uh two - party telephone conversations have {vocalsound} about the same amount of overlap, Grad A: I'm surprised. PhD G: sort of in gen you know {disfmarker} order of magnitude - wise as, uh {disfmarker} as face - to - face meetings with multiple {disfmarker} Grad A: I have {disfmarker} I had better start changing all my slides! PhD G: Yeah. Also, I {disfmarker} in the Levinson, the pragmatics book, {comment} in you know, uh, textbook, {vocalsound} there's {disfmarker} I found this great quote where he says {vocalsound} you know {disfmarker} you know, how people {disfmarker} it talks about how uh {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how people are so good at turn taking, Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Yeah. PhD G: and {vocalsound} so {disfmarker} they're so good that {vocalsound} generally, u the overlapped speech does not {disfmarker} is less than five percent. Postdoc C: Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. PhD G: So, this is way more than five percent. Grad E: Did he mean face {disfmarker} like face - to - face? Or {disfmarker}? PhD G: Well, in real conversations, Grad E: Hmm. PhD G: everyday conversations. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: It's s what these conversation analysts have been studying for years and years there. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD B: But {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Well, of course, no, it doesn't necessarily go against what he said, cuz he said" generally speaking" . In order to {disfmarker} to go against that kind of a claim you'd have to big canvassing. Grad A: Hmm. PhD B: And in f PhD G: Well, he {disfmarker} he made a claim {disfmarker} Grad A: Well {disfmarker} PhD G: Well {disfmarker} Grad A: PhD B: But {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah, we {disfmarker} we have pretty limited sample here. PhD B: Five percent of time or five percent of what? Grad A: Yeah, I was gonna ask that too. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Exactly. PhD G: Well it's time. PhD B: Yeah, so {disfmarker} Postdoc C: It's {disfmarker} i it's not against his conclusion, PhD G: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but still {disfmarker} but still {disfmarker} u Postdoc C: it just says that it's a bi bell curve, and that, {vocalsound} you have something that has a nice range, in your sampling. PhD G: Yeah. So there are slight {disfmarker} There are differences in how you measure it, but still it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You know, the difference between um {disfmarker} between that number and what we have in meetings, which is more like, {vocalsound} you know, close to {disfmarker} in meetings like these, uh {disfmarker} you know, close to twenty percent. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor F: But what was it like, say, in the Robustness meeting, for instance? PhD G: That {disfmarker} Grad A: But {disfmarker} PhD G: Robustness meeting? It was {vocalsound} about half of the r So, {vocalsound} in terms of number of words, it's like seventeen or eigh eighteen percent for the Meeting Recorder meetings and {vocalsound} about half that for, {vocalsound} uh, the Robustness. Professor F: Maybe ten percent? Grad A: But I don't know if that's really a fair way of comparing between, multi - party, conversations and two - party conversations. Yeah. I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know. PhD B: Then {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} then you have to {disfmarker} Grad A: I mean that's just something {disfmarker} PhD D: Yeah, I just wonder if you have to normalize by the numbers of speakers or something. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD B: Then {disfmarker} Yeah, then normalize by {disfmarker} by something like that, Postdoc C: Yeah, that's a good point. PhD G: Well, we didn't get to look at that, PhD B: yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD G: but this obvious thing to see if {disfmarker} if there's a dependence on the number of uh {disfmarker} participants. Postdoc C: Good idea. Grad A: I mean {disfmarker} I bet there's a weak dependence. I'm sure it's {disfmarker} it's not a real strong one. PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: Right. Grad A: Right? Because you PhD D: Cuz not everybody talks. Grad A: Right. PhD G: Right. PhD D: Yeah. Grad A: You have a lot of {disfmarker} a lot of two - party, subsets within the meeting. PhD G: Right. Postdoc C: Uh - huh. Grad A: Well regardless {disfmarker} it's an interesting result regardless. PhD G: So {disfmarker} Right. Postdoc C: Yes, that's right. PhD G: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} and we also d computed this both with and without backchannels, Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: so you might think that backchannels have a special status because they're essentially just {disfmarker} Grad A: Uh - huh. So, did {disfmarker} we all said" uh - huh" and nodded at the same time, PhD G: R right. Grad A: so. PhD G: But, even if you take out all the backchannels {disfmarker} so basically you treat backchannels l as nonspeech, as pauses, Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: you still have significant overlap. You know, it goes down from maybe {disfmarker} For Switchboard it goes down from {disfmarker} I don't know {disfmarker} f um {disfmarker} {comment} I don't know {disfmarker} f fourteen percent of the words to maybe {vocalsound} uh I don't know, eleven percent or something {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's not a dramatic change, Grad A: Mm - hmm. PhD G: so it's {disfmarker} Anyway, so it's uh {disfmarker} That was {disfmarker} that was one set of {pause} results, and then the second one was just basically the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the stuff we had in the {disfmarker} in the HLT paper on how overlaps effect the {pause} recognition performance. Postdoc C: Hmm. Grad A: Nope. Right. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: And we rescored things um, a little bit more carefully. We also fixed the transcripts in {disfmarker} in numerous ways. Uh, but mostly we added one {disfmarker} one number, which was what if you {pause} uh, basically score ignoring all {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} the conjecture from the HLT results was that {vocalsound} most of the added recognition error is from insertions {vocalsound} due to background speech. So, we scored {vocalsound} all the recognition results, {vocalsound} uh, in such a way that the uh {disfmarker} Grad A: Oh by the way, who's on channel four? You're getting a lot of breath. PhD B: Yeah. I j was just wondering. Grad E: That's {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah. Grad E: That's me. PhD G: uh, well Don's been working hard. Grad E: That's right. PhD G: OK, so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so if you have the foreground speaker speaking here, and then there's some background speech, may be overlapping it somehow, um, and this is the time bin that we used, then of course you're gonna get insertion errors here and here. Grad A: Right. PhD G: Right? So we scored everything, and I must say the NIST scoring tools are pretty nice for this, where you just basically ignore everything outside of the, {vocalsound} uh, region that was deemed to be foreground speech. And where that was we had to use the t forced alignment, uh, results from s for {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} That's somewhat {disfmarker} that's somewhat subject to error, but still we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh, Don did some ha hand - checking and {disfmarker} and we think that {disfmarker} based on that, we think that the results are you know, valid, although of course, some error is gonna be in there. But basically what we found is after we take out these regions {disfmarker} so we only score the regions that were certified as foreground speech, {comment} {vocalsound} the recognition error went down to almost {vocalsound} uh, the {pause} level of the non - overlapped {pause} speech. So that means that {vocalsound} even if you do have background speech, if you can somehow separate out or find where it is, {vocalsound} uh, the recognizer does a good job, Grad A: That's great. PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: even though there is this back Grad A: Yeah, I guess that doesn't surprise me, because, with the close - talking mikes, the {disfmarker} the signal will be so much stronger. PhD G: Right. Right. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Um, Grad A: What {disfmarker} what sort of normalization do you do? PhD G: so {disfmarker} Uh, well, we just {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} we do {disfmarker} u you know, vit Grad A: I mean in you recognizer, in the SRI recognizer. PhD G: Well, we do uh, VTL {disfmarker} {vocalsound} vocal tract length normalization, w and we uh {disfmarker} you know, we {disfmarker} we uh, {vocalsound} make all the features have zero mean and unit variance. Grad A: Over an entire utterance? Professor F: And {disfmarker} Grad A: Or windowed? PhD G: Over {disfmarker} over the entire c over the entire channel. PhD B: Don't {pause} train {disfmarker} PhD G: Over the {disfmarker} Grad A: Hmm. PhD G: but you know. Um, now we didn't re - align the recognizer for this. We just took the old {disfmarker} So this is actually a sub - optimal way of doing it, Grad A: Right. Professor F: Right. PhD G: right? So we took the old recognition output and we just scored it differently. So the recognizer didn't have the benefit of knowing where the foreground speech {disfmarker} a start Professor F: Were you including the {disfmarker} the lapel {pause} in this? PhD G: Yes. Professor F: And did the {disfmarker} did {disfmarker} did the la did the {disfmarker} the problems with the lapel go away also? Or {disfmarker} PhD G: Um, it {disfmarker} Yeah. Professor F: fray for {disfmarker} for insertions? PhD G: It u not per {disfmarker} I mean, not completely, but yes, Professor F: Less so. PhD G: dramatically. So we have to um {disfmarker} Professor F: I mean, you still {disfmarker} PhD G: Well I should bring the {disfmarker} should bring the table with results. Maybe we can look at it {pause} Monday. Professor F: I would presume that you still would have somewhat higher error with the lapel for insertions than {disfmarker} PhD G: Yes. It's {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah. PhD G: Yes. Yeah. Professor F: Cuz again, looking forward to the non - close miked case, I think that we s still {disfmarker} PhD G: Mm - hmm. Grad A: I'm not looking forward to it. Professor F: i it's the high signal - to - noise ratio PhD G: Right. Professor F: here that {disfmarker} that helps you. PhD G: u s Right. So {disfmarker} so that was number {disfmarker} that was the second set of {disfmarker} uh, the second section. And then, {vocalsound} the third thing was, we looked at, {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh, what we call" interrupts" , although that's {disfmarker} that may be {vocalsound} a misnomer, but basically {vocalsound} we looked at cases where {disfmarker} Uh, so we {disfmarker} we used the punctuation from the original transcripts and we inferred the beginnings and ends of sentences. So, you know {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Di - did you use upper - lower case also, or not? PhD G: Um {disfmarker} Postdoc C: U upper lower case or no? PhD G: Hmm? Postdoc C: OK. PhD G: No, we only used, you know, uh periods, uh, question marks and {pause} exclamation. And we know that there's th that's not a very g I mean, we miss a lot of them, Postdoc C: Yeah. That's OK but {disfmarker} PhD G: but {disfmarker} but it's f i i Postdoc C: Comma also or not? PhD G: No commas. No. And then {vocalsound} we looked at locations where, uh, if you have overlapping speech and someone else starts a sentence, you know, where do these {disfmarker} where do other people start their {vocalsound} turns {disfmarker} not turns really, but you know, sentences, PhD B: Ah. PhD G: um {disfmarker} So we only looked at cases where there was a foreground speaker and then at the to at the {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} the foreground speaker started into their sentence and then someone else started later. PhD B: Somewhere in between the start and the end? PhD G: OK? And so what {disfmarker} PhD B: OK. PhD G: Sorry? PhD B: Somewhere in between the start and the end of the foreground? PhD G: Yes. Uh, so that such that there was overlap between the two sentences. PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: So, the {disfmarker} the question was how can we {disfmarker} what can we say about the places where the second or {disfmarker} or actually, several second speakers, {vocalsound} um {pause} start their {pause}" interrupts" , as we call them. PhD D: Three words from the end. Grad A: At pause boundaries. PhD G: w And we looked at this in terms of um {disfmarker} Grad A: On T - closures, only. PhD G: So {disfmarker} so we had {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we had um u to {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for the purposes of this analysis, we tagged the word sequences, and {disfmarker} and we time - aligned them. Um, and we considered it interrupt {disfmarker} if it occurred in the middle of a word, we basically {disfmarker} you know, considered that to be a interrupt as if it were at {disfmarker} at the beginning of the word. So that, {vocalsound} if any part of the word was overlapped, it was considered an interrupted {pause} word. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: And then we looked at the {disfmarker} the locatio the, {vocalsound} um, you know, the features that {disfmarker} the tags because we had tagged these word strings, {comment} {vocalsound} um, that {disfmarker} that occurred right before these {disfmarker} these uh, interrupt locations. PhD B: Tag by uh PhD G: And the tags we looked at are {vocalsound} the spurt tag, which basically says {disfmarker} or actually {disfmarker} Sorry. End of spurt. So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} whether there was a pause essentially here, because spurts are a {disfmarker} defined as being you know, five hundred milliseconds or longer pauses, and then we had things like discourse markers, uh, backchannels, uh, disfluencies. um, uh, filled pauses {disfmarker} So disfluen the D's are for, {vocalsound} um, {vocalsound} the interruption points of a disfluency, so, where you hesitate, or where you start the repair there. Uh, what else do we had. Uh, repeated {disfmarker} you know, repeated words is another of that kind of disfluencies and so forth. So we had both the beginnings and ends of these {disfmarker} uh so, the end of a filled pause and the end of a discourse marker. And we just eyeballed {disfmarker} I mean {vocalsound} we didn't really hand - tag all of these things. We just {pause} looked at the distribution of words, and so every {vocalsound}" so yeah" , and" OK" , uh, and" uh - huh" were {disfmarker} were the {disfmarker} were deemed to be backchannels and {vocalsound}" wow" and" so" and {vocalsound} uh" right" , uh were um {disfmarker} {pause} Not" right" ." Right" is a backchannel. But so, we sort of {disfmarker} just based on the lexical {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um, identity of the words, we {disfmarker} we tagged them as one of these things. And of course the d the interruption points we got from the original transcripts. So, and then we looked at the disti so we looked at the {pause} distribution of these different kinds of tags, overall uh, and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and particularly at the interruption points. And uh, we found that there is a marked difference so that for instance after {disfmarker} so at the end after a discourse marker or after backchannel or after filled pause, you're much more likely to be interrupted {vocalsound} than before. OK? And also of course after spurt ends, which means basically in p inside pauses. So pauses are always an opportunity for {disfmarker} So we have this little histogram which shows these distributions and, {vocalsound} um, PhD D: I wonder {disfmarker} PhD G: you know, it's {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's not {disfmarker} No big surprises, but it is {pause} sort of interesting from {disfmarker} Grad A: It's nice to actually measure it though. PhD G: Yeah. PhD D: I wonder about the cause and effect there. In other words uh {pause} if you weren't going to pause you {disfmarker} you will because you're g being interrupted. PhD G: Well we're ne PhD D: Uh {disfmarker} PhD G: Right. There's no statement about cause and effect. PhD D: Yeah, right. No, no, no. PhD G: This is just a statistical correlation, PhD D: Right, I {disfmarker} I see. Yeah. PhD G: yeah. Professor F: But he {disfmarker} yeah, he's {disfmarker} he's right, y I mean maybe you weren't intending to pause at all, but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You were intending to stop for fifty - seven milliseconds, PhD G: Right. Professor F: but then Chuck came in PhD G: Right. PhD D: Yeah. Professor F: and so you {vocalsound} paused for a second PhD G: Right. Anyway. {comment} So, Professor F: or more. PhD G: uh, and that was basically it. And {disfmarker} and we {disfmarker} so we wrote this and then, {vocalsound} we found we were at six pages, and then we started {vocalsound} cutting furiously PhD B: Oops. PhD G: and {vocalsound} threw out half of the {vocalsound} material again, and uh played with the LaTeX stuff and {disfmarker} Grad A: Made the font smaller and the narrows longer. PhD G: uh, and {disfmarker} until it fi PhD B: Font smaller, yeah. PhD G: No, no. W well, d you couldn't really make everything smaller PhD B: Put the abstract end. PhD G: but we s we put {disfmarker} Oh, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Grad A: Took out white space. PhD G: you know the {disfmarker} the gap between the two columns is like ten millimeters, PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: so I d shrunk it to eight millimeters and that helped some. And stuff like that. PhD D: Wasn't there {disfmarker} wasn't there some result, Andreas {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah {disfmarker} PhD D: I {disfmarker} I thought maybe Liz presented this at some conference a while ago about {vocalsound} uh, backchannels PhD G: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. PhD D: uh, and that they tend to happen when uh {pause} the pitch drops. You know you get a falling pitch. And so that's when people tend to backchannel. PhD G: Yeah. Well {disfmarker} PhD D: Uh - i i do you rem PhD G: y We didn't talk about, uh, prosodic, uh, properties at all, PhD D: Right. Right. But {disfmarker} PhD G: although that's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I take it that's something that uh Don will {disfmarker} will look at Grad E: Yeah, we're gonna be looking at that. PhD G: now that we have the data and we have the alignment, so. This is purely based on you know the words PhD D: Mm - hmm. PhD G: and {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I have a reference for that though. Uh - huh. PhD D: Oh you do. PhD G: Yeah. PhD D: So am I recalling correctly? PhD G: Anyway, so. Postdoc C: Well, I didn't know about Liz's finding on that, PhD D: About {disfmarker} Postdoc C: but I know of another paper that talks about something PhD D: Uh - huh. Postdoc C: that {disfmarker} PhD D: Hmm. Grad E: I'd like to see that reference too. Postdoc C: OK. PhD D: It made me think about a cool little device that could be built to uh {disfmarker} to handle those people that call you on the phone and just like to talk and talk and talk. And you just have this little detector that listens for these {vocalsound} drops in pitch and gives them the backchannel. And so then you {vocalsound} hook that to the phone and go off Grad A: Yeah. Uh - huh. PhD D: and do the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} do whatever you r wanna do, PhD G: Oh yeah. Well {disfmarker} PhD D: while that thing keeps them busy. PhD G: There's actually {disfmarker} uh there's this a former student of here from Berkeley, Nigel {disfmarker} Nigel Ward. PhD D: Uh - huh. Sure. PhD G: Do you know him? PhD D: Yeah. PhD G: He did a system uh, in {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he lives in Japan now, and he did this backchanneling, automatic backchanneling system. Professor F: Right. PhD G: It's a very {disfmarker} PhD D: Oh! PhD G: So, exactly what you describe, PhD D: Huh. PhD G: but for Japanese. And it's apparently {disfmarker} for Japa - in Japanese it's really important that you backchannel. It's really impolite if you don't, and {disfmarker} So. Professor F: Huh. Actually for a lot of these people I think you could just sort of backchannel continuously and it would {pause} pretty much be fine. PhD D: It wouldn't matter? Yeah. Grad E: Yeah. That's w That's what I do. PhD D: Random intervals. Grad A: There was {disfmarker} there was of course a Monty Python sketch with that. Where the barber who was afraid of scissors was playing a {disfmarker} a tape of clipping sounds, and saying" uh - huh" ," yeah" ," how about them sports teams?" PhD G: Anyway. So the paper's on - line and y I {disfmarker} I think I uh {disfmarker} I CC'ed a message to Meeting Recorder with the URL so you can get it. Grad A: Yep. Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: Printed it out, haven't read it yet. Professor F: Yeah. PhD G: Um, uh one more thing. So I {disfmarker} I'm actually {disfmarker} {vocalsound} about to send Brian Kingbury an email saying where he can find the {disfmarker} the s the m the material he wanted for the s for the speech recognition experiment, so {disfmarker} but I haven't sent it out yet because actually my desktop locked up, like I can't type anything. Uh b so if there's any suggestions you have for that I was just gonna send him the {disfmarker} PhD D: Is it the same directory that you had suggested? PhD G: I made a directory. I called it um {disfmarker} Postdoc C: He still has his Unix account here, you know. PhD G: Well this isn't {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD G: He does? Postdoc C: And he {disfmarker} and he's {disfmarker} PhD G: Yeah but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but he has to {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I'd hafta add him to Meeting Recorder, I guess, PhD G: he prefe he said he would prefer FTP Postdoc C: but {disfmarker} OK. PhD G: and also, um, the other person that wants it {disfmarker} There is one person at SRI who wants to look at the {vocalsound} um, you know, the uh {disfmarker} the data we have so far, Postdoc C: OK. PhD G: and so I figured that FTP is the best {pause} approach. So what I did is I um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} @ @ {comment} I made a n new directory after Chuck said that would c that was gonna be a good thing. Uh, so it's" FTP {vocalsound} {pause} pub Grad A: Pub real. PhD G: real" {disfmarker} Exactly. MTGC {disfmarker} What is it again? CR {disfmarker} Grad A: Ask Dan Ellis. Professor F: u R D {disfmarker} RDR, yeah. PhD G: Or {disfmarker} Yeah. Right? The same {disfmarker} the same as the mailing list, Professor F: Yeah, PhD G: and {disfmarker} Professor F: the {disfmarker} {pause} No vowels. PhD G: Yeah. Um, Professor F: Yeah PhD G: and then under there {disfmarker} Um actually {disfmarker} Oh and this directory, {vocalsound} is not readable. It's only uh, accessible. So, {vocalsound} in other words, to access anything under there, you have to {vocalsound} be told what the name is. Grad A: Right. PhD G: So that's sort of a g {vocalsound} quick and dirty way of doing access control. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: So {disfmarker} uh, and the directory for this I call it I" ASR zero point one" because it's sort of meant for recognition. Professor F: So anyone who hears this meeting now knows the {disfmarker} Grad A: Beta? PhD G: And then {disfmarker} then in there I have a file that lists all the other {vocalsound} files, so that someone can get that file and then know the file names and therefore download them. If you don't know the file names you can't {disfmarker} Professor F: Is that a dash or a dot in there? PhD G: I mean you can {disfmarker} Grad A: Don't {disfmarker} don't {disfmarker} don't say. PhD G: Dash. Anyway. So all I {disfmarker} all I was gonna do there was stick the {disfmarker} the transcripts after we {disfmarker} the way that we munged them for scoring, because that's what he cares about, and {disfmarker} um, and also {disfmarker} and then the {disfmarker} the {pause} waveforms that Don segmented. I mean, just basically tar them all up f I mean {disfmarker} w for each meeting I tar them all into one tar file and G - zip them and stick them there. Grad A: I uh, put digits in my own home directory {disfmarker} home FTP directory, PhD G: And so. Grad A: but I'll probably move them there as well. PhD G: Oh, OK. PhD D: So we could point Mari to this also for her {vocalsound} March O - one request? PhD G: OK. Yeah. March O - one. PhD D: Or {disfmarker} PhD G: Oh! PhD D: You n Remember she was {disfmarker} PhD G: Oh she wanted that also? PhD D: Well she was saying that it would be nice if we had {disfmarker} they had a {disfmarker} Or was she talking {disfmarker} Yeah. She was saying it would be nice if they had eh {pause} the same set, so that when they did experiments they could compare. PhD G: Right, but they don't have a recognizer even. PhD D: Yeah. Grad E: Um {disfmarker} I PhD G: But yeah, we can send {disfmarker} I can CC Mari on this so that she knows {disfmarker} PhD D: Yeah. So, for the thing that {disfmarker} Postdoc C: That's good. PhD D: We need to give Brian the beeps file, PhD G: Right. PhD D: so I was gonna probably put it {disfmarker} Grad A: We can put it in the same place. Just put in another directory. PhD D: Yeah, it I'll make another directory. PhD G: Well, make ano make another directory. PhD D: Yeah. Exactly. PhD G: You don't n m PhD D: Yeah. PhD G: Yeah. Grad E: And, Andreas, um, sampled? PhD G: Yeah. They are? Grad E: I think so. Yeah. Um, so either we should regenerate the original {vocalsound} versions, {comment} {pause} or um, we should just make a note of it. PhD G: OK. Oh. Beca - Well {disfmarker} OK, because in one directory there's two versions. Grad E: Yeah, that's the first meeting I cut both versions. Just to check which w if there is a significant difference. PhD G: OK. And so I {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} OK so {disfmarker} but for the other meetings it's the downsampled version that you have. Grad E: They're all downsampled, yeah. PhD G: Oh, OK. Oh that's th important to know, OK so we should probably {disfmarker} uh {pause} give them the non - downsampled versions. Grad E: Yeah. So {disfmarker} PhD G: OK. Alright, then I'll hold off on that and I'll wait for you um {disfmarker} Grad E: Probably by tomorrow PhD G: gen Grad E: I can {disfmarker} I'll send you an email. PhD G: OK. Alright. OK. Yeah, definitely they should have the full bandwidth version, Grad E: Yeah, because I mean {disfmarker} I I think Liz decided to go ahead with the {pause} downsampled versions cuz we can {disfmarker} There was no s like, r significant difference. PhD G: yeah. OK. Well, it takes {disfmarker} it takes up less disk space, for one thing. Grad E: It does take up less disk space, and apparently it did even better {pause} than the original {disfmarker} than the original versions, PhD G: Yeah. Yeah. Grad E: which you know, is just, probably random. PhD G: Right. Yeah, it was a small difference Grad E: But, um {pause} they probably w want the originals. PhD G: but yeah. Yeah. OK. OK, good. Good that {disfmarker} Well, it's a good thing that {disfmarker} Grad A: OK, I think we're losing, Don and Andreas at three - thirty, right? OK. Grad E: Hey mon hafta booga. PhD G: Yeah. Professor F: So, that's why it was good to have Andreas, say these things but {disfmarker} So, we should probably talk about the IBM transcription process stuff that {disfmarker} Postdoc C: OK. So, um you know that Adam created um, a b a script to generate the beep file? Professor F: Hmm. Postdoc C: To then create something to send to IBM. And, um, you {disfmarker} you should probably talk about that. But {disfmarker} but you were gonna to use the {pause} originally transcribed file because I tightened the time bins and that's also the one that they had already {vocalsound} in trying to debug the first stage of this. And uh, my understanding was that, um {disfmarker} I haven't {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I haven't listened to it yet, Grad A: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: but it sounded very good and {disfmarker} and I understand that you guys {vocalsound} were going to have a meeting today, before this meeting. Grad A: It was just to talk about how to generate it. Um, just so that while I'm gone, you can regenerate it if you decide to do it a different way. So uh, Chuck and Thilo should, now more or less know how to generate the file Postdoc C: Excellent. OK. Grad A: and, {vocalsound} the other thing Chuck pointed out is that, um, {vocalsound} since this one is hand - marked, {vocalsound} there are discourse boundaries. Right? So {disfmarker} so when one person is speaking, there's breaks. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Grad A: Whereas Thilo's won't have that. So what {disfmarker} what we're probably gonna do is just write a script, that if two, chunks are very close to each other on the same channel we'll just merge them. Postdoc C: Oh! OK. Ah, interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, sure. Yeah, sure. Makes sense. Grad A: So, uh, and that will get around the problem of, the, {vocalsound} you know" one word beep, one word beep, one word beep, one word beep" . Postdoc C: Yeah. Ah! Clever. Yes. Clever. Yeah. Excellent. PhD D: Yeah, in fact after our meeting uh, this morning Thilo came in and said that {vocalsound} um, there could be {pause} other differences between {vocalsound} the uh {pause} already transcribed meeting with the beeps in it and one that has {pause} just r been run through his process. Postdoc C: And that's the purpose. Yeah. PhD D: So tomorrow, {vocalsound} when we go to make the um {pause} uh, chunked file {vocalsound} for IBM, we're going to actually compare the two. So he's gonna run his process on that same meeting, Postdoc C: Great idea! PhD D: and then we're gonna do the beep - ify on both, and listen to them and see if we notice any real differences. PhD G: Beep - ify! Postdoc C: OK, now one thing that prevented us from apply you {disfmarker} you from applying {disfmarker} Exactly. The training {disfmarker} So that is the training meeting. OK. PhD D: Yeah, w and we know that. Wel - uh we just wanna if {disfmarker} if there're any major differences between {vocalsound} doing it on the hand Postdoc C: Uh - huh. Oh, interesting. Ah! Grad A: Hmm. Postdoc C: OK. Interesting idea. Great. PhD G: So this training meeting, uh w un is that uh {pause} some data where we have uh very um, {vocalsound} you know, accurate {pause} time marks? for {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I went back and hand - marked the {pause} ba the bins, I ment I mentioned that last week. PhD G: OK, yeah. PhD D: But the {disfmarker} but there's {disfmarker} yeah, but there is this one issue with them in that there're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} there are time boundaries in there that occur in the middle of speech. PhD G: Because {disfmarker} PhD D: So {disfmarker} Like when we went t to um {disfmarker} When I was listening to the original file that Adam had, it's like you {disfmarker} you hear a word then you hear a beep {vocalsound} and then you hear the continuation of what is the same sentence. Grad A: That's on the other channel. That's because of channel overlap. PhD D: Well, and {disfmarker} and so the {disfmarker} th Postdoc C: Hmm. Grad A: It's {disfmarker} i PhD D: So there are these chunks that look like uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that have uh {disfmarker} Grad A: I mean that's not gonna be true of the foreground speaker. That'll only be if it's the background speaker. PhD D: Right. So you'll {disfmarker} you'll have a chunk of, you know, channel {vocalsound} A which starts at zero and ends at ten, and then the same channel starting at eleven, ending at fifteen, and then again, starting at sixteen, ending at twenty. Right, so that's three chunks where {vocalsound} actually we w can just make one chunk out of that which is A, zero, twenty. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: Yeah. Grad A: That's what I just said, Postdoc C: Sure. Sure. Grad A: yeah. PhD D: Yeah. So I just wanted to make sure that it was clear. Postdoc C: Yeah, I thought that was {disfmarker} PhD D: So {vocalsound} if you were to use these, you have to be careful not to pull out these individual {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD G: Oh! I mean it {disfmarker} Right, I mean w I mean what I would {disfmarker} I was interested in is having {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a se having time marks for the beginnings and ends of speech by each speaker. Grad A: Well, that's definitely a problem. PhD G: Uh, because we could use that to fine tune our alignment process Grad A: Battery. PhD D: Yeah. PhD G: to make it more accurate. PhD B: Battery? PhD D: Mm - hmm. PhD G: So {disfmarker} uh, it {disfmarker} I don't care that you know, there's actually abutting segments that we have to join together. That's fine. PhD D: OK. PhD G: But what we do care about is that {vocalsound} the beginnings and ends um {pause} are actually close to the speech {vocalsound} inside of that PhD D: Yeah, I think Jane tightened these up by hand. PhD G: uh {disfmarker} PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD G: OK, so what is the {disfmarker} sort of how tight are they? Professor F: Uh, it looks much better. PhD B: Yeah. Looks good. Postdoc C: They were, um, reasonably tight, but not excruciatingly tight. PhD G: Oh. Postdoc C: That would've taken more time. I just wanted to get it so tha So that if you have like" yeah" {comment} in a {disfmarker} swimming in a big bin, then it's {disfmarker} PhD G: No, no! I don Grad A: Let me make a note on yours. PhD G: actually I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: I {disfmarker} it's f That's fine because we don't want to {disfmarker} th that's perfectly fine. In fact it's good. You always want to have a little bit of pause or nonspeech around the speech, say for recognition purposes. Uh, but just {disfmarker} just u w you know get an id I just wanted to have an idea of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of how much extra you allowed um {disfmarker} so that I can interpret the numbers if I compared that with a forced alignment segmentation. Postdoc C: I can't answer that, PhD G: So. Postdoc C: but {disfmarker} but my main goal was {pause} um, in these areas where you have a three - way overlap {vocalsound} and one of the overlaps involves" yeah" , {vocalsound} and it's swimming in this huge bin, {vocalsound} I wanted to get it so that it was clo more closely localized. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Right. But are we talking about, I don't know, {pause} a {vocalsound} {pause} tenth of a second? a {disfmarker}? You know? How {disfmarker} how much {disfmarker} how much extra would you allow at most {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I {disfmarker} I wanted to {disfmarker} I wanted it to be able to {disfmarker} l he be heard normally, PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: so that if you {disfmarker} if you play {pause} back that bin and have it in the mode where it stops at the boundary, {vocalsound} it sounds like a normal word. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: It doesn't sound like the person {disfmarker} i it sounds normal. It's as if the person could've stopped there. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: And it wouldn't have been an awkward place to stop. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: Now sometimes you know, it's {disfmarker} these are involved in places where there was no time. And so, {vocalsound} {vocalsound} there wouldn't be {pause} a gap afterwards because {disfmarker} PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: I mean some cases, there're some people {pause} um, who {disfmarker} who have very long {pause} segments of discourse where, {vocalsound} you know, they'll {disfmarker} they'll breath {pause} and then I put a break. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: But other than that, it's really pretty continuous and this includes things like going from one sentence into the {disfmarker} u one utterance into the next, one sentence into the next, um, w without really stopping. I mean {disfmarker} i they, i you know in writing you have this {vocalsound} two spaces and a big gap PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: you know. PhD G: Right. Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} but uh {pause} {vocalsound} i some people are planning and, you know, I mean, a lot {disfmarker} we always are planning {pause} what we're going to say next. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: But uh, in which case, the gap between {pause} these two complete syntactic units, {vocalsound} um, which of course n spoken things are not always complete syntactically, but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but it would be a shorter p shorter break {vocalsound} than {vocalsound} maybe you might like. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: But the goal there was to {pause} not have {vocalsound} the text be so {disfmarker} so crudely {pause} parsed in a time bin. I mean, because {vocalsound} from a discourse m purpose {pause} it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's more {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's more useful to be able to see {disfmarker} and also you know, from a speech recognition purpose my impression is that {vocalsound} if you have too long a unit, it's {disfmarker} it doesn't help you very much either, cuz of the memory. PhD G: Well, yeah. That's fine. Postdoc C: So, that means that {vocalsound} the amount of time after something is variable depending partly on context, but my general goal {vocalsound} when there was {pause} sufficient space, room, pause {pause} after it {pause} to have it be {pause} kind of a natural feeling {pause} gap. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: Which I c I don't know what it would be quantified as. You know, Wally Chafe says that {vocalsound} um, {vocalsound} in producing narratives, the spurts that people use {vocalsound} tend to be, {vocalsound} uh, that the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} what would be a pause might be something like two {disfmarker} two seconds. PhD G: Mmm. Postdoc C: And um, that would be, you know one speaker. The discourse {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the people who look at turn taking often do use {disfmarker} PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: I was interested that you chose uh, {vocalsound} you know um, {comment} the {disfmarker} you know that you use cuz I think that's a unit that would be more consistent with sociolinguistics. Yeah. PhD G: Well we chose um, you know, half a second because {vocalsound} if {disfmarker} if you go much larger, you have a {disfmarker} y you know, your {disfmarker} your statement about how much overlap there is becomes less, {vocalsound} um, precise, Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: because you include more of actual pause time into what you consider overlap speech. Um, so, it's sort of a compromise, PhD B: Yeah. {comment} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah, I also used I think something around zero point five seconds for the speech - nonspeech detector {disfmarker} PhD G: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's also based {disfmarker} I mean Liz suggested that value based on {vocalsound} the distribution of pause times that you see in Switchboard and {disfmarker} and other corpora. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: Um {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} PhD B: for the minimum silence length. PhD G: Mm - hmm. I see. PhD B: So. PhD G: Yeah. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: In any case, this {disfmarker} this uh, meeting {pause} that I hand {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I hand - adjusted two of them I mentioned before, PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: and I sent {disfmarker} I sent email, PhD G: OK, Postdoc C: so {disfmarker} PhD G: So {disfmarker} so at some point we will try to fine - tune our forced alignment Postdoc C: And I sent the {comment} {pause} path. PhD G: maybe using those as references because you know, what you would do is you would play with different parameters. And to get an object You need an objective {vocalsound} measure of how closely you can align the models to the actual speech. And that's where your your data would be {pause} very important to have. So, I will {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah and hopefully the new meetings {pause} which will start from the channelized version will {disfmarker} will have better time boundaries {pause} and alignments. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Right. Postdoc C: But I like this idea of {disfmarker} uh, for our purposes for the {disfmarker} for the IBM preparation, {vocalsound} uh, n having these {pause} joined together, PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. Postdoc C: and uh {disfmarker} It makes a lot of sense. And in terms of transcription, it would be easy to do it that way. PhD G: Yeah. Postdoc C: The way that they have with the longer units, PhD G: Yeah. Postdoc C: not having to fuss with adding these units at this time. PhD B: Yeah. Whi - which could have one drawback. If there is uh a backchannel in between those three things, PhD G: Right. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD B: the {disfmarker} the n the backchannel will {disfmarker} will occur at the end of {disfmarker} of those three. Postdoc C: Yes. PhD B: And {disfmarker} and in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the previous version where in the n which is used now, {vocalsound} there, the backchannel would {disfmarker} would be in - between there somewhere, so. Postdoc C: I see. PhD B: That would be more natural Postdoc C: Yeah. Well, PhD B: but {disfmarker} Postdoc C: that's {disfmarker} that's right, but you know, thi this brings me to the other f stage of this which I discussed with you earlier today, PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: which is {vocalsound} the second stage is {vocalsound} um, w what to do {pause} in terms of the transcribers adjustment of these data. I discussed this with you too. Um, the tr so the idea initially was, we would get {vocalsound} uh, for the new meetings, so the e EDU meetings, that {vocalsound} Thilo ha has now presegmented all of them for us, on a channel by channel basis. And um, so, I've assigned {disfmarker} I've {disfmarker} I've assigned them to our transcribers and um, so far I've discussed it with one, with uh {disfmarker} And I had a {pause} about an hour discussion with her about this yesterday, we went through {vocalsound} uh EDU - one, at some extent. And it occurred to me that {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} that {vocalsound} basically what we have in this kind of a format is {disfmarker} you could consider it as a staggered mixed file, we had some discussion over the weekend a about {disfmarker} at {disfmarker} at this other meeting that we were all a at {disfmarker} um, {vocalsound} about whether the tran the IBM transcribers should hear a single channel audio, or a mixed channel audio. And um, {vocalsound} in {disfmarker} in a way, by {disfmarker} by having this {disfmarker} this chunk and then the backchannel {vocalsound} after it, it's like a stagal staggered mixed channel. And um, {vocalsound} it occurred {pause} to me in my discussion with her yesterday that um, um, the {disfmarker} {pause} the {disfmarker} the maximal gain, it's {disfmarker} from the IBM {pause} people, may be in long stretches of connected speech. So it's basically a whole bunch of words {vocalsound} which they can really do, because of the continuity within that person's turn. So, what I'm thinking, and it may be that not all meetings will be good for this, {comment} but {disfmarker} but what I'm thinking is that {vocalsound} in the EDU meetings, they tend to be {vocalsound} driven by a couple of dominant speakers. And, if the chunked files focused on the dominant speakers, {vocalsound} then, when {disfmarker} when it got s patched together when it comes back from IBM, we can add the backchannels. It seems to me {vocalsound} that {vocalsound} um, you know, the backchannels per - se wouldn't be so hard, but then there's this question of the time {pause} @ @ {comment} uh, marking, and whether the beeps would be {vocalsound} uh y y y And I'm not exactly sure how that {disfmarker} how that would work with the {disfmarker} with the backchannels. And, so um {disfmarker} And certainly things that are {vocalsound} intrusions of multiple words, {vocalsound} taken out of context and displaced in time from where they occurred, {vocalsound} that would be hard. So, m my {vocalsound} thought is {pause} i I'm having this transcriber go through {vocalsound} the EDU - one meeting, and indicate a start time {nonvocalsound} f for each dominant speaker, endpoi end time for each dominant speaker, and the idea that {vocalsound} these units would be generated for the dominant speakers, {vocalsound} and maybe not for the other channels. Grad A: Yeah the only, um, disadvantage of that is, then it's hard to use an automatic method to do that. The advantage is that it's probably faster to do that than it is to use the automated method and correct it. So. Postdoc C: Well, it {disfmarker} Grad A: We'll just have to see. Postdoc C: OK. I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think um, you know, the original plan was that the transcriber would adjust the t the boundaries, and all that for all the channels but, {vocalsound} you know, that is so time - consuming, and since we have a bottleneck here, we want to get IBM things that are usable s as soon as possible, then this seemed to me it'd be a way of gett to get them a flood of data, which would be useful when it comes back to us. And um {disfmarker} Grad A: Yeah. Postdoc C: Oh also, at the same time she {disfmarker} when she goes through this, she'll be {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} If there's anything that {vocalsound} was encoded as a pause, but really has something transcribable in it, {vocalsound} then she's going to {vocalsound} uh, make a mark {disfmarker} w uh, so you know, so {vocalsound} that {disfmarker} that bin would be marked as it {disfmarker} as double dots and she'll just add an S. And in the other {disfmarker} in the other case, if it's marked as speech, {vocalsound} and really there's nothing transcribable in it, then she's going to put a s dash, and I'll go through and it {disfmarker} and um, you know, with a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} with a substitution command, get it so that it's clear that those are the other category. I'll just, you know, recode them. But um, {vocalsound} um, the transcribable events {pause} that um, I'm considering in this, {vocalsound} uh, continue to be {vocalsound} laugh, as well as speech, and cough and things like that, so I'm not stripping out anything, just {disfmarker} just you know, being very lenient in what's considered speech. Yeah? PhD D: Jane? In terms of the {disfmarker} this new procedure you're suggesting, {vocalsound} um, u what is the {disfmarker} Grad A: It's not that different. PhD D: So I'm a little confused, because how do we know where to put beeps? Is it {disfmarker} i d y is it {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Oh, OK. Grad A: Transcriber will do it. Postdoc C: So what it {disfmarker} what it {disfmarker} what it involves is {disfmarker} is really a s uh, {vocalsound} uh, the original pr procedure, but {vocalsound} only applied to {pause} uh, a certain {pause} strategically chosen {pause} s aspect of the data. Grad A: We pick the easy parts of the data basically, Postdoc C: So {disfmarker} Grad A: and transcriber marks it by hand. Postdoc C: You got it. Grad A: And because {disfmarker} PhD D: But after we've done Thilo's thing. Grad A: No. Postdoc C: Yes! Grad A: Oh, after. Oh, OK, Postdoc C: Yes! Grad A: I didn't {disfmarker} I didn't understand that. Postdoc C: Oh yeah! Grad A: OK. PhD B: So, I'm @ @ {disfmarker} now I'm confused. Postdoc C: OK. We start with your presegmented version {disfmarker} PhD G: OK, and I'm leaving. Grad E: Yeah, I have to go as well. PhD G: So, um {disfmarker} Grad A: OK, leave the mikes on, and just put them on the table. Grad E: OK. Thanks. Postdoc C: We start with the presegmented version {disfmarker} Grad A: Let me mark you as no digits. PhD B: You start with the presegmentation, r {vocalsound} yeah? Postdoc C: Yeah. And then um, {vocalsound} the transcriber, {vocalsound} instead of going painstakingly through all the channels and moving the boundaries around, and deciding if it's speech or not, but not transcribing anything. OK? Instead of doing that, which was our original plan, {vocalsound} the tra They focus on the dominant speaker {disfmarker} PhD D: Mm - hmm. They just {vocalsound} do that on {pause} the main channels. Postdoc C: Yeah. So what they do is they identify who's the di dominant speaker, and when the speaker starts. PhD D: OK. PhD B: Yeah? OK. Postdoc C: So I mean, you're still gonna {disfmarker} PhD B: And you just {disfmarker} Postdoc C: So we're {disfmarker} It's based on your se presegmentation, that's the basic {pause} thing. PhD B: and you just use the s the segments of the dominant speaker then? For {disfmarker} for sending to {disfmarker} to IBM or {disfmarker}? Postdoc C: Yeah. Exactly. PhD D: So, now Jane, my question is {vocalsound} when they're all done adjusting the w time boundaries for the dominant speaker, {comment} have they then also erased the time boundaries for the other ones? Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Uh No. No, no. Huh - uh. S PhD D: So how will we know who {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: That's {disfmarker} that's why she's notating the start and end points of the dominant speakers. So, on a {disfmarker} you know, so {vocalsound} i in EDU - one, i as far as I listened to it, you start off with a {disfmarker} a s section by Jerry. So Jerry starts at minute so - and - so, and goes until minute so - and - so. And then Mark Paskin comes in. And he starts at {vocalsound} minute such - and - such, and goes on till minute so - and - so. OK. And then {vocalsound} meanwhile, she's listening to {vocalsound} {pause} both of these guys'channels, determining if there're any cases of misclassification of speech as nothing, and nothing as speech, PhD D: Mm - hmm. OK. Postdoc C: and {vocalsound} a and adding a tag if that happens. PhD D: So she does the adjustments on those guys? Postdoc C: But you know, I wanted to say, his segmentation is so good, that {vocalsound} um, the part that I listened to with her yesterday {vocalsound} didn't need any adjustments of the bins. PhD B: On that meeting. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: So far we haven't. So this is not gonna be a major part of the process, at least {disfmarker} least not in {disfmarker} not on ones that {disfmarker} that really {disfmarker} PhD D: So if you don't have to adjust the bins, why not just do what it {disfmarker} for all the channels? Postdoc C: Mm - hmm? PhD D: Why not just throw all the channels to IBM? Postdoc C: Well there's the question o of {pause} whether {disfmarker} Well, OK. She i It's a question of how much time we want our transcriber to invest here {vocalsound} when she's gonna have to invest that when it comes back from IBM anyway. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: So if it's only inserting" mm - hmm" s here and there, then, wouldn't that be something that would be just as efficient to do at this end, instead of having it go through I B M, then be patched together, then be double checked here. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Right. PhD B: Yeah. But {disfmarker} But then we could just use the {disfmarker} the output of the detector, and do the beeping on it, and send it to I B PhD D: Without having her check anything. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: Right. Postdoc C: Well, I guess {disfmarker} Grad A: I think we just {disfmarker} we just have to listen to it and see how good they are. PhD B: For some meetings, I'm {disfmarker} I'm sure it {disfmarker} i n Postdoc C: I'm {disfmarker} I'm open to that, it was {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah, if it's working well, PhD B: That's {disfmarker} And some {disfmarker} on some meetings it's good. Professor F: that sounds like a good idea since as you say you have to do stuff with the other end anyway. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Well yea OK, good. I mean the detector, this {disfmarker} PhD D: Yeah, I mean we have to fix it when it comes back anyhow. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Now, you were saying that they {disfmarker} they differ in how well they work depending on channel s sys systems and stuff. PhD B: Yeah. So we should perhaps just select meetings on which the speech - nonspeech detection works well, Postdoc C: But EDU is great. PhD B: and just use, {vocalsound} those meetings to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to send to IBM and, do the other ones. Grad A: Release to begin with. Postdoc C: How interesting. You know {disfmarker} Professor F: What's the problem {disfmarker} the l I forget. Is the problem the lapel, or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} PhD B: Uh, it really depends. Um, my {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} my impression is that it's better for meetings with fewer speakers, and it's better for {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for meetings where nobody is breathing. Professor F: Oh, PhD B: Yeah, Professor F: the dead meetings. PhD B: get {disfmarker} That's it. PhD D: So in fact this might suggest an alternative sort of a {disfmarker} a c a hybrid between these two things. Grad A: No, the undead meeting, yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah. Yeah? PhD D: So the {disfmarker} the one suggestion is you know we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we run Thilo's thing and then we have somebody go and adjust all the time boundaries PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah? PhD D: and we send it to IBM. The other one is {vocalsound} we just run his thing and send it to IBM. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: There's a {disfmarker} a another possibility if we find that there are some problems, PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. PhD D: and that is {vocalsound} if we go ahead and we {vocalsound} just run his, and we generate the beeps file, then we have somebody listen beeps file. PhD B: Yeah. And erase {disfmarker} PhD D: And they listen to each section and say" yes, no" whether that section is PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Is intelligible. PhD D: i i intelligible or not. And it just {disfmarker} You know, there's a little interface which will {disfmarker} for all the" yes" - es it {disfmarker} then that will be the final {vocalsound} beep file. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: Blech. Postdoc C: That's interesting! Cuz that's {disfmarker} that's directly related to the e end task. Grad A: Stress test. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: How interesting! PhD D: Yeah. I mean it wouldn't be that much fun for a transcriber to sit there, hear it, beep, yes or no. PhD B: Nope. Professor F: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know. PhD D: But it would be quick. Professor F: It would be {disfmarker} kind of quick but they're still listening to everything. PhD D: But there's no adjusting. And that's what's slow. There's no adjusting of time boundaries. Postdoc C: Well, {vocalsound} eh, listening does take time too. PhD D: Yeah. Professor F: Yeah. I don't know, I {disfmarker} I think I'm {disfmarker} I'm really tending towards {disfmarker} Grad A: One and a half times real time. Professor F: I mean, {vocalsound} what's the worst that happens? Do the transcribers {disfmarker} I mean as long as th on the other end they can say there's {disfmarker} there's something {disfmarker} conventions so that they say" huh?" PhD D: Yeah. Right. They {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} Professor F: and then we can flag those later. PhD D: Yeah. That's true. Professor F: i i It {disfmarker} i PhD D: We can just catch it at the {disfmarker} catch everything at this side. Professor F: Yeah. PhD D: Well maybe that's the best way to go, Postdoc C: How interesting! PhD D: just {disfmarker} Grad A: I mean it just depends on how {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Well EDU {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah, Grad A: Sorry, go ahead. PhD B: u u u Postdoc C: So I was gonna say, EDU - one is good enough, PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: maybe we could include it in this {disfmarker} in this set of uh, this stuff we send. PhD B: Yeah there's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think there are some meetings where it would {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} It's possible like this. Grad A: Yeah I {disfmarker} I think, we won't know until we generate a bunch of beep files automatically, listen to them and see how bad they are. PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD D: We won't be able to s include it with this first thing, Grad A: If {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Hmm. Oh, OK. PhD D: because there's a part of the process of the beep file which requires knowing the normalization coefficients. Postdoc C: Oh, I see. PhD D: And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So a Grad A: That's not hard to do. Just {disfmarker} it takes {disfmarker} you know, it just takes five minutes rather than, taking a second. PhD D: OK PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: So. I just hand {disfmarker} hard - coded it. PhD D: Right, except I don't think that {disfmarker} the c the instructions for doing that was in that directory, right? I {disfmarker} I didn't see where you had gener Grad A: No, but it's easy enough to do. PhD B: What {disfmarker} Professor F: But I {disfmarker} but I have a {disfmarker} PhD B: Doing the gain? It's no problem. Adjusting the gain? PhD D: n Doing th No, getting the coefficients, for each channel. PhD B: Yeah, that's no problem. Postdoc C: Know what numbers. PhD D: OK. So we just run that one {disfmarker} Grad A: There are lots of ways to do it. PhD B: We can do that. Grad A: I have one program that'll do it. You can find other programs. PhD B: Yeah. I {disfmarker} I used it, so. PhD D: We just run that Grad A: Yep. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: J - sound - stat? OK. Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: Minus D, capital D. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I have {pause} another suggestion on that, which is, {vocalsound} since, really what this is, is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is trying to in the large, send the right thing to them and there is gonna be this {disfmarker} this post - processing step, um, why don't we check through a bunch of things by sampling it? PhD D: Mm - hmm. Professor F: Right? In other words, rather than, um, uh, saying we're gonna listen to everything {disfmarker} Grad A: I didn't mean listen to everything, I meant, just see if they're any good. Professor F: Yeah. So y you do a bunch of meetings, you listen to {disfmarker} to a little bit here and there, PhD D: Yeah. Professor F: if it sounds like it's almost always right and there's not any big problem you send it to them. PhD D: Send it to them. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: OK. Professor F: And, you know, then they'll send us back what we {disfmarker} w what {disfmarker} what they send back to us, Postdoc C: Oh, that'd be great. Professor F: and we'll {disfmarker} we'll fix things up and {vocalsound} some meetings will cost more time to fix up than others. Grad A: We should {disfmarker} Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: And we should just double - check with Brian on a few simple conventions on how they should mark things. PhD B: Sure. PhD D: OK. When they {disfmarker} when there's either no speech in there, PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. PhD D: or {vocalsound} something they don't understand, Postdoc C: Yeah. Mm - hmm. PhD D: things like that. Grad A: Yeah, cuz @ @ uh what I had originally said to Brian was well they'll have to mark, when they can't distinguish between the foreground and background, Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: because I thought that was gonna be the most prevalent. But if we send them without editing, then we're also gonna hafta have m uh, notations for words that are cut off, PhD D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Grad A: and other sorts of, uh, acoustic problems. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: They do already. PhD D: And they may just guess at what those cut - off words are, Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD D: but w I mean we're gonna adjust {disfmarker} everything when we come back {disfmarker} Grad A: But what {disfmarker} what we would like them to do is be conservative so that they should only write down the transcript if they're sure. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: And otherwise they should mark it so that we can check. PhD B: Mark it. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: Well, we have the unintelligibility {pause} convention. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: And actually they have one also, Grad A: Right. Postdoc C: which {disfmarker} Professor F: i Can I maybe have {disfmarker} have an order of {disfmarker} it's probably in your paper that I haven't looked at lately, but {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Certainty. Professor F: Uh, an order of magnitude notion of {disfmarker} of how {disfmarker} on a good meeting, how often uh, do you get segments that come in the middle of words and so forth, and uh {disfmarker} in a bad meeting how {vocalsound} often? PhD B: Uh. Postdoc C: Was is it in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what is the t Professor F: Well he's saying, you know, that the {disfmarker} the EDU meeting was a good {disfmarker} good meeting, Postdoc C: In a good meeting, what? PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah. Professor F: right? Postdoc C: Oh I see, Professor F: Uh, and so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so it was almost {disfmarker} it was almost always doing the right thing. Postdoc C: the characteristics. Professor F: So I wanted to get some sense of what {disfmarker} what almost always meant. And then, uh in a bad meeting, {vocalsound} or p some meetings where he said oh he's had some problems, what does that mean? Postdoc C: Uh - huh. OK. Professor F: So I mean does one of the does it mean one percent and ten percent? Or does it mean {vocalsound} five percent and fifty percent? Postdoc C: OK. Professor F: Uh {disfmarker} PhD B: So {disfmarker} Professor F: Or {disfmarker} Maybe percentage isn't the right word, Postdoc C: Just PhD B: Yeah th Professor F: but you know how many {disfmarker} how many per minute, or {disfmarker} You know. PhD B: Yeah, the {disfmarker} the problem is that, nnn, the numbers Ian gave in the paper is just uh, some frame error rate. So that's {disfmarker} that's not really {disfmarker} {vocalsound} What will be effective for {disfmarker} for the transcribers, is {disfmarker} They have to {disfmarker} yeah, in in they have to insure that that's a real s spurt or something. And {disfmarker} but, {vocalsound} the numbers {disfmarker} Oops. Um {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Hmm! PhD B: Let me think. So the {pause} speech {disfmarker} the amount of speech that is missed by the {pause} detector, for a good meeting, I th is around {pause} or under one percent, I would say. But there can be {disfmarker} Yeah. For {disfmarker} yeah, but there can be more {disfmarker} There's {disfmarker} There's more amount speech {disfmarker} uh, more amount of {disfmarker} Yeah well, the detector says there is speech, but there is none. So that {disfmarker} that can be a lot when {disfmarker} when it's really a breathy channel. Professor F: But I think that's less of a problem. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: They'll just listen. It's just wasted time. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: And th and that's for a good meeting. Now what about in a meeting that you said we've {disfmarker} you've had some more trouble with? PhD B: I can't {comment} really {disfmarker} hhh, {comment} {pause} Tsk. {comment} I {pause} don't have really representative numbers, I think. That's really {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I did {pause} this on {disfmarker} on four meetings and only five minutes of {disfmarker} of every meet of {disfmarker} of these meetings so, {vocalsound} it's not {disfmarker} not that representative, but, it's perhaps, Fff. Um {disfmarker} Yeah, it's perhaps then {disfmarker} it's perhaps five percent of something, which s uh the {disfmarker} the frames {disfmarker} speech frames which are {disfmarker} which are missed, but um, I can't {disfmarker} can't really tell. Professor F: Right. So I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So i Sometime, we might wanna go back and look at it more in terms of {vocalsound} how many times is there a spurt that's {disfmarker} that's uh, interrupted? PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Professor F: Something like that? Postdoc C: The other problem is, that when it {disfmarker} when it uh d i on the breathy ones, where you get {vocalsound} {vocalsound} breathing, uh, inti indicated as speech. Professor F: And {disfmarker} PhD B: So {disfmarker} Postdoc C: And I guess we could just indicate to the transcribers not to {pause} encode that if they {disfmarker} We could still do the beep file. Professor F: Yeah again I {disfmarker} I think that that is probably less of a problem because if you're {disfmarker} if there's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If {disfmarker} if a {disfmarker} if a word is {disfmarker} is split, then they might have to listen to it a few times to really understand that they can't quite get it. Postdoc C: OK. OK. PhD B: But {disfmarker} Postdoc C: OK. Professor F: Whereas if they listen {nonvocalsound} to it and there's {disfmarker} don't hear any speech I think they'd probably just listen to it once. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: So there'd {disfmarker} you'd think there'd be a {disfmarker} a factor of three or four in {disfmarker} in, uh, cost function, Postdoc C: OK. Professor F: you know, between them or something. PhD B: Yeah, so {disfmarker} but I think that's {disfmarker} n that really doesn't happen very often that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that a word is cut in the middle or something. That's {disfmarker} that's really not {disfmarker} not normal. Professor F: So {disfmarker} so what you're saying is that nearly always what happens when there's a problem is that {disfmarker} is that uh, there's {vocalsound} some uh, uh nonspeech that uh {disfmarker} that is b interpreted as speech. PhD B: That is marked as speech. Yeah. Yeah. Professor F: Well then, we really should just send the stuff. Postdoc C: That would be great. Professor F: Right? Because that doesn't do any harm. PhD B: Yeah, it's {disfmarker} Professor F: You know, if they {disfmarker} they hear you know, a dog bark and they say what was the word, they {comment} you know, they {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah, I als I {disfmarker} Professor F: Ruff ruff! PhD B: Yeah I also thought of {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there are really some channels where it is almost {comment} um, only bre breathing in it. And to {disfmarker} to re - run's Professor F: Yeah? PhD B: Eh, um. Yeah. I've got a {disfmarker} a {pause} P - a {pause} method with loops into the cross - correlation with the PZM mike, and then to reject everything which {disfmarker} which seems to be breath. Professor F: Uh - huh. PhD B: So, I could run this on those breathy channels, and perhaps throw out {disfmarker} Grad A: That's a good idea. Postdoc C: Wow, that's a great idea. Professor F: Yeah. But I think {disfmarker} I th Again, I think that sort of {disfmarker} that that would be good, PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: and what that'll do is just cut the time a little further. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Professor F: But I think none of this is stuff that really needs somebody doing these {disfmarker} these uh, uh, explicit markings. PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: Excellent. Oh, I'd be delighted with that, I {disfmarker} I was very impressed with the {disfmarker} with the result. Yeah. Professor F: Yeah, cuz the other thing that was concerning me about it was that it seemed kind of specialized to the EDU meeting, and {disfmarker} and that then when you get a meeting like this or something, PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and you have a b a bunch of different dominant speakers Postdoc C: Oh yeah, interesting. Professor F: you know, how are you gonna handle it. Postdoc C: Oh yeah. Professor F: Whereas this sounds like a more general solution Postdoc C: Oh yeah, I pr I much prefer this, Professor F: is {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I was just trying to find a way {disfmarker} Cuz I {disfmarker} I don't think the staggered mixed channel is awfully good as a way of handling overlaps. Professor F: Yeah. Uh - huh. Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} but uh {disfmarker} PhD D: Well good. That {disfmarker} that really simplifies thing then. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD D: And we can just, you know, get the meeting, process it, put the beeps file, send it off to IBM. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD D: You know? PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: With very little {pause} work on our side. PhD B: Process it, hear into it. I would {disfmarker} PhD D: Do what? PhD B: Um, {pause} listen to it, and then {disfmarker} Grad A: Or at least sample it. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Well, sample it. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Sample it. Professor F: I {disfmarker} I would just use some samples, PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. Professor F: make sure you don't send them three hours of" bzzz" {comment} or something. PhD D: Yeah. PhD B: No. PhD D: Yeah. Right. PhD B: That won't be good. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD D: Yeah. Yeah that would be very good. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: And then we can you know {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah. PhD D: That'll oughta be a good way to get the pipeline going. Postdoc C: Oh, I'd be delighted. Yeah. PhD B: And there's {disfmarker} there's one point which I {comment} uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah, which {disfmarker} which I r {vocalsound} we covered when I {disfmarker} when I r listened to one of the EDU meetings, Professor F: Great. PhD B: and that's {vocalsound} that somebody is playing sound from his laptop. Grad A: Uh - huh PhD B: And i {vocalsound} the speech - nonspeech detector just assigns randomly the speech to {disfmarker} to one of the channels, so. Uh - I haven't - I didn't think of {disfmarker} of s of {vocalsound} this before, Grad A: What can you do? PhD B: but what {disfmarker} what shall we do about s things like this? Postdoc C: Well you were suggesting {disfmarker} You suggested maybe just not sending that part of the meeting. Grad A: Yep. Mmm. Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} PhD B: But, sometimes the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the laptop is in the background and some {disfmarker} somebody is {disfmarker} is talking, and, {vocalsound} that's really a little bit confusing, but {disfmarker} Grad A: It's a little bit confusing. Professor F: That's life. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: I mean, {comment} what're we gonna do? PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: Even a hand - transcription would {disfmarker} PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: Do you {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: a hand - transcriber would have trouble with that. PhD B: Yeah, Grad A: So. PhD B: that's {disfmarker} that's a second question," what {disfmarker} what will different transcribers do with {disfmarker} with the laptop sound?" Postdoc C: Would you {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} Professor F: What was the l what was the laptop sound? Postdoc C: Yeah, go ahead. Professor F: I mean was it speech, PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: or was it {disfmarker} PhD B: It's speech. Professor F: Great. Postdoc C: Well, so {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} So my standard approach has been if it's not someone close - miked, then, they don't end up on one of the close - miked channels. They end up on a different channel. And we have any number of channels available, Professor F: Uh - huh. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: I mean it's an infinite number of channels. PhD B: But, Postdoc C: So just put them on some other channel. PhD B: when thi when this is sent to {disfmarker} to the I M - eh, I B M transcribers, I don't know if {disfmarker} if they can tell that's really {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Yeah, that's right. Grad A: Yeah cuz there will be no channel on which it is foreground. PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. Grad A: Uh {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Well, they have a convention, in their own procedures, {vocalsound} which is for a background {pause} sound. Grad A: Right, but, uh, in general I don't think we want them transcribing the background, cuz that would be too much work. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: Right? For it {disfmarker} because in the overlap sections, then they'll PhD D: Well I don't think Jane's saying they're gonna transcribe it, but they'll just mark it as being {disfmarker} there's some background stuff there, Grad A: But that's gonna be all over the place. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD D: right? Grad A: How w how will they tell the difference between that sort of background and the dormal {disfmarker} normal background of two people talking at once? PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Oh, I think {disfmarker} I think it'd be easy to to say" background laptop" . Grad A: How would they know that? PhD D: But wait a minute, why would they treat them differently? PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Well because one of them {disfmarker} Grad A: Because otherwise it's gonna be too much work for them to mark it. They'll be marking it all over the place. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Oh, I s background laptop or, background LT {vocalsound} {vocalsound} wouldn't take any time. Grad A: Sure, but how are they gonna tell bet the difference between that and two people just talking at the same time? Postdoc C: And {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Oh, you can tell. Acoustically, can't you tell? PhD B: It's really good sound, so {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Oh is it? Oh! Professor F: Well, I mean, isn't there a category something like uh," sounds for someone for whom there is no i close mike" ? PhD B: Yeah that would be very important, Grad A: But how do we d how do we do that for the I B M folks? Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD B: yeah. Grad A: How can they tell that? PhD D: Well we may just have to do it when it gets back here. Grad A: Yes, that's my opinion as well. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: So we don't do anything for it {disfmarker} with it. Postdoc C: OK. PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: That sounds good. Grad A: And they'll just mark it however they mark it, Postdoc C: That sounds good. PhD D: Yeah. Grad A: and we'll correct it when it comes back. PhD B: So th Professor F: Yeah. PhD B: there was a category for @ @ {comment} speech. Postdoc C: OK. Grad A: Yeah, the default. Postdoc C: Yeah, s a Grad A: No, not default. PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: Well, as it comes back, we have a uh {disfmarker} when we can use the channelized interface for encoding it, then it'll be easy for us to handle. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but if {disfmarker} if out of context, they can't tell if it's a channeled speak uh, you know, a close - miked speaker or not, {vocalsound} then that would be confusing to them. PhD B: OK. Grad A: Right. PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: I don't know, I {disfmarker} it doesn't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} Either way would be fine with me, I don't really care. Professor F: Yeah. So. Shall we uh, do digits and get out of here? Grad A: Yep. Postdoc C: I have o I have one question. Do you think we should send the um {disfmarker} that whole meeting to them and not worry about pre - processing it? Professor F: Yes ma'Postdoc C: Or {disfmarker} Uh, what I mean is {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} we should {vocalsound} leave the {vocalsound} part with the audio in the uh, beep file that we send to IBM for that one, or should we {vocalsound} start after the {disfmarker} that part of the meeting is over in what we send. Professor F: Which part? PhD B: With {disfmarker} Postdoc C: So, the part where they're using sounds from their {disfmarker} from their laptops. PhD B: with the laptop sound, or {disfmarker}? just {disfmarker} Postdoc C: w If we have speech from the laptop should we just uh, excise that from what we send to IBM, or should we {vocalsound} i give it to them and let them do with it what they can? PhD D: I think we should just {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it's gonna be too much work if we hafta {vocalsound} worry about that I think. Postdoc C: OK, that'd be nice to have a {disfmarker} a uniform procedure. PhD D: Yeah, I think if we just {disfmarker} m send it all to them. you know. Grad A: Worry about it when we get back. Postdoc C: Good. And see how well they do. PhD D: Let {disfmarker} Yeah, worry about it when we get back in. Postdoc C: And give them freedom to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to indicate if it's just not workable. Professor F: Yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah, PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: OK, Professor F: Yeah. Postdoc C: excellent. Professor F: Cuz, I wouldn't {disfmarker} don't think we would mind {pause} having that {pause} transcribed, if they did it. Grad A: I think {disfmarker} PhD D: Yeah, e Grad A: As I say, we'll just have to listen to it and see how horrible it is. Postdoc C: Yeah, yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: Sample it, rather. Postdoc C: OK. Alright. PhD B: I think that {disfmarker} that will be a little bit of a problem PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: That's great. PhD B: as it really switches around between {vocalsound} two different channels, I think. Grad A: Mm - hmm, and {disfmarker} and they're very {disfmarker} it's very audible? on the close - talking channels? PhD B: What {disfmarker} what I would {disfmarker} Yeah. Grad A: Oh well. I mean, it's the same problem as the lapel mike. Professor F: Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: But {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Oh, interesting. PhD B: Comparable, yeah. Professor F: Yeah. PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: OK, alright. Digits. Professor F: Let's do digits. Postdoc C: OK, so we read the transcript number first, right? Grad A: Are we gonna do it altogether or separately? PhD B: So {disfmarker} What time is it? Professor F: Uh, {vocalsound} why don't we do it together, Postdoc C: Uh, quarter to four. PhD B: Oh, OK. Professor F: that's {disfmarker} that's a nice fast way to do it. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Professor F: One, two, three, go! Postdoc C: It's kind of interesting if there're any more errors in these, {vocalsound} than we had the first set. Grad A: Nnn, yeah, I think there probably will be. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Do you guys plug your ears when you do it? Grad A: I do. PhD B: No. Postdoc C: I usually do. PhD D: I do. PhD B: I don't. Postdoc C: I didn't this time. PhD D: You don't? PhD B: No. Professor F: I haven't been, PhD D: How can you do that? Professor F: no. PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Professor F: Uh, concentration. PhD B: Perhaps there are {vocalsound} lots of errors in it PhD D: Gah! Grad A: Total concentration. Are you guys ready? PhD D: You hate to have your ears plugged? Professor F: Yeah. PhD D: Really?

In order to make things easier for the transcribers, breathy channels, which are erroneously marked as speech, will be re-classified correctly with other methods.

tr-sq-665

tr-sq-665_0

What difficulties were faced? Grad A: OK, we're recording. Professor F: We can say the word" zero" all we want, PhD G: I'm doing some Professor F: but just {disfmarker} PhD G: square brackets, coffee sipping, square brackets. PhD B: That's not allowed, I think. Postdoc C: Cur - curly brackets. Grad E: Is that voiced or unvoiced? Grad A: Curly brackets. PhD B: Curly brackets. Professor F: Curly brackets. Grad A: Right. PhD B: Oops. Professor F: Well, correction for transcribers. PhD G: Mmm! {comment} {vocalsound} Gar - darn! Professor F: Yeah. Postdoc C: Channel two. Grad A: Do we use square brackets for anything? Postdoc C: Yeah. Uh {disfmarker} Grad E: These poor transcribers. Professor F: u Postdoc C: Not ri not right now. I mean {disfmarker} No. PhD D: There's gonna be some zeros from this morning's meeting because I noticed that Professor F: u PhD D: Barry, I think maybe you turned your mike off before the digits were {disfmarker} Oh, was it during digits? Oh, so it doesn't matter. Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: It's still not a good idea. PhD B: So it's not {disfmarker} it's not that bad if it's at the end, but it's {disfmarker} in the beginning, it's {pause} bad. PhD D: Yeah. Yeah. Grad A: Yeah, you wanna {disfmarker} you wanna keep them on so you get {pause} good noise {disfmarker} noise floors, through the whole meeting. Postdoc C: That's interesting. Hmm. Professor F: Uh, I probably just should have left it on. Yeah I did have to run, but {disfmarker} Grad E: Is there any way to change that in the software? Grad A: Change what in the software? Grad E: Where like you just don't {disfmarker} like if you {disfmarker} if it starts catching zeros, like in the driver or something {disfmarker} in the card, or somewhere in the hardware {disfmarker} Where if you start seeing zeros on w across one channel, you just add some {vocalsound} random, @ @ {comment} noise floor {disfmarker} like a small noise floor. Grad A: I mean certainly we could do that, but I don't think that's a good idea. We can do that in post - processing if {disfmarker} if the application needs it. Grad E: Yeah. PhD B: Manual post - processing. Professor F: Well, I {disfmarker} u I actually don't know what the default {comment} is anymore as to how we're using the {disfmarker} the front - end stuff but {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} when we use the ICSI front - end, Grad A: As an argument. Professor F: but um, there is an {disfmarker} there is an o an option in {disfmarker} in RASTA, which, um, {vocalsound} in when I first put it in, uh, back in the days when I actually wrote things, uh, {vocalsound} I {pause} did actually put in a random bit or so that was in it, Grad E: OK. Professor F: but {vocalsound} then I realized that putting in a random bit was equivalent to adding uh {disfmarker} adding flat spectrum, Grad E: Right. Professor F: and it was a lot faster to just add a constant to the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to the spectrum. So then I just started doing that Grad E: Mmm. OK. Professor F: instead of calling" rand" {comment} or something, Grad E: Right. Professor F: so. So it d it does that. Gee! Here we all are! Grad A: Uh, so the only agenda items were Jane {disfmarker} was Jane wanted to talk about some of the IBM transcription process. Professor F: There's an agenda? Grad A: I sort of {vocalsound} condensed the three things you said into that. And then just {disfmarker} I only have like, this afternoon and maybe tomorrow morning to get anything done before I go to Japan for ten days. So if there's anything that n absolutely, desperately needs to be done, you should let me know now. Professor F: Uh, and you just sent off a Eurospeech paper, so. PhD G: Right. I hope they accept it. Professor F: Right. PhD G: I mean, I {disfmarker} both actu as {disfmarker} as a submission and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know, as a paper. Um {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} Grad A: Well yeah, you sent it in {pause} late. Professor F: Yeah, I guess you {disfmarker} first you have to do the first one, Grad A: Yeah. Professor F: and then {disfmarker} Yeah. PhD G: We actually exceeded the delayed deadline by o another day, so. PhD B: Oops. Professor F: Oh they {disfmarker} they had some extension that they announced or something? PhD G: Well yeah. Liz had sent them a note saying" could we please {pause} have another" {comment} {pause} I don't know," three days" or something, and they said yes. PhD D: And then she said" Did I say three? Grad A: Oh, PhD D: I meant four." Grad A: that was the other thing uh, PhD G: But u Grad A: uh, Dave Gelbart sent me email, I think he sent it to you too, {comment} that um, there's a special topic, section in si in Eurospeech on new, corp corpors corpora. And it's not due until like May fifteenth. Professor F: Oh this isn't the Aurora one? Grad A: No. Professor F: It's another one? Grad A: It's a different one. PhD B: No it's {disfmarker} Yeah. Yeah. Grad E: Huh! Grad A: And uh, Professor F: Oh! PhD B: I got this mail from {disfmarker} Grad A: I s forwarded it to Jane as I thought being the most relevant person. Um {disfmarker} So, I thought it was highly relevant {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Yeah I'm {disfmarker} Professor F: That's {disfmarker} Grad A: have you {disfmarker} did you look at the URL? Postdoc C: Yeah. I think so too. Um, I haven't gotten over to there yet, Grad A: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: but what {disfmarker} our discussion yesterday, I really {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I wanna submit one. PhD B: Was this {pause} SmartKom message? I think {pause} Christoph Draxler sent this, Postdoc C: Yeah. And, you offered to {disfmarker} to join me, if you want me to. Grad A: I'll help, PhD B: yeah. Grad A: but obviously I can't, really do, most of it, Postdoc C: Yeah. Yeah, that's right. PhD G: I think several people {disfmarker} sent this, Grad A: so. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Uh - huh. PhD G: yeah. Grad A: But any {disfmarker} any help you need I can certainly provide. Professor F: Well, PhD G: Yeah. Professor F: that's {disfmarker} that's a great idea. PhD G: Well {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there were some interesting results in this paper, though. For instance that Morgan {disfmarker} uh, accounted for fifty - six percent of the Robustness meetings in terms of number of words. Grad A: Wow. Postdoc C: In {disfmarker} in terms of what? In term PhD G: Number of words. Postdoc C: One? Wow! OK. Grad A: That's just cuz he talks really fast. Postdoc C: Do you mean, Professor F: n No. Grad A: I know PhD B: Oh. Short words. Postdoc C: because {disfmarker} is it partly, eh, c correctly identified words? Or is it {disfmarker} or just overall volume? PhD G: No. Well, according to the transcripts. Grad A: But re well regardless. I think it's {disfmarker} he's {disfmarker} he's in all of them, Postdoc C: Oh. OK. Professor F: Yeah. PhD G: I mean, we didn't mention Morgan by name Grad A: and he talks a lot. PhD G: we just {disfmarker} Grad A: One participant. Professor F: Well {disfmarker} we have now, but {disfmarker} PhD G: We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} something about {disfmarker} Grad A: Did you identify him as a senior {pause} member? PhD G: No, we as identify him as the person dominating the conversation. Professor F: Well. Grad A: Yeah. Postdoc C: OK. Professor F: I mean I get these AARP things, but I'm not se really senior yet, but {disfmarker} PhD G: Right Professor F: Um, PhD G: Hmm. Professor F: but uh, other than that delightful result, what was the rest of the paper about? PhD G: Um, well it was about {disfmarker} it had three sections Professor F: You sent it to me but I haven't seen it yet. PhD G: uh {disfmarker} three kinds of uh results, if you will. Uh, the one was that the {disfmarker} just the {disfmarker} the amount of overlap Grad A: The good, the bad, and the ugly. PhD G: um, s in terms of {disfmarker} in terms of number of words and also we computed something called a" spurt" , which is essentially a stretch of speech with uh, no pauses exceeding five hundred milliseconds. Um, and we computed how many overlapped i uh spurts there were and how many overlapped words there were. {vocalsound} Um, for four different {pause} corpora, the Meeting Recorder meetings, the Robustness meetings Switchboard and CallHome, and, found {disfmarker} and sort of compared the numbers. Um, and found that the, uh, you know, as you might expect the Meeting Recorder {pause} meetings had the most overlap uh, but next were Switchboard and CallHome, which both had roughly the same, almost identical in fact, and the Robustness meetings were {disfmarker} had the least, so {disfmarker} One sort of unexpected result there is that uh two - party telephone conversations have {vocalsound} about the same amount of overlap, Grad A: I'm surprised. PhD G: sort of in gen you know {disfmarker} order of magnitude - wise as, uh {disfmarker} as face - to - face meetings with multiple {disfmarker} Grad A: I have {disfmarker} I had better start changing all my slides! PhD G: Yeah. Also, I {disfmarker} in the Levinson, the pragmatics book, {comment} in you know, uh, textbook, {vocalsound} there's {disfmarker} I found this great quote where he says {vocalsound} you know {disfmarker} you know, how people {disfmarker} it talks about how uh {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how people are so good at turn taking, Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Yeah. PhD G: and {vocalsound} so {disfmarker} they're so good that {vocalsound} generally, u the overlapped speech does not {disfmarker} is less than five percent. Postdoc C: Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. PhD G: So, this is way more than five percent. Grad E: Did he mean face {disfmarker} like face - to - face? Or {disfmarker}? PhD G: Well, in real conversations, Grad E: Hmm. PhD G: everyday conversations. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: It's s what these conversation analysts have been studying for years and years there. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD B: But {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Well, of course, no, it doesn't necessarily go against what he said, cuz he said" generally speaking" . In order to {disfmarker} to go against that kind of a claim you'd have to big canvassing. Grad A: Hmm. PhD B: And in f PhD G: Well, he {disfmarker} he made a claim {disfmarker} Grad A: Well {disfmarker} PhD G: Well {disfmarker} Grad A: PhD B: But {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah, we {disfmarker} we have pretty limited sample here. PhD B: Five percent of time or five percent of what? Grad A: Yeah, I was gonna ask that too. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Exactly. PhD G: Well it's time. PhD B: Yeah, so {disfmarker} Postdoc C: It's {disfmarker} i it's not against his conclusion, PhD G: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but still {disfmarker} but still {disfmarker} u Postdoc C: it just says that it's a bi bell curve, and that, {vocalsound} you have something that has a nice range, in your sampling. PhD G: Yeah. So there are slight {disfmarker} There are differences in how you measure it, but still it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You know, the difference between um {disfmarker} between that number and what we have in meetings, which is more like, {vocalsound} you know, close to {disfmarker} in meetings like these, uh {disfmarker} you know, close to twenty percent. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor F: But what was it like, say, in the Robustness meeting, for instance? PhD G: That {disfmarker} Grad A: But {disfmarker} PhD G: Robustness meeting? It was {vocalsound} about half of the r So, {vocalsound} in terms of number of words, it's like seventeen or eigh eighteen percent for the Meeting Recorder meetings and {vocalsound} about half that for, {vocalsound} uh, the Robustness. Professor F: Maybe ten percent? Grad A: But I don't know if that's really a fair way of comparing between, multi - party, conversations and two - party conversations. Yeah. I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know. PhD B: Then {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} then you have to {disfmarker} Grad A: I mean that's just something {disfmarker} PhD D: Yeah, I just wonder if you have to normalize by the numbers of speakers or something. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD B: Then {disfmarker} Yeah, then normalize by {disfmarker} by something like that, Postdoc C: Yeah, that's a good point. PhD G: Well, we didn't get to look at that, PhD B: yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD G: but this obvious thing to see if {disfmarker} if there's a dependence on the number of uh {disfmarker} participants. Postdoc C: Good idea. Grad A: I mean {disfmarker} I bet there's a weak dependence. I'm sure it's {disfmarker} it's not a real strong one. PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: Right. Grad A: Right? Because you PhD D: Cuz not everybody talks. Grad A: Right. PhD G: Right. PhD D: Yeah. Grad A: You have a lot of {disfmarker} a lot of two - party, subsets within the meeting. PhD G: Right. Postdoc C: Uh - huh. Grad A: Well regardless {disfmarker} it's an interesting result regardless. PhD G: So {disfmarker} Right. Postdoc C: Yes, that's right. PhD G: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} and we also d computed this both with and without backchannels, Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: so you might think that backchannels have a special status because they're essentially just {disfmarker} Grad A: Uh - huh. So, did {disfmarker} we all said" uh - huh" and nodded at the same time, PhD G: R right. Grad A: so. PhD G: But, even if you take out all the backchannels {disfmarker} so basically you treat backchannels l as nonspeech, as pauses, Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: you still have significant overlap. You know, it goes down from maybe {disfmarker} For Switchboard it goes down from {disfmarker} I don't know {disfmarker} f um {disfmarker} {comment} I don't know {disfmarker} f fourteen percent of the words to maybe {vocalsound} uh I don't know, eleven percent or something {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's not a dramatic change, Grad A: Mm - hmm. PhD G: so it's {disfmarker} Anyway, so it's uh {disfmarker} That was {disfmarker} that was one set of {pause} results, and then the second one was just basically the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the stuff we had in the {disfmarker} in the HLT paper on how overlaps effect the {pause} recognition performance. Postdoc C: Hmm. Grad A: Nope. Right. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: And we rescored things um, a little bit more carefully. We also fixed the transcripts in {disfmarker} in numerous ways. Uh, but mostly we added one {disfmarker} one number, which was what if you {pause} uh, basically score ignoring all {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} the conjecture from the HLT results was that {vocalsound} most of the added recognition error is from insertions {vocalsound} due to background speech. So, we scored {vocalsound} all the recognition results, {vocalsound} uh, in such a way that the uh {disfmarker} Grad A: Oh by the way, who's on channel four? You're getting a lot of breath. PhD B: Yeah. I j was just wondering. Grad E: That's {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah. Grad E: That's me. PhD G: uh, well Don's been working hard. Grad E: That's right. PhD G: OK, so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so if you have the foreground speaker speaking here, and then there's some background speech, may be overlapping it somehow, um, and this is the time bin that we used, then of course you're gonna get insertion errors here and here. Grad A: Right. PhD G: Right? So we scored everything, and I must say the NIST scoring tools are pretty nice for this, where you just basically ignore everything outside of the, {vocalsound} uh, region that was deemed to be foreground speech. And where that was we had to use the t forced alignment, uh, results from s for {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} That's somewhat {disfmarker} that's somewhat subject to error, but still we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh, Don did some ha hand - checking and {disfmarker} and we think that {disfmarker} based on that, we think that the results are you know, valid, although of course, some error is gonna be in there. But basically what we found is after we take out these regions {disfmarker} so we only score the regions that were certified as foreground speech, {comment} {vocalsound} the recognition error went down to almost {vocalsound} uh, the {pause} level of the non - overlapped {pause} speech. So that means that {vocalsound} even if you do have background speech, if you can somehow separate out or find where it is, {vocalsound} uh, the recognizer does a good job, Grad A: That's great. PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: even though there is this back Grad A: Yeah, I guess that doesn't surprise me, because, with the close - talking mikes, the {disfmarker} the signal will be so much stronger. PhD G: Right. Right. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Um, Grad A: What {disfmarker} what sort of normalization do you do? PhD G: so {disfmarker} Uh, well, we just {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} we do {disfmarker} u you know, vit Grad A: I mean in you recognizer, in the SRI recognizer. PhD G: Well, we do uh, VTL {disfmarker} {vocalsound} vocal tract length normalization, w and we uh {disfmarker} you know, we {disfmarker} we uh, {vocalsound} make all the features have zero mean and unit variance. Grad A: Over an entire utterance? Professor F: And {disfmarker} Grad A: Or windowed? PhD G: Over {disfmarker} over the entire c over the entire channel. PhD B: Don't {pause} train {disfmarker} PhD G: Over the {disfmarker} Grad A: Hmm. PhD G: but you know. Um, now we didn't re - align the recognizer for this. We just took the old {disfmarker} So this is actually a sub - optimal way of doing it, Grad A: Right. Professor F: Right. PhD G: right? So we took the old recognition output and we just scored it differently. So the recognizer didn't have the benefit of knowing where the foreground speech {disfmarker} a start Professor F: Were you including the {disfmarker} the lapel {pause} in this? PhD G: Yes. Professor F: And did the {disfmarker} did {disfmarker} did the la did the {disfmarker} the problems with the lapel go away also? Or {disfmarker} PhD G: Um, it {disfmarker} Yeah. Professor F: fray for {disfmarker} for insertions? PhD G: It u not per {disfmarker} I mean, not completely, but yes, Professor F: Less so. PhD G: dramatically. So we have to um {disfmarker} Professor F: I mean, you still {disfmarker} PhD G: Well I should bring the {disfmarker} should bring the table with results. Maybe we can look at it {pause} Monday. Professor F: I would presume that you still would have somewhat higher error with the lapel for insertions than {disfmarker} PhD G: Yes. It's {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah. PhD G: Yes. Yeah. Professor F: Cuz again, looking forward to the non - close miked case, I think that we s still {disfmarker} PhD G: Mm - hmm. Grad A: I'm not looking forward to it. Professor F: i it's the high signal - to - noise ratio PhD G: Right. Professor F: here that {disfmarker} that helps you. PhD G: u s Right. So {disfmarker} so that was number {disfmarker} that was the second set of {disfmarker} uh, the second section. And then, {vocalsound} the third thing was, we looked at, {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh, what we call" interrupts" , although that's {disfmarker} that may be {vocalsound} a misnomer, but basically {vocalsound} we looked at cases where {disfmarker} Uh, so we {disfmarker} we used the punctuation from the original transcripts and we inferred the beginnings and ends of sentences. So, you know {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Di - did you use upper - lower case also, or not? PhD G: Um {disfmarker} Postdoc C: U upper lower case or no? PhD G: Hmm? Postdoc C: OK. PhD G: No, we only used, you know, uh periods, uh, question marks and {pause} exclamation. And we know that there's th that's not a very g I mean, we miss a lot of them, Postdoc C: Yeah. That's OK but {disfmarker} PhD G: but {disfmarker} but it's f i i Postdoc C: Comma also or not? PhD G: No commas. No. And then {vocalsound} we looked at locations where, uh, if you have overlapping speech and someone else starts a sentence, you know, where do these {disfmarker} where do other people start their {vocalsound} turns {disfmarker} not turns really, but you know, sentences, PhD B: Ah. PhD G: um {disfmarker} So we only looked at cases where there was a foreground speaker and then at the to at the {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} the foreground speaker started into their sentence and then someone else started later. PhD B: Somewhere in between the start and the end? PhD G: OK? And so what {disfmarker} PhD B: OK. PhD G: Sorry? PhD B: Somewhere in between the start and the end of the foreground? PhD G: Yes. Uh, so that such that there was overlap between the two sentences. PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: So, the {disfmarker} the question was how can we {disfmarker} what can we say about the places where the second or {disfmarker} or actually, several second speakers, {vocalsound} um {pause} start their {pause}" interrupts" , as we call them. PhD D: Three words from the end. Grad A: At pause boundaries. PhD G: w And we looked at this in terms of um {disfmarker} Grad A: On T - closures, only. PhD G: So {disfmarker} so we had {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we had um u to {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for the purposes of this analysis, we tagged the word sequences, and {disfmarker} and we time - aligned them. Um, and we considered it interrupt {disfmarker} if it occurred in the middle of a word, we basically {disfmarker} you know, considered that to be a interrupt as if it were at {disfmarker} at the beginning of the word. So that, {vocalsound} if any part of the word was overlapped, it was considered an interrupted {pause} word. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: And then we looked at the {disfmarker} the locatio the, {vocalsound} um, you know, the features that {disfmarker} the tags because we had tagged these word strings, {comment} {vocalsound} um, that {disfmarker} that occurred right before these {disfmarker} these uh, interrupt locations. PhD B: Tag by uh PhD G: And the tags we looked at are {vocalsound} the spurt tag, which basically says {disfmarker} or actually {disfmarker} Sorry. End of spurt. So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} whether there was a pause essentially here, because spurts are a {disfmarker} defined as being you know, five hundred milliseconds or longer pauses, and then we had things like discourse markers, uh, backchannels, uh, disfluencies. um, uh, filled pauses {disfmarker} So disfluen the D's are for, {vocalsound} um, {vocalsound} the interruption points of a disfluency, so, where you hesitate, or where you start the repair there. Uh, what else do we had. Uh, repeated {disfmarker} you know, repeated words is another of that kind of disfluencies and so forth. So we had both the beginnings and ends of these {disfmarker} uh so, the end of a filled pause and the end of a discourse marker. And we just eyeballed {disfmarker} I mean {vocalsound} we didn't really hand - tag all of these things. We just {pause} looked at the distribution of words, and so every {vocalsound}" so yeah" , and" OK" , uh, and" uh - huh" were {disfmarker} were the {disfmarker} were deemed to be backchannels and {vocalsound}" wow" and" so" and {vocalsound} uh" right" , uh were um {disfmarker} {pause} Not" right" ." Right" is a backchannel. But so, we sort of {disfmarker} just based on the lexical {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um, identity of the words, we {disfmarker} we tagged them as one of these things. And of course the d the interruption points we got from the original transcripts. So, and then we looked at the disti so we looked at the {pause} distribution of these different kinds of tags, overall uh, and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and particularly at the interruption points. And uh, we found that there is a marked difference so that for instance after {disfmarker} so at the end after a discourse marker or after backchannel or after filled pause, you're much more likely to be interrupted {vocalsound} than before. OK? And also of course after spurt ends, which means basically in p inside pauses. So pauses are always an opportunity for {disfmarker} So we have this little histogram which shows these distributions and, {vocalsound} um, PhD D: I wonder {disfmarker} PhD G: you know, it's {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's not {disfmarker} No big surprises, but it is {pause} sort of interesting from {disfmarker} Grad A: It's nice to actually measure it though. PhD G: Yeah. PhD D: I wonder about the cause and effect there. In other words uh {pause} if you weren't going to pause you {disfmarker} you will because you're g being interrupted. PhD G: Well we're ne PhD D: Uh {disfmarker} PhD G: Right. There's no statement about cause and effect. PhD D: Yeah, right. No, no, no. PhD G: This is just a statistical correlation, PhD D: Right, I {disfmarker} I see. Yeah. PhD G: yeah. Professor F: But he {disfmarker} yeah, he's {disfmarker} he's right, y I mean maybe you weren't intending to pause at all, but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You were intending to stop for fifty - seven milliseconds, PhD G: Right. Professor F: but then Chuck came in PhD G: Right. PhD D: Yeah. Professor F: and so you {vocalsound} paused for a second PhD G: Right. Anyway. {comment} So, Professor F: or more. PhD G: uh, and that was basically it. And {disfmarker} and we {disfmarker} so we wrote this and then, {vocalsound} we found we were at six pages, and then we started {vocalsound} cutting furiously PhD B: Oops. PhD G: and {vocalsound} threw out half of the {vocalsound} material again, and uh played with the LaTeX stuff and {disfmarker} Grad A: Made the font smaller and the narrows longer. PhD G: uh, and {disfmarker} until it fi PhD B: Font smaller, yeah. PhD G: No, no. W well, d you couldn't really make everything smaller PhD B: Put the abstract end. PhD G: but we s we put {disfmarker} Oh, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Grad A: Took out white space. PhD G: you know the {disfmarker} the gap between the two columns is like ten millimeters, PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: so I d shrunk it to eight millimeters and that helped some. And stuff like that. PhD D: Wasn't there {disfmarker} wasn't there some result, Andreas {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah {disfmarker} PhD D: I {disfmarker} I thought maybe Liz presented this at some conference a while ago about {vocalsound} uh, backchannels PhD G: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. PhD D: uh, and that they tend to happen when uh {pause} the pitch drops. You know you get a falling pitch. And so that's when people tend to backchannel. PhD G: Yeah. Well {disfmarker} PhD D: Uh - i i do you rem PhD G: y We didn't talk about, uh, prosodic, uh, properties at all, PhD D: Right. Right. But {disfmarker} PhD G: although that's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I take it that's something that uh Don will {disfmarker} will look at Grad E: Yeah, we're gonna be looking at that. PhD G: now that we have the data and we have the alignment, so. This is purely based on you know the words PhD D: Mm - hmm. PhD G: and {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I have a reference for that though. Uh - huh. PhD D: Oh you do. PhD G: Yeah. PhD D: So am I recalling correctly? PhD G: Anyway, so. Postdoc C: Well, I didn't know about Liz's finding on that, PhD D: About {disfmarker} Postdoc C: but I know of another paper that talks about something PhD D: Uh - huh. Postdoc C: that {disfmarker} PhD D: Hmm. Grad E: I'd like to see that reference too. Postdoc C: OK. PhD D: It made me think about a cool little device that could be built to uh {disfmarker} to handle those people that call you on the phone and just like to talk and talk and talk. And you just have this little detector that listens for these {vocalsound} drops in pitch and gives them the backchannel. And so then you {vocalsound} hook that to the phone and go off Grad A: Yeah. Uh - huh. PhD D: and do the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} do whatever you r wanna do, PhD G: Oh yeah. Well {disfmarker} PhD D: while that thing keeps them busy. PhD G: There's actually {disfmarker} uh there's this a former student of here from Berkeley, Nigel {disfmarker} Nigel Ward. PhD D: Uh - huh. Sure. PhD G: Do you know him? PhD D: Yeah. PhD G: He did a system uh, in {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he lives in Japan now, and he did this backchanneling, automatic backchanneling system. Professor F: Right. PhD G: It's a very {disfmarker} PhD D: Oh! PhD G: So, exactly what you describe, PhD D: Huh. PhD G: but for Japanese. And it's apparently {disfmarker} for Japa - in Japanese it's really important that you backchannel. It's really impolite if you don't, and {disfmarker} So. Professor F: Huh. Actually for a lot of these people I think you could just sort of backchannel continuously and it would {pause} pretty much be fine. PhD D: It wouldn't matter? Yeah. Grad E: Yeah. That's w That's what I do. PhD D: Random intervals. Grad A: There was {disfmarker} there was of course a Monty Python sketch with that. Where the barber who was afraid of scissors was playing a {disfmarker} a tape of clipping sounds, and saying" uh - huh" ," yeah" ," how about them sports teams?" PhD G: Anyway. So the paper's on - line and y I {disfmarker} I think I uh {disfmarker} I CC'ed a message to Meeting Recorder with the URL so you can get it. Grad A: Yep. Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: Printed it out, haven't read it yet. Professor F: Yeah. PhD G: Um, uh one more thing. So I {disfmarker} I'm actually {disfmarker} {vocalsound} about to send Brian Kingbury an email saying where he can find the {disfmarker} the s the m the material he wanted for the s for the speech recognition experiment, so {disfmarker} but I haven't sent it out yet because actually my desktop locked up, like I can't type anything. Uh b so if there's any suggestions you have for that I was just gonna send him the {disfmarker} PhD D: Is it the same directory that you had suggested? PhD G: I made a directory. I called it um {disfmarker} Postdoc C: He still has his Unix account here, you know. PhD G: Well this isn't {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD G: He does? Postdoc C: And he {disfmarker} and he's {disfmarker} PhD G: Yeah but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but he has to {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I'd hafta add him to Meeting Recorder, I guess, PhD G: he prefe he said he would prefer FTP Postdoc C: but {disfmarker} OK. PhD G: and also, um, the other person that wants it {disfmarker} There is one person at SRI who wants to look at the {vocalsound} um, you know, the uh {disfmarker} the data we have so far, Postdoc C: OK. PhD G: and so I figured that FTP is the best {pause} approach. So what I did is I um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} @ @ {comment} I made a n new directory after Chuck said that would c that was gonna be a good thing. Uh, so it's" FTP {vocalsound} {pause} pub Grad A: Pub real. PhD G: real" {disfmarker} Exactly. MTGC {disfmarker} What is it again? CR {disfmarker} Grad A: Ask Dan Ellis. Professor F: u R D {disfmarker} RDR, yeah. PhD G: Or {disfmarker} Yeah. Right? The same {disfmarker} the same as the mailing list, Professor F: Yeah, PhD G: and {disfmarker} Professor F: the {disfmarker} {pause} No vowels. PhD G: Yeah. Um, Professor F: Yeah PhD G: and then under there {disfmarker} Um actually {disfmarker} Oh and this directory, {vocalsound} is not readable. It's only uh, accessible. So, {vocalsound} in other words, to access anything under there, you have to {vocalsound} be told what the name is. Grad A: Right. PhD G: So that's sort of a g {vocalsound} quick and dirty way of doing access control. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: So {disfmarker} uh, and the directory for this I call it I" ASR zero point one" because it's sort of meant for recognition. Professor F: So anyone who hears this meeting now knows the {disfmarker} Grad A: Beta? PhD G: And then {disfmarker} then in there I have a file that lists all the other {vocalsound} files, so that someone can get that file and then know the file names and therefore download them. If you don't know the file names you can't {disfmarker} Professor F: Is that a dash or a dot in there? PhD G: I mean you can {disfmarker} Grad A: Don't {disfmarker} don't {disfmarker} don't say. PhD G: Dash. Anyway. So all I {disfmarker} all I was gonna do there was stick the {disfmarker} the transcripts after we {disfmarker} the way that we munged them for scoring, because that's what he cares about, and {disfmarker} um, and also {disfmarker} and then the {disfmarker} the {pause} waveforms that Don segmented. I mean, just basically tar them all up f I mean {disfmarker} w for each meeting I tar them all into one tar file and G - zip them and stick them there. Grad A: I uh, put digits in my own home directory {disfmarker} home FTP directory, PhD G: And so. Grad A: but I'll probably move them there as well. PhD G: Oh, OK. PhD D: So we could point Mari to this also for her {vocalsound} March O - one request? PhD G: OK. Yeah. March O - one. PhD D: Or {disfmarker} PhD G: Oh! PhD D: You n Remember she was {disfmarker} PhD G: Oh she wanted that also? PhD D: Well she was saying that it would be nice if we had {disfmarker} they had a {disfmarker} Or was she talking {disfmarker} Yeah. She was saying it would be nice if they had eh {pause} the same set, so that when they did experiments they could compare. PhD G: Right, but they don't have a recognizer even. PhD D: Yeah. Grad E: Um {disfmarker} I PhD G: But yeah, we can send {disfmarker} I can CC Mari on this so that she knows {disfmarker} PhD D: Yeah. So, for the thing that {disfmarker} Postdoc C: That's good. PhD D: We need to give Brian the beeps file, PhD G: Right. PhD D: so I was gonna probably put it {disfmarker} Grad A: We can put it in the same place. Just put in another directory. PhD D: Yeah, it I'll make another directory. PhD G: Well, make ano make another directory. PhD D: Yeah. Exactly. PhD G: You don't n m PhD D: Yeah. PhD G: Yeah. Grad E: And, Andreas, um, sampled? PhD G: Yeah. They are? Grad E: I think so. Yeah. Um, so either we should regenerate the original {vocalsound} versions, {comment} {pause} or um, we should just make a note of it. PhD G: OK. Oh. Beca - Well {disfmarker} OK, because in one directory there's two versions. Grad E: Yeah, that's the first meeting I cut both versions. Just to check which w if there is a significant difference. PhD G: OK. And so I {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} OK so {disfmarker} but for the other meetings it's the downsampled version that you have. Grad E: They're all downsampled, yeah. PhD G: Oh, OK. Oh that's th important to know, OK so we should probably {disfmarker} uh {pause} give them the non - downsampled versions. Grad E: Yeah. So {disfmarker} PhD G: OK. Alright, then I'll hold off on that and I'll wait for you um {disfmarker} Grad E: Probably by tomorrow PhD G: gen Grad E: I can {disfmarker} I'll send you an email. PhD G: OK. Alright. OK. Yeah, definitely they should have the full bandwidth version, Grad E: Yeah, because I mean {disfmarker} I I think Liz decided to go ahead with the {pause} downsampled versions cuz we can {disfmarker} There was no s like, r significant difference. PhD G: yeah. OK. Well, it takes {disfmarker} it takes up less disk space, for one thing. Grad E: It does take up less disk space, and apparently it did even better {pause} than the original {disfmarker} than the original versions, PhD G: Yeah. Yeah. Grad E: which you know, is just, probably random. PhD G: Right. Yeah, it was a small difference Grad E: But, um {pause} they probably w want the originals. PhD G: but yeah. Yeah. OK. OK, good. Good that {disfmarker} Well, it's a good thing that {disfmarker} Grad A: OK, I think we're losing, Don and Andreas at three - thirty, right? OK. Grad E: Hey mon hafta booga. PhD G: Yeah. Professor F: So, that's why it was good to have Andreas, say these things but {disfmarker} So, we should probably talk about the IBM transcription process stuff that {disfmarker} Postdoc C: OK. So, um you know that Adam created um, a b a script to generate the beep file? Professor F: Hmm. Postdoc C: To then create something to send to IBM. And, um, you {disfmarker} you should probably talk about that. But {disfmarker} but you were gonna to use the {pause} originally transcribed file because I tightened the time bins and that's also the one that they had already {vocalsound} in trying to debug the first stage of this. And uh, my understanding was that, um {disfmarker} I haven't {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I haven't listened to it yet, Grad A: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: but it sounded very good and {disfmarker} and I understand that you guys {vocalsound} were going to have a meeting today, before this meeting. Grad A: It was just to talk about how to generate it. Um, just so that while I'm gone, you can regenerate it if you decide to do it a different way. So uh, Chuck and Thilo should, now more or less know how to generate the file Postdoc C: Excellent. OK. Grad A: and, {vocalsound} the other thing Chuck pointed out is that, um, {vocalsound} since this one is hand - marked, {vocalsound} there are discourse boundaries. Right? So {disfmarker} so when one person is speaking, there's breaks. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Grad A: Whereas Thilo's won't have that. So what {disfmarker} what we're probably gonna do is just write a script, that if two, chunks are very close to each other on the same channel we'll just merge them. Postdoc C: Oh! OK. Ah, interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, sure. Yeah, sure. Makes sense. Grad A: So, uh, and that will get around the problem of, the, {vocalsound} you know" one word beep, one word beep, one word beep, one word beep" . Postdoc C: Yeah. Ah! Clever. Yes. Clever. Yeah. Excellent. PhD D: Yeah, in fact after our meeting uh, this morning Thilo came in and said that {vocalsound} um, there could be {pause} other differences between {vocalsound} the uh {pause} already transcribed meeting with the beeps in it and one that has {pause} just r been run through his process. Postdoc C: And that's the purpose. Yeah. PhD D: So tomorrow, {vocalsound} when we go to make the um {pause} uh, chunked file {vocalsound} for IBM, we're going to actually compare the two. So he's gonna run his process on that same meeting, Postdoc C: Great idea! PhD D: and then we're gonna do the beep - ify on both, and listen to them and see if we notice any real differences. PhD G: Beep - ify! Postdoc C: OK, now one thing that prevented us from apply you {disfmarker} you from applying {disfmarker} Exactly. The training {disfmarker} So that is the training meeting. OK. PhD D: Yeah, w and we know that. Wel - uh we just wanna if {disfmarker} if there're any major differences between {vocalsound} doing it on the hand Postdoc C: Uh - huh. Oh, interesting. Ah! Grad A: Hmm. Postdoc C: OK. Interesting idea. Great. PhD G: So this training meeting, uh w un is that uh {pause} some data where we have uh very um, {vocalsound} you know, accurate {pause} time marks? for {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I went back and hand - marked the {pause} ba the bins, I ment I mentioned that last week. PhD G: OK, yeah. PhD D: But the {disfmarker} but there's {disfmarker} yeah, but there is this one issue with them in that there're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} there are time boundaries in there that occur in the middle of speech. PhD G: Because {disfmarker} PhD D: So {disfmarker} Like when we went t to um {disfmarker} When I was listening to the original file that Adam had, it's like you {disfmarker} you hear a word then you hear a beep {vocalsound} and then you hear the continuation of what is the same sentence. Grad A: That's on the other channel. That's because of channel overlap. PhD D: Well, and {disfmarker} and so the {disfmarker} th Postdoc C: Hmm. Grad A: It's {disfmarker} i PhD D: So there are these chunks that look like uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that have uh {disfmarker} Grad A: I mean that's not gonna be true of the foreground speaker. That'll only be if it's the background speaker. PhD D: Right. So you'll {disfmarker} you'll have a chunk of, you know, channel {vocalsound} A which starts at zero and ends at ten, and then the same channel starting at eleven, ending at fifteen, and then again, starting at sixteen, ending at twenty. Right, so that's three chunks where {vocalsound} actually we w can just make one chunk out of that which is A, zero, twenty. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: Yeah. Grad A: That's what I just said, Postdoc C: Sure. Sure. Grad A: yeah. PhD D: Yeah. So I just wanted to make sure that it was clear. Postdoc C: Yeah, I thought that was {disfmarker} PhD D: So {vocalsound} if you were to use these, you have to be careful not to pull out these individual {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD G: Oh! I mean it {disfmarker} Right, I mean w I mean what I would {disfmarker} I was interested in is having {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a se having time marks for the beginnings and ends of speech by each speaker. Grad A: Well, that's definitely a problem. PhD G: Uh, because we could use that to fine tune our alignment process Grad A: Battery. PhD D: Yeah. PhD G: to make it more accurate. PhD B: Battery? PhD D: Mm - hmm. PhD G: So {disfmarker} uh, it {disfmarker} I don't care that you know, there's actually abutting segments that we have to join together. That's fine. PhD D: OK. PhD G: But what we do care about is that {vocalsound} the beginnings and ends um {pause} are actually close to the speech {vocalsound} inside of that PhD D: Yeah, I think Jane tightened these up by hand. PhD G: uh {disfmarker} PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD G: OK, so what is the {disfmarker} sort of how tight are they? Professor F: Uh, it looks much better. PhD B: Yeah. Looks good. Postdoc C: They were, um, reasonably tight, but not excruciatingly tight. PhD G: Oh. Postdoc C: That would've taken more time. I just wanted to get it so tha So that if you have like" yeah" {comment} in a {disfmarker} swimming in a big bin, then it's {disfmarker} PhD G: No, no! I don Grad A: Let me make a note on yours. PhD G: actually I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: I {disfmarker} it's f That's fine because we don't want to {disfmarker} th that's perfectly fine. In fact it's good. You always want to have a little bit of pause or nonspeech around the speech, say for recognition purposes. Uh, but just {disfmarker} just u w you know get an id I just wanted to have an idea of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of how much extra you allowed um {disfmarker} so that I can interpret the numbers if I compared that with a forced alignment segmentation. Postdoc C: I can't answer that, PhD G: So. Postdoc C: but {disfmarker} but my main goal was {pause} um, in these areas where you have a three - way overlap {vocalsound} and one of the overlaps involves" yeah" , {vocalsound} and it's swimming in this huge bin, {vocalsound} I wanted to get it so that it was clo more closely localized. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Right. But are we talking about, I don't know, {pause} a {vocalsound} {pause} tenth of a second? a {disfmarker}? You know? How {disfmarker} how much {disfmarker} how much extra would you allow at most {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I {disfmarker} I wanted to {disfmarker} I wanted it to be able to {disfmarker} l he be heard normally, PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: so that if you {disfmarker} if you play {pause} back that bin and have it in the mode where it stops at the boundary, {vocalsound} it sounds like a normal word. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: It doesn't sound like the person {disfmarker} i it sounds normal. It's as if the person could've stopped there. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: And it wouldn't have been an awkward place to stop. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: Now sometimes you know, it's {disfmarker} these are involved in places where there was no time. And so, {vocalsound} {vocalsound} there wouldn't be {pause} a gap afterwards because {disfmarker} PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: I mean some cases, there're some people {pause} um, who {disfmarker} who have very long {pause} segments of discourse where, {vocalsound} you know, they'll {disfmarker} they'll breath {pause} and then I put a break. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: But other than that, it's really pretty continuous and this includes things like going from one sentence into the {disfmarker} u one utterance into the next, one sentence into the next, um, w without really stopping. I mean {disfmarker} i they, i you know in writing you have this {vocalsound} two spaces and a big gap PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: you know. PhD G: Right. Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} but uh {pause} {vocalsound} i some people are planning and, you know, I mean, a lot {disfmarker} we always are planning {pause} what we're going to say next. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: But uh, in which case, the gap between {pause} these two complete syntactic units, {vocalsound} um, which of course n spoken things are not always complete syntactically, but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but it would be a shorter p shorter break {vocalsound} than {vocalsound} maybe you might like. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: But the goal there was to {pause} not have {vocalsound} the text be so {disfmarker} so crudely {pause} parsed in a time bin. I mean, because {vocalsound} from a discourse m purpose {pause} it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's more {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's more useful to be able to see {disfmarker} and also you know, from a speech recognition purpose my impression is that {vocalsound} if you have too long a unit, it's {disfmarker} it doesn't help you very much either, cuz of the memory. PhD G: Well, yeah. That's fine. Postdoc C: So, that means that {vocalsound} the amount of time after something is variable depending partly on context, but my general goal {vocalsound} when there was {pause} sufficient space, room, pause {pause} after it {pause} to have it be {pause} kind of a natural feeling {pause} gap. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: Which I c I don't know what it would be quantified as. You know, Wally Chafe says that {vocalsound} um, {vocalsound} in producing narratives, the spurts that people use {vocalsound} tend to be, {vocalsound} uh, that the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} what would be a pause might be something like two {disfmarker} two seconds. PhD G: Mmm. Postdoc C: And um, that would be, you know one speaker. The discourse {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the people who look at turn taking often do use {disfmarker} PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: I was interested that you chose uh, {vocalsound} you know um, {comment} the {disfmarker} you know that you use cuz I think that's a unit that would be more consistent with sociolinguistics. Yeah. PhD G: Well we chose um, you know, half a second because {vocalsound} if {disfmarker} if you go much larger, you have a {disfmarker} y you know, your {disfmarker} your statement about how much overlap there is becomes less, {vocalsound} um, precise, Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: because you include more of actual pause time into what you consider overlap speech. Um, so, it's sort of a compromise, PhD B: Yeah. {comment} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah, I also used I think something around zero point five seconds for the speech - nonspeech detector {disfmarker} PhD G: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's also based {disfmarker} I mean Liz suggested that value based on {vocalsound} the distribution of pause times that you see in Switchboard and {disfmarker} and other corpora. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: Um {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} PhD B: for the minimum silence length. PhD G: Mm - hmm. I see. PhD B: So. PhD G: Yeah. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: In any case, this {disfmarker} this uh, meeting {pause} that I hand {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I hand - adjusted two of them I mentioned before, PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: and I sent {disfmarker} I sent email, PhD G: OK, Postdoc C: so {disfmarker} PhD G: So {disfmarker} so at some point we will try to fine - tune our forced alignment Postdoc C: And I sent the {comment} {pause} path. PhD G: maybe using those as references because you know, what you would do is you would play with different parameters. And to get an object You need an objective {vocalsound} measure of how closely you can align the models to the actual speech. And that's where your your data would be {pause} very important to have. So, I will {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah and hopefully the new meetings {pause} which will start from the channelized version will {disfmarker} will have better time boundaries {pause} and alignments. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Right. Postdoc C: But I like this idea of {disfmarker} uh, for our purposes for the {disfmarker} for the IBM preparation, {vocalsound} uh, n having these {pause} joined together, PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. Postdoc C: and uh {disfmarker} It makes a lot of sense. And in terms of transcription, it would be easy to do it that way. PhD G: Yeah. Postdoc C: The way that they have with the longer units, PhD G: Yeah. Postdoc C: not having to fuss with adding these units at this time. PhD B: Yeah. Whi - which could have one drawback. If there is uh a backchannel in between those three things, PhD G: Right. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD B: the {disfmarker} the n the backchannel will {disfmarker} will occur at the end of {disfmarker} of those three. Postdoc C: Yes. PhD B: And {disfmarker} and in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the previous version where in the n which is used now, {vocalsound} there, the backchannel would {disfmarker} would be in - between there somewhere, so. Postdoc C: I see. PhD B: That would be more natural Postdoc C: Yeah. Well, PhD B: but {disfmarker} Postdoc C: that's {disfmarker} that's right, but you know, thi this brings me to the other f stage of this which I discussed with you earlier today, PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: which is {vocalsound} the second stage is {vocalsound} um, w what to do {pause} in terms of the transcribers adjustment of these data. I discussed this with you too. Um, the tr so the idea initially was, we would get {vocalsound} uh, for the new meetings, so the e EDU meetings, that {vocalsound} Thilo ha has now presegmented all of them for us, on a channel by channel basis. And um, so, I've assigned {disfmarker} I've {disfmarker} I've assigned them to our transcribers and um, so far I've discussed it with one, with uh {disfmarker} And I had a {pause} about an hour discussion with her about this yesterday, we went through {vocalsound} uh EDU - one, at some extent. And it occurred to me that {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} that {vocalsound} basically what we have in this kind of a format is {disfmarker} you could consider it as a staggered mixed file, we had some discussion over the weekend a about {disfmarker} at {disfmarker} at this other meeting that we were all a at {disfmarker} um, {vocalsound} about whether the tran the IBM transcribers should hear a single channel audio, or a mixed channel audio. And um, {vocalsound} in {disfmarker} in a way, by {disfmarker} by having this {disfmarker} this chunk and then the backchannel {vocalsound} after it, it's like a stagal staggered mixed channel. And um, {vocalsound} it occurred {pause} to me in my discussion with her yesterday that um, um, the {disfmarker} {pause} the {disfmarker} the maximal gain, it's {disfmarker} from the IBM {pause} people, may be in long stretches of connected speech. So it's basically a whole bunch of words {vocalsound} which they can really do, because of the continuity within that person's turn. So, what I'm thinking, and it may be that not all meetings will be good for this, {comment} but {disfmarker} but what I'm thinking is that {vocalsound} in the EDU meetings, they tend to be {vocalsound} driven by a couple of dominant speakers. And, if the chunked files focused on the dominant speakers, {vocalsound} then, when {disfmarker} when it got s patched together when it comes back from IBM, we can add the backchannels. It seems to me {vocalsound} that {vocalsound} um, you know, the backchannels per - se wouldn't be so hard, but then there's this question of the time {pause} @ @ {comment} uh, marking, and whether the beeps would be {vocalsound} uh y y y And I'm not exactly sure how that {disfmarker} how that would work with the {disfmarker} with the backchannels. And, so um {disfmarker} And certainly things that are {vocalsound} intrusions of multiple words, {vocalsound} taken out of context and displaced in time from where they occurred, {vocalsound} that would be hard. So, m my {vocalsound} thought is {pause} i I'm having this transcriber go through {vocalsound} the EDU - one meeting, and indicate a start time {nonvocalsound} f for each dominant speaker, endpoi end time for each dominant speaker, and the idea that {vocalsound} these units would be generated for the dominant speakers, {vocalsound} and maybe not for the other channels. Grad A: Yeah the only, um, disadvantage of that is, then it's hard to use an automatic method to do that. The advantage is that it's probably faster to do that than it is to use the automated method and correct it. So. Postdoc C: Well, it {disfmarker} Grad A: We'll just have to see. Postdoc C: OK. I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think um, you know, the original plan was that the transcriber would adjust the t the boundaries, and all that for all the channels but, {vocalsound} you know, that is so time - consuming, and since we have a bottleneck here, we want to get IBM things that are usable s as soon as possible, then this seemed to me it'd be a way of gett to get them a flood of data, which would be useful when it comes back to us. And um {disfmarker} Grad A: Yeah. Postdoc C: Oh also, at the same time she {disfmarker} when she goes through this, she'll be {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} If there's anything that {vocalsound} was encoded as a pause, but really has something transcribable in it, {vocalsound} then she's going to {vocalsound} uh, make a mark {disfmarker} w uh, so you know, so {vocalsound} that {disfmarker} that bin would be marked as it {disfmarker} as double dots and she'll just add an S. And in the other {disfmarker} in the other case, if it's marked as speech, {vocalsound} and really there's nothing transcribable in it, then she's going to put a s dash, and I'll go through and it {disfmarker} and um, you know, with a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} with a substitution command, get it so that it's clear that those are the other category. I'll just, you know, recode them. But um, {vocalsound} um, the transcribable events {pause} that um, I'm considering in this, {vocalsound} uh, continue to be {vocalsound} laugh, as well as speech, and cough and things like that, so I'm not stripping out anything, just {disfmarker} just you know, being very lenient in what's considered speech. Yeah? PhD D: Jane? In terms of the {disfmarker} this new procedure you're suggesting, {vocalsound} um, u what is the {disfmarker} Grad A: It's not that different. PhD D: So I'm a little confused, because how do we know where to put beeps? Is it {disfmarker} i d y is it {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Oh, OK. Grad A: Transcriber will do it. Postdoc C: So what it {disfmarker} what it {disfmarker} what it involves is {disfmarker} is really a s uh, {vocalsound} uh, the original pr procedure, but {vocalsound} only applied to {pause} uh, a certain {pause} strategically chosen {pause} s aspect of the data. Grad A: We pick the easy parts of the data basically, Postdoc C: So {disfmarker} Grad A: and transcriber marks it by hand. Postdoc C: You got it. Grad A: And because {disfmarker} PhD D: But after we've done Thilo's thing. Grad A: No. Postdoc C: Yes! Grad A: Oh, after. Oh, OK, Postdoc C: Yes! Grad A: I didn't {disfmarker} I didn't understand that. Postdoc C: Oh yeah! Grad A: OK. PhD B: So, I'm @ @ {disfmarker} now I'm confused. Postdoc C: OK. We start with your presegmented version {disfmarker} PhD G: OK, and I'm leaving. Grad E: Yeah, I have to go as well. PhD G: So, um {disfmarker} Grad A: OK, leave the mikes on, and just put them on the table. Grad E: OK. Thanks. Postdoc C: We start with the presegmented version {disfmarker} Grad A: Let me mark you as no digits. PhD B: You start with the presegmentation, r {vocalsound} yeah? Postdoc C: Yeah. And then um, {vocalsound} the transcriber, {vocalsound} instead of going painstakingly through all the channels and moving the boundaries around, and deciding if it's speech or not, but not transcribing anything. OK? Instead of doing that, which was our original plan, {vocalsound} the tra They focus on the dominant speaker {disfmarker} PhD D: Mm - hmm. They just {vocalsound} do that on {pause} the main channels. Postdoc C: Yeah. So what they do is they identify who's the di dominant speaker, and when the speaker starts. PhD D: OK. PhD B: Yeah? OK. Postdoc C: So I mean, you're still gonna {disfmarker} PhD B: And you just {disfmarker} Postdoc C: So we're {disfmarker} It's based on your se presegmentation, that's the basic {pause} thing. PhD B: and you just use the s the segments of the dominant speaker then? For {disfmarker} for sending to {disfmarker} to IBM or {disfmarker}? Postdoc C: Yeah. Exactly. PhD D: So, now Jane, my question is {vocalsound} when they're all done adjusting the w time boundaries for the dominant speaker, {comment} have they then also erased the time boundaries for the other ones? Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Uh No. No, no. Huh - uh. S PhD D: So how will we know who {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: That's {disfmarker} that's why she's notating the start and end points of the dominant speakers. So, on a {disfmarker} you know, so {vocalsound} i in EDU - one, i as far as I listened to it, you start off with a {disfmarker} a s section by Jerry. So Jerry starts at minute so - and - so, and goes until minute so - and - so. And then Mark Paskin comes in. And he starts at {vocalsound} minute such - and - such, and goes on till minute so - and - so. OK. And then {vocalsound} meanwhile, she's listening to {vocalsound} {pause} both of these guys'channels, determining if there're any cases of misclassification of speech as nothing, and nothing as speech, PhD D: Mm - hmm. OK. Postdoc C: and {vocalsound} a and adding a tag if that happens. PhD D: So she does the adjustments on those guys? Postdoc C: But you know, I wanted to say, his segmentation is so good, that {vocalsound} um, the part that I listened to with her yesterday {vocalsound} didn't need any adjustments of the bins. PhD B: On that meeting. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: So far we haven't. So this is not gonna be a major part of the process, at least {disfmarker} least not in {disfmarker} not on ones that {disfmarker} that really {disfmarker} PhD D: So if you don't have to adjust the bins, why not just do what it {disfmarker} for all the channels? Postdoc C: Mm - hmm? PhD D: Why not just throw all the channels to IBM? Postdoc C: Well there's the question o of {pause} whether {disfmarker} Well, OK. She i It's a question of how much time we want our transcriber to invest here {vocalsound} when she's gonna have to invest that when it comes back from IBM anyway. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: So if it's only inserting" mm - hmm" s here and there, then, wouldn't that be something that would be just as efficient to do at this end, instead of having it go through I B M, then be patched together, then be double checked here. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Right. PhD B: Yeah. But {disfmarker} But then we could just use the {disfmarker} the output of the detector, and do the beeping on it, and send it to I B PhD D: Without having her check anything. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: Right. Postdoc C: Well, I guess {disfmarker} Grad A: I think we just {disfmarker} we just have to listen to it and see how good they are. PhD B: For some meetings, I'm {disfmarker} I'm sure it {disfmarker} i n Postdoc C: I'm {disfmarker} I'm open to that, it was {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah, if it's working well, PhD B: That's {disfmarker} And some {disfmarker} on some meetings it's good. Professor F: that sounds like a good idea since as you say you have to do stuff with the other end anyway. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Well yea OK, good. I mean the detector, this {disfmarker} PhD D: Yeah, I mean we have to fix it when it comes back anyhow. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Now, you were saying that they {disfmarker} they differ in how well they work depending on channel s sys systems and stuff. PhD B: Yeah. So we should perhaps just select meetings on which the speech - nonspeech detection works well, Postdoc C: But EDU is great. PhD B: and just use, {vocalsound} those meetings to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to send to IBM and, do the other ones. Grad A: Release to begin with. Postdoc C: How interesting. You know {disfmarker} Professor F: What's the problem {disfmarker} the l I forget. Is the problem the lapel, or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} PhD B: Uh, it really depends. Um, my {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} my impression is that it's better for meetings with fewer speakers, and it's better for {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for meetings where nobody is breathing. Professor F: Oh, PhD B: Yeah, Professor F: the dead meetings. PhD B: get {disfmarker} That's it. PhD D: So in fact this might suggest an alternative sort of a {disfmarker} a c a hybrid between these two things. Grad A: No, the undead meeting, yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah. Yeah? PhD D: So the {disfmarker} the one suggestion is you know we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we run Thilo's thing and then we have somebody go and adjust all the time boundaries PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah? PhD D: and we send it to IBM. The other one is {vocalsound} we just run his thing and send it to IBM. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: There's a {disfmarker} a another possibility if we find that there are some problems, PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. PhD D: and that is {vocalsound} if we go ahead and we {vocalsound} just run his, and we generate the beeps file, then we have somebody listen beeps file. PhD B: Yeah. And erase {disfmarker} PhD D: And they listen to each section and say" yes, no" whether that section is PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Is intelligible. PhD D: i i intelligible or not. And it just {disfmarker} You know, there's a little interface which will {disfmarker} for all the" yes" - es it {disfmarker} then that will be the final {vocalsound} beep file. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: Blech. Postdoc C: That's interesting! Cuz that's {disfmarker} that's directly related to the e end task. Grad A: Stress test. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: How interesting! PhD D: Yeah. I mean it wouldn't be that much fun for a transcriber to sit there, hear it, beep, yes or no. PhD B: Nope. Professor F: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know. PhD D: But it would be quick. Professor F: It would be {disfmarker} kind of quick but they're still listening to everything. PhD D: But there's no adjusting. And that's what's slow. There's no adjusting of time boundaries. Postdoc C: Well, {vocalsound} eh, listening does take time too. PhD D: Yeah. Professor F: Yeah. I don't know, I {disfmarker} I think I'm {disfmarker} I'm really tending towards {disfmarker} Grad A: One and a half times real time. Professor F: I mean, {vocalsound} what's the worst that happens? Do the transcribers {disfmarker} I mean as long as th on the other end they can say there's {disfmarker} there's something {disfmarker} conventions so that they say" huh?" PhD D: Yeah. Right. They {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} Professor F: and then we can flag those later. PhD D: Yeah. That's true. Professor F: i i It {disfmarker} i PhD D: We can just catch it at the {disfmarker} catch everything at this side. Professor F: Yeah. PhD D: Well maybe that's the best way to go, Postdoc C: How interesting! PhD D: just {disfmarker} Grad A: I mean it just depends on how {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Well EDU {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah, Grad A: Sorry, go ahead. PhD B: u u u Postdoc C: So I was gonna say, EDU - one is good enough, PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: maybe we could include it in this {disfmarker} in this set of uh, this stuff we send. PhD B: Yeah there's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think there are some meetings where it would {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} It's possible like this. Grad A: Yeah I {disfmarker} I think, we won't know until we generate a bunch of beep files automatically, listen to them and see how bad they are. PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD D: We won't be able to s include it with this first thing, Grad A: If {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Hmm. Oh, OK. PhD D: because there's a part of the process of the beep file which requires knowing the normalization coefficients. Postdoc C: Oh, I see. PhD D: And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So a Grad A: That's not hard to do. Just {disfmarker} it takes {disfmarker} you know, it just takes five minutes rather than, taking a second. PhD D: OK PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: So. I just hand {disfmarker} hard - coded it. PhD D: Right, except I don't think that {disfmarker} the c the instructions for doing that was in that directory, right? I {disfmarker} I didn't see where you had gener Grad A: No, but it's easy enough to do. PhD B: What {disfmarker} Professor F: But I {disfmarker} but I have a {disfmarker} PhD B: Doing the gain? It's no problem. Adjusting the gain? PhD D: n Doing th No, getting the coefficients, for each channel. PhD B: Yeah, that's no problem. Postdoc C: Know what numbers. PhD D: OK. So we just run that one {disfmarker} Grad A: There are lots of ways to do it. PhD B: We can do that. Grad A: I have one program that'll do it. You can find other programs. PhD B: Yeah. I {disfmarker} I used it, so. PhD D: We just run that Grad A: Yep. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: J - sound - stat? OK. Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: Minus D, capital D. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I have {pause} another suggestion on that, which is, {vocalsound} since, really what this is, is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is trying to in the large, send the right thing to them and there is gonna be this {disfmarker} this post - processing step, um, why don't we check through a bunch of things by sampling it? PhD D: Mm - hmm. Professor F: Right? In other words, rather than, um, uh, saying we're gonna listen to everything {disfmarker} Grad A: I didn't mean listen to everything, I meant, just see if they're any good. Professor F: Yeah. So y you do a bunch of meetings, you listen to {disfmarker} to a little bit here and there, PhD D: Yeah. Professor F: if it sounds like it's almost always right and there's not any big problem you send it to them. PhD D: Send it to them. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: OK. Professor F: And, you know, then they'll send us back what we {disfmarker} w what {disfmarker} what they send back to us, Postdoc C: Oh, that'd be great. Professor F: and we'll {disfmarker} we'll fix things up and {vocalsound} some meetings will cost more time to fix up than others. Grad A: We should {disfmarker} Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: And we should just double - check with Brian on a few simple conventions on how they should mark things. PhD B: Sure. PhD D: OK. When they {disfmarker} when there's either no speech in there, PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. PhD D: or {vocalsound} something they don't understand, Postdoc C: Yeah. Mm - hmm. PhD D: things like that. Grad A: Yeah, cuz @ @ uh what I had originally said to Brian was well they'll have to mark, when they can't distinguish between the foreground and background, Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: because I thought that was gonna be the most prevalent. But if we send them without editing, then we're also gonna hafta have m uh, notations for words that are cut off, PhD D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Grad A: and other sorts of, uh, acoustic problems. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: They do already. PhD D: And they may just guess at what those cut - off words are, Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD D: but w I mean we're gonna adjust {disfmarker} everything when we come back {disfmarker} Grad A: But what {disfmarker} what we would like them to do is be conservative so that they should only write down the transcript if they're sure. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: And otherwise they should mark it so that we can check. PhD B: Mark it. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: Well, we have the unintelligibility {pause} convention. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: And actually they have one also, Grad A: Right. Postdoc C: which {disfmarker} Professor F: i Can I maybe have {disfmarker} have an order of {disfmarker} it's probably in your paper that I haven't looked at lately, but {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Certainty. Professor F: Uh, an order of magnitude notion of {disfmarker} of how {disfmarker} on a good meeting, how often uh, do you get segments that come in the middle of words and so forth, and uh {disfmarker} in a bad meeting how {vocalsound} often? PhD B: Uh. Postdoc C: Was is it in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what is the t Professor F: Well he's saying, you know, that the {disfmarker} the EDU meeting was a good {disfmarker} good meeting, Postdoc C: In a good meeting, what? PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah. Professor F: right? Postdoc C: Oh I see, Professor F: Uh, and so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so it was almost {disfmarker} it was almost always doing the right thing. Postdoc C: the characteristics. Professor F: So I wanted to get some sense of what {disfmarker} what almost always meant. And then, uh in a bad meeting, {vocalsound} or p some meetings where he said oh he's had some problems, what does that mean? Postdoc C: Uh - huh. OK. Professor F: So I mean does one of the does it mean one percent and ten percent? Or does it mean {vocalsound} five percent and fifty percent? Postdoc C: OK. Professor F: Uh {disfmarker} PhD B: So {disfmarker} Professor F: Or {disfmarker} Maybe percentage isn't the right word, Postdoc C: Just PhD B: Yeah th Professor F: but you know how many {disfmarker} how many per minute, or {disfmarker} You know. PhD B: Yeah, the {disfmarker} the problem is that, nnn, the numbers Ian gave in the paper is just uh, some frame error rate. So that's {disfmarker} that's not really {disfmarker} {vocalsound} What will be effective for {disfmarker} for the transcribers, is {disfmarker} They have to {disfmarker} yeah, in in they have to insure that that's a real s spurt or something. And {disfmarker} but, {vocalsound} the numbers {disfmarker} Oops. Um {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Hmm! PhD B: Let me think. So the {pause} speech {disfmarker} the amount of speech that is missed by the {pause} detector, for a good meeting, I th is around {pause} or under one percent, I would say. But there can be {disfmarker} Yeah. For {disfmarker} yeah, but there can be more {disfmarker} There's {disfmarker} There's more amount speech {disfmarker} uh, more amount of {disfmarker} Yeah well, the detector says there is speech, but there is none. So that {disfmarker} that can be a lot when {disfmarker} when it's really a breathy channel. Professor F: But I think that's less of a problem. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: They'll just listen. It's just wasted time. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: And th and that's for a good meeting. Now what about in a meeting that you said we've {disfmarker} you've had some more trouble with? PhD B: I can't {comment} really {disfmarker} hhh, {comment} {pause} Tsk. {comment} I {pause} don't have really representative numbers, I think. That's really {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I did {pause} this on {disfmarker} on four meetings and only five minutes of {disfmarker} of every meet of {disfmarker} of these meetings so, {vocalsound} it's not {disfmarker} not that representative, but, it's perhaps, Fff. Um {disfmarker} Yeah, it's perhaps then {disfmarker} it's perhaps five percent of something, which s uh the {disfmarker} the frames {disfmarker} speech frames which are {disfmarker} which are missed, but um, I can't {disfmarker} can't really tell. Professor F: Right. So I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So i Sometime, we might wanna go back and look at it more in terms of {vocalsound} how many times is there a spurt that's {disfmarker} that's uh, interrupted? PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Professor F: Something like that? Postdoc C: The other problem is, that when it {disfmarker} when it uh d i on the breathy ones, where you get {vocalsound} {vocalsound} breathing, uh, inti indicated as speech. Professor F: And {disfmarker} PhD B: So {disfmarker} Postdoc C: And I guess we could just indicate to the transcribers not to {pause} encode that if they {disfmarker} We could still do the beep file. Professor F: Yeah again I {disfmarker} I think that that is probably less of a problem because if you're {disfmarker} if there's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If {disfmarker} if a {disfmarker} if a word is {disfmarker} is split, then they might have to listen to it a few times to really understand that they can't quite get it. Postdoc C: OK. OK. PhD B: But {disfmarker} Postdoc C: OK. Professor F: Whereas if they listen {nonvocalsound} to it and there's {disfmarker} don't hear any speech I think they'd probably just listen to it once. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: So there'd {disfmarker} you'd think there'd be a {disfmarker} a factor of three or four in {disfmarker} in, uh, cost function, Postdoc C: OK. Professor F: you know, between them or something. PhD B: Yeah, so {disfmarker} but I think that's {disfmarker} n that really doesn't happen very often that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that a word is cut in the middle or something. That's {disfmarker} that's really not {disfmarker} not normal. Professor F: So {disfmarker} so what you're saying is that nearly always what happens when there's a problem is that {disfmarker} is that uh, there's {vocalsound} some uh, uh nonspeech that uh {disfmarker} that is b interpreted as speech. PhD B: That is marked as speech. Yeah. Yeah. Professor F: Well then, we really should just send the stuff. Postdoc C: That would be great. Professor F: Right? Because that doesn't do any harm. PhD B: Yeah, it's {disfmarker} Professor F: You know, if they {disfmarker} they hear you know, a dog bark and they say what was the word, they {comment} you know, they {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah, I als I {disfmarker} Professor F: Ruff ruff! PhD B: Yeah I also thought of {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there are really some channels where it is almost {comment} um, only bre breathing in it. And to {disfmarker} to re - run's Professor F: Yeah? PhD B: Eh, um. Yeah. I've got a {disfmarker} a {pause} P - a {pause} method with loops into the cross - correlation with the PZM mike, and then to reject everything which {disfmarker} which seems to be breath. Professor F: Uh - huh. PhD B: So, I could run this on those breathy channels, and perhaps throw out {disfmarker} Grad A: That's a good idea. Postdoc C: Wow, that's a great idea. Professor F: Yeah. But I think {disfmarker} I th Again, I think that sort of {disfmarker} that that would be good, PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: and what that'll do is just cut the time a little further. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Professor F: But I think none of this is stuff that really needs somebody doing these {disfmarker} these uh, uh, explicit markings. PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: Excellent. Oh, I'd be delighted with that, I {disfmarker} I was very impressed with the {disfmarker} with the result. Yeah. Professor F: Yeah, cuz the other thing that was concerning me about it was that it seemed kind of specialized to the EDU meeting, and {disfmarker} and that then when you get a meeting like this or something, PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and you have a b a bunch of different dominant speakers Postdoc C: Oh yeah, interesting. Professor F: you know, how are you gonna handle it. Postdoc C: Oh yeah. Professor F: Whereas this sounds like a more general solution Postdoc C: Oh yeah, I pr I much prefer this, Professor F: is {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I was just trying to find a way {disfmarker} Cuz I {disfmarker} I don't think the staggered mixed channel is awfully good as a way of handling overlaps. Professor F: Yeah. Uh - huh. Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} but uh {disfmarker} PhD D: Well good. That {disfmarker} that really simplifies thing then. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD D: And we can just, you know, get the meeting, process it, put the beeps file, send it off to IBM. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD D: You know? PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: With very little {pause} work on our side. PhD B: Process it, hear into it. I would {disfmarker} PhD D: Do what? PhD B: Um, {pause} listen to it, and then {disfmarker} Grad A: Or at least sample it. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Well, sample it. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Sample it. Professor F: I {disfmarker} I would just use some samples, PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. Professor F: make sure you don't send them three hours of" bzzz" {comment} or something. PhD D: Yeah. PhD B: No. PhD D: Yeah. Right. PhD B: That won't be good. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD D: Yeah. Yeah that would be very good. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: And then we can you know {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah. PhD D: That'll oughta be a good way to get the pipeline going. Postdoc C: Oh, I'd be delighted. Yeah. PhD B: And there's {disfmarker} there's one point which I {comment} uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah, which {disfmarker} which I r {vocalsound} we covered when I {disfmarker} when I r listened to one of the EDU meetings, Professor F: Great. PhD B: and that's {vocalsound} that somebody is playing sound from his laptop. Grad A: Uh - huh PhD B: And i {vocalsound} the speech - nonspeech detector just assigns randomly the speech to {disfmarker} to one of the channels, so. Uh - I haven't - I didn't think of {disfmarker} of s of {vocalsound} this before, Grad A: What can you do? PhD B: but what {disfmarker} what shall we do about s things like this? Postdoc C: Well you were suggesting {disfmarker} You suggested maybe just not sending that part of the meeting. Grad A: Yep. Mmm. Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} PhD B: But, sometimes the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the laptop is in the background and some {disfmarker} somebody is {disfmarker} is talking, and, {vocalsound} that's really a little bit confusing, but {disfmarker} Grad A: It's a little bit confusing. Professor F: That's life. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: I mean, {comment} what're we gonna do? PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: Even a hand - transcription would {disfmarker} PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: Do you {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: a hand - transcriber would have trouble with that. PhD B: Yeah, Grad A: So. PhD B: that's {disfmarker} that's a second question," what {disfmarker} what will different transcribers do with {disfmarker} with the laptop sound?" Postdoc C: Would you {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} Professor F: What was the l what was the laptop sound? Postdoc C: Yeah, go ahead. Professor F: I mean was it speech, PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: or was it {disfmarker} PhD B: It's speech. Professor F: Great. Postdoc C: Well, so {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} So my standard approach has been if it's not someone close - miked, then, they don't end up on one of the close - miked channels. They end up on a different channel. And we have any number of channels available, Professor F: Uh - huh. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: I mean it's an infinite number of channels. PhD B: But, Postdoc C: So just put them on some other channel. PhD B: when thi when this is sent to {disfmarker} to the I M - eh, I B M transcribers, I don't know if {disfmarker} if they can tell that's really {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Yeah, that's right. Grad A: Yeah cuz there will be no channel on which it is foreground. PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. Grad A: Uh {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Well, they have a convention, in their own procedures, {vocalsound} which is for a background {pause} sound. Grad A: Right, but, uh, in general I don't think we want them transcribing the background, cuz that would be too much work. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: Right? For it {disfmarker} because in the overlap sections, then they'll PhD D: Well I don't think Jane's saying they're gonna transcribe it, but they'll just mark it as being {disfmarker} there's some background stuff there, Grad A: But that's gonna be all over the place. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD D: right? Grad A: How w how will they tell the difference between that sort of background and the dormal {disfmarker} normal background of two people talking at once? PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Oh, I think {disfmarker} I think it'd be easy to to say" background laptop" . Grad A: How would they know that? PhD D: But wait a minute, why would they treat them differently? PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Well because one of them {disfmarker} Grad A: Because otherwise it's gonna be too much work for them to mark it. They'll be marking it all over the place. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Oh, I s background laptop or, background LT {vocalsound} {vocalsound} wouldn't take any time. Grad A: Sure, but how are they gonna tell bet the difference between that and two people just talking at the same time? Postdoc C: And {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Oh, you can tell. Acoustically, can't you tell? PhD B: It's really good sound, so {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Oh is it? Oh! Professor F: Well, I mean, isn't there a category something like uh," sounds for someone for whom there is no i close mike" ? PhD B: Yeah that would be very important, Grad A: But how do we d how do we do that for the I B M folks? Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD B: yeah. Grad A: How can they tell that? PhD D: Well we may just have to do it when it gets back here. Grad A: Yes, that's my opinion as well. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: So we don't do anything for it {disfmarker} with it. Postdoc C: OK. PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: That sounds good. Grad A: And they'll just mark it however they mark it, Postdoc C: That sounds good. PhD D: Yeah. Grad A: and we'll correct it when it comes back. PhD B: So th Professor F: Yeah. PhD B: there was a category for @ @ {comment} speech. Postdoc C: OK. Grad A: Yeah, the default. Postdoc C: Yeah, s a Grad A: No, not default. PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: Well, as it comes back, we have a uh {disfmarker} when we can use the channelized interface for encoding it, then it'll be easy for us to handle. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but if {disfmarker} if out of context, they can't tell if it's a channeled speak uh, you know, a close - miked speaker or not, {vocalsound} then that would be confusing to them. PhD B: OK. Grad A: Right. PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: I don't know, I {disfmarker} it doesn't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} Either way would be fine with me, I don't really care. Professor F: Yeah. So. Shall we uh, do digits and get out of here? Grad A: Yep. Postdoc C: I have o I have one question. Do you think we should send the um {disfmarker} that whole meeting to them and not worry about pre - processing it? Professor F: Yes ma'Postdoc C: Or {disfmarker} Uh, what I mean is {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} we should {vocalsound} leave the {vocalsound} part with the audio in the uh, beep file that we send to IBM for that one, or should we {vocalsound} start after the {disfmarker} that part of the meeting is over in what we send. Professor F: Which part? PhD B: With {disfmarker} Postdoc C: So, the part where they're using sounds from their {disfmarker} from their laptops. PhD B: with the laptop sound, or {disfmarker}? just {disfmarker} Postdoc C: w If we have speech from the laptop should we just uh, excise that from what we send to IBM, or should we {vocalsound} i give it to them and let them do with it what they can? PhD D: I think we should just {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it's gonna be too much work if we hafta {vocalsound} worry about that I think. Postdoc C: OK, that'd be nice to have a {disfmarker} a uniform procedure. PhD D: Yeah, I think if we just {disfmarker} m send it all to them. you know. Grad A: Worry about it when we get back. Postdoc C: Good. And see how well they do. PhD D: Let {disfmarker} Yeah, worry about it when we get back in. Postdoc C: And give them freedom to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to indicate if it's just not workable. Professor F: Yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah, PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: OK, Professor F: Yeah. Postdoc C: excellent. Professor F: Cuz, I wouldn't {disfmarker} don't think we would mind {pause} having that {pause} transcribed, if they did it. Grad A: I think {disfmarker} PhD D: Yeah, e Grad A: As I say, we'll just have to listen to it and see how horrible it is. Postdoc C: Yeah, yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: Sample it, rather. Postdoc C: OK. Alright. PhD B: I think that {disfmarker} that will be a little bit of a problem PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: That's great. PhD B: as it really switches around between {vocalsound} two different channels, I think. Grad A: Mm - hmm, and {disfmarker} and they're very {disfmarker} it's very audible? on the close - talking channels? PhD B: What {disfmarker} what I would {disfmarker} Yeah. Grad A: Oh well. I mean, it's the same problem as the lapel mike. Professor F: Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: But {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Oh, interesting. PhD B: Comparable, yeah. Professor F: Yeah. PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: OK, alright. Digits. Professor F: Let's do digits. Postdoc C: OK, so we read the transcript number first, right? Grad A: Are we gonna do it altogether or separately? PhD B: So {disfmarker} What time is it? Professor F: Uh, {vocalsound} why don't we do it together, Postdoc C: Uh, quarter to four. PhD B: Oh, OK. Professor F: that's {disfmarker} that's a nice fast way to do it. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Professor F: One, two, three, go! Postdoc C: It's kind of interesting if there're any more errors in these, {vocalsound} than we had the first set. Grad A: Nnn, yeah, I think there probably will be. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Do you guys plug your ears when you do it? Grad A: I do. PhD B: No. Postdoc C: I usually do. PhD D: I do. PhD B: I don't. Postdoc C: I didn't this time. PhD D: You don't? PhD B: No. Professor F: I haven't been, PhD D: How can you do that? Professor F: no. PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Professor F: Uh, concentration. PhD B: Perhaps there are {vocalsound} lots of errors in it PhD D: Gah! Grad A: Total concentration. Are you guys ready? PhD D: You hate to have your ears plugged? Professor F: Yeah. PhD D: Really?

The preparation of files for transcription by IBM is facing some minor difficulties, as some features (hand-coded time boundaries, multiplicity of channels etc) may complicate the generation of beep files.

tr-gq-666

tr-gq-666_0

What were the main topics? Grad A: OK, we're recording. Professor F: We can say the word" zero" all we want, PhD G: I'm doing some Professor F: but just {disfmarker} PhD G: square brackets, coffee sipping, square brackets. PhD B: That's not allowed, I think. Postdoc C: Cur - curly brackets. Grad E: Is that voiced or unvoiced? Grad A: Curly brackets. PhD B: Curly brackets. Professor F: Curly brackets. Grad A: Right. PhD B: Oops. Professor F: Well, correction for transcribers. PhD G: Mmm! {comment} {vocalsound} Gar - darn! Professor F: Yeah. Postdoc C: Channel two. Grad A: Do we use square brackets for anything? Postdoc C: Yeah. Uh {disfmarker} Grad E: These poor transcribers. Professor F: u Postdoc C: Not ri not right now. I mean {disfmarker} No. PhD D: There's gonna be some zeros from this morning's meeting because I noticed that Professor F: u PhD D: Barry, I think maybe you turned your mike off before the digits were {disfmarker} Oh, was it during digits? Oh, so it doesn't matter. Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: It's still not a good idea. PhD B: So it's not {disfmarker} it's not that bad if it's at the end, but it's {disfmarker} in the beginning, it's {pause} bad. PhD D: Yeah. Yeah. Grad A: Yeah, you wanna {disfmarker} you wanna keep them on so you get {pause} good noise {disfmarker} noise floors, through the whole meeting. Postdoc C: That's interesting. Hmm. Professor F: Uh, I probably just should have left it on. Yeah I did have to run, but {disfmarker} Grad E: Is there any way to change that in the software? Grad A: Change what in the software? Grad E: Where like you just don't {disfmarker} like if you {disfmarker} if it starts catching zeros, like in the driver or something {disfmarker} in the card, or somewhere in the hardware {disfmarker} Where if you start seeing zeros on w across one channel, you just add some {vocalsound} random, @ @ {comment} noise floor {disfmarker} like a small noise floor. Grad A: I mean certainly we could do that, but I don't think that's a good idea. We can do that in post - processing if {disfmarker} if the application needs it. Grad E: Yeah. PhD B: Manual post - processing. Professor F: Well, I {disfmarker} u I actually don't know what the default {comment} is anymore as to how we're using the {disfmarker} the front - end stuff but {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} when we use the ICSI front - end, Grad A: As an argument. Professor F: but um, there is an {disfmarker} there is an o an option in {disfmarker} in RASTA, which, um, {vocalsound} in when I first put it in, uh, back in the days when I actually wrote things, uh, {vocalsound} I {pause} did actually put in a random bit or so that was in it, Grad E: OK. Professor F: but {vocalsound} then I realized that putting in a random bit was equivalent to adding uh {disfmarker} adding flat spectrum, Grad E: Right. Professor F: and it was a lot faster to just add a constant to the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to the spectrum. So then I just started doing that Grad E: Mmm. OK. Professor F: instead of calling" rand" {comment} or something, Grad E: Right. Professor F: so. So it d it does that. Gee! Here we all are! Grad A: Uh, so the only agenda items were Jane {disfmarker} was Jane wanted to talk about some of the IBM transcription process. Professor F: There's an agenda? Grad A: I sort of {vocalsound} condensed the three things you said into that. And then just {disfmarker} I only have like, this afternoon and maybe tomorrow morning to get anything done before I go to Japan for ten days. So if there's anything that n absolutely, desperately needs to be done, you should let me know now. Professor F: Uh, and you just sent off a Eurospeech paper, so. PhD G: Right. I hope they accept it. Professor F: Right. PhD G: I mean, I {disfmarker} both actu as {disfmarker} as a submission and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know, as a paper. Um {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} Grad A: Well yeah, you sent it in {pause} late. Professor F: Yeah, I guess you {disfmarker} first you have to do the first one, Grad A: Yeah. Professor F: and then {disfmarker} Yeah. PhD G: We actually exceeded the delayed deadline by o another day, so. PhD B: Oops. Professor F: Oh they {disfmarker} they had some extension that they announced or something? PhD G: Well yeah. Liz had sent them a note saying" could we please {pause} have another" {comment} {pause} I don't know," three days" or something, and they said yes. PhD D: And then she said" Did I say three? Grad A: Oh, PhD D: I meant four." Grad A: that was the other thing uh, PhD G: But u Grad A: uh, Dave Gelbart sent me email, I think he sent it to you too, {comment} that um, there's a special topic, section in si in Eurospeech on new, corp corpors corpora. And it's not due until like May fifteenth. Professor F: Oh this isn't the Aurora one? Grad A: No. Professor F: It's another one? Grad A: It's a different one. PhD B: No it's {disfmarker} Yeah. Yeah. Grad E: Huh! Grad A: And uh, Professor F: Oh! PhD B: I got this mail from {disfmarker} Grad A: I s forwarded it to Jane as I thought being the most relevant person. Um {disfmarker} So, I thought it was highly relevant {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Yeah I'm {disfmarker} Professor F: That's {disfmarker} Grad A: have you {disfmarker} did you look at the URL? Postdoc C: Yeah. I think so too. Um, I haven't gotten over to there yet, Grad A: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: but what {disfmarker} our discussion yesterday, I really {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I wanna submit one. PhD B: Was this {pause} SmartKom message? I think {pause} Christoph Draxler sent this, Postdoc C: Yeah. And, you offered to {disfmarker} to join me, if you want me to. Grad A: I'll help, PhD B: yeah. Grad A: but obviously I can't, really do, most of it, Postdoc C: Yeah. Yeah, that's right. PhD G: I think several people {disfmarker} sent this, Grad A: so. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Uh - huh. PhD G: yeah. Grad A: But any {disfmarker} any help you need I can certainly provide. Professor F: Well, PhD G: Yeah. Professor F: that's {disfmarker} that's a great idea. PhD G: Well {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there were some interesting results in this paper, though. For instance that Morgan {disfmarker} uh, accounted for fifty - six percent of the Robustness meetings in terms of number of words. Grad A: Wow. Postdoc C: In {disfmarker} in terms of what? In term PhD G: Number of words. Postdoc C: One? Wow! OK. Grad A: That's just cuz he talks really fast. Postdoc C: Do you mean, Professor F: n No. Grad A: I know PhD B: Oh. Short words. Postdoc C: because {disfmarker} is it partly, eh, c correctly identified words? Or is it {disfmarker} or just overall volume? PhD G: No. Well, according to the transcripts. Grad A: But re well regardless. I think it's {disfmarker} he's {disfmarker} he's in all of them, Postdoc C: Oh. OK. Professor F: Yeah. PhD G: I mean, we didn't mention Morgan by name Grad A: and he talks a lot. PhD G: we just {disfmarker} Grad A: One participant. Professor F: Well {disfmarker} we have now, but {disfmarker} PhD G: We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} something about {disfmarker} Grad A: Did you identify him as a senior {pause} member? PhD G: No, we as identify him as the person dominating the conversation. Professor F: Well. Grad A: Yeah. Postdoc C: OK. Professor F: I mean I get these AARP things, but I'm not se really senior yet, but {disfmarker} PhD G: Right Professor F: Um, PhD G: Hmm. Professor F: but uh, other than that delightful result, what was the rest of the paper about? PhD G: Um, well it was about {disfmarker} it had three sections Professor F: You sent it to me but I haven't seen it yet. PhD G: uh {disfmarker} three kinds of uh results, if you will. Uh, the one was that the {disfmarker} just the {disfmarker} the amount of overlap Grad A: The good, the bad, and the ugly. PhD G: um, s in terms of {disfmarker} in terms of number of words and also we computed something called a" spurt" , which is essentially a stretch of speech with uh, no pauses exceeding five hundred milliseconds. Um, and we computed how many overlapped i uh spurts there were and how many overlapped words there were. {vocalsound} Um, for four different {pause} corpora, the Meeting Recorder meetings, the Robustness meetings Switchboard and CallHome, and, found {disfmarker} and sort of compared the numbers. Um, and found that the, uh, you know, as you might expect the Meeting Recorder {pause} meetings had the most overlap uh, but next were Switchboard and CallHome, which both had roughly the same, almost identical in fact, and the Robustness meetings were {disfmarker} had the least, so {disfmarker} One sort of unexpected result there is that uh two - party telephone conversations have {vocalsound} about the same amount of overlap, Grad A: I'm surprised. PhD G: sort of in gen you know {disfmarker} order of magnitude - wise as, uh {disfmarker} as face - to - face meetings with multiple {disfmarker} Grad A: I have {disfmarker} I had better start changing all my slides! PhD G: Yeah. Also, I {disfmarker} in the Levinson, the pragmatics book, {comment} in you know, uh, textbook, {vocalsound} there's {disfmarker} I found this great quote where he says {vocalsound} you know {disfmarker} you know, how people {disfmarker} it talks about how uh {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how people are so good at turn taking, Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Yeah. PhD G: and {vocalsound} so {disfmarker} they're so good that {vocalsound} generally, u the overlapped speech does not {disfmarker} is less than five percent. Postdoc C: Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. PhD G: So, this is way more than five percent. Grad E: Did he mean face {disfmarker} like face - to - face? Or {disfmarker}? PhD G: Well, in real conversations, Grad E: Hmm. PhD G: everyday conversations. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: It's s what these conversation analysts have been studying for years and years there. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD B: But {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Well, of course, no, it doesn't necessarily go against what he said, cuz he said" generally speaking" . In order to {disfmarker} to go against that kind of a claim you'd have to big canvassing. Grad A: Hmm. PhD B: And in f PhD G: Well, he {disfmarker} he made a claim {disfmarker} Grad A: Well {disfmarker} PhD G: Well {disfmarker} Grad A: PhD B: But {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah, we {disfmarker} we have pretty limited sample here. PhD B: Five percent of time or five percent of what? Grad A: Yeah, I was gonna ask that too. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Exactly. PhD G: Well it's time. PhD B: Yeah, so {disfmarker} Postdoc C: It's {disfmarker} i it's not against his conclusion, PhD G: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but still {disfmarker} but still {disfmarker} u Postdoc C: it just says that it's a bi bell curve, and that, {vocalsound} you have something that has a nice range, in your sampling. PhD G: Yeah. So there are slight {disfmarker} There are differences in how you measure it, but still it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You know, the difference between um {disfmarker} between that number and what we have in meetings, which is more like, {vocalsound} you know, close to {disfmarker} in meetings like these, uh {disfmarker} you know, close to twenty percent. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Professor F: But what was it like, say, in the Robustness meeting, for instance? PhD G: That {disfmarker} Grad A: But {disfmarker} PhD G: Robustness meeting? It was {vocalsound} about half of the r So, {vocalsound} in terms of number of words, it's like seventeen or eigh eighteen percent for the Meeting Recorder meetings and {vocalsound} about half that for, {vocalsound} uh, the Robustness. Professor F: Maybe ten percent? Grad A: But I don't know if that's really a fair way of comparing between, multi - party, conversations and two - party conversations. Yeah. I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know. PhD B: Then {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} then you have to {disfmarker} Grad A: I mean that's just something {disfmarker} PhD D: Yeah, I just wonder if you have to normalize by the numbers of speakers or something. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD B: Then {disfmarker} Yeah, then normalize by {disfmarker} by something like that, Postdoc C: Yeah, that's a good point. PhD G: Well, we didn't get to look at that, PhD B: yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD G: but this obvious thing to see if {disfmarker} if there's a dependence on the number of uh {disfmarker} participants. Postdoc C: Good idea. Grad A: I mean {disfmarker} I bet there's a weak dependence. I'm sure it's {disfmarker} it's not a real strong one. PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: Right. Grad A: Right? Because you PhD D: Cuz not everybody talks. Grad A: Right. PhD G: Right. PhD D: Yeah. Grad A: You have a lot of {disfmarker} a lot of two - party, subsets within the meeting. PhD G: Right. Postdoc C: Uh - huh. Grad A: Well regardless {disfmarker} it's an interesting result regardless. PhD G: So {disfmarker} Right. Postdoc C: Yes, that's right. PhD G: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} and we also d computed this both with and without backchannels, Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: so you might think that backchannels have a special status because they're essentially just {disfmarker} Grad A: Uh - huh. So, did {disfmarker} we all said" uh - huh" and nodded at the same time, PhD G: R right. Grad A: so. PhD G: But, even if you take out all the backchannels {disfmarker} so basically you treat backchannels l as nonspeech, as pauses, Grad A: Mm - hmm. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: you still have significant overlap. You know, it goes down from maybe {disfmarker} For Switchboard it goes down from {disfmarker} I don't know {disfmarker} f um {disfmarker} {comment} I don't know {disfmarker} f fourteen percent of the words to maybe {vocalsound} uh I don't know, eleven percent or something {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's not a dramatic change, Grad A: Mm - hmm. PhD G: so it's {disfmarker} Anyway, so it's uh {disfmarker} That was {disfmarker} that was one set of {pause} results, and then the second one was just basically the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the stuff we had in the {disfmarker} in the HLT paper on how overlaps effect the {pause} recognition performance. Postdoc C: Hmm. Grad A: Nope. Right. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: And we rescored things um, a little bit more carefully. We also fixed the transcripts in {disfmarker} in numerous ways. Uh, but mostly we added one {disfmarker} one number, which was what if you {pause} uh, basically score ignoring all {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} the conjecture from the HLT results was that {vocalsound} most of the added recognition error is from insertions {vocalsound} due to background speech. So, we scored {vocalsound} all the recognition results, {vocalsound} uh, in such a way that the uh {disfmarker} Grad A: Oh by the way, who's on channel four? You're getting a lot of breath. PhD B: Yeah. I j was just wondering. Grad E: That's {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah. Grad E: That's me. PhD G: uh, well Don's been working hard. Grad E: That's right. PhD G: OK, so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so if you have the foreground speaker speaking here, and then there's some background speech, may be overlapping it somehow, um, and this is the time bin that we used, then of course you're gonna get insertion errors here and here. Grad A: Right. PhD G: Right? So we scored everything, and I must say the NIST scoring tools are pretty nice for this, where you just basically ignore everything outside of the, {vocalsound} uh, region that was deemed to be foreground speech. And where that was we had to use the t forced alignment, uh, results from s for {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} That's somewhat {disfmarker} that's somewhat subject to error, but still we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh, Don did some ha hand - checking and {disfmarker} and we think that {disfmarker} based on that, we think that the results are you know, valid, although of course, some error is gonna be in there. But basically what we found is after we take out these regions {disfmarker} so we only score the regions that were certified as foreground speech, {comment} {vocalsound} the recognition error went down to almost {vocalsound} uh, the {pause} level of the non - overlapped {pause} speech. So that means that {vocalsound} even if you do have background speech, if you can somehow separate out or find where it is, {vocalsound} uh, the recognizer does a good job, Grad A: That's great. PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: even though there is this back Grad A: Yeah, I guess that doesn't surprise me, because, with the close - talking mikes, the {disfmarker} the signal will be so much stronger. PhD G: Right. Right. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Um, Grad A: What {disfmarker} what sort of normalization do you do? PhD G: so {disfmarker} Uh, well, we just {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} we do {disfmarker} u you know, vit Grad A: I mean in you recognizer, in the SRI recognizer. PhD G: Well, we do uh, VTL {disfmarker} {vocalsound} vocal tract length normalization, w and we uh {disfmarker} you know, we {disfmarker} we uh, {vocalsound} make all the features have zero mean and unit variance. Grad A: Over an entire utterance? Professor F: And {disfmarker} Grad A: Or windowed? PhD G: Over {disfmarker} over the entire c over the entire channel. PhD B: Don't {pause} train {disfmarker} PhD G: Over the {disfmarker} Grad A: Hmm. PhD G: but you know. Um, now we didn't re - align the recognizer for this. We just took the old {disfmarker} So this is actually a sub - optimal way of doing it, Grad A: Right. Professor F: Right. PhD G: right? So we took the old recognition output and we just scored it differently. So the recognizer didn't have the benefit of knowing where the foreground speech {disfmarker} a start Professor F: Were you including the {disfmarker} the lapel {pause} in this? PhD G: Yes. Professor F: And did the {disfmarker} did {disfmarker} did the la did the {disfmarker} the problems with the lapel go away also? Or {disfmarker} PhD G: Um, it {disfmarker} Yeah. Professor F: fray for {disfmarker} for insertions? PhD G: It u not per {disfmarker} I mean, not completely, but yes, Professor F: Less so. PhD G: dramatically. So we have to um {disfmarker} Professor F: I mean, you still {disfmarker} PhD G: Well I should bring the {disfmarker} should bring the table with results. Maybe we can look at it {pause} Monday. Professor F: I would presume that you still would have somewhat higher error with the lapel for insertions than {disfmarker} PhD G: Yes. It's {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah. PhD G: Yes. Yeah. Professor F: Cuz again, looking forward to the non - close miked case, I think that we s still {disfmarker} PhD G: Mm - hmm. Grad A: I'm not looking forward to it. Professor F: i it's the high signal - to - noise ratio PhD G: Right. Professor F: here that {disfmarker} that helps you. PhD G: u s Right. So {disfmarker} so that was number {disfmarker} that was the second set of {disfmarker} uh, the second section. And then, {vocalsound} the third thing was, we looked at, {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh, what we call" interrupts" , although that's {disfmarker} that may be {vocalsound} a misnomer, but basically {vocalsound} we looked at cases where {disfmarker} Uh, so we {disfmarker} we used the punctuation from the original transcripts and we inferred the beginnings and ends of sentences. So, you know {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Di - did you use upper - lower case also, or not? PhD G: Um {disfmarker} Postdoc C: U upper lower case or no? PhD G: Hmm? Postdoc C: OK. PhD G: No, we only used, you know, uh periods, uh, question marks and {pause} exclamation. And we know that there's th that's not a very g I mean, we miss a lot of them, Postdoc C: Yeah. That's OK but {disfmarker} PhD G: but {disfmarker} but it's f i i Postdoc C: Comma also or not? PhD G: No commas. No. And then {vocalsound} we looked at locations where, uh, if you have overlapping speech and someone else starts a sentence, you know, where do these {disfmarker} where do other people start their {vocalsound} turns {disfmarker} not turns really, but you know, sentences, PhD B: Ah. PhD G: um {disfmarker} So we only looked at cases where there was a foreground speaker and then at the to at the {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} the foreground speaker started into their sentence and then someone else started later. PhD B: Somewhere in between the start and the end? PhD G: OK? And so what {disfmarker} PhD B: OK. PhD G: Sorry? PhD B: Somewhere in between the start and the end of the foreground? PhD G: Yes. Uh, so that such that there was overlap between the two sentences. PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: So, the {disfmarker} the question was how can we {disfmarker} what can we say about the places where the second or {disfmarker} or actually, several second speakers, {vocalsound} um {pause} start their {pause}" interrupts" , as we call them. PhD D: Three words from the end. Grad A: At pause boundaries. PhD G: w And we looked at this in terms of um {disfmarker} Grad A: On T - closures, only. PhD G: So {disfmarker} so we had {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we had um u to {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for the purposes of this analysis, we tagged the word sequences, and {disfmarker} and we time - aligned them. Um, and we considered it interrupt {disfmarker} if it occurred in the middle of a word, we basically {disfmarker} you know, considered that to be a interrupt as if it were at {disfmarker} at the beginning of the word. So that, {vocalsound} if any part of the word was overlapped, it was considered an interrupted {pause} word. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: And then we looked at the {disfmarker} the locatio the, {vocalsound} um, you know, the features that {disfmarker} the tags because we had tagged these word strings, {comment} {vocalsound} um, that {disfmarker} that occurred right before these {disfmarker} these uh, interrupt locations. PhD B: Tag by uh PhD G: And the tags we looked at are {vocalsound} the spurt tag, which basically says {disfmarker} or actually {disfmarker} Sorry. End of spurt. So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} whether there was a pause essentially here, because spurts are a {disfmarker} defined as being you know, five hundred milliseconds or longer pauses, and then we had things like discourse markers, uh, backchannels, uh, disfluencies. um, uh, filled pauses {disfmarker} So disfluen the D's are for, {vocalsound} um, {vocalsound} the interruption points of a disfluency, so, where you hesitate, or where you start the repair there. Uh, what else do we had. Uh, repeated {disfmarker} you know, repeated words is another of that kind of disfluencies and so forth. So we had both the beginnings and ends of these {disfmarker} uh so, the end of a filled pause and the end of a discourse marker. And we just eyeballed {disfmarker} I mean {vocalsound} we didn't really hand - tag all of these things. We just {pause} looked at the distribution of words, and so every {vocalsound}" so yeah" , and" OK" , uh, and" uh - huh" were {disfmarker} were the {disfmarker} were deemed to be backchannels and {vocalsound}" wow" and" so" and {vocalsound} uh" right" , uh were um {disfmarker} {pause} Not" right" ." Right" is a backchannel. But so, we sort of {disfmarker} just based on the lexical {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um, identity of the words, we {disfmarker} we tagged them as one of these things. And of course the d the interruption points we got from the original transcripts. So, and then we looked at the disti so we looked at the {pause} distribution of these different kinds of tags, overall uh, and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and particularly at the interruption points. And uh, we found that there is a marked difference so that for instance after {disfmarker} so at the end after a discourse marker or after backchannel or after filled pause, you're much more likely to be interrupted {vocalsound} than before. OK? And also of course after spurt ends, which means basically in p inside pauses. So pauses are always an opportunity for {disfmarker} So we have this little histogram which shows these distributions and, {vocalsound} um, PhD D: I wonder {disfmarker} PhD G: you know, it's {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's not {disfmarker} No big surprises, but it is {pause} sort of interesting from {disfmarker} Grad A: It's nice to actually measure it though. PhD G: Yeah. PhD D: I wonder about the cause and effect there. In other words uh {pause} if you weren't going to pause you {disfmarker} you will because you're g being interrupted. PhD G: Well we're ne PhD D: Uh {disfmarker} PhD G: Right. There's no statement about cause and effect. PhD D: Yeah, right. No, no, no. PhD G: This is just a statistical correlation, PhD D: Right, I {disfmarker} I see. Yeah. PhD G: yeah. Professor F: But he {disfmarker} yeah, he's {disfmarker} he's right, y I mean maybe you weren't intending to pause at all, but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You were intending to stop for fifty - seven milliseconds, PhD G: Right. Professor F: but then Chuck came in PhD G: Right. PhD D: Yeah. Professor F: and so you {vocalsound} paused for a second PhD G: Right. Anyway. {comment} So, Professor F: or more. PhD G: uh, and that was basically it. And {disfmarker} and we {disfmarker} so we wrote this and then, {vocalsound} we found we were at six pages, and then we started {vocalsound} cutting furiously PhD B: Oops. PhD G: and {vocalsound} threw out half of the {vocalsound} material again, and uh played with the LaTeX stuff and {disfmarker} Grad A: Made the font smaller and the narrows longer. PhD G: uh, and {disfmarker} until it fi PhD B: Font smaller, yeah. PhD G: No, no. W well, d you couldn't really make everything smaller PhD B: Put the abstract end. PhD G: but we s we put {disfmarker} Oh, I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Grad A: Took out white space. PhD G: you know the {disfmarker} the gap between the two columns is like ten millimeters, PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: so I d shrunk it to eight millimeters and that helped some. And stuff like that. PhD D: Wasn't there {disfmarker} wasn't there some result, Andreas {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah {disfmarker} PhD D: I {disfmarker} I thought maybe Liz presented this at some conference a while ago about {vocalsound} uh, backchannels PhD G: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. PhD D: uh, and that they tend to happen when uh {pause} the pitch drops. You know you get a falling pitch. And so that's when people tend to backchannel. PhD G: Yeah. Well {disfmarker} PhD D: Uh - i i do you rem PhD G: y We didn't talk about, uh, prosodic, uh, properties at all, PhD D: Right. Right. But {disfmarker} PhD G: although that's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I take it that's something that uh Don will {disfmarker} will look at Grad E: Yeah, we're gonna be looking at that. PhD G: now that we have the data and we have the alignment, so. This is purely based on you know the words PhD D: Mm - hmm. PhD G: and {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I have a reference for that though. Uh - huh. PhD D: Oh you do. PhD G: Yeah. PhD D: So am I recalling correctly? PhD G: Anyway, so. Postdoc C: Well, I didn't know about Liz's finding on that, PhD D: About {disfmarker} Postdoc C: but I know of another paper that talks about something PhD D: Uh - huh. Postdoc C: that {disfmarker} PhD D: Hmm. Grad E: I'd like to see that reference too. Postdoc C: OK. PhD D: It made me think about a cool little device that could be built to uh {disfmarker} to handle those people that call you on the phone and just like to talk and talk and talk. And you just have this little detector that listens for these {vocalsound} drops in pitch and gives them the backchannel. And so then you {vocalsound} hook that to the phone and go off Grad A: Yeah. Uh - huh. PhD D: and do the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} do whatever you r wanna do, PhD G: Oh yeah. Well {disfmarker} PhD D: while that thing keeps them busy. PhD G: There's actually {disfmarker} uh there's this a former student of here from Berkeley, Nigel {disfmarker} Nigel Ward. PhD D: Uh - huh. Sure. PhD G: Do you know him? PhD D: Yeah. PhD G: He did a system uh, in {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he lives in Japan now, and he did this backchanneling, automatic backchanneling system. Professor F: Right. PhD G: It's a very {disfmarker} PhD D: Oh! PhD G: So, exactly what you describe, PhD D: Huh. PhD G: but for Japanese. And it's apparently {disfmarker} for Japa - in Japanese it's really important that you backchannel. It's really impolite if you don't, and {disfmarker} So. Professor F: Huh. Actually for a lot of these people I think you could just sort of backchannel continuously and it would {pause} pretty much be fine. PhD D: It wouldn't matter? Yeah. Grad E: Yeah. That's w That's what I do. PhD D: Random intervals. Grad A: There was {disfmarker} there was of course a Monty Python sketch with that. Where the barber who was afraid of scissors was playing a {disfmarker} a tape of clipping sounds, and saying" uh - huh" ," yeah" ," how about them sports teams?" PhD G: Anyway. So the paper's on - line and y I {disfmarker} I think I uh {disfmarker} I CC'ed a message to Meeting Recorder with the URL so you can get it. Grad A: Yep. Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: Printed it out, haven't read it yet. Professor F: Yeah. PhD G: Um, uh one more thing. So I {disfmarker} I'm actually {disfmarker} {vocalsound} about to send Brian Kingbury an email saying where he can find the {disfmarker} the s the m the material he wanted for the s for the speech recognition experiment, so {disfmarker} but I haven't sent it out yet because actually my desktop locked up, like I can't type anything. Uh b so if there's any suggestions you have for that I was just gonna send him the {disfmarker} PhD D: Is it the same directory that you had suggested? PhD G: I made a directory. I called it um {disfmarker} Postdoc C: He still has his Unix account here, you know. PhD G: Well this isn't {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD G: He does? Postdoc C: And he {disfmarker} and he's {disfmarker} PhD G: Yeah but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but he has to {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I'd hafta add him to Meeting Recorder, I guess, PhD G: he prefe he said he would prefer FTP Postdoc C: but {disfmarker} OK. PhD G: and also, um, the other person that wants it {disfmarker} There is one person at SRI who wants to look at the {vocalsound} um, you know, the uh {disfmarker} the data we have so far, Postdoc C: OK. PhD G: and so I figured that FTP is the best {pause} approach. So what I did is I um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} @ @ {comment} I made a n new directory after Chuck said that would c that was gonna be a good thing. Uh, so it's" FTP {vocalsound} {pause} pub Grad A: Pub real. PhD G: real" {disfmarker} Exactly. MTGC {disfmarker} What is it again? CR {disfmarker} Grad A: Ask Dan Ellis. Professor F: u R D {disfmarker} RDR, yeah. PhD G: Or {disfmarker} Yeah. Right? The same {disfmarker} the same as the mailing list, Professor F: Yeah, PhD G: and {disfmarker} Professor F: the {disfmarker} {pause} No vowels. PhD G: Yeah. Um, Professor F: Yeah PhD G: and then under there {disfmarker} Um actually {disfmarker} Oh and this directory, {vocalsound} is not readable. It's only uh, accessible. So, {vocalsound} in other words, to access anything under there, you have to {vocalsound} be told what the name is. Grad A: Right. PhD G: So that's sort of a g {vocalsound} quick and dirty way of doing access control. Professor F: Mm - hmm. PhD G: So {disfmarker} uh, and the directory for this I call it I" ASR zero point one" because it's sort of meant for recognition. Professor F: So anyone who hears this meeting now knows the {disfmarker} Grad A: Beta? PhD G: And then {disfmarker} then in there I have a file that lists all the other {vocalsound} files, so that someone can get that file and then know the file names and therefore download them. If you don't know the file names you can't {disfmarker} Professor F: Is that a dash or a dot in there? PhD G: I mean you can {disfmarker} Grad A: Don't {disfmarker} don't {disfmarker} don't say. PhD G: Dash. Anyway. So all I {disfmarker} all I was gonna do there was stick the {disfmarker} the transcripts after we {disfmarker} the way that we munged them for scoring, because that's what he cares about, and {disfmarker} um, and also {disfmarker} and then the {disfmarker} the {pause} waveforms that Don segmented. I mean, just basically tar them all up f I mean {disfmarker} w for each meeting I tar them all into one tar file and G - zip them and stick them there. Grad A: I uh, put digits in my own home directory {disfmarker} home FTP directory, PhD G: And so. Grad A: but I'll probably move them there as well. PhD G: Oh, OK. PhD D: So we could point Mari to this also for her {vocalsound} March O - one request? PhD G: OK. Yeah. March O - one. PhD D: Or {disfmarker} PhD G: Oh! PhD D: You n Remember she was {disfmarker} PhD G: Oh she wanted that also? PhD D: Well she was saying that it would be nice if we had {disfmarker} they had a {disfmarker} Or was she talking {disfmarker} Yeah. She was saying it would be nice if they had eh {pause} the same set, so that when they did experiments they could compare. PhD G: Right, but they don't have a recognizer even. PhD D: Yeah. Grad E: Um {disfmarker} I PhD G: But yeah, we can send {disfmarker} I can CC Mari on this so that she knows {disfmarker} PhD D: Yeah. So, for the thing that {disfmarker} Postdoc C: That's good. PhD D: We need to give Brian the beeps file, PhD G: Right. PhD D: so I was gonna probably put it {disfmarker} Grad A: We can put it in the same place. Just put in another directory. PhD D: Yeah, it I'll make another directory. PhD G: Well, make ano make another directory. PhD D: Yeah. Exactly. PhD G: You don't n m PhD D: Yeah. PhD G: Yeah. Grad E: And, Andreas, um, sampled? PhD G: Yeah. They are? Grad E: I think so. Yeah. Um, so either we should regenerate the original {vocalsound} versions, {comment} {pause} or um, we should just make a note of it. PhD G: OK. Oh. Beca - Well {disfmarker} OK, because in one directory there's two versions. Grad E: Yeah, that's the first meeting I cut both versions. Just to check which w if there is a significant difference. PhD G: OK. And so I {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} OK so {disfmarker} but for the other meetings it's the downsampled version that you have. Grad E: They're all downsampled, yeah. PhD G: Oh, OK. Oh that's th important to know, OK so we should probably {disfmarker} uh {pause} give them the non - downsampled versions. Grad E: Yeah. So {disfmarker} PhD G: OK. Alright, then I'll hold off on that and I'll wait for you um {disfmarker} Grad E: Probably by tomorrow PhD G: gen Grad E: I can {disfmarker} I'll send you an email. PhD G: OK. Alright. OK. Yeah, definitely they should have the full bandwidth version, Grad E: Yeah, because I mean {disfmarker} I I think Liz decided to go ahead with the {pause} downsampled versions cuz we can {disfmarker} There was no s like, r significant difference. PhD G: yeah. OK. Well, it takes {disfmarker} it takes up less disk space, for one thing. Grad E: It does take up less disk space, and apparently it did even better {pause} than the original {disfmarker} than the original versions, PhD G: Yeah. Yeah. Grad E: which you know, is just, probably random. PhD G: Right. Yeah, it was a small difference Grad E: But, um {pause} they probably w want the originals. PhD G: but yeah. Yeah. OK. OK, good. Good that {disfmarker} Well, it's a good thing that {disfmarker} Grad A: OK, I think we're losing, Don and Andreas at three - thirty, right? OK. Grad E: Hey mon hafta booga. PhD G: Yeah. Professor F: So, that's why it was good to have Andreas, say these things but {disfmarker} So, we should probably talk about the IBM transcription process stuff that {disfmarker} Postdoc C: OK. So, um you know that Adam created um, a b a script to generate the beep file? Professor F: Hmm. Postdoc C: To then create something to send to IBM. And, um, you {disfmarker} you should probably talk about that. But {disfmarker} but you were gonna to use the {pause} originally transcribed file because I tightened the time bins and that's also the one that they had already {vocalsound} in trying to debug the first stage of this. And uh, my understanding was that, um {disfmarker} I haven't {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I haven't listened to it yet, Grad A: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: but it sounded very good and {disfmarker} and I understand that you guys {vocalsound} were going to have a meeting today, before this meeting. Grad A: It was just to talk about how to generate it. Um, just so that while I'm gone, you can regenerate it if you decide to do it a different way. So uh, Chuck and Thilo should, now more or less know how to generate the file Postdoc C: Excellent. OK. Grad A: and, {vocalsound} the other thing Chuck pointed out is that, um, {vocalsound} since this one is hand - marked, {vocalsound} there are discourse boundaries. Right? So {disfmarker} so when one person is speaking, there's breaks. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Grad A: Whereas Thilo's won't have that. So what {disfmarker} what we're probably gonna do is just write a script, that if two, chunks are very close to each other on the same channel we'll just merge them. Postdoc C: Oh! OK. Ah, interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, sure. Yeah, sure. Makes sense. Grad A: So, uh, and that will get around the problem of, the, {vocalsound} you know" one word beep, one word beep, one word beep, one word beep" . Postdoc C: Yeah. Ah! Clever. Yes. Clever. Yeah. Excellent. PhD D: Yeah, in fact after our meeting uh, this morning Thilo came in and said that {vocalsound} um, there could be {pause} other differences between {vocalsound} the uh {pause} already transcribed meeting with the beeps in it and one that has {pause} just r been run through his process. Postdoc C: And that's the purpose. Yeah. PhD D: So tomorrow, {vocalsound} when we go to make the um {pause} uh, chunked file {vocalsound} for IBM, we're going to actually compare the two. So he's gonna run his process on that same meeting, Postdoc C: Great idea! PhD D: and then we're gonna do the beep - ify on both, and listen to them and see if we notice any real differences. PhD G: Beep - ify! Postdoc C: OK, now one thing that prevented us from apply you {disfmarker} you from applying {disfmarker} Exactly. The training {disfmarker} So that is the training meeting. OK. PhD D: Yeah, w and we know that. Wel - uh we just wanna if {disfmarker} if there're any major differences between {vocalsound} doing it on the hand Postdoc C: Uh - huh. Oh, interesting. Ah! Grad A: Hmm. Postdoc C: OK. Interesting idea. Great. PhD G: So this training meeting, uh w un is that uh {pause} some data where we have uh very um, {vocalsound} you know, accurate {pause} time marks? for {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I went back and hand - marked the {pause} ba the bins, I ment I mentioned that last week. PhD G: OK, yeah. PhD D: But the {disfmarker} but there's {disfmarker} yeah, but there is this one issue with them in that there're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} there are time boundaries in there that occur in the middle of speech. PhD G: Because {disfmarker} PhD D: So {disfmarker} Like when we went t to um {disfmarker} When I was listening to the original file that Adam had, it's like you {disfmarker} you hear a word then you hear a beep {vocalsound} and then you hear the continuation of what is the same sentence. Grad A: That's on the other channel. That's because of channel overlap. PhD D: Well, and {disfmarker} and so the {disfmarker} th Postdoc C: Hmm. Grad A: It's {disfmarker} i PhD D: So there are these chunks that look like uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that have uh {disfmarker} Grad A: I mean that's not gonna be true of the foreground speaker. That'll only be if it's the background speaker. PhD D: Right. So you'll {disfmarker} you'll have a chunk of, you know, channel {vocalsound} A which starts at zero and ends at ten, and then the same channel starting at eleven, ending at fifteen, and then again, starting at sixteen, ending at twenty. Right, so that's three chunks where {vocalsound} actually we w can just make one chunk out of that which is A, zero, twenty. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: Yeah. Grad A: That's what I just said, Postdoc C: Sure. Sure. Grad A: yeah. PhD D: Yeah. So I just wanted to make sure that it was clear. Postdoc C: Yeah, I thought that was {disfmarker} PhD D: So {vocalsound} if you were to use these, you have to be careful not to pull out these individual {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD G: Oh! I mean it {disfmarker} Right, I mean w I mean what I would {disfmarker} I was interested in is having {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a se having time marks for the beginnings and ends of speech by each speaker. Grad A: Well, that's definitely a problem. PhD G: Uh, because we could use that to fine tune our alignment process Grad A: Battery. PhD D: Yeah. PhD G: to make it more accurate. PhD B: Battery? PhD D: Mm - hmm. PhD G: So {disfmarker} uh, it {disfmarker} I don't care that you know, there's actually abutting segments that we have to join together. That's fine. PhD D: OK. PhD G: But what we do care about is that {vocalsound} the beginnings and ends um {pause} are actually close to the speech {vocalsound} inside of that PhD D: Yeah, I think Jane tightened these up by hand. PhD G: uh {disfmarker} PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD G: OK, so what is the {disfmarker} sort of how tight are they? Professor F: Uh, it looks much better. PhD B: Yeah. Looks good. Postdoc C: They were, um, reasonably tight, but not excruciatingly tight. PhD G: Oh. Postdoc C: That would've taken more time. I just wanted to get it so tha So that if you have like" yeah" {comment} in a {disfmarker} swimming in a big bin, then it's {disfmarker} PhD G: No, no! I don Grad A: Let me make a note on yours. PhD G: actually I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah. PhD G: I {disfmarker} it's f That's fine because we don't want to {disfmarker} th that's perfectly fine. In fact it's good. You always want to have a little bit of pause or nonspeech around the speech, say for recognition purposes. Uh, but just {disfmarker} just u w you know get an id I just wanted to have an idea of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of how much extra you allowed um {disfmarker} so that I can interpret the numbers if I compared that with a forced alignment segmentation. Postdoc C: I can't answer that, PhD G: So. Postdoc C: but {disfmarker} but my main goal was {pause} um, in these areas where you have a three - way overlap {vocalsound} and one of the overlaps involves" yeah" , {vocalsound} and it's swimming in this huge bin, {vocalsound} I wanted to get it so that it was clo more closely localized. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Right. But are we talking about, I don't know, {pause} a {vocalsound} {pause} tenth of a second? a {disfmarker}? You know? How {disfmarker} how much {disfmarker} how much extra would you allow at most {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I {disfmarker} I wanted to {disfmarker} I wanted it to be able to {disfmarker} l he be heard normally, PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: so that if you {disfmarker} if you play {pause} back that bin and have it in the mode where it stops at the boundary, {vocalsound} it sounds like a normal word. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: It doesn't sound like the person {disfmarker} i it sounds normal. It's as if the person could've stopped there. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: And it wouldn't have been an awkward place to stop. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: Now sometimes you know, it's {disfmarker} these are involved in places where there was no time. And so, {vocalsound} {vocalsound} there wouldn't be {pause} a gap afterwards because {disfmarker} PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: I mean some cases, there're some people {pause} um, who {disfmarker} who have very long {pause} segments of discourse where, {vocalsound} you know, they'll {disfmarker} they'll breath {pause} and then I put a break. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: But other than that, it's really pretty continuous and this includes things like going from one sentence into the {disfmarker} u one utterance into the next, one sentence into the next, um, w without really stopping. I mean {disfmarker} i they, i you know in writing you have this {vocalsound} two spaces and a big gap PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: you know. PhD G: Right. Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} but uh {pause} {vocalsound} i some people are planning and, you know, I mean, a lot {disfmarker} we always are planning {pause} what we're going to say next. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: But uh, in which case, the gap between {pause} these two complete syntactic units, {vocalsound} um, which of course n spoken things are not always complete syntactically, but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but it would be a shorter p shorter break {vocalsound} than {vocalsound} maybe you might like. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: But the goal there was to {pause} not have {vocalsound} the text be so {disfmarker} so crudely {pause} parsed in a time bin. I mean, because {vocalsound} from a discourse m purpose {pause} it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's more {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's more useful to be able to see {disfmarker} and also you know, from a speech recognition purpose my impression is that {vocalsound} if you have too long a unit, it's {disfmarker} it doesn't help you very much either, cuz of the memory. PhD G: Well, yeah. That's fine. Postdoc C: So, that means that {vocalsound} the amount of time after something is variable depending partly on context, but my general goal {vocalsound} when there was {pause} sufficient space, room, pause {pause} after it {pause} to have it be {pause} kind of a natural feeling {pause} gap. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: Which I c I don't know what it would be quantified as. You know, Wally Chafe says that {vocalsound} um, {vocalsound} in producing narratives, the spurts that people use {vocalsound} tend to be, {vocalsound} uh, that the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} what would be a pause might be something like two {disfmarker} two seconds. PhD G: Mmm. Postdoc C: And um, that would be, you know one speaker. The discourse {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the people who look at turn taking often do use {disfmarker} PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: I was interested that you chose uh, {vocalsound} you know um, {comment} the {disfmarker} you know that you use cuz I think that's a unit that would be more consistent with sociolinguistics. Yeah. PhD G: Well we chose um, you know, half a second because {vocalsound} if {disfmarker} if you go much larger, you have a {disfmarker} y you know, your {disfmarker} your statement about how much overlap there is becomes less, {vocalsound} um, precise, Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: because you include more of actual pause time into what you consider overlap speech. Um, so, it's sort of a compromise, PhD B: Yeah. {comment} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah, I also used I think something around zero point five seconds for the speech - nonspeech detector {disfmarker} PhD G: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's also based {disfmarker} I mean Liz suggested that value based on {vocalsound} the distribution of pause times that you see in Switchboard and {disfmarker} and other corpora. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: Um {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} PhD B: for the minimum silence length. PhD G: Mm - hmm. I see. PhD B: So. PhD G: Yeah. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD G: OK. Postdoc C: In any case, this {disfmarker} this uh, meeting {pause} that I hand {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I hand - adjusted two of them I mentioned before, PhD G: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: and I sent {disfmarker} I sent email, PhD G: OK, Postdoc C: so {disfmarker} PhD G: So {disfmarker} so at some point we will try to fine - tune our forced alignment Postdoc C: And I sent the {comment} {pause} path. PhD G: maybe using those as references because you know, what you would do is you would play with different parameters. And to get an object You need an objective {vocalsound} measure of how closely you can align the models to the actual speech. And that's where your your data would be {pause} very important to have. So, I will {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah and hopefully the new meetings {pause} which will start from the channelized version will {disfmarker} will have better time boundaries {pause} and alignments. PhD G: Mm - hmm. Right. Postdoc C: But I like this idea of {disfmarker} uh, for our purposes for the {disfmarker} for the IBM preparation, {vocalsound} uh, n having these {pause} joined together, PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. Postdoc C: and uh {disfmarker} It makes a lot of sense. And in terms of transcription, it would be easy to do it that way. PhD G: Yeah. Postdoc C: The way that they have with the longer units, PhD G: Yeah. Postdoc C: not having to fuss with adding these units at this time. PhD B: Yeah. Whi - which could have one drawback. If there is uh a backchannel in between those three things, PhD G: Right. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD B: the {disfmarker} the n the backchannel will {disfmarker} will occur at the end of {disfmarker} of those three. Postdoc C: Yes. PhD B: And {disfmarker} and in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the previous version where in the n which is used now, {vocalsound} there, the backchannel would {disfmarker} would be in - between there somewhere, so. Postdoc C: I see. PhD B: That would be more natural Postdoc C: Yeah. Well, PhD B: but {disfmarker} Postdoc C: that's {disfmarker} that's right, but you know, thi this brings me to the other f stage of this which I discussed with you earlier today, PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: which is {vocalsound} the second stage is {vocalsound} um, w what to do {pause} in terms of the transcribers adjustment of these data. I discussed this with you too. Um, the tr so the idea initially was, we would get {vocalsound} uh, for the new meetings, so the e EDU meetings, that {vocalsound} Thilo ha has now presegmented all of them for us, on a channel by channel basis. And um, so, I've assigned {disfmarker} I've {disfmarker} I've assigned them to our transcribers and um, so far I've discussed it with one, with uh {disfmarker} And I had a {pause} about an hour discussion with her about this yesterday, we went through {vocalsound} uh EDU - one, at some extent. And it occurred to me that {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} that {vocalsound} basically what we have in this kind of a format is {disfmarker} you could consider it as a staggered mixed file, we had some discussion over the weekend a about {disfmarker} at {disfmarker} at this other meeting that we were all a at {disfmarker} um, {vocalsound} about whether the tran the IBM transcribers should hear a single channel audio, or a mixed channel audio. And um, {vocalsound} in {disfmarker} in a way, by {disfmarker} by having this {disfmarker} this chunk and then the backchannel {vocalsound} after it, it's like a stagal staggered mixed channel. And um, {vocalsound} it occurred {pause} to me in my discussion with her yesterday that um, um, the {disfmarker} {pause} the {disfmarker} the maximal gain, it's {disfmarker} from the IBM {pause} people, may be in long stretches of connected speech. So it's basically a whole bunch of words {vocalsound} which they can really do, because of the continuity within that person's turn. So, what I'm thinking, and it may be that not all meetings will be good for this, {comment} but {disfmarker} but what I'm thinking is that {vocalsound} in the EDU meetings, they tend to be {vocalsound} driven by a couple of dominant speakers. And, if the chunked files focused on the dominant speakers, {vocalsound} then, when {disfmarker} when it got s patched together when it comes back from IBM, we can add the backchannels. It seems to me {vocalsound} that {vocalsound} um, you know, the backchannels per - se wouldn't be so hard, but then there's this question of the time {pause} @ @ {comment} uh, marking, and whether the beeps would be {vocalsound} uh y y y And I'm not exactly sure how that {disfmarker} how that would work with the {disfmarker} with the backchannels. And, so um {disfmarker} And certainly things that are {vocalsound} intrusions of multiple words, {vocalsound} taken out of context and displaced in time from where they occurred, {vocalsound} that would be hard. So, m my {vocalsound} thought is {pause} i I'm having this transcriber go through {vocalsound} the EDU - one meeting, and indicate a start time {nonvocalsound} f for each dominant speaker, endpoi end time for each dominant speaker, and the idea that {vocalsound} these units would be generated for the dominant speakers, {vocalsound} and maybe not for the other channels. Grad A: Yeah the only, um, disadvantage of that is, then it's hard to use an automatic method to do that. The advantage is that it's probably faster to do that than it is to use the automated method and correct it. So. Postdoc C: Well, it {disfmarker} Grad A: We'll just have to see. Postdoc C: OK. I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think um, you know, the original plan was that the transcriber would adjust the t the boundaries, and all that for all the channels but, {vocalsound} you know, that is so time - consuming, and since we have a bottleneck here, we want to get IBM things that are usable s as soon as possible, then this seemed to me it'd be a way of gett to get them a flood of data, which would be useful when it comes back to us. And um {disfmarker} Grad A: Yeah. Postdoc C: Oh also, at the same time she {disfmarker} when she goes through this, she'll be {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} If there's anything that {vocalsound} was encoded as a pause, but really has something transcribable in it, {vocalsound} then she's going to {vocalsound} uh, make a mark {disfmarker} w uh, so you know, so {vocalsound} that {disfmarker} that bin would be marked as it {disfmarker} as double dots and she'll just add an S. And in the other {disfmarker} in the other case, if it's marked as speech, {vocalsound} and really there's nothing transcribable in it, then she's going to put a s dash, and I'll go through and it {disfmarker} and um, you know, with a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} with a substitution command, get it so that it's clear that those are the other category. I'll just, you know, recode them. But um, {vocalsound} um, the transcribable events {pause} that um, I'm considering in this, {vocalsound} uh, continue to be {vocalsound} laugh, as well as speech, and cough and things like that, so I'm not stripping out anything, just {disfmarker} just you know, being very lenient in what's considered speech. Yeah? PhD D: Jane? In terms of the {disfmarker} this new procedure you're suggesting, {vocalsound} um, u what is the {disfmarker} Grad A: It's not that different. PhD D: So I'm a little confused, because how do we know where to put beeps? Is it {disfmarker} i d y is it {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Oh, OK. Grad A: Transcriber will do it. Postdoc C: So what it {disfmarker} what it {disfmarker} what it involves is {disfmarker} is really a s uh, {vocalsound} uh, the original pr procedure, but {vocalsound} only applied to {pause} uh, a certain {pause} strategically chosen {pause} s aspect of the data. Grad A: We pick the easy parts of the data basically, Postdoc C: So {disfmarker} Grad A: and transcriber marks it by hand. Postdoc C: You got it. Grad A: And because {disfmarker} PhD D: But after we've done Thilo's thing. Grad A: No. Postdoc C: Yes! Grad A: Oh, after. Oh, OK, Postdoc C: Yes! Grad A: I didn't {disfmarker} I didn't understand that. Postdoc C: Oh yeah! Grad A: OK. PhD B: So, I'm @ @ {disfmarker} now I'm confused. Postdoc C: OK. We start with your presegmented version {disfmarker} PhD G: OK, and I'm leaving. Grad E: Yeah, I have to go as well. PhD G: So, um {disfmarker} Grad A: OK, leave the mikes on, and just put them on the table. Grad E: OK. Thanks. Postdoc C: We start with the presegmented version {disfmarker} Grad A: Let me mark you as no digits. PhD B: You start with the presegmentation, r {vocalsound} yeah? Postdoc C: Yeah. And then um, {vocalsound} the transcriber, {vocalsound} instead of going painstakingly through all the channels and moving the boundaries around, and deciding if it's speech or not, but not transcribing anything. OK? Instead of doing that, which was our original plan, {vocalsound} the tra They focus on the dominant speaker {disfmarker} PhD D: Mm - hmm. They just {vocalsound} do that on {pause} the main channels. Postdoc C: Yeah. So what they do is they identify who's the di dominant speaker, and when the speaker starts. PhD D: OK. PhD B: Yeah? OK. Postdoc C: So I mean, you're still gonna {disfmarker} PhD B: And you just {disfmarker} Postdoc C: So we're {disfmarker} It's based on your se presegmentation, that's the basic {pause} thing. PhD B: and you just use the s the segments of the dominant speaker then? For {disfmarker} for sending to {disfmarker} to IBM or {disfmarker}? Postdoc C: Yeah. Exactly. PhD D: So, now Jane, my question is {vocalsound} when they're all done adjusting the w time boundaries for the dominant speaker, {comment} have they then also erased the time boundaries for the other ones? Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Uh No. No, no. Huh - uh. S PhD D: So how will we know who {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: That's {disfmarker} that's why she's notating the start and end points of the dominant speakers. So, on a {disfmarker} you know, so {vocalsound} i in EDU - one, i as far as I listened to it, you start off with a {disfmarker} a s section by Jerry. So Jerry starts at minute so - and - so, and goes until minute so - and - so. And then Mark Paskin comes in. And he starts at {vocalsound} minute such - and - such, and goes on till minute so - and - so. OK. And then {vocalsound} meanwhile, she's listening to {vocalsound} {pause} both of these guys'channels, determining if there're any cases of misclassification of speech as nothing, and nothing as speech, PhD D: Mm - hmm. OK. Postdoc C: and {vocalsound} a and adding a tag if that happens. PhD D: So she does the adjustments on those guys? Postdoc C: But you know, I wanted to say, his segmentation is so good, that {vocalsound} um, the part that I listened to with her yesterday {vocalsound} didn't need any adjustments of the bins. PhD B: On that meeting. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: So far we haven't. So this is not gonna be a major part of the process, at least {disfmarker} least not in {disfmarker} not on ones that {disfmarker} that really {disfmarker} PhD D: So if you don't have to adjust the bins, why not just do what it {disfmarker} for all the channels? Postdoc C: Mm - hmm? PhD D: Why not just throw all the channels to IBM? Postdoc C: Well there's the question o of {pause} whether {disfmarker} Well, OK. She i It's a question of how much time we want our transcriber to invest here {vocalsound} when she's gonna have to invest that when it comes back from IBM anyway. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: So if it's only inserting" mm - hmm" s here and there, then, wouldn't that be something that would be just as efficient to do at this end, instead of having it go through I B M, then be patched together, then be double checked here. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Right. PhD B: Yeah. But {disfmarker} But then we could just use the {disfmarker} the output of the detector, and do the beeping on it, and send it to I B PhD D: Without having her check anything. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: Right. Postdoc C: Well, I guess {disfmarker} Grad A: I think we just {disfmarker} we just have to listen to it and see how good they are. PhD B: For some meetings, I'm {disfmarker} I'm sure it {disfmarker} i n Postdoc C: I'm {disfmarker} I'm open to that, it was {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah, if it's working well, PhD B: That's {disfmarker} And some {disfmarker} on some meetings it's good. Professor F: that sounds like a good idea since as you say you have to do stuff with the other end anyway. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Well yea OK, good. I mean the detector, this {disfmarker} PhD D: Yeah, I mean we have to fix it when it comes back anyhow. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Now, you were saying that they {disfmarker} they differ in how well they work depending on channel s sys systems and stuff. PhD B: Yeah. So we should perhaps just select meetings on which the speech - nonspeech detection works well, Postdoc C: But EDU is great. PhD B: and just use, {vocalsound} those meetings to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to send to IBM and, do the other ones. Grad A: Release to begin with. Postdoc C: How interesting. You know {disfmarker} Professor F: What's the problem {disfmarker} the l I forget. Is the problem the lapel, or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} PhD B: Uh, it really depends. Um, my {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} my impression is that it's better for meetings with fewer speakers, and it's better for {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for meetings where nobody is breathing. Professor F: Oh, PhD B: Yeah, Professor F: the dead meetings. PhD B: get {disfmarker} That's it. PhD D: So in fact this might suggest an alternative sort of a {disfmarker} a c a hybrid between these two things. Grad A: No, the undead meeting, yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah. Yeah? PhD D: So the {disfmarker} the one suggestion is you know we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we run Thilo's thing and then we have somebody go and adjust all the time boundaries PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah? PhD D: and we send it to IBM. The other one is {vocalsound} we just run his thing and send it to IBM. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: There's a {disfmarker} a another possibility if we find that there are some problems, PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. PhD D: and that is {vocalsound} if we go ahead and we {vocalsound} just run his, and we generate the beeps file, then we have somebody listen beeps file. PhD B: Yeah. And erase {disfmarker} PhD D: And they listen to each section and say" yes, no" whether that section is PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Is intelligible. PhD D: i i intelligible or not. And it just {disfmarker} You know, there's a little interface which will {disfmarker} for all the" yes" - es it {disfmarker} then that will be the final {vocalsound} beep file. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: Blech. Postdoc C: That's interesting! Cuz that's {disfmarker} that's directly related to the e end task. Grad A: Stress test. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: How interesting! PhD D: Yeah. I mean it wouldn't be that much fun for a transcriber to sit there, hear it, beep, yes or no. PhD B: Nope. Professor F: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know. PhD D: But it would be quick. Professor F: It would be {disfmarker} kind of quick but they're still listening to everything. PhD D: But there's no adjusting. And that's what's slow. There's no adjusting of time boundaries. Postdoc C: Well, {vocalsound} eh, listening does take time too. PhD D: Yeah. Professor F: Yeah. I don't know, I {disfmarker} I think I'm {disfmarker} I'm really tending towards {disfmarker} Grad A: One and a half times real time. Professor F: I mean, {vocalsound} what's the worst that happens? Do the transcribers {disfmarker} I mean as long as th on the other end they can say there's {disfmarker} there's something {disfmarker} conventions so that they say" huh?" PhD D: Yeah. Right. They {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} Professor F: and then we can flag those later. PhD D: Yeah. That's true. Professor F: i i It {disfmarker} i PhD D: We can just catch it at the {disfmarker} catch everything at this side. Professor F: Yeah. PhD D: Well maybe that's the best way to go, Postdoc C: How interesting! PhD D: just {disfmarker} Grad A: I mean it just depends on how {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Well EDU {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah, Grad A: Sorry, go ahead. PhD B: u u u Postdoc C: So I was gonna say, EDU - one is good enough, PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: maybe we could include it in this {disfmarker} in this set of uh, this stuff we send. PhD B: Yeah there's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think there are some meetings where it would {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} It's possible like this. Grad A: Yeah I {disfmarker} I think, we won't know until we generate a bunch of beep files automatically, listen to them and see how bad they are. PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD D: We won't be able to s include it with this first thing, Grad A: If {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Hmm. Oh, OK. PhD D: because there's a part of the process of the beep file which requires knowing the normalization coefficients. Postdoc C: Oh, I see. PhD D: And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So a Grad A: That's not hard to do. Just {disfmarker} it takes {disfmarker} you know, it just takes five minutes rather than, taking a second. PhD D: OK PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: So. I just hand {disfmarker} hard - coded it. PhD D: Right, except I don't think that {disfmarker} the c the instructions for doing that was in that directory, right? I {disfmarker} I didn't see where you had gener Grad A: No, but it's easy enough to do. PhD B: What {disfmarker} Professor F: But I {disfmarker} but I have a {disfmarker} PhD B: Doing the gain? It's no problem. Adjusting the gain? PhD D: n Doing th No, getting the coefficients, for each channel. PhD B: Yeah, that's no problem. Postdoc C: Know what numbers. PhD D: OK. So we just run that one {disfmarker} Grad A: There are lots of ways to do it. PhD B: We can do that. Grad A: I have one program that'll do it. You can find other programs. PhD B: Yeah. I {disfmarker} I used it, so. PhD D: We just run that Grad A: Yep. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: J - sound - stat? OK. Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: Minus D, capital D. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I have {pause} another suggestion on that, which is, {vocalsound} since, really what this is, is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is trying to in the large, send the right thing to them and there is gonna be this {disfmarker} this post - processing step, um, why don't we check through a bunch of things by sampling it? PhD D: Mm - hmm. Professor F: Right? In other words, rather than, um, uh, saying we're gonna listen to everything {disfmarker} Grad A: I didn't mean listen to everything, I meant, just see if they're any good. Professor F: Yeah. So y you do a bunch of meetings, you listen to {disfmarker} to a little bit here and there, PhD D: Yeah. Professor F: if it sounds like it's almost always right and there's not any big problem you send it to them. PhD D: Send it to them. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: OK. Professor F: And, you know, then they'll send us back what we {disfmarker} w what {disfmarker} what they send back to us, Postdoc C: Oh, that'd be great. Professor F: and we'll {disfmarker} we'll fix things up and {vocalsound} some meetings will cost more time to fix up than others. Grad A: We should {disfmarker} Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: And we should just double - check with Brian on a few simple conventions on how they should mark things. PhD B: Sure. PhD D: OK. When they {disfmarker} when there's either no speech in there, PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. PhD D: or {vocalsound} something they don't understand, Postdoc C: Yeah. Mm - hmm. PhD D: things like that. Grad A: Yeah, cuz @ @ uh what I had originally said to Brian was well they'll have to mark, when they can't distinguish between the foreground and background, Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: because I thought that was gonna be the most prevalent. But if we send them without editing, then we're also gonna hafta have m uh, notations for words that are cut off, PhD D: Mm - hmm. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Grad A: and other sorts of, uh, acoustic problems. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: They do already. PhD D: And they may just guess at what those cut - off words are, Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD D: but w I mean we're gonna adjust {disfmarker} everything when we come back {disfmarker} Grad A: But what {disfmarker} what we would like them to do is be conservative so that they should only write down the transcript if they're sure. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: And otherwise they should mark it so that we can check. PhD B: Mark it. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: Well, we have the unintelligibility {pause} convention. Grad A: Mm - hmm. Postdoc C: And actually they have one also, Grad A: Right. Postdoc C: which {disfmarker} Professor F: i Can I maybe have {disfmarker} have an order of {disfmarker} it's probably in your paper that I haven't looked at lately, but {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Certainty. Professor F: Uh, an order of magnitude notion of {disfmarker} of how {disfmarker} on a good meeting, how often uh, do you get segments that come in the middle of words and so forth, and uh {disfmarker} in a bad meeting how {vocalsound} often? PhD B: Uh. Postdoc C: Was is it in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what is the t Professor F: Well he's saying, you know, that the {disfmarker} the EDU meeting was a good {disfmarker} good meeting, Postdoc C: In a good meeting, what? PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah. Professor F: right? Postdoc C: Oh I see, Professor F: Uh, and so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so it was almost {disfmarker} it was almost always doing the right thing. Postdoc C: the characteristics. Professor F: So I wanted to get some sense of what {disfmarker} what almost always meant. And then, uh in a bad meeting, {vocalsound} or p some meetings where he said oh he's had some problems, what does that mean? Postdoc C: Uh - huh. OK. Professor F: So I mean does one of the does it mean one percent and ten percent? Or does it mean {vocalsound} five percent and fifty percent? Postdoc C: OK. Professor F: Uh {disfmarker} PhD B: So {disfmarker} Professor F: Or {disfmarker} Maybe percentage isn't the right word, Postdoc C: Just PhD B: Yeah th Professor F: but you know how many {disfmarker} how many per minute, or {disfmarker} You know. PhD B: Yeah, the {disfmarker} the problem is that, nnn, the numbers Ian gave in the paper is just uh, some frame error rate. So that's {disfmarker} that's not really {disfmarker} {vocalsound} What will be effective for {disfmarker} for the transcribers, is {disfmarker} They have to {disfmarker} yeah, in in they have to insure that that's a real s spurt or something. And {disfmarker} but, {vocalsound} the numbers {disfmarker} Oops. Um {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Hmm! PhD B: Let me think. So the {pause} speech {disfmarker} the amount of speech that is missed by the {pause} detector, for a good meeting, I th is around {pause} or under one percent, I would say. But there can be {disfmarker} Yeah. For {disfmarker} yeah, but there can be more {disfmarker} There's {disfmarker} There's more amount speech {disfmarker} uh, more amount of {disfmarker} Yeah well, the detector says there is speech, but there is none. So that {disfmarker} that can be a lot when {disfmarker} when it's really a breathy channel. Professor F: But I think that's less of a problem. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: They'll just listen. It's just wasted time. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: And th and that's for a good meeting. Now what about in a meeting that you said we've {disfmarker} you've had some more trouble with? PhD B: I can't {comment} really {disfmarker} hhh, {comment} {pause} Tsk. {comment} I {pause} don't have really representative numbers, I think. That's really {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I did {pause} this on {disfmarker} on four meetings and only five minutes of {disfmarker} of every meet of {disfmarker} of these meetings so, {vocalsound} it's not {disfmarker} not that representative, but, it's perhaps, Fff. Um {disfmarker} Yeah, it's perhaps then {disfmarker} it's perhaps five percent of something, which s uh the {disfmarker} the frames {disfmarker} speech frames which are {disfmarker} which are missed, but um, I can't {disfmarker} can't really tell. Professor F: Right. So I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So i Sometime, we might wanna go back and look at it more in terms of {vocalsound} how many times is there a spurt that's {disfmarker} that's uh, interrupted? PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Professor F: Something like that? Postdoc C: The other problem is, that when it {disfmarker} when it uh d i on the breathy ones, where you get {vocalsound} {vocalsound} breathing, uh, inti indicated as speech. Professor F: And {disfmarker} PhD B: So {disfmarker} Postdoc C: And I guess we could just indicate to the transcribers not to {pause} encode that if they {disfmarker} We could still do the beep file. Professor F: Yeah again I {disfmarker} I think that that is probably less of a problem because if you're {disfmarker} if there's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If {disfmarker} if a {disfmarker} if a word is {disfmarker} is split, then they might have to listen to it a few times to really understand that they can't quite get it. Postdoc C: OK. OK. PhD B: But {disfmarker} Postdoc C: OK. Professor F: Whereas if they listen {nonvocalsound} to it and there's {disfmarker} don't hear any speech I think they'd probably just listen to it once. PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: So there'd {disfmarker} you'd think there'd be a {disfmarker} a factor of three or four in {disfmarker} in, uh, cost function, Postdoc C: OK. Professor F: you know, between them or something. PhD B: Yeah, so {disfmarker} but I think that's {disfmarker} n that really doesn't happen very often that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that a word is cut in the middle or something. That's {disfmarker} that's really not {disfmarker} not normal. Professor F: So {disfmarker} so what you're saying is that nearly always what happens when there's a problem is that {disfmarker} is that uh, there's {vocalsound} some uh, uh nonspeech that uh {disfmarker} that is b interpreted as speech. PhD B: That is marked as speech. Yeah. Yeah. Professor F: Well then, we really should just send the stuff. Postdoc C: That would be great. Professor F: Right? Because that doesn't do any harm. PhD B: Yeah, it's {disfmarker} Professor F: You know, if they {disfmarker} they hear you know, a dog bark and they say what was the word, they {comment} you know, they {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah, I als I {disfmarker} Professor F: Ruff ruff! PhD B: Yeah I also thought of {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there are really some channels where it is almost {comment} um, only bre breathing in it. And to {disfmarker} to re - run's Professor F: Yeah? PhD B: Eh, um. Yeah. I've got a {disfmarker} a {pause} P - a {pause} method with loops into the cross - correlation with the PZM mike, and then to reject everything which {disfmarker} which seems to be breath. Professor F: Uh - huh. PhD B: So, I could run this on those breathy channels, and perhaps throw out {disfmarker} Grad A: That's a good idea. Postdoc C: Wow, that's a great idea. Professor F: Yeah. But I think {disfmarker} I th Again, I think that sort of {disfmarker} that that would be good, PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: and what that'll do is just cut the time a little further. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Mm - hmm. Professor F: But I think none of this is stuff that really needs somebody doing these {disfmarker} these uh, uh, explicit markings. PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: Excellent. Oh, I'd be delighted with that, I {disfmarker} I was very impressed with the {disfmarker} with the result. Yeah. Professor F: Yeah, cuz the other thing that was concerning me about it was that it seemed kind of specialized to the EDU meeting, and {disfmarker} and that then when you get a meeting like this or something, PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and you have a b a bunch of different dominant speakers Postdoc C: Oh yeah, interesting. Professor F: you know, how are you gonna handle it. Postdoc C: Oh yeah. Professor F: Whereas this sounds like a more general solution Postdoc C: Oh yeah, I pr I much prefer this, Professor F: is {disfmarker} Postdoc C: I was just trying to find a way {disfmarker} Cuz I {disfmarker} I don't think the staggered mixed channel is awfully good as a way of handling overlaps. Professor F: Yeah. Uh - huh. Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} but uh {disfmarker} PhD D: Well good. That {disfmarker} that really simplifies thing then. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD D: And we can just, you know, get the meeting, process it, put the beeps file, send it off to IBM. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. PhD D: You know? PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: With very little {pause} work on our side. PhD B: Process it, hear into it. I would {disfmarker} PhD D: Do what? PhD B: Um, {pause} listen to it, and then {disfmarker} Grad A: Or at least sample it. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Well, sample it. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Sample it. Professor F: I {disfmarker} I would just use some samples, PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. Professor F: make sure you don't send them three hours of" bzzz" {comment} or something. PhD D: Yeah. PhD B: No. PhD D: Yeah. Right. PhD B: That won't be good. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD D: Yeah. Yeah that would be very good. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: And then we can you know {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah. PhD D: That'll oughta be a good way to get the pipeline going. Postdoc C: Oh, I'd be delighted. Yeah. PhD B: And there's {disfmarker} there's one point which I {comment} uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah, which {disfmarker} which I r {vocalsound} we covered when I {disfmarker} when I r listened to one of the EDU meetings, Professor F: Great. PhD B: and that's {vocalsound} that somebody is playing sound from his laptop. Grad A: Uh - huh PhD B: And i {vocalsound} the speech - nonspeech detector just assigns randomly the speech to {disfmarker} to one of the channels, so. Uh - I haven't - I didn't think of {disfmarker} of s of {vocalsound} this before, Grad A: What can you do? PhD B: but what {disfmarker} what shall we do about s things like this? Postdoc C: Well you were suggesting {disfmarker} You suggested maybe just not sending that part of the meeting. Grad A: Yep. Mmm. Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} PhD B: But, sometimes the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the laptop is in the background and some {disfmarker} somebody is {disfmarker} is talking, and, {vocalsound} that's really a little bit confusing, but {disfmarker} Grad A: It's a little bit confusing. Professor F: That's life. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: I mean, {comment} what're we gonna do? PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: Even a hand - transcription would {disfmarker} PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: Do you {disfmarker} Professor F: Yeah. Grad A: a hand - transcriber would have trouble with that. PhD B: Yeah, Grad A: So. PhD B: that's {disfmarker} that's a second question," what {disfmarker} what will different transcribers do with {disfmarker} with the laptop sound?" Postdoc C: Would you {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} Professor F: What was the l what was the laptop sound? Postdoc C: Yeah, go ahead. Professor F: I mean was it speech, PhD B: Yeah. Professor F: or was it {disfmarker} PhD B: It's speech. Professor F: Great. Postdoc C: Well, so {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} So my standard approach has been if it's not someone close - miked, then, they don't end up on one of the close - miked channels. They end up on a different channel. And we have any number of channels available, Professor F: Uh - huh. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: I mean it's an infinite number of channels. PhD B: But, Postdoc C: So just put them on some other channel. PhD B: when thi when this is sent to {disfmarker} to the I M - eh, I B M transcribers, I don't know if {disfmarker} if they can tell that's really {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Yeah, that's right. Grad A: Yeah cuz there will be no channel on which it is foreground. PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. Grad A: Uh {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Well, they have a convention, in their own procedures, {vocalsound} which is for a background {pause} sound. Grad A: Right, but, uh, in general I don't think we want them transcribing the background, cuz that would be too much work. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: Right? For it {disfmarker} because in the overlap sections, then they'll PhD D: Well I don't think Jane's saying they're gonna transcribe it, but they'll just mark it as being {disfmarker} there's some background stuff there, Grad A: But that's gonna be all over the place. Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD D: right? Grad A: How w how will they tell the difference between that sort of background and the dormal {disfmarker} normal background of two people talking at once? PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Oh, I think {disfmarker} I think it'd be easy to to say" background laptop" . Grad A: How would they know that? PhD D: But wait a minute, why would they treat them differently? PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Well because one of them {disfmarker} Grad A: Because otherwise it's gonna be too much work for them to mark it. They'll be marking it all over the place. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Oh, I s background laptop or, background LT {vocalsound} {vocalsound} wouldn't take any time. Grad A: Sure, but how are they gonna tell bet the difference between that and two people just talking at the same time? Postdoc C: And {disfmarker} PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: Oh, you can tell. Acoustically, can't you tell? PhD B: It's really good sound, so {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Oh is it? Oh! Professor F: Well, I mean, isn't there a category something like uh," sounds for someone for whom there is no i close mike" ? PhD B: Yeah that would be very important, Grad A: But how do we d how do we do that for the I B M folks? Postdoc C: Yeah. PhD B: yeah. Grad A: How can they tell that? PhD D: Well we may just have to do it when it gets back here. Grad A: Yes, that's my opinion as well. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: So we don't do anything for it {disfmarker} with it. Postdoc C: OK. PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: That sounds good. Grad A: And they'll just mark it however they mark it, Postdoc C: That sounds good. PhD D: Yeah. Grad A: and we'll correct it when it comes back. PhD B: So th Professor F: Yeah. PhD B: there was a category for @ @ {comment} speech. Postdoc C: OK. Grad A: Yeah, the default. Postdoc C: Yeah, s a Grad A: No, not default. PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: Well, as it comes back, we have a uh {disfmarker} when we can use the channelized interface for encoding it, then it'll be easy for us to handle. PhD B: Yeah. Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but if {disfmarker} if out of context, they can't tell if it's a channeled speak uh, you know, a close - miked speaker or not, {vocalsound} then that would be confusing to them. PhD B: OK. Grad A: Right. PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: I don't know, I {disfmarker} it doesn't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} Either way would be fine with me, I don't really care. Professor F: Yeah. So. Shall we uh, do digits and get out of here? Grad A: Yep. Postdoc C: I have o I have one question. Do you think we should send the um {disfmarker} that whole meeting to them and not worry about pre - processing it? Professor F: Yes ma'Postdoc C: Or {disfmarker} Uh, what I mean is {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} we should {vocalsound} leave the {vocalsound} part with the audio in the uh, beep file that we send to IBM for that one, or should we {vocalsound} start after the {disfmarker} that part of the meeting is over in what we send. Professor F: Which part? PhD B: With {disfmarker} Postdoc C: So, the part where they're using sounds from their {disfmarker} from their laptops. PhD B: with the laptop sound, or {disfmarker}? just {disfmarker} Postdoc C: w If we have speech from the laptop should we just uh, excise that from what we send to IBM, or should we {vocalsound} i give it to them and let them do with it what they can? PhD D: I think we should just {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it's gonna be too much work if we hafta {vocalsound} worry about that I think. Postdoc C: OK, that'd be nice to have a {disfmarker} a uniform procedure. PhD D: Yeah, I think if we just {disfmarker} m send it all to them. you know. Grad A: Worry about it when we get back. Postdoc C: Good. And see how well they do. PhD D: Let {disfmarker} Yeah, worry about it when we get back in. Postdoc C: And give them freedom to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to indicate if it's just not workable. Professor F: Yeah. Postdoc C: Yeah, PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: OK, Professor F: Yeah. Postdoc C: excellent. Professor F: Cuz, I wouldn't {disfmarker} don't think we would mind {pause} having that {pause} transcribed, if they did it. Grad A: I think {disfmarker} PhD D: Yeah, e Grad A: As I say, we'll just have to listen to it and see how horrible it is. Postdoc C: Yeah, yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: Sample it, rather. Postdoc C: OK. Alright. PhD B: I think that {disfmarker} that will be a little bit of a problem PhD D: Yeah. Postdoc C: That's great. PhD B: as it really switches around between {vocalsound} two different channels, I think. Grad A: Mm - hmm, and {disfmarker} and they're very {disfmarker} it's very audible? on the close - talking channels? PhD B: What {disfmarker} what I would {disfmarker} Yeah. Grad A: Oh well. I mean, it's the same problem as the lapel mike. Professor F: Yeah. PhD B: Yeah. Grad A: But {disfmarker} Postdoc C: Oh, interesting. PhD B: Comparable, yeah. Professor F: Yeah. PhD B: OK. Postdoc C: OK, alright. Digits. Professor F: Let's do digits. Postdoc C: OK, so we read the transcript number first, right? Grad A: Are we gonna do it altogether or separately? PhD B: So {disfmarker} What time is it? Professor F: Uh, {vocalsound} why don't we do it together, Postdoc C: Uh, quarter to four. PhD B: Oh, OK. Professor F: that's {disfmarker} that's a nice fast way to do it. Postdoc C: Mm - hmm. Professor F: One, two, three, go! Postdoc C: It's kind of interesting if there're any more errors in these, {vocalsound} than we had the first set. Grad A: Nnn, yeah, I think there probably will be. PhD B: Yeah. PhD D: Do you guys plug your ears when you do it? Grad A: I do. PhD B: No. Postdoc C: I usually do. PhD D: I do. PhD B: I don't. Postdoc C: I didn't this time. PhD D: You don't? PhD B: No. Professor F: I haven't been, PhD D: How can you do that? Professor F: no. PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Professor F: Uh, concentration. PhD B: Perhaps there are {vocalsound} lots of errors in it PhD D: Gah! Grad A: Total concentration. Are you guys ready? PhD D: You hate to have your ears plugged? Professor F: Yeah. PhD D: Really?

The main topics of the agenda were a paper submitted to Eurospeech and the organising of the recording transcriptions to be done by IBM. The results presented in the former show a significant percentage of overlapping speech even without counting in backchanneling. Regarding the transcriptions to be carried out by IBM, the discussion mainly concerned the format of the recordings that should be sent to them. Suggestions included sending only the channels with the dominant speakers for transcription, but it was finally agreed on sending the original files with minimal modifications, as there will be extensive in-house post-processing.

tr-sq-667

tr-sq-667_0

What did Dr. David Blaney think of the impact of Brexit on the capacity of Wales'higher education system? Gareth Rogers: Good morning, and welcome to today's meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. Unfortunately, the Chair is unable to attend today, so in accordance with Standing Order 17. 22 I call for nominations for a temporary Chair for the duration of today's meeting. Julie Morgan AM: I nominate John Griffiths. Gareth Rogers: Thank you. Darren Millar AM: I'll second that nomination. Gareth Rogers: As there's only one nomination, I declare that John Griffiths has been appointed as temporary Chair. Thank you, John. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Thank you all very much, and item 1 on our agenda today is introductions, apologies, substitutions and declarations of interest. We've received apologies from Hefin David and Lynne Neagle. There are no substitutions. Are there any declarations of interest? No. We will move on then to item 2, and our inquiry into the impact of Brexit on higher and further education, and our first evidence session. I'm very pleased to welcome the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales here today, and Dr David Blaney as chief executive, and Bethan Owen, director of institutional engagement. Welcome to you both. Thanks for coming along to give evidence today. If it's okay with you, we'll move straight to questions, and Julie Morgan. Julie Morgan AM: Good morning. Bore da. I wondered if we could start off with you telling us what evidence you can see that the Brexit process has had any impact on Welsh higher education so far. Dr David Blaney: Can I preface the response by just reminding you that we are, by contract and by role, apolitical, and a lot of the judgments about the impact of Brexit essentially reflect where people sit politically in terms of whether they think it's a good thing or a bad thing? We're not going to go there, obviously, today, so we'll stick to the facts as we can see them, and hopefully we'll be able to help you, but there are areas where we are unable to help. That's part of the reason. John Griffiths AM: We certainly do not expect you to enter the political fray in any way. Dr David Blaney: Thank you. But even in terms of your assessment of whether this is going to be a good thing or a bad thing, a good impact or a bad impact, some of that inevitably in the end becomes a matter of your politics on it, so we will be as careful as we can be on that. In terms of the impact of Brexit on higher education, clearly, the significance here is about the contribution that higher education can make to Wales. So, we fund provision; we don't fund providers, technically, although obviously there's not much provision without providers. So, we are interested in the sustainability of higher education providers, but fundamentally the issue is: what does the HE system in Wales do for Wales, and what impact might Brexit have on the capacity of the system to continue to deliver for Wales? So, we know that universities make annually about PS5 billion of impact; 50,000 jobs. Of course, in Wales, all of that economic impact is really very significant, and uncertainty about the relationships and the arrangements with Europe is one of the most significant issues confronting university management at the moment. That has an impact in a number of ways. We can identify at the moment the extent to which the HE sector in Wales is exposed to sources of income that are located from the EU, so EU students, structural funds, and EU research funding, and so on, from the EU. We can identify some of that, but, actually, what happens in the future is much harder to be clear about. We are beginning to see some impact in terms of applications from EU students and I'll ask Bethan to share some details on that in a moment. We're also beginning to pick up, only anecdotally, some signs that there are increasing difficulties in the UK sector, and the Welsh sector as part of that, in playing in some of the EU collaborative research activities. And that, I think, just reflects the extent to which EU partners consider that British partners might be a stable partner as we go through this transition period. We don't have data on that--that's anecdotal--but there are signs that some of those relationships are beginning to become a little bit more difficult. In terms of the financial impact of that, clearly, if it is accepted that the UK is a net contributor to the EU then, presumably, some of the money--we're almost immediately straight into politics if you're not careful--but some of the money will be available back to the UK, and the extent to which Wales benefits or not from that returned money is a function of the political relationship between the Welsh Government and Her Majesty's Government. It's not necessarily the case that Wales will always lose out in that relationship, but that will become a matter of politics. There's a broader dimension, which is about the economic impact of Brexit on the UK economy and how much tax revenue there is and all of that. I think it's very hard for us to be definitive about how that's going to play out. I think that depends on the deal and how it all unfolds over the next several years. But we can certainly anticipate some turbulence and exactly how that plays for institutions remains to be seen. We can touch later on on the extent to which they are sighted on this and preparing for it. So, in terms of recruitment, Bethan. Bethan Owen: This is based on the UCAS applications and the report that was published at the end of June, 30 June. The European Union-domiciled applicants to Wales have decreased by 8 per cent, which contrasts with a 2 per cent increase for English institutions, and non-EU--so international students, not from Europe--have also decreased by 9 per cent to Welsh institutions, again contrasting with a 7 per cent increase in England. So, those are the signs of changes. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I then just ask you what you see as the main pressures on the Welsh higher education sector at the moment? Bethan Owen: The funding position would be the main pressure. The recommendations made by Sir Ian Diamond in his review of higher education funding and student finance are in the process of being implemented, and the changes to the student finance arrangements will take effect from this September. However, the recommendations for re-establishing funding at Welsh institutions are expected to take quite a bit longer. That funding, when it returns to institutions, is intended to re-establish funding for higher cost provision, both full time and part time; reinstate funding for innovation; and maintain, at the very least, the research funding in real terms. Universities, in the meantime, are trying to minimise the cost reductions that they're making in order to maintain the infrastructure, so that when the funding comes they can get the best value out of it. We have announced our funding allocations for 2018-19. For the research and teaching grant, though, we are still funding at a lower level--PS12. 5 million less--then the starting point for the Diamond report, the 2015-16 starting report. But we expect to be able to start introducing funding from 2019-20 to make a start on implementing Diamond. And it's probably important to note that the Diamond recommendations predated Brexit, therefore the challenges introduced by Brexit are in addition to those that the Diamond report was addressing. The other pressures relate to student recruitment. I mentioned the EU and international students. There is also the start of a reduction, both in Welsh-domiciled and English-domiciled applications to Wales. Enrolments are obviously the key important number, which we'll see later. And the other pressures include pay and pension costs, not least the issues around the universities superannuation scheme pension fund, where there's potentially a significant increase in cost. Increased student expectations for modern facilities and infrastructure bring a requirement for capital expenditure and borrowing, which bring their own pressures. And finally, the uncertainty about potential consequences that could arise from the review in England of fees and funding--the Augar review. John Griffiths AM: In terms of European Union students and enrolment, is Wales forecast to do less well than England and, if so, why might that be? Bethan Owen: They are not forecasting it. It's very difficult until the enrolments are made, and it's also very hard to see--the data that we see is the UCAS data. Institutions also recruit directly, so until we see the actual recruitment--. I think the arrangements that have changed from 2018-19 also impact on EU students. So, now, they have to find the full fee, whereas previously they were getting the grant in the same way as Welsh students. So, I'm speculating that that might be having an impact as well on EU students'appetite to come. John Griffiths AM: Okay. First of all Llyr, then Mark. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, that's straight into what I was going to ask, really, about what you think the factors are that led to this 8 per cent or 9 per cent drop in EU students applying to study in Wales, where we see a 2 per cent increase in England. Is that it, or are there other things that you've taken into account? What's your assessment of the reasons behind this? Dr David Blaney: It's very difficult to be definitive about the reasons, but I think there are probably two. The one that Bethan has already indicated, which is the change in student support arrangements for EU students, will have an effect of perturbation. That's probably relatively temporary--let's hope it is--as that settles down because, actually, the deal for EU students coming into Wales is no worse than that coming into England. Ours would be better because the fee level is slightly lower, but we do struggle in Wales in terms of the Anglocentric nature of the media and so on. So, getting the messages out is a challenge. The other dimension is that when you're in a highly competitive recruitment market, you have to do what you can to look attractive. Part of that is about being able to invest in facilities, and particularly buildings and kit, and the relative levels of investment between Wales and England over quite a long period of time now probably have an impact on that. Certainly, anecdotally I know, from my own family, that a lot of the choices have been made in terms of the state of repair of campuses and so on. There's something rational about that, isn't there? If you've got a system that is relatively better invested, then you're likely to have a better student experience because the resources are likely to be better. So, that's not irrational. We saw a sort of similar but opposite effect when the PS9,000 fee maximum limit came in, and some institutions, mostly in England--there was one in Wales--chose to pitch their fee levels really quite low, relative to that PS9,000, and caught a cold in the student recruitment market because fee levels denote quality in the student mind. So, the price sensitivities work quite differently. So, again, if you've got a relatively better invested part of the system, then that might well be one of the reasons why it looks more attractive. Llyr Gruffydd AM: That latter factor would affect the whole of the cohort, not just the international recruitment, of course. Dr David Blaney: Indeed. Yes, indeed. The implementation of the Diamond recommendations is crucial to that because that's re-balancing where the policy of investment goes. John Griffiths AM: Okay. And Mark. Mark Reckless AM: If I heard you correctly earlier, you said that the applications from non-EU students were also down by 8 per cent or 9 per cent. So, forgive me a certain scepticism about the explanation of the fall in the EU students being that they did get the fee grant and now they do not. If that's the explanation, why are we seeing the same fall in non-EU applications? Dr David Blaney: Well, I think the Welsh domiciled are also now having to face the prospect of finding a loan for the whole of the fee. So, that would potentially account for that. There's also a demographic dimension here with the downturn in the 18-year-old school-leaver profile, and that actually is happening in Wales at a slightly later point than in England. Mark Reckless AM: But this is non-EU students, and I think you said, Bethan, an 8 per cent or 9 per cent fall in them as well. Dr David Blaney: International non-EU. I beg your pardon. I misunderstood. Bethan Owen: There's also a mix effect. I gave a number that was for all English institutions that there will be differential impacts on. Mark Reckless AM: All English or all Welsh? Bethan Owen: Well, I contrasted the Welsh position with the English position where they were seeing growth. If you look, then--and we don't have the detailed information, but, again, what UCAS publish is some analysis by tariff. They analyse by type of institution--in other words, the grades that you need to get into institutions--and there is a trend for growth being in the higher tariff institutions. So, there's a mix effect in there as well, and I think there's undoubtedly an element of perception of how welcome overseas and international students are, and that's something that we know the sector are working on with Government. Mark Reckless AM: Why would that affect Wales more than England? Do you think there's been perhaps too great a negativity about Brexit in the sector? Bethan Owen: I think it's the mix of institutions that we have. So, we only have sector information published at the moment. When we look at the mix of institutions that we have, we will probably see a differential impact between Cardiff University and others. John Griffiths AM: Okay, Mark? Sorry, David, did you want to add anything? Dr David Blaney: I was just going to say that we would expect to see quite differential performance in the English sector, so the overall numbers are being brought up by substantial increased performance with some of that sector, and it's a question of how many of that type of institution you have in Wales. Mark Reckless AM: So, performance is increasing amongst the English universities, but not amongst the Welsh, you think. Dr David Blaney: I think performance is increasing, but increasing substantially with some of the English sector, not all of it. So, you get an average for the sector that is increased performance, but actually the stronger players within that sector, with the stronger international profiles, are bringing that up, and we have fewer in Wales that have that sort of presence. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Darren. Darren Millar AM: Would it be fair to say, then, that the universities over the border in England are better at selling themselves internationally than our Welsh institutions? Or is it just this fact that we've got fewer very high tariff universities versus the English market? Dr David Blaney: I suspect, and this is speculation--I suspect that it's a bit of both. I think some of it is to do with the mix of different types of institution. I would then come back to the point I was making about the Anglocentric nature of the UK media. If you're looking overseas, I think Wales has to work harder to penetrate the consciousness. Darren Millar AM: But, forgive me, don't international students just look at the UK as a whole? How are we comparing to Scotland, for example, or Northern Ireland, in terms of their universities? Do you have a comparative figure for Scottish universities? Bethan Owen: I haven't got that one with me for now, but there will be one in the data. Dr David Blaney: Yes, we could get that. Bethan Owen: Again, it's a combination of being part of the UK but differentiating, and the ability to differentiate the strengths of Wales, so attracting those students to Wales specifically, on top of the UK draw. Dr David Blaney: So, in terms of the efforts that have been made, there's a programme now that is being run by the sector in Wales--it's'Study in Wales'. It's relatively recent; you could argue that we could have got there earlier. But that is a determined collective effort to present Wales as a good place to study, with particular messages about what distinguishes studying in Wales from studying more broadly in the UK. In a sense, that is responding to the need to increase the presence of Wales in an international market. So, that sort of initiative I think is very good, very welcome. It will take a while to actually have an impact, but I think that's exactly the sort of work the sector need to be doing more of. Mark Reckless AM: What are those messages on why prospective students should study in Wales? Dr David Blaney: One of them in particular is relative safety. We know that one of the considerations, particularly for parents of overseas students, is are they going to go to a safe environment, and we know that the perception of international students who study in Wales is that this is a comfortable and safe place to be. That's partly a function of the size of our larger cities--quite a lot smaller than many of the cities in England. So, that's a key message. Being part of a UK system is also an important message there as well. So, we've got a UK-quality system, a UK degree, and the strength of that brand is available in Wales, but it's available in a way that is safer and more supportive, I think is the messaging that's coming through. John Griffiths AM: Okay. We'd better move on, I think, hadn't we? Darren, then. Darren Millar AM: I just wonder to what extent you have been able to plan in your financial forecasts for the next few years ahead for the potential impacts of Brexit. What have you built in, if anything? Bethan Owen: In terms of our funding, we receive our funding annually, but the sector provides us with financial forecasts, and we use those for monitoring sustainability. So, the last full forecasts that we had were in July 2017. We are due to receive a full forecast at the end of this month, and we obviously have updated information from institutions. Darren Millar AM: And they're three-year forecasts that come through to you, aren't they? Bethan Owen: They are four plus the current year. So, we've got numbers to 2019-20 at the moment, and expect to go to 2020-21. Darren Millar AM: And what are the universities expecting? What do they anticipate? Bethan Owen: Well, for 2017-18, which is the year we're about to end now, they were expecting PS38 million income from European students, and approximately PS91 million from the various European programme funding sources, and that's about 8 per cent of the total income--PS1. 5 billion--of the sector. The forecasts are assuming that that continues, albeit that institutions have various scenarios that they have for all sorts of scenarios that we can all speculate on, and, as I mentioned earlier, the balancing act of maintaining infrastructure and resources and staff in the short term is where we are at the moment, or where the sector is at the moment. And there are also signs that the banks and lending institutions are becoming a bit more risk-averse in providing borrowing to institutions, and of more differentiation between individual institutions being made than has possibly been the case in the past. The sector made an operating deficit, again looking at all Welsh institutions collectively last year, 2016-17, of PS17 million. That's before other gains and losses. And we're expecting a similar collective level of deficit for this financial year, if not slightly higher. Now, these are managed deficits and we are not currently seeing critical short-term cash availability issues in the sector. However, the increase in funding from Diamond is a key part of enabling the sector to return to longer-term financial sustainability. Short-term challenges can be met if there's a reasonable prospect of future funding. You can manage in the short-term, but there comes a point when the big cost reductions and infrastructure reductions have to be made. And, again, having mentioned the pressures on pay, pensions and other challenges, it is difficult to gauge whether, if those factors come into play as well, some of these cost reductions may have to be made before funding comes in to replace--either Diamond funding or the European replacement funding. Darren Millar AM: So, would it be fair to say that, in terms of the funding arrangements, and, in terms of the student numbers, one reason why we've got this recruitment problem is this lack of investment in the capital infrastructure that we've seen in recent years because of the financing arrangements from the Welsh Government, and the fee regime that we had previously, and the student finance regime that we had previously, not getting more cash into our Welsh universities perhaps, and that, over the next few years, there's going to have to be much more significant investment in capital if we're to raise the game and be more competitive, yes? Bethan Owen: Yes, that would be fair to say. Darren Millar AM: So, to what extent are they planning for more capital investment in those financial strategies that they've been preparing and presenting to you? Bethan Owen: They are all planning for capital investment. They are in different positions in terms of capacity to borrow and the assumptions. This year, 2018-19, is the first time that we've had capital funding in our remit letter--so, we've got PS10 million of capital funding, which is very welcome, with a prospect of a further PS20 million. So, that we will be allocating shortly. That will make a difference, particularly to those institutions who are not finding it as easy to borrow from financial institutions. Some of our larger institutions have borrowed--Cardiff University issued a bond. However, there are internal governance processes that are putting tight restrictions and expectations of what that money will be invested in. But they all have plans to do it and they need the confidence that their forecasts and long-term future funding prospects are secure enough that they can get the confidence of borrowers then, and service the costs of those borrowers. Darren Millar AM: So, the Diamond dividend you've mentioned a few times. What clarity is there from the Welsh Government at the moment in terms of how much they anticipate the Diamond dividend will be, and what proportion of that is going to be released to HEIs in the future? Bethan Owen: I was very carefully not describing it as a dividend--a re-establishing of funding that we had in the past for higher cost and innovation and maintaining research funding. The timescales are difficult, because we have an annual remit letter, and we can work with Welsh Government officials, and they can only give us a sense of when they think the funding will be released. But 2018-19 is the start of the system, and because of cohort protection--so, protecting those students who came in on a different deal to the deal from 2018-19--in the early years there is an element of double cost; there's a cost of seeing out the old system and the different cost of implementing the new system. So, at the moment, we're certainly not in a position to tell the sector with any degree of certainty what funding would be beyond what we've allocated for 2018-19, with some sense of what 2019-20 numbers we're working with because we allocate our money over an academic year--so, by definition, we've already made assumptions of four months of the 2019-20 funding, albeit that's not approved yet in the budgetary process. Darren Millar AM: But you're not being given a steer at all as to what you expect the additional resource that you might have to make available to Welsh universities might be as a result of Diamond. You must have some idea. Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say that officials have been as helpful as they can be with us, in terms of the planning assumptions we make and indications about whether or not we are being too ambitious or not ambitious enough. So, I think they're being very helpful; as Bethan said, they're constrained by the process--they can't pre-empt a budget process. And you folks will be fully aware of that, of course. The other question I think you asked was how much of the money released by the new arrangements will come into higher education. At the moment, we are expecting all of it to come into higher education, as the product of the arrangement between the current Cabinet Secretary and the current First Minister. The extent to which any changes there cause that to come under threat is something I can't judge at the moment. But we have had in our remit letter from the Cabinet Secretary a clear indication that we can expect our resource to grow over the next few years, as the Diamond process unfolds. John Griffiths AM: Okay. I'm just going to bring in Llyr at this stage. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Bethan said in an earlier answer that, I think, the financial forecasting from universities forecast something pretty consistent in terms of what they're hoping to be receiving in income, for example. But we've already discussed the near 10 per cent drop, potentially, in international applications. So, does that tally, really, or are they going to be recruiting additional students from the UK market or--? What's the plan? Bethan Owen: I was reflecting on the last point when we had consistent information across the sector. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, they may need to revisit that in the light of this. Bethan Owen: I'm expecting that the forecast that we get at the end of this month will reflect the reduced applications we've seen, and an element of that will be reflected in reduced improvements as well. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, we don't really know, then, whether--it's unlikely that they are going to expect a consistent fee income, really. Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say we would expect them to respond to what they're seeing in the UCAS process. Even if they didn't, they would all, in any case, have sensitivities for what they would do if things don't come out in the way they hope. And if they didn't have that then we would be on their case, of course, because we want them to be properly sighted. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Thanks. John Griffiths AM: And we have to stick to the Brexit impact. Darren. Darren Millar AM: Can I just ask, in terms of the impact of Brexit, have you done any assessment of what you think might happen, or have any of the institutions made available to you any assessments of what they think is likely to happen to their individual institutions, going forward? You've mentioned scenarios earlier on, David, so what scenarios have you set out? Dr David Blaney: There's a Welsh Government HE Brexit working group, which is chaired by one of the Government directors, and we sit on that. And we have provided that group with early summaries of the risks and the potential impact, in terms of the exposure of the sector to EU-sourced funding. We have, as part of that working group, explored those issues that it would be really very helpful for either the Welsh Government to try to put in place or for the Welsh Government to persuade UK Government to do. And I think, in our submission, we identified a number of areas of what we would consider to be a helpful action, and that has been worked through that working group. We know that it has informed Welsh Government's position, in terms of what it does and also in terms of the conversations that they have with Her Majesty's Government. Beyond that, what we haven't done in that working group is share the work that institutions are doing individually to look at how they would respond to different scenarios. We are not able to do that here either because, inevitably, they would have varying degrees of unpalatability and they would have to be managed very, very carefully. You take cost out, which is essentially the response, you actually take people's jobs out, and all of that has to be managed carefully. So, that's not really a matter for public consideration, but we do know that the institutions are looking at a range of scenarios on what they would do. Bethan mentioned earlier on that the current deficit for the sector is a managed deficit--it's not something that has taken them by surprise. They are responding to what they see as the dip between where Diamond was reporting and where the money starts flowing. Similarly, I think we're comfortable that there is a managed approach to the scenarios that they're testing within institutions. So, they will do what they need to do to sustain themselves. The bigger issue really, in a public policy context, is the potential damage for the sector to be able to deliver for Wales in terms of research and skills development and all the other contributions. Darren Millar AM: So, you're confident that they're taking a robust approach to planning for various scenarios, going forward, are you, as individual HEIs? Dr David Blaney: Yes, and as the deal becomes more clear politically, then they will obviously have greater clarity in terms of which of these scenarios they need to work up more fully, but they are sighted on it. Darren Millar AM: Okay. Can I just ask about fee and access plans, and how Brexit might impact them? To what extent do you think that they could be impacted? Dr David Blaney: I think there are two dimensions to maybe touch upon there. Fee and access plans are approved annually by us. They are approved in advance of the recruitment cycle for the year that they apply to. So, we're just in the process now of finalising our consideration of fee and access plans for the 2019-20 academic year. So, there's quite a long lead time. We, as part of that process, go through similar--we look at their financial sustainability, which is based on their forecasts--data to the stuff we've just been discussing. And also, of course, the fee plans themselves make assumptions about how many students of different types, from different domains, are going to be recruited. So, clearly, if there is a continuing downward pressure on EU student recruitment, then that will reduce the amount of fee income that's going to come in, unless they can find other students, and that will reduce the amount of investment in the various activities that are identified in the fee plans. In terms of process, we have two things that we can do. If institutions are becoming aware that the basis upon which they've submitted a fee plan is fundamentally different from the reality, then they can come into us for a change to their fee plan. So, we have a change process. If it's not fundamentally different, but there are always differences between what you plan and what happens three years later--. We also monitor after the event and, if there are differences, we would then obviously require institutions to explain those differences. If they've had fewer students and less investment, we would need to understand that. Conversely, if they'd had more students, and potentially more investment, we'd want to know what they'd spent it on, and if they've done different things, we'd want to understand that as well. So, we do challenge through a monitoring process. The only other thing that's perhaps worth saying is that, in the 2019-20 fee and access plans--they're not published yet, so I can't give you the full detail--five universities have made reference to Brexit and the Brexit impact, and things they want to do through their fee and access plan to try and address some of those issues, so they're in there as well. Darren Millar AM: But we've already said, haven't we, that it may be nothing to do with Brexit, this dip in EU recruitment, because there are other factors like the attractiveness of the estates and the environment that young people might be educated in? But they're making assumptions that it's linked to Brexit, are they? Dr David Blaney: Not really. I think they're making assumptions that it could be. There are things they want to do to enhance and to protect student mobility, and some of that will be funded through fee plan investment. So, the Brexit conversation between the EU and the UK Government might or might not sustain Erasmus engagement, and if it doesn't, then they need to find other ways of trying to support that sort of thing. So, that's what we're beginning to see in the fee plans. It's them thinking about how else we can do this stuff. John Griffiths AM: Okay, Darren? Mark. Mark Reckless AM: You mentioned the fee and access report. What else do you do to assure yourselves that Welsh higher education institutions are effectively planning for Brexit? Bethan Owen: We've touched on contingency plans, but, in an environment of uncertainty, I think it's difficult for any of us to know what the right scenario is. I think rather than looking at worst-case scenarios, what the sector is also focusing on is the promotion and looking for additional or increased sources of funding. So, we touched on strengthening the Global Wales engagement in order to sell Wales, so more focus on marketing Wales overseas, but also within the UK. The other area where the sector is working at a UK level very hard is making the arguments to UK Government for maintaining access to the successor to Horizon 2020, which is arguably a larger part of the whole funding infrastructure--students is one part, but the whole funding infrastructure for maintaining research capacity. So, working with UK universities to make arguments at UK Government level for maintaining access to those sources of funding is also a part of what the institutions are doing. We mentioned the Welsh Government's HE Brexit group. That group, which is the Welsh Government group, is being advised by members on it, and that's informing Welsh Government officials when they engage with UK Government as well. Mark Reckless AM: Do universities seek your advice on what the risks and, indeed, opportunities of Brexit may be and what you think they should be doing to plan for them, or is your role more one of monitoring what they do as opposed to advising what they should do? Bethan Owen: They are autonomous institutions and ultimately their governing bodies are responsible for ensuring their sustainability. It's not a relationship where we would advise and direct, but it is a relationship where we would question the scenarios if we consider from our experience that we would have expected other scenarios to have been tested. It's that nature of conversation, rather than directing. Mark Reckless AM: I understand you don't direct, of course, but my question was about advising. You're overseeing, or monitoring--or whatever you like to describe the role as--quite a number of institutions, and presumably you therefore have particular expertise within your organisation, and I just wondered whether higher education institutions are doing enough to draw on that. Bethan Owen: I think we can advise--we can advise based on data and information that we can see. We can advise based on our judgment. The big thing in this whole Brexit scenario is the uncertainty and the extent to which our speculation is better informed than the governing bodies or the sector collectively is probably the issue. Dr David Blaney: I think that's right. So, there's a relationship with the sector and there's a relationship with individual institutions, and they are different. So, we have engagement collectively with the sector. Bethan meets with the finance directors, and I meet with the vice-chancellors. We actually have the sector and the funding council together on the Welsh Government's group. So, some of these conversations are happening in various ways, where we're all gaining intelligence about what might be a sensible set of planning assumptions. Then, if we see an institution that is manifestly giving signs of not being sighted on some of these risks, either through their forecast or through other assurance activity, we will challenge. We have an annual cycle, with two points in the year where we reassess the overall risks of individual institutions, and that's based on a whole range of hard data but also a range of soft data. Our links into institutions are many and varied. We have lots of conversations and we take all of that in the round and form an assessment about the financial sustainability of the institutions but also the extent to which we think their governance and management arrangements are properly sighted and facing properly the challenges that they face. In some ways, we say it's not about the challenges they face; it's about how they face the challenges. Our alarm bells really ring when we get the sense that, actually, either an executive or a governing body hasn't really noticed. We're not in that place, I'm really pleased to say. I'm not worried about short-term crisis with any of the institutions. There are medium-term real challenges, both because of Brexit and because of other contextual factors, but at the moment the sector is a managed sector, which is good. It's not always like that, but we're in, I think, a good place at the moment. So, our role is definitely to challenge where we don't think they are making sensible assessments, but it's not to say that their assessment is wrong and ours is right; it's just to have a conversation about,'Why have you done this and what has informed your thinking?'It's slightly more one step back and slightly more subtle, but it is, as you imply, us using the intelligence we gain from all of those conversations when we talk to individual institutions as well. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Llyr. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, thank you. We had evidence last week from some of the higher education institutions, including Cardiff University, and it's very interesting, in relation to Erasmus+ and the mobility funding for students that, I think, only 40 per cent of the mobility funding in Cardiff is paid for by Erasmus+. I note that you've been consulting on national measures for higher education performance and that one possibility is using international mobility as a performance indicator. I was just wondering whether you might go further and expect universities to actually make commitments to funding international mobility from their own fee incomes as part of that. Bethan Owen: Again, reflecting on the latest fee and access plans, seven of the universities are referring to mobility--either they have targets in them or are explaining what their plans are--so they are including an element of it from their own income and fee and access income. However, Erasmus is such a well-established and long-term plan--if we were looking at a scenario where that infrastructure wasn't available, to implement anything similar to that would be much less efficient and much more costly. And to enable an infrastructure that allowed--. Ideally, you'd want something that all Welsh institutions could take part in, and that takes some investment and some co-ordinating. And, equally, you need to have the arrangements with your overseas and European institutions. I think it's easy to underestimate the accumulation of time that has gone into establishing Erasmus. So, I think replacing it would be a challenge. Llyr Gruffydd AM: And the point was made clearly last week that the brand is internationally recognised. When you enter into Erasmus+, you know exactly what you're going to get, and all of that. But there have been criticisms as well about degrees of flexibility and this, that and the other, so I'm just wondering whether--and there is presumably going to be some change on that front although I'm hoping we can buy into it, as others have done who aren't in the EU--that emphasis on encouraging institutions to look more proactively at funding their own mobility efforts would be positive. Dr David Blaney: I think the-- Llyr Gruffydd AM: Sorry--especially if it means that they do more of it. Dr David Blaney: Indeed. I think the Welsh sector is definitely committed to trying to find ways of promoting and resourcing that sort of mobility. There are signs that some of the restrictive elements of the Erasmus programme are going to change anyway, because that's under development and that's positive. There have been positive noises as part of the Brexit negotiations about wanting to carry on being able to access the Erasmus programme. Nothing is agreed until it's all agreed apparently, so we'll have to see on that one. That would be far better, I think, as Bethan indicates, than trying to replace it with a made-in-Wales only, but you could have a made-in-Wales on top. All of these challenges also create opportunities because they stimulate thinking, and so the fact that seven of the eight universities are already now using their fee plans as a vehicle for thinking about this is positive, and I think we can take that on from there. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Because that 40/60 split struck me as being the opposite to what I perceived the situation to be. A key part of your role is to work in partnership with students, so I'd just like to ask what work have you done with students, in terms of maybe protecting their interests as the Brexit scenario evolves? Dr David Blaney: Well, as you say, we do work with students. We were the first of the funding councils in the UK to have a memorandum of understanding with the National Union of Students in Wales. We work very closely with them and the president of NUS is an observer on our council. So, we have close links with NUS Wales and we're very proud of that, and it's very productive. They don't have a vote, but they do have a voice and it really matters. We we're, again, ahead of the rest of the UK in requiring all HE providers to have student charters and there are elements of student protection within the student charter. The UK-wide quality code also has elements in it where arrangements have to be specified about the protection of student interests. That is particularly, in essence, around circumstances where a provider gets into difficulties and they might wish to close a course or something more drastic and then what arrangements are in place to make sure that those students who are in train are protected. So, that is there and we've worked hard with the sector and with NUS Wales to get those measures in place. There's more development work in train at the moment, so we've asked Universities Wales to construct a protection that takes account of the approach to protecting the student interests in higher education. We're also requiring further education institutions who are regulated and deliver higher education to do similar or the same, and that's very important. The students who are HE students in FE are absolutely not second-best, and they should have the same protections. Llyr Gruffydd AM: But is all this a general piece of work? It's not Brexit-specific, although, no doubt, it may--. Dr David Blaney: I think that's fair to say, yes. The other dimension around Brexit is the immigration status of EU students, and that's, kind of, beyond our pay scale--that's a UK Government issue. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Is that something that you have a view on? Dr David Blaney: It's clearly in the interest of the enrichment of the curriculum and the student experience for students in Welsh institutions to be able to have students from other EU countries in the mix. So, it would be nice to find ways of continuing to facilitate that. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Now, of course, you have a statutory duty as well to assess the academic quality of the work in our higher education institutions, and I'm just wondering what potential impacts you think that Brexit might have on that particular aspect. Dr David Blaney: I think there are possibly a couple of things to say, and one, in a sense, echoes what I was just saying in the final part of my previous response, which is that part of the quality of the student experience is the richness that you get from having students in your cohort who have different backgrounds and different perspectives. So, if there is a continuing reduction in the number of EU students coming into Welsh institutions, then that richness deteriorates. That doesn't mean to say that the base or the threshold standard of what's required for a degree will come under pressure, it's just about the richness on top of that, which will be, in a sense, a quality-enhancement issue. That would be something that we would wish to try to protect against, but in the end you can't force EU students to come--you have to try and look attractive, and we've touched on that. The baseline requirement assessment of quality will not be affected by Brexit, except in so far as the machinery we use to discharge our statutory responsibility, which is through the Quality Assurance Agency, which themselves are accredited with European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, the European machinery for higher education quality. And there's a set of standards around that, and we would obviously wish not to be in a position where our ability to use and adhere to those standards is adversely impacted upon. Those standards will still exist, and it will be possible for the British system to adhere to them, even if they're not actually able to play in the same way. Then the only other thing I would say is that one of the factors that can cause the quality of the learning and teaching experience to be likely to become inadequate is when institutions come under financial pressure, just because their capacity to maintain the same sort of student experience can get under pressure. So, clearly, we will be looking for and making sure that institutions manage the financial pressures, if there are any--and there are some at the moment, as we've described--and manage those carefully. And in all of that, we will expect institutions to do their duty to make sure that the commitments they've already made to students are carried through. So, where students have already started on the course, they need to be able to finish that course--you can't just pull the plug out. So, all of that comes into the arrangements for quality as well. So, we'll be keeping an eye on that. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. A lot of what you've told us in the last three quarters of an hour or so will have costs attached, depending on the impacts. Certainly, we're in choppy waters as a sector anyway, and the risk is that things will be even more choppy, if you'll excuse that level of political interpretation, over the years to come. I'm just wondering what advice you might have given the Welsh Government in terms of what level of transition funding, or Brexit transition funding, might be required by the sector, and if you have, what the Welsh Government might have told you. Bethan Owen: I mentioned earlier that, obviously, we've provided information in terms of the assumptions that the sector are making on income. So, for the year 2017-18, that was PS129 million. I think the extent to which that needs to be replaced or supported with transition funding depends absolutely on what the final arrangements for Brexit are, but it's an appropriate point to refer to the report that Professor Graeme Reid has produced, commissioned by Welsh Government. That was, and has, provided advice and recommendations for supporting research and innovation in the transition period. But, again, the Reid recommendations in that report build on the Diamond recommendations, and as soon as Diamond is in place--and Reid is providing recommendations in addition, to establish funding on the basis that the funding needs to be available in Wales to maintain and develop and strengthen the research and innovation infrastructure that we have. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Are you not worried, though, that the clock is ticking and that we really don't know what the situation is at this point? Dr David Blaney: Do you mean the Brexit situation? Llyr Gruffydd AM: The Brexit clock, yes. Dr David Blaney: Uncertainty is unhelpful, because as I've said several times, the sector is a managed sector at the moment. I don't think there's--. We're not seeing maverick stuff, but actually you can only manage, really, what you can see and what you can reasonably predict. So, the longer the uncertainty persists, the more difficult that is for institutional management and, indeed, for the rest of the machinery to support them. So, yes, the sooner we get clarity, the better for everybody, I imagine. Darren Millar AM: Chair, can I just ask a question? John Griffiths AM: Yes, Darren. Darren Millar AM: In terms of uncertainty, though, we've still got this uncertainty over whether the extra cash that the Government's going to have to spend as a result of Diamond being implemented is coming to the HE sector. They've given a political commitment, but you've got absolutely no other assurance of the sums of money that are coming in. We've got the reform of tertiary education arrangements in Wales, which are also under way, so it's a bit of a perfect storm for you, isn't it, really, with all of these three things happening at the same time? Dr David Blaney: We're certainly kept busy. Darren Millar AM: But two of those things are in the gift of the Welsh Government to sort out for you, aren't they? Dr David Blaney: Well, the policy on the reform of the post-compulsory sector absolutely is a Welsh Government policy. The extent to which they can pre-empt a budgetary process and give us clear sight of the amount of money in future years is--. Well, again, it's not for me to comment. My understanding is that that's difficult for them to do, and I would repeat what I said earlier: officials have been as helpful as I think they can be in respect of that. I mean, you're right, we've only got a political commitment between two people currently in post. It would be great to have that firmer. I'm not sure how that could be done. Darren Millar AM: I mean, that statement about the savings accrued from Diamond being reinvested wholly into the HE sector has not been repeated, frankly, has it, since the coalition deal was struck? Dr David Blaney: No, but it hasn't been rescinded either, so--. Darren Millar AM: No, but there have been opportunities--repeated opportunities--in the Chamber, where the Cabinet Secretary's been asked to repeat that commitment, and the First Minister's been asked to repeat that commitment and has not given that commitment. That must concern you, and must concern your university sector even more than, perhaps, some of the elements of Brexit that we're discussing. Dr David Blaney: Bethan has outlined earlier on in this session the fact that institutions are currently running deficit budgets in order not to lose the infrastructure on the assumption that the Diamond money will come in. If anything were to cause significant perturbation, either to the timeline of that or to it coming in at all, then there would be much more of what Medwin Hughes calls'houskeeping'that would be required, and that would be significant. So, at the moment--I don't like the expression'valley of death', but there is a valley to cross, and I think the sector is reasonably confident about how wide and how deep that valley is. There's a demographic valley as well. So, there are several valleys that they're crossing--the metaphor fails, doesn't it, really, but I think you get the drift? So, there are a number of challenges and they can see their way out of some of those challenges, but if any one of these starts to get significantly disrupted, then that would be a real issue for them. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I go on to ask about other barriers to Welsh universities gaining more funding from UK research councils? What would you say those barriers are? Dr David Blaney: Well, I think there are a couple of things, really, to say. The first one--and we'll sound like a stuck record if we're not careful--is that there's an issue about investment and the Reid report makes this very clear. So, he has reaffirmed research that had been done previously that identifies that, actually, the quality of the research base in Welsh universities and the productivity of that Welsh research base are both good, there's just not enough of them, and that, in the end, is a product of investment decisions. They have particularly looked at the deficit in science, technology, engineering and mathematics areas, and I always say that research is not just STEM. I mean, STEM is important, and I'm not denying the deficit in that area, but we have to also remember that the research agenda for Wales is not just STEM--it's arts, humanities, it's social sciences. If you look at the impact on public policy that could come from social science research--tremendous. And we're very good at it in Wales. The Welsh impact in its research is better than anywhere else in the UK, so that's good. So, they do very well, and we just really need to invest a little bit further--so continue to do very well, but put it on a broader front. If you want to be able to play into the UK-wide research funding, then the investment has two dimensions to it. One is just having enough researchers to be able to play into those increasingly larger projects rather than small-scale projects. If you haven't got the critical mass, it's very hard to make the case that you can play. And the second thing is that UK-wide research pots nearly always fund at about 80 per cent of the total cost of the research, and the other 20 per cent is meant to be found from the core research funding for the university, and if you're in a situation where your core research funding is not competitive, then you're not going to be competitive at getting that money. So, that's, kind of, straightforward. There are other things. I think it's fair to say that the Welsh sector has not been sufficiently focused on getting in on the conversations with the research councils, making sure they're in the various committees and so on. We are intending to do a bit of work to see if we can systematise that a bit better--that engagement--because there's no doubt about it: it's not to say that this system is in any way inappropriate, but the more you're in the conversations, the more likely you are to be better placed to respond to the research challenges that come up. John Griffiths AM: Okay. One final question: in terms of the researcher collaborations and networks that exist, do you see potential difficulties after Brexit for the continuation and enhancement of those, and are there any particular lessons to learn from Ser Cymru II? Dr David Blaney: I think that there are two things to say here as well. First of all, the Brexit deal might or might not impact adversely on the capacity of Welsh and, indeed, UK research infrastructure to play into broader collaborative activity across Europe, and, in a sense, that's a function of the deal whatever the deal looks like, and we'll have to wait and see. But we've mentioned playing into Horizon Europe, and being able to continue with that would be an important part of that capacity. It's not just the money, it's being in the club and it's the signalling that we're in the game. So, all of that would be important. And then the other part of my response to this would be that, actually, Wales will need to continue to be good at the research it does, so maintaining the quality, maintaining the impact, and hopefully growing the critical mass. The Ser Cymru initiative has been quite important in doing that, because it's been very focused, capturing key research players, and the attractiveness that that has then to other researchers around them, and to industry collaboration, and they have been areas of real strength that we've invested in. And I think they are already showing dividends in terms of the capacity to win more research funding, and to establish an even stronger presence in the international research market. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Just one further point, from Darren. Darren Millar AM: Just very briefly, one of the pieces of feedback that the committee members received at a stakeholder engagement event, which took place prior to this inquiry starting, to receive oral evidence, was about the research funding that is available from the charitable sector, and how poorly Wales does in attracting some of that research. I think we had some figures from the British Heart Foundation, which said they have PS100 million a year available for research grants, or something like that, and we're getting 1 per cent of that coming into Wales, which is obviously pretty low down. I appreciate that research into the type of activity that they want to put their money into, Wales may not be particularly good at, and there may be other opportunities with other charities and partnerships. What work are you doing in order to build the capacity that Wales has to attract more of that charitable sector research funding into Wales? Bethan Owen: One of the issues is the capacity to engage with that funding, because of the overhead issue that David mentioned. Charitable funding at the moment doesn't attract any overhead funding. Again, that could be built in to our funding, if we had the capacity to increase our quality-related research funding. There is an element in England. Darren Millar AM: But that pressure's the same in other parts of the UK, is it not? So the overhead funding is still an issue in England, and in other places. Bethan Owen: There is an increased contribution, and I think it's an element that was increased this year to acknowledge that. But there will be differentiation between different charities. I'm fairly certain that some of our institutions will be very strong with the cancer charities, possibly not the heart foundation. And some of that will reflect on focusing on our strengths, but to have that fuller picture. Darren Millar AM: So, this gearing issue that you mentioned earlier on, for every PS1 that somebody else puts on the table, they can draw in another PS4 on top, because that PS1 will cover the overheads, whereas the rest of the research cash--. Dr David Blaney: That's exactly it. So, the more you're able to invest--. You know, we sometimes get into a conversation about the unhypothecated nature of our research funding, but actually that creates a flexibility and the infrastructure investment that allows institutions to be able to respond to these other opportunities. Without that, they can't do it, because if you're not careful, you've got institutions engaging in UK-wide or charity-based research activities where they're actually having to pay for it themselves--they're running at a loss. Darren Millar AM: So that's the main problem; it's not that Welsh universities aren't doing their best to get this cash in. Or is it a bit of both? Dr David Blaney: I think, in the main, universities and researchers will get their cash from wherever they can, so I don't think it's a lack of appetite. Darren Millar AM: Okay. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Well, thank you, both, for coming in to give evidence to the committee this morning. You will be sent a draft of the transcript, to check for accuracy. Diolch yn fawr. Okay then, the next item is item 3, papers to note, the first of which is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education on the school organisation code. The second is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill. Paper to note 3 is a letter from the Chair of the Finance Committee regarding scrutiny of the Welsh Government's draft budget for the forthcoming financial year, which we will be discussing under item 6 on the agenda. Paper to note 4 is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on parental attitudes towards managing young children's behaviour. And the final paper to note, paper to note 5, is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the children and family delivery grant, which we will discuss later on in private session, if Members are content. Okay. Are you content to note those papers on that basis? Okay. Thanks very much. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17. 42 to exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting, and also for items 1 and 2 of the 20 September meeting. Is the committee content? Yes. Thank you very much. We will move then into private session.

First, the economic impact of Brexit is shown in a number of ways, like the extent to which the HE sector in Wales is exposed to sources of income that are located from the EU. We can also see some changes in students'applications and in increasing difficulties of the EU collaborative research activities. In terms of the financial impact, if it is accepted that the UK is a net contributor to the EU then, presumably, some of Wales'money will go straight into politics, and the benefits are unknown, which will become a matter of politics. In terms of recruitment, both European Union-domiciled applicants to Wales and non-EU international students decreased, who applied to Welsh institutions. While the number for both groups of students who apply to English universities increased.

tr-sq-668

tr-sq-668_0

Summarize the main pressures on the Welsh higher education sector at the moment. Gareth Rogers: Good morning, and welcome to today's meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. Unfortunately, the Chair is unable to attend today, so in accordance with Standing Order 17. 22 I call for nominations for a temporary Chair for the duration of today's meeting. Julie Morgan AM: I nominate John Griffiths. Gareth Rogers: Thank you. Darren Millar AM: I'll second that nomination. Gareth Rogers: As there's only one nomination, I declare that John Griffiths has been appointed as temporary Chair. Thank you, John. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Thank you all very much, and item 1 on our agenda today is introductions, apologies, substitutions and declarations of interest. We've received apologies from Hefin David and Lynne Neagle. There are no substitutions. Are there any declarations of interest? No. We will move on then to item 2, and our inquiry into the impact of Brexit on higher and further education, and our first evidence session. I'm very pleased to welcome the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales here today, and Dr David Blaney as chief executive, and Bethan Owen, director of institutional engagement. Welcome to you both. Thanks for coming along to give evidence today. If it's okay with you, we'll move straight to questions, and Julie Morgan. Julie Morgan AM: Good morning. Bore da. I wondered if we could start off with you telling us what evidence you can see that the Brexit process has had any impact on Welsh higher education so far. Dr David Blaney: Can I preface the response by just reminding you that we are, by contract and by role, apolitical, and a lot of the judgments about the impact of Brexit essentially reflect where people sit politically in terms of whether they think it's a good thing or a bad thing? We're not going to go there, obviously, today, so we'll stick to the facts as we can see them, and hopefully we'll be able to help you, but there are areas where we are unable to help. That's part of the reason. John Griffiths AM: We certainly do not expect you to enter the political fray in any way. Dr David Blaney: Thank you. But even in terms of your assessment of whether this is going to be a good thing or a bad thing, a good impact or a bad impact, some of that inevitably in the end becomes a matter of your politics on it, so we will be as careful as we can be on that. In terms of the impact of Brexit on higher education, clearly, the significance here is about the contribution that higher education can make to Wales. So, we fund provision; we don't fund providers, technically, although obviously there's not much provision without providers. So, we are interested in the sustainability of higher education providers, but fundamentally the issue is: what does the HE system in Wales do for Wales, and what impact might Brexit have on the capacity of the system to continue to deliver for Wales? So, we know that universities make annually about PS5 billion of impact; 50,000 jobs. Of course, in Wales, all of that economic impact is really very significant, and uncertainty about the relationships and the arrangements with Europe is one of the most significant issues confronting university management at the moment. That has an impact in a number of ways. We can identify at the moment the extent to which the HE sector in Wales is exposed to sources of income that are located from the EU, so EU students, structural funds, and EU research funding, and so on, from the EU. We can identify some of that, but, actually, what happens in the future is much harder to be clear about. We are beginning to see some impact in terms of applications from EU students and I'll ask Bethan to share some details on that in a moment. We're also beginning to pick up, only anecdotally, some signs that there are increasing difficulties in the UK sector, and the Welsh sector as part of that, in playing in some of the EU collaborative research activities. And that, I think, just reflects the extent to which EU partners consider that British partners might be a stable partner as we go through this transition period. We don't have data on that--that's anecdotal--but there are signs that some of those relationships are beginning to become a little bit more difficult. In terms of the financial impact of that, clearly, if it is accepted that the UK is a net contributor to the EU then, presumably, some of the money--we're almost immediately straight into politics if you're not careful--but some of the money will be available back to the UK, and the extent to which Wales benefits or not from that returned money is a function of the political relationship between the Welsh Government and Her Majesty's Government. It's not necessarily the case that Wales will always lose out in that relationship, but that will become a matter of politics. There's a broader dimension, which is about the economic impact of Brexit on the UK economy and how much tax revenue there is and all of that. I think it's very hard for us to be definitive about how that's going to play out. I think that depends on the deal and how it all unfolds over the next several years. But we can certainly anticipate some turbulence and exactly how that plays for institutions remains to be seen. We can touch later on on the extent to which they are sighted on this and preparing for it. So, in terms of recruitment, Bethan. Bethan Owen: This is based on the UCAS applications and the report that was published at the end of June, 30 June. The European Union-domiciled applicants to Wales have decreased by 8 per cent, which contrasts with a 2 per cent increase for English institutions, and non-EU--so international students, not from Europe--have also decreased by 9 per cent to Welsh institutions, again contrasting with a 7 per cent increase in England. So, those are the signs of changes. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I then just ask you what you see as the main pressures on the Welsh higher education sector at the moment? Bethan Owen: The funding position would be the main pressure. The recommendations made by Sir Ian Diamond in his review of higher education funding and student finance are in the process of being implemented, and the changes to the student finance arrangements will take effect from this September. However, the recommendations for re-establishing funding at Welsh institutions are expected to take quite a bit longer. That funding, when it returns to institutions, is intended to re-establish funding for higher cost provision, both full time and part time; reinstate funding for innovation; and maintain, at the very least, the research funding in real terms. Universities, in the meantime, are trying to minimise the cost reductions that they're making in order to maintain the infrastructure, so that when the funding comes they can get the best value out of it. We have announced our funding allocations for 2018-19. For the research and teaching grant, though, we are still funding at a lower level--PS12. 5 million less--then the starting point for the Diamond report, the 2015-16 starting report. But we expect to be able to start introducing funding from 2019-20 to make a start on implementing Diamond. And it's probably important to note that the Diamond recommendations predated Brexit, therefore the challenges introduced by Brexit are in addition to those that the Diamond report was addressing. The other pressures relate to student recruitment. I mentioned the EU and international students. There is also the start of a reduction, both in Welsh-domiciled and English-domiciled applications to Wales. Enrolments are obviously the key important number, which we'll see later. And the other pressures include pay and pension costs, not least the issues around the universities superannuation scheme pension fund, where there's potentially a significant increase in cost. Increased student expectations for modern facilities and infrastructure bring a requirement for capital expenditure and borrowing, which bring their own pressures. And finally, the uncertainty about potential consequences that could arise from the review in England of fees and funding--the Augar review. John Griffiths AM: In terms of European Union students and enrolment, is Wales forecast to do less well than England and, if so, why might that be? Bethan Owen: They are not forecasting it. It's very difficult until the enrolments are made, and it's also very hard to see--the data that we see is the UCAS data. Institutions also recruit directly, so until we see the actual recruitment--. I think the arrangements that have changed from 2018-19 also impact on EU students. So, now, they have to find the full fee, whereas previously they were getting the grant in the same way as Welsh students. So, I'm speculating that that might be having an impact as well on EU students'appetite to come. John Griffiths AM: Okay. First of all Llyr, then Mark. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, that's straight into what I was going to ask, really, about what you think the factors are that led to this 8 per cent or 9 per cent drop in EU students applying to study in Wales, where we see a 2 per cent increase in England. Is that it, or are there other things that you've taken into account? What's your assessment of the reasons behind this? Dr David Blaney: It's very difficult to be definitive about the reasons, but I think there are probably two. The one that Bethan has already indicated, which is the change in student support arrangements for EU students, will have an effect of perturbation. That's probably relatively temporary--let's hope it is--as that settles down because, actually, the deal for EU students coming into Wales is no worse than that coming into England. Ours would be better because the fee level is slightly lower, but we do struggle in Wales in terms of the Anglocentric nature of the media and so on. So, getting the messages out is a challenge. The other dimension is that when you're in a highly competitive recruitment market, you have to do what you can to look attractive. Part of that is about being able to invest in facilities, and particularly buildings and kit, and the relative levels of investment between Wales and England over quite a long period of time now probably have an impact on that. Certainly, anecdotally I know, from my own family, that a lot of the choices have been made in terms of the state of repair of campuses and so on. There's something rational about that, isn't there? If you've got a system that is relatively better invested, then you're likely to have a better student experience because the resources are likely to be better. So, that's not irrational. We saw a sort of similar but opposite effect when the PS9,000 fee maximum limit came in, and some institutions, mostly in England--there was one in Wales--chose to pitch their fee levels really quite low, relative to that PS9,000, and caught a cold in the student recruitment market because fee levels denote quality in the student mind. So, the price sensitivities work quite differently. So, again, if you've got a relatively better invested part of the system, then that might well be one of the reasons why it looks more attractive. Llyr Gruffydd AM: That latter factor would affect the whole of the cohort, not just the international recruitment, of course. Dr David Blaney: Indeed. Yes, indeed. The implementation of the Diamond recommendations is crucial to that because that's re-balancing where the policy of investment goes. John Griffiths AM: Okay. And Mark. Mark Reckless AM: If I heard you correctly earlier, you said that the applications from non-EU students were also down by 8 per cent or 9 per cent. So, forgive me a certain scepticism about the explanation of the fall in the EU students being that they did get the fee grant and now they do not. If that's the explanation, why are we seeing the same fall in non-EU applications? Dr David Blaney: Well, I think the Welsh domiciled are also now having to face the prospect of finding a loan for the whole of the fee. So, that would potentially account for that. There's also a demographic dimension here with the downturn in the 18-year-old school-leaver profile, and that actually is happening in Wales at a slightly later point than in England. Mark Reckless AM: But this is non-EU students, and I think you said, Bethan, an 8 per cent or 9 per cent fall in them as well. Dr David Blaney: International non-EU. I beg your pardon. I misunderstood. Bethan Owen: There's also a mix effect. I gave a number that was for all English institutions that there will be differential impacts on. Mark Reckless AM: All English or all Welsh? Bethan Owen: Well, I contrasted the Welsh position with the English position where they were seeing growth. If you look, then--and we don't have the detailed information, but, again, what UCAS publish is some analysis by tariff. They analyse by type of institution--in other words, the grades that you need to get into institutions--and there is a trend for growth being in the higher tariff institutions. So, there's a mix effect in there as well, and I think there's undoubtedly an element of perception of how welcome overseas and international students are, and that's something that we know the sector are working on with Government. Mark Reckless AM: Why would that affect Wales more than England? Do you think there's been perhaps too great a negativity about Brexit in the sector? Bethan Owen: I think it's the mix of institutions that we have. So, we only have sector information published at the moment. When we look at the mix of institutions that we have, we will probably see a differential impact between Cardiff University and others. John Griffiths AM: Okay, Mark? Sorry, David, did you want to add anything? Dr David Blaney: I was just going to say that we would expect to see quite differential performance in the English sector, so the overall numbers are being brought up by substantial increased performance with some of that sector, and it's a question of how many of that type of institution you have in Wales. Mark Reckless AM: So, performance is increasing amongst the English universities, but not amongst the Welsh, you think. Dr David Blaney: I think performance is increasing, but increasing substantially with some of the English sector, not all of it. So, you get an average for the sector that is increased performance, but actually the stronger players within that sector, with the stronger international profiles, are bringing that up, and we have fewer in Wales that have that sort of presence. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Darren. Darren Millar AM: Would it be fair to say, then, that the universities over the border in England are better at selling themselves internationally than our Welsh institutions? Or is it just this fact that we've got fewer very high tariff universities versus the English market? Dr David Blaney: I suspect, and this is speculation--I suspect that it's a bit of both. I think some of it is to do with the mix of different types of institution. I would then come back to the point I was making about the Anglocentric nature of the UK media. If you're looking overseas, I think Wales has to work harder to penetrate the consciousness. Darren Millar AM: But, forgive me, don't international students just look at the UK as a whole? How are we comparing to Scotland, for example, or Northern Ireland, in terms of their universities? Do you have a comparative figure for Scottish universities? Bethan Owen: I haven't got that one with me for now, but there will be one in the data. Dr David Blaney: Yes, we could get that. Bethan Owen: Again, it's a combination of being part of the UK but differentiating, and the ability to differentiate the strengths of Wales, so attracting those students to Wales specifically, on top of the UK draw. Dr David Blaney: So, in terms of the efforts that have been made, there's a programme now that is being run by the sector in Wales--it's'Study in Wales'. It's relatively recent; you could argue that we could have got there earlier. But that is a determined collective effort to present Wales as a good place to study, with particular messages about what distinguishes studying in Wales from studying more broadly in the UK. In a sense, that is responding to the need to increase the presence of Wales in an international market. So, that sort of initiative I think is very good, very welcome. It will take a while to actually have an impact, but I think that's exactly the sort of work the sector need to be doing more of. Mark Reckless AM: What are those messages on why prospective students should study in Wales? Dr David Blaney: One of them in particular is relative safety. We know that one of the considerations, particularly for parents of overseas students, is are they going to go to a safe environment, and we know that the perception of international students who study in Wales is that this is a comfortable and safe place to be. That's partly a function of the size of our larger cities--quite a lot smaller than many of the cities in England. So, that's a key message. Being part of a UK system is also an important message there as well. So, we've got a UK-quality system, a UK degree, and the strength of that brand is available in Wales, but it's available in a way that is safer and more supportive, I think is the messaging that's coming through. John Griffiths AM: Okay. We'd better move on, I think, hadn't we? Darren, then. Darren Millar AM: I just wonder to what extent you have been able to plan in your financial forecasts for the next few years ahead for the potential impacts of Brexit. What have you built in, if anything? Bethan Owen: In terms of our funding, we receive our funding annually, but the sector provides us with financial forecasts, and we use those for monitoring sustainability. So, the last full forecasts that we had were in July 2017. We are due to receive a full forecast at the end of this month, and we obviously have updated information from institutions. Darren Millar AM: And they're three-year forecasts that come through to you, aren't they? Bethan Owen: They are four plus the current year. So, we've got numbers to 2019-20 at the moment, and expect to go to 2020-21. Darren Millar AM: And what are the universities expecting? What do they anticipate? Bethan Owen: Well, for 2017-18, which is the year we're about to end now, they were expecting PS38 million income from European students, and approximately PS91 million from the various European programme funding sources, and that's about 8 per cent of the total income--PS1. 5 billion--of the sector. The forecasts are assuming that that continues, albeit that institutions have various scenarios that they have for all sorts of scenarios that we can all speculate on, and, as I mentioned earlier, the balancing act of maintaining infrastructure and resources and staff in the short term is where we are at the moment, or where the sector is at the moment. And there are also signs that the banks and lending institutions are becoming a bit more risk-averse in providing borrowing to institutions, and of more differentiation between individual institutions being made than has possibly been the case in the past. The sector made an operating deficit, again looking at all Welsh institutions collectively last year, 2016-17, of PS17 million. That's before other gains and losses. And we're expecting a similar collective level of deficit for this financial year, if not slightly higher. Now, these are managed deficits and we are not currently seeing critical short-term cash availability issues in the sector. However, the increase in funding from Diamond is a key part of enabling the sector to return to longer-term financial sustainability. Short-term challenges can be met if there's a reasonable prospect of future funding. You can manage in the short-term, but there comes a point when the big cost reductions and infrastructure reductions have to be made. And, again, having mentioned the pressures on pay, pensions and other challenges, it is difficult to gauge whether, if those factors come into play as well, some of these cost reductions may have to be made before funding comes in to replace--either Diamond funding or the European replacement funding. Darren Millar AM: So, would it be fair to say that, in terms of the funding arrangements, and, in terms of the student numbers, one reason why we've got this recruitment problem is this lack of investment in the capital infrastructure that we've seen in recent years because of the financing arrangements from the Welsh Government, and the fee regime that we had previously, and the student finance regime that we had previously, not getting more cash into our Welsh universities perhaps, and that, over the next few years, there's going to have to be much more significant investment in capital if we're to raise the game and be more competitive, yes? Bethan Owen: Yes, that would be fair to say. Darren Millar AM: So, to what extent are they planning for more capital investment in those financial strategies that they've been preparing and presenting to you? Bethan Owen: They are all planning for capital investment. They are in different positions in terms of capacity to borrow and the assumptions. This year, 2018-19, is the first time that we've had capital funding in our remit letter--so, we've got PS10 million of capital funding, which is very welcome, with a prospect of a further PS20 million. So, that we will be allocating shortly. That will make a difference, particularly to those institutions who are not finding it as easy to borrow from financial institutions. Some of our larger institutions have borrowed--Cardiff University issued a bond. However, there are internal governance processes that are putting tight restrictions and expectations of what that money will be invested in. But they all have plans to do it and they need the confidence that their forecasts and long-term future funding prospects are secure enough that they can get the confidence of borrowers then, and service the costs of those borrowers. Darren Millar AM: So, the Diamond dividend you've mentioned a few times. What clarity is there from the Welsh Government at the moment in terms of how much they anticipate the Diamond dividend will be, and what proportion of that is going to be released to HEIs in the future? Bethan Owen: I was very carefully not describing it as a dividend--a re-establishing of funding that we had in the past for higher cost and innovation and maintaining research funding. The timescales are difficult, because we have an annual remit letter, and we can work with Welsh Government officials, and they can only give us a sense of when they think the funding will be released. But 2018-19 is the start of the system, and because of cohort protection--so, protecting those students who came in on a different deal to the deal from 2018-19--in the early years there is an element of double cost; there's a cost of seeing out the old system and the different cost of implementing the new system. So, at the moment, we're certainly not in a position to tell the sector with any degree of certainty what funding would be beyond what we've allocated for 2018-19, with some sense of what 2019-20 numbers we're working with because we allocate our money over an academic year--so, by definition, we've already made assumptions of four months of the 2019-20 funding, albeit that's not approved yet in the budgetary process. Darren Millar AM: But you're not being given a steer at all as to what you expect the additional resource that you might have to make available to Welsh universities might be as a result of Diamond. You must have some idea. Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say that officials have been as helpful as they can be with us, in terms of the planning assumptions we make and indications about whether or not we are being too ambitious or not ambitious enough. So, I think they're being very helpful; as Bethan said, they're constrained by the process--they can't pre-empt a budget process. And you folks will be fully aware of that, of course. The other question I think you asked was how much of the money released by the new arrangements will come into higher education. At the moment, we are expecting all of it to come into higher education, as the product of the arrangement between the current Cabinet Secretary and the current First Minister. The extent to which any changes there cause that to come under threat is something I can't judge at the moment. But we have had in our remit letter from the Cabinet Secretary a clear indication that we can expect our resource to grow over the next few years, as the Diamond process unfolds. John Griffiths AM: Okay. I'm just going to bring in Llyr at this stage. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Bethan said in an earlier answer that, I think, the financial forecasting from universities forecast something pretty consistent in terms of what they're hoping to be receiving in income, for example. But we've already discussed the near 10 per cent drop, potentially, in international applications. So, does that tally, really, or are they going to be recruiting additional students from the UK market or--? What's the plan? Bethan Owen: I was reflecting on the last point when we had consistent information across the sector. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, they may need to revisit that in the light of this. Bethan Owen: I'm expecting that the forecast that we get at the end of this month will reflect the reduced applications we've seen, and an element of that will be reflected in reduced improvements as well. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, we don't really know, then, whether--it's unlikely that they are going to expect a consistent fee income, really. Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say we would expect them to respond to what they're seeing in the UCAS process. Even if they didn't, they would all, in any case, have sensitivities for what they would do if things don't come out in the way they hope. And if they didn't have that then we would be on their case, of course, because we want them to be properly sighted. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Thanks. John Griffiths AM: And we have to stick to the Brexit impact. Darren. Darren Millar AM: Can I just ask, in terms of the impact of Brexit, have you done any assessment of what you think might happen, or have any of the institutions made available to you any assessments of what they think is likely to happen to their individual institutions, going forward? You've mentioned scenarios earlier on, David, so what scenarios have you set out? Dr David Blaney: There's a Welsh Government HE Brexit working group, which is chaired by one of the Government directors, and we sit on that. And we have provided that group with early summaries of the risks and the potential impact, in terms of the exposure of the sector to EU-sourced funding. We have, as part of that working group, explored those issues that it would be really very helpful for either the Welsh Government to try to put in place or for the Welsh Government to persuade UK Government to do. And I think, in our submission, we identified a number of areas of what we would consider to be a helpful action, and that has been worked through that working group. We know that it has informed Welsh Government's position, in terms of what it does and also in terms of the conversations that they have with Her Majesty's Government. Beyond that, what we haven't done in that working group is share the work that institutions are doing individually to look at how they would respond to different scenarios. We are not able to do that here either because, inevitably, they would have varying degrees of unpalatability and they would have to be managed very, very carefully. You take cost out, which is essentially the response, you actually take people's jobs out, and all of that has to be managed carefully. So, that's not really a matter for public consideration, but we do know that the institutions are looking at a range of scenarios on what they would do. Bethan mentioned earlier on that the current deficit for the sector is a managed deficit--it's not something that has taken them by surprise. They are responding to what they see as the dip between where Diamond was reporting and where the money starts flowing. Similarly, I think we're comfortable that there is a managed approach to the scenarios that they're testing within institutions. So, they will do what they need to do to sustain themselves. The bigger issue really, in a public policy context, is the potential damage for the sector to be able to deliver for Wales in terms of research and skills development and all the other contributions. Darren Millar AM: So, you're confident that they're taking a robust approach to planning for various scenarios, going forward, are you, as individual HEIs? Dr David Blaney: Yes, and as the deal becomes more clear politically, then they will obviously have greater clarity in terms of which of these scenarios they need to work up more fully, but they are sighted on it. Darren Millar AM: Okay. Can I just ask about fee and access plans, and how Brexit might impact them? To what extent do you think that they could be impacted? Dr David Blaney: I think there are two dimensions to maybe touch upon there. Fee and access plans are approved annually by us. They are approved in advance of the recruitment cycle for the year that they apply to. So, we're just in the process now of finalising our consideration of fee and access plans for the 2019-20 academic year. So, there's quite a long lead time. We, as part of that process, go through similar--we look at their financial sustainability, which is based on their forecasts--data to the stuff we've just been discussing. And also, of course, the fee plans themselves make assumptions about how many students of different types, from different domains, are going to be recruited. So, clearly, if there is a continuing downward pressure on EU student recruitment, then that will reduce the amount of fee income that's going to come in, unless they can find other students, and that will reduce the amount of investment in the various activities that are identified in the fee plans. In terms of process, we have two things that we can do. If institutions are becoming aware that the basis upon which they've submitted a fee plan is fundamentally different from the reality, then they can come into us for a change to their fee plan. So, we have a change process. If it's not fundamentally different, but there are always differences between what you plan and what happens three years later--. We also monitor after the event and, if there are differences, we would then obviously require institutions to explain those differences. If they've had fewer students and less investment, we would need to understand that. Conversely, if they'd had more students, and potentially more investment, we'd want to know what they'd spent it on, and if they've done different things, we'd want to understand that as well. So, we do challenge through a monitoring process. The only other thing that's perhaps worth saying is that, in the 2019-20 fee and access plans--they're not published yet, so I can't give you the full detail--five universities have made reference to Brexit and the Brexit impact, and things they want to do through their fee and access plan to try and address some of those issues, so they're in there as well. Darren Millar AM: But we've already said, haven't we, that it may be nothing to do with Brexit, this dip in EU recruitment, because there are other factors like the attractiveness of the estates and the environment that young people might be educated in? But they're making assumptions that it's linked to Brexit, are they? Dr David Blaney: Not really. I think they're making assumptions that it could be. There are things they want to do to enhance and to protect student mobility, and some of that will be funded through fee plan investment. So, the Brexit conversation between the EU and the UK Government might or might not sustain Erasmus engagement, and if it doesn't, then they need to find other ways of trying to support that sort of thing. So, that's what we're beginning to see in the fee plans. It's them thinking about how else we can do this stuff. John Griffiths AM: Okay, Darren? Mark. Mark Reckless AM: You mentioned the fee and access report. What else do you do to assure yourselves that Welsh higher education institutions are effectively planning for Brexit? Bethan Owen: We've touched on contingency plans, but, in an environment of uncertainty, I think it's difficult for any of us to know what the right scenario is. I think rather than looking at worst-case scenarios, what the sector is also focusing on is the promotion and looking for additional or increased sources of funding. So, we touched on strengthening the Global Wales engagement in order to sell Wales, so more focus on marketing Wales overseas, but also within the UK. The other area where the sector is working at a UK level very hard is making the arguments to UK Government for maintaining access to the successor to Horizon 2020, which is arguably a larger part of the whole funding infrastructure--students is one part, but the whole funding infrastructure for maintaining research capacity. So, working with UK universities to make arguments at UK Government level for maintaining access to those sources of funding is also a part of what the institutions are doing. We mentioned the Welsh Government's HE Brexit group. That group, which is the Welsh Government group, is being advised by members on it, and that's informing Welsh Government officials when they engage with UK Government as well. Mark Reckless AM: Do universities seek your advice on what the risks and, indeed, opportunities of Brexit may be and what you think they should be doing to plan for them, or is your role more one of monitoring what they do as opposed to advising what they should do? Bethan Owen: They are autonomous institutions and ultimately their governing bodies are responsible for ensuring their sustainability. It's not a relationship where we would advise and direct, but it is a relationship where we would question the scenarios if we consider from our experience that we would have expected other scenarios to have been tested. It's that nature of conversation, rather than directing. Mark Reckless AM: I understand you don't direct, of course, but my question was about advising. You're overseeing, or monitoring--or whatever you like to describe the role as--quite a number of institutions, and presumably you therefore have particular expertise within your organisation, and I just wondered whether higher education institutions are doing enough to draw on that. Bethan Owen: I think we can advise--we can advise based on data and information that we can see. We can advise based on our judgment. The big thing in this whole Brexit scenario is the uncertainty and the extent to which our speculation is better informed than the governing bodies or the sector collectively is probably the issue. Dr David Blaney: I think that's right. So, there's a relationship with the sector and there's a relationship with individual institutions, and they are different. So, we have engagement collectively with the sector. Bethan meets with the finance directors, and I meet with the vice-chancellors. We actually have the sector and the funding council together on the Welsh Government's group. So, some of these conversations are happening in various ways, where we're all gaining intelligence about what might be a sensible set of planning assumptions. Then, if we see an institution that is manifestly giving signs of not being sighted on some of these risks, either through their forecast or through other assurance activity, we will challenge. We have an annual cycle, with two points in the year where we reassess the overall risks of individual institutions, and that's based on a whole range of hard data but also a range of soft data. Our links into institutions are many and varied. We have lots of conversations and we take all of that in the round and form an assessment about the financial sustainability of the institutions but also the extent to which we think their governance and management arrangements are properly sighted and facing properly the challenges that they face. In some ways, we say it's not about the challenges they face; it's about how they face the challenges. Our alarm bells really ring when we get the sense that, actually, either an executive or a governing body hasn't really noticed. We're not in that place, I'm really pleased to say. I'm not worried about short-term crisis with any of the institutions. There are medium-term real challenges, both because of Brexit and because of other contextual factors, but at the moment the sector is a managed sector, which is good. It's not always like that, but we're in, I think, a good place at the moment. So, our role is definitely to challenge where we don't think they are making sensible assessments, but it's not to say that their assessment is wrong and ours is right; it's just to have a conversation about,'Why have you done this and what has informed your thinking?'It's slightly more one step back and slightly more subtle, but it is, as you imply, us using the intelligence we gain from all of those conversations when we talk to individual institutions as well. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Llyr. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, thank you. We had evidence last week from some of the higher education institutions, including Cardiff University, and it's very interesting, in relation to Erasmus+ and the mobility funding for students that, I think, only 40 per cent of the mobility funding in Cardiff is paid for by Erasmus+. I note that you've been consulting on national measures for higher education performance and that one possibility is using international mobility as a performance indicator. I was just wondering whether you might go further and expect universities to actually make commitments to funding international mobility from their own fee incomes as part of that. Bethan Owen: Again, reflecting on the latest fee and access plans, seven of the universities are referring to mobility--either they have targets in them or are explaining what their plans are--so they are including an element of it from their own income and fee and access income. However, Erasmus is such a well-established and long-term plan--if we were looking at a scenario where that infrastructure wasn't available, to implement anything similar to that would be much less efficient and much more costly. And to enable an infrastructure that allowed--. Ideally, you'd want something that all Welsh institutions could take part in, and that takes some investment and some co-ordinating. And, equally, you need to have the arrangements with your overseas and European institutions. I think it's easy to underestimate the accumulation of time that has gone into establishing Erasmus. So, I think replacing it would be a challenge. Llyr Gruffydd AM: And the point was made clearly last week that the brand is internationally recognised. When you enter into Erasmus+, you know exactly what you're going to get, and all of that. But there have been criticisms as well about degrees of flexibility and this, that and the other, so I'm just wondering whether--and there is presumably going to be some change on that front although I'm hoping we can buy into it, as others have done who aren't in the EU--that emphasis on encouraging institutions to look more proactively at funding their own mobility efforts would be positive. Dr David Blaney: I think the-- Llyr Gruffydd AM: Sorry--especially if it means that they do more of it. Dr David Blaney: Indeed. I think the Welsh sector is definitely committed to trying to find ways of promoting and resourcing that sort of mobility. There are signs that some of the restrictive elements of the Erasmus programme are going to change anyway, because that's under development and that's positive. There have been positive noises as part of the Brexit negotiations about wanting to carry on being able to access the Erasmus programme. Nothing is agreed until it's all agreed apparently, so we'll have to see on that one. That would be far better, I think, as Bethan indicates, than trying to replace it with a made-in-Wales only, but you could have a made-in-Wales on top. All of these challenges also create opportunities because they stimulate thinking, and so the fact that seven of the eight universities are already now using their fee plans as a vehicle for thinking about this is positive, and I think we can take that on from there. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Because that 40/60 split struck me as being the opposite to what I perceived the situation to be. A key part of your role is to work in partnership with students, so I'd just like to ask what work have you done with students, in terms of maybe protecting their interests as the Brexit scenario evolves? Dr David Blaney: Well, as you say, we do work with students. We were the first of the funding councils in the UK to have a memorandum of understanding with the National Union of Students in Wales. We work very closely with them and the president of NUS is an observer on our council. So, we have close links with NUS Wales and we're very proud of that, and it's very productive. They don't have a vote, but they do have a voice and it really matters. We we're, again, ahead of the rest of the UK in requiring all HE providers to have student charters and there are elements of student protection within the student charter. The UK-wide quality code also has elements in it where arrangements have to be specified about the protection of student interests. That is particularly, in essence, around circumstances where a provider gets into difficulties and they might wish to close a course or something more drastic and then what arrangements are in place to make sure that those students who are in train are protected. So, that is there and we've worked hard with the sector and with NUS Wales to get those measures in place. There's more development work in train at the moment, so we've asked Universities Wales to construct a protection that takes account of the approach to protecting the student interests in higher education. We're also requiring further education institutions who are regulated and deliver higher education to do similar or the same, and that's very important. The students who are HE students in FE are absolutely not second-best, and they should have the same protections. Llyr Gruffydd AM: But is all this a general piece of work? It's not Brexit-specific, although, no doubt, it may--. Dr David Blaney: I think that's fair to say, yes. The other dimension around Brexit is the immigration status of EU students, and that's, kind of, beyond our pay scale--that's a UK Government issue. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Is that something that you have a view on? Dr David Blaney: It's clearly in the interest of the enrichment of the curriculum and the student experience for students in Welsh institutions to be able to have students from other EU countries in the mix. So, it would be nice to find ways of continuing to facilitate that. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Now, of course, you have a statutory duty as well to assess the academic quality of the work in our higher education institutions, and I'm just wondering what potential impacts you think that Brexit might have on that particular aspect. Dr David Blaney: I think there are possibly a couple of things to say, and one, in a sense, echoes what I was just saying in the final part of my previous response, which is that part of the quality of the student experience is the richness that you get from having students in your cohort who have different backgrounds and different perspectives. So, if there is a continuing reduction in the number of EU students coming into Welsh institutions, then that richness deteriorates. That doesn't mean to say that the base or the threshold standard of what's required for a degree will come under pressure, it's just about the richness on top of that, which will be, in a sense, a quality-enhancement issue. That would be something that we would wish to try to protect against, but in the end you can't force EU students to come--you have to try and look attractive, and we've touched on that. The baseline requirement assessment of quality will not be affected by Brexit, except in so far as the machinery we use to discharge our statutory responsibility, which is through the Quality Assurance Agency, which themselves are accredited with European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, the European machinery for higher education quality. And there's a set of standards around that, and we would obviously wish not to be in a position where our ability to use and adhere to those standards is adversely impacted upon. Those standards will still exist, and it will be possible for the British system to adhere to them, even if they're not actually able to play in the same way. Then the only other thing I would say is that one of the factors that can cause the quality of the learning and teaching experience to be likely to become inadequate is when institutions come under financial pressure, just because their capacity to maintain the same sort of student experience can get under pressure. So, clearly, we will be looking for and making sure that institutions manage the financial pressures, if there are any--and there are some at the moment, as we've described--and manage those carefully. And in all of that, we will expect institutions to do their duty to make sure that the commitments they've already made to students are carried through. So, where students have already started on the course, they need to be able to finish that course--you can't just pull the plug out. So, all of that comes into the arrangements for quality as well. So, we'll be keeping an eye on that. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. A lot of what you've told us in the last three quarters of an hour or so will have costs attached, depending on the impacts. Certainly, we're in choppy waters as a sector anyway, and the risk is that things will be even more choppy, if you'll excuse that level of political interpretation, over the years to come. I'm just wondering what advice you might have given the Welsh Government in terms of what level of transition funding, or Brexit transition funding, might be required by the sector, and if you have, what the Welsh Government might have told you. Bethan Owen: I mentioned earlier that, obviously, we've provided information in terms of the assumptions that the sector are making on income. So, for the year 2017-18, that was PS129 million. I think the extent to which that needs to be replaced or supported with transition funding depends absolutely on what the final arrangements for Brexit are, but it's an appropriate point to refer to the report that Professor Graeme Reid has produced, commissioned by Welsh Government. That was, and has, provided advice and recommendations for supporting research and innovation in the transition period. But, again, the Reid recommendations in that report build on the Diamond recommendations, and as soon as Diamond is in place--and Reid is providing recommendations in addition, to establish funding on the basis that the funding needs to be available in Wales to maintain and develop and strengthen the research and innovation infrastructure that we have. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Are you not worried, though, that the clock is ticking and that we really don't know what the situation is at this point? Dr David Blaney: Do you mean the Brexit situation? Llyr Gruffydd AM: The Brexit clock, yes. Dr David Blaney: Uncertainty is unhelpful, because as I've said several times, the sector is a managed sector at the moment. I don't think there's--. We're not seeing maverick stuff, but actually you can only manage, really, what you can see and what you can reasonably predict. So, the longer the uncertainty persists, the more difficult that is for institutional management and, indeed, for the rest of the machinery to support them. So, yes, the sooner we get clarity, the better for everybody, I imagine. Darren Millar AM: Chair, can I just ask a question? John Griffiths AM: Yes, Darren. Darren Millar AM: In terms of uncertainty, though, we've still got this uncertainty over whether the extra cash that the Government's going to have to spend as a result of Diamond being implemented is coming to the HE sector. They've given a political commitment, but you've got absolutely no other assurance of the sums of money that are coming in. We've got the reform of tertiary education arrangements in Wales, which are also under way, so it's a bit of a perfect storm for you, isn't it, really, with all of these three things happening at the same time? Dr David Blaney: We're certainly kept busy. Darren Millar AM: But two of those things are in the gift of the Welsh Government to sort out for you, aren't they? Dr David Blaney: Well, the policy on the reform of the post-compulsory sector absolutely is a Welsh Government policy. The extent to which they can pre-empt a budgetary process and give us clear sight of the amount of money in future years is--. Well, again, it's not for me to comment. My understanding is that that's difficult for them to do, and I would repeat what I said earlier: officials have been as helpful as I think they can be in respect of that. I mean, you're right, we've only got a political commitment between two people currently in post. It would be great to have that firmer. I'm not sure how that could be done. Darren Millar AM: I mean, that statement about the savings accrued from Diamond being reinvested wholly into the HE sector has not been repeated, frankly, has it, since the coalition deal was struck? Dr David Blaney: No, but it hasn't been rescinded either, so--. Darren Millar AM: No, but there have been opportunities--repeated opportunities--in the Chamber, where the Cabinet Secretary's been asked to repeat that commitment, and the First Minister's been asked to repeat that commitment and has not given that commitment. That must concern you, and must concern your university sector even more than, perhaps, some of the elements of Brexit that we're discussing. Dr David Blaney: Bethan has outlined earlier on in this session the fact that institutions are currently running deficit budgets in order not to lose the infrastructure on the assumption that the Diamond money will come in. If anything were to cause significant perturbation, either to the timeline of that or to it coming in at all, then there would be much more of what Medwin Hughes calls'houskeeping'that would be required, and that would be significant. So, at the moment--I don't like the expression'valley of death', but there is a valley to cross, and I think the sector is reasonably confident about how wide and how deep that valley is. There's a demographic valley as well. So, there are several valleys that they're crossing--the metaphor fails, doesn't it, really, but I think you get the drift? So, there are a number of challenges and they can see their way out of some of those challenges, but if any one of these starts to get significantly disrupted, then that would be a real issue for them. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I go on to ask about other barriers to Welsh universities gaining more funding from UK research councils? What would you say those barriers are? Dr David Blaney: Well, I think there are a couple of things, really, to say. The first one--and we'll sound like a stuck record if we're not careful--is that there's an issue about investment and the Reid report makes this very clear. So, he has reaffirmed research that had been done previously that identifies that, actually, the quality of the research base in Welsh universities and the productivity of that Welsh research base are both good, there's just not enough of them, and that, in the end, is a product of investment decisions. They have particularly looked at the deficit in science, technology, engineering and mathematics areas, and I always say that research is not just STEM. I mean, STEM is important, and I'm not denying the deficit in that area, but we have to also remember that the research agenda for Wales is not just STEM--it's arts, humanities, it's social sciences. If you look at the impact on public policy that could come from social science research--tremendous. And we're very good at it in Wales. The Welsh impact in its research is better than anywhere else in the UK, so that's good. So, they do very well, and we just really need to invest a little bit further--so continue to do very well, but put it on a broader front. If you want to be able to play into the UK-wide research funding, then the investment has two dimensions to it. One is just having enough researchers to be able to play into those increasingly larger projects rather than small-scale projects. If you haven't got the critical mass, it's very hard to make the case that you can play. And the second thing is that UK-wide research pots nearly always fund at about 80 per cent of the total cost of the research, and the other 20 per cent is meant to be found from the core research funding for the university, and if you're in a situation where your core research funding is not competitive, then you're not going to be competitive at getting that money. So, that's, kind of, straightforward. There are other things. I think it's fair to say that the Welsh sector has not been sufficiently focused on getting in on the conversations with the research councils, making sure they're in the various committees and so on. We are intending to do a bit of work to see if we can systematise that a bit better--that engagement--because there's no doubt about it: it's not to say that this system is in any way inappropriate, but the more you're in the conversations, the more likely you are to be better placed to respond to the research challenges that come up. John Griffiths AM: Okay. One final question: in terms of the researcher collaborations and networks that exist, do you see potential difficulties after Brexit for the continuation and enhancement of those, and are there any particular lessons to learn from Ser Cymru II? Dr David Blaney: I think that there are two things to say here as well. First of all, the Brexit deal might or might not impact adversely on the capacity of Welsh and, indeed, UK research infrastructure to play into broader collaborative activity across Europe, and, in a sense, that's a function of the deal whatever the deal looks like, and we'll have to wait and see. But we've mentioned playing into Horizon Europe, and being able to continue with that would be an important part of that capacity. It's not just the money, it's being in the club and it's the signalling that we're in the game. So, all of that would be important. And then the other part of my response to this would be that, actually, Wales will need to continue to be good at the research it does, so maintaining the quality, maintaining the impact, and hopefully growing the critical mass. The Ser Cymru initiative has been quite important in doing that, because it's been very focused, capturing key research players, and the attractiveness that that has then to other researchers around them, and to industry collaboration, and they have been areas of real strength that we've invested in. And I think they are already showing dividends in terms of the capacity to win more research funding, and to establish an even stronger presence in the international research market. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Just one further point, from Darren. Darren Millar AM: Just very briefly, one of the pieces of feedback that the committee members received at a stakeholder engagement event, which took place prior to this inquiry starting, to receive oral evidence, was about the research funding that is available from the charitable sector, and how poorly Wales does in attracting some of that research. I think we had some figures from the British Heart Foundation, which said they have PS100 million a year available for research grants, or something like that, and we're getting 1 per cent of that coming into Wales, which is obviously pretty low down. I appreciate that research into the type of activity that they want to put their money into, Wales may not be particularly good at, and there may be other opportunities with other charities and partnerships. What work are you doing in order to build the capacity that Wales has to attract more of that charitable sector research funding into Wales? Bethan Owen: One of the issues is the capacity to engage with that funding, because of the overhead issue that David mentioned. Charitable funding at the moment doesn't attract any overhead funding. Again, that could be built in to our funding, if we had the capacity to increase our quality-related research funding. There is an element in England. Darren Millar AM: But that pressure's the same in other parts of the UK, is it not? So the overhead funding is still an issue in England, and in other places. Bethan Owen: There is an increased contribution, and I think it's an element that was increased this year to acknowledge that. But there will be differentiation between different charities. I'm fairly certain that some of our institutions will be very strong with the cancer charities, possibly not the heart foundation. And some of that will reflect on focusing on our strengths, but to have that fuller picture. Darren Millar AM: So, this gearing issue that you mentioned earlier on, for every PS1 that somebody else puts on the table, they can draw in another PS4 on top, because that PS1 will cover the overheads, whereas the rest of the research cash--. Dr David Blaney: That's exactly it. So, the more you're able to invest--. You know, we sometimes get into a conversation about the unhypothecated nature of our research funding, but actually that creates a flexibility and the infrastructure investment that allows institutions to be able to respond to these other opportunities. Without that, they can't do it, because if you're not careful, you've got institutions engaging in UK-wide or charity-based research activities where they're actually having to pay for it themselves--they're running at a loss. Darren Millar AM: So that's the main problem; it's not that Welsh universities aren't doing their best to get this cash in. Or is it a bit of both? Dr David Blaney: I think, in the main, universities and researchers will get their cash from wherever they can, so I don't think it's a lack of appetite. Darren Millar AM: Okay. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Well, thank you, both, for coming in to give evidence to the committee this morning. You will be sent a draft of the transcript, to check for accuracy. Diolch yn fawr. Okay then, the next item is item 3, papers to note, the first of which is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education on the school organisation code. The second is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill. Paper to note 3 is a letter from the Chair of the Finance Committee regarding scrutiny of the Welsh Government's draft budget for the forthcoming financial year, which we will be discussing under item 6 on the agenda. Paper to note 4 is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on parental attitudes towards managing young children's behaviour. And the final paper to note, paper to note 5, is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the children and family delivery grant, which we will discuss later on in private session, if Members are content. Okay. Are you content to note those papers on that basis? Okay. Thanks very much. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17. 42 to exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting, and also for items 1 and 2 of the 20 September meeting. Is the committee content? Yes. Thank you very much. We will move then into private session.

The funding position would be the main pressure. The recommendations for re-establishing funding at Welsh institutions are expected to take quite a bit longer. Wales institutions are still funding at a lower level. Then, as for enrollments, there is also the start of a reduction, both in Welsh-domiciled and English-domiciled applications to Wales. And finally, the uncertainty about potential consequences that could arise from the review in England of fees and funding--the Augar review.

tr-sq-669

tr-sq-669_0

According to Dr. Blaney, what are the reasons for the drop in EU students applying to study in Wales? Gareth Rogers: Good morning, and welcome to today's meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. Unfortunately, the Chair is unable to attend today, so in accordance with Standing Order 17. 22 I call for nominations for a temporary Chair for the duration of today's meeting. Julie Morgan AM: I nominate John Griffiths. Gareth Rogers: Thank you. Darren Millar AM: I'll second that nomination. Gareth Rogers: As there's only one nomination, I declare that John Griffiths has been appointed as temporary Chair. Thank you, John. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Thank you all very much, and item 1 on our agenda today is introductions, apologies, substitutions and declarations of interest. We've received apologies from Hefin David and Lynne Neagle. There are no substitutions. Are there any declarations of interest? No. We will move on then to item 2, and our inquiry into the impact of Brexit on higher and further education, and our first evidence session. I'm very pleased to welcome the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales here today, and Dr David Blaney as chief executive, and Bethan Owen, director of institutional engagement. Welcome to you both. Thanks for coming along to give evidence today. If it's okay with you, we'll move straight to questions, and Julie Morgan. Julie Morgan AM: Good morning. Bore da. I wondered if we could start off with you telling us what evidence you can see that the Brexit process has had any impact on Welsh higher education so far. Dr David Blaney: Can I preface the response by just reminding you that we are, by contract and by role, apolitical, and a lot of the judgments about the impact of Brexit essentially reflect where people sit politically in terms of whether they think it's a good thing or a bad thing? We're not going to go there, obviously, today, so we'll stick to the facts as we can see them, and hopefully we'll be able to help you, but there are areas where we are unable to help. That's part of the reason. John Griffiths AM: We certainly do not expect you to enter the political fray in any way. Dr David Blaney: Thank you. But even in terms of your assessment of whether this is going to be a good thing or a bad thing, a good impact or a bad impact, some of that inevitably in the end becomes a matter of your politics on it, so we will be as careful as we can be on that. In terms of the impact of Brexit on higher education, clearly, the significance here is about the contribution that higher education can make to Wales. So, we fund provision; we don't fund providers, technically, although obviously there's not much provision without providers. So, we are interested in the sustainability of higher education providers, but fundamentally the issue is: what does the HE system in Wales do for Wales, and what impact might Brexit have on the capacity of the system to continue to deliver for Wales? So, we know that universities make annually about PS5 billion of impact; 50,000 jobs. Of course, in Wales, all of that economic impact is really very significant, and uncertainty about the relationships and the arrangements with Europe is one of the most significant issues confronting university management at the moment. That has an impact in a number of ways. We can identify at the moment the extent to which the HE sector in Wales is exposed to sources of income that are located from the EU, so EU students, structural funds, and EU research funding, and so on, from the EU. We can identify some of that, but, actually, what happens in the future is much harder to be clear about. We are beginning to see some impact in terms of applications from EU students and I'll ask Bethan to share some details on that in a moment. We're also beginning to pick up, only anecdotally, some signs that there are increasing difficulties in the UK sector, and the Welsh sector as part of that, in playing in some of the EU collaborative research activities. And that, I think, just reflects the extent to which EU partners consider that British partners might be a stable partner as we go through this transition period. We don't have data on that--that's anecdotal--but there are signs that some of those relationships are beginning to become a little bit more difficult. In terms of the financial impact of that, clearly, if it is accepted that the UK is a net contributor to the EU then, presumably, some of the money--we're almost immediately straight into politics if you're not careful--but some of the money will be available back to the UK, and the extent to which Wales benefits or not from that returned money is a function of the political relationship between the Welsh Government and Her Majesty's Government. It's not necessarily the case that Wales will always lose out in that relationship, but that will become a matter of politics. There's a broader dimension, which is about the economic impact of Brexit on the UK economy and how much tax revenue there is and all of that. I think it's very hard for us to be definitive about how that's going to play out. I think that depends on the deal and how it all unfolds over the next several years. But we can certainly anticipate some turbulence and exactly how that plays for institutions remains to be seen. We can touch later on on the extent to which they are sighted on this and preparing for it. So, in terms of recruitment, Bethan. Bethan Owen: This is based on the UCAS applications and the report that was published at the end of June, 30 June. The European Union-domiciled applicants to Wales have decreased by 8 per cent, which contrasts with a 2 per cent increase for English institutions, and non-EU--so international students, not from Europe--have also decreased by 9 per cent to Welsh institutions, again contrasting with a 7 per cent increase in England. So, those are the signs of changes. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I then just ask you what you see as the main pressures on the Welsh higher education sector at the moment? Bethan Owen: The funding position would be the main pressure. The recommendations made by Sir Ian Diamond in his review of higher education funding and student finance are in the process of being implemented, and the changes to the student finance arrangements will take effect from this September. However, the recommendations for re-establishing funding at Welsh institutions are expected to take quite a bit longer. That funding, when it returns to institutions, is intended to re-establish funding for higher cost provision, both full time and part time; reinstate funding for innovation; and maintain, at the very least, the research funding in real terms. Universities, in the meantime, are trying to minimise the cost reductions that they're making in order to maintain the infrastructure, so that when the funding comes they can get the best value out of it. We have announced our funding allocations for 2018-19. For the research and teaching grant, though, we are still funding at a lower level--PS12. 5 million less--then the starting point for the Diamond report, the 2015-16 starting report. But we expect to be able to start introducing funding from 2019-20 to make a start on implementing Diamond. And it's probably important to note that the Diamond recommendations predated Brexit, therefore the challenges introduced by Brexit are in addition to those that the Diamond report was addressing. The other pressures relate to student recruitment. I mentioned the EU and international students. There is also the start of a reduction, both in Welsh-domiciled and English-domiciled applications to Wales. Enrolments are obviously the key important number, which we'll see later. And the other pressures include pay and pension costs, not least the issues around the universities superannuation scheme pension fund, where there's potentially a significant increase in cost. Increased student expectations for modern facilities and infrastructure bring a requirement for capital expenditure and borrowing, which bring their own pressures. And finally, the uncertainty about potential consequences that could arise from the review in England of fees and funding--the Augar review. John Griffiths AM: In terms of European Union students and enrolment, is Wales forecast to do less well than England and, if so, why might that be? Bethan Owen: They are not forecasting it. It's very difficult until the enrolments are made, and it's also very hard to see--the data that we see is the UCAS data. Institutions also recruit directly, so until we see the actual recruitment--. I think the arrangements that have changed from 2018-19 also impact on EU students. So, now, they have to find the full fee, whereas previously they were getting the grant in the same way as Welsh students. So, I'm speculating that that might be having an impact as well on EU students'appetite to come. John Griffiths AM: Okay. First of all Llyr, then Mark. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, that's straight into what I was going to ask, really, about what you think the factors are that led to this 8 per cent or 9 per cent drop in EU students applying to study in Wales, where we see a 2 per cent increase in England. Is that it, or are there other things that you've taken into account? What's your assessment of the reasons behind this? Dr David Blaney: It's very difficult to be definitive about the reasons, but I think there are probably two. The one that Bethan has already indicated, which is the change in student support arrangements for EU students, will have an effect of perturbation. That's probably relatively temporary--let's hope it is--as that settles down because, actually, the deal for EU students coming into Wales is no worse than that coming into England. Ours would be better because the fee level is slightly lower, but we do struggle in Wales in terms of the Anglocentric nature of the media and so on. So, getting the messages out is a challenge. The other dimension is that when you're in a highly competitive recruitment market, you have to do what you can to look attractive. Part of that is about being able to invest in facilities, and particularly buildings and kit, and the relative levels of investment between Wales and England over quite a long period of time now probably have an impact on that. Certainly, anecdotally I know, from my own family, that a lot of the choices have been made in terms of the state of repair of campuses and so on. There's something rational about that, isn't there? If you've got a system that is relatively better invested, then you're likely to have a better student experience because the resources are likely to be better. So, that's not irrational. We saw a sort of similar but opposite effect when the PS9,000 fee maximum limit came in, and some institutions, mostly in England--there was one in Wales--chose to pitch their fee levels really quite low, relative to that PS9,000, and caught a cold in the student recruitment market because fee levels denote quality in the student mind. So, the price sensitivities work quite differently. So, again, if you've got a relatively better invested part of the system, then that might well be one of the reasons why it looks more attractive. Llyr Gruffydd AM: That latter factor would affect the whole of the cohort, not just the international recruitment, of course. Dr David Blaney: Indeed. Yes, indeed. The implementation of the Diamond recommendations is crucial to that because that's re-balancing where the policy of investment goes. John Griffiths AM: Okay. And Mark. Mark Reckless AM: If I heard you correctly earlier, you said that the applications from non-EU students were also down by 8 per cent or 9 per cent. So, forgive me a certain scepticism about the explanation of the fall in the EU students being that they did get the fee grant and now they do not. If that's the explanation, why are we seeing the same fall in non-EU applications? Dr David Blaney: Well, I think the Welsh domiciled are also now having to face the prospect of finding a loan for the whole of the fee. So, that would potentially account for that. There's also a demographic dimension here with the downturn in the 18-year-old school-leaver profile, and that actually is happening in Wales at a slightly later point than in England. Mark Reckless AM: But this is non-EU students, and I think you said, Bethan, an 8 per cent or 9 per cent fall in them as well. Dr David Blaney: International non-EU. I beg your pardon. I misunderstood. Bethan Owen: There's also a mix effect. I gave a number that was for all English institutions that there will be differential impacts on. Mark Reckless AM: All English or all Welsh? Bethan Owen: Well, I contrasted the Welsh position with the English position where they were seeing growth. If you look, then--and we don't have the detailed information, but, again, what UCAS publish is some analysis by tariff. They analyse by type of institution--in other words, the grades that you need to get into institutions--and there is a trend for growth being in the higher tariff institutions. So, there's a mix effect in there as well, and I think there's undoubtedly an element of perception of how welcome overseas and international students are, and that's something that we know the sector are working on with Government. Mark Reckless AM: Why would that affect Wales more than England? Do you think there's been perhaps too great a negativity about Brexit in the sector? Bethan Owen: I think it's the mix of institutions that we have. So, we only have sector information published at the moment. When we look at the mix of institutions that we have, we will probably see a differential impact between Cardiff University and others. John Griffiths AM: Okay, Mark? Sorry, David, did you want to add anything? Dr David Blaney: I was just going to say that we would expect to see quite differential performance in the English sector, so the overall numbers are being brought up by substantial increased performance with some of that sector, and it's a question of how many of that type of institution you have in Wales. Mark Reckless AM: So, performance is increasing amongst the English universities, but not amongst the Welsh, you think. Dr David Blaney: I think performance is increasing, but increasing substantially with some of the English sector, not all of it. So, you get an average for the sector that is increased performance, but actually the stronger players within that sector, with the stronger international profiles, are bringing that up, and we have fewer in Wales that have that sort of presence. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Darren. Darren Millar AM: Would it be fair to say, then, that the universities over the border in England are better at selling themselves internationally than our Welsh institutions? Or is it just this fact that we've got fewer very high tariff universities versus the English market? Dr David Blaney: I suspect, and this is speculation--I suspect that it's a bit of both. I think some of it is to do with the mix of different types of institution. I would then come back to the point I was making about the Anglocentric nature of the UK media. If you're looking overseas, I think Wales has to work harder to penetrate the consciousness. Darren Millar AM: But, forgive me, don't international students just look at the UK as a whole? How are we comparing to Scotland, for example, or Northern Ireland, in terms of their universities? Do you have a comparative figure for Scottish universities? Bethan Owen: I haven't got that one with me for now, but there will be one in the data. Dr David Blaney: Yes, we could get that. Bethan Owen: Again, it's a combination of being part of the UK but differentiating, and the ability to differentiate the strengths of Wales, so attracting those students to Wales specifically, on top of the UK draw. Dr David Blaney: So, in terms of the efforts that have been made, there's a programme now that is being run by the sector in Wales--it's'Study in Wales'. It's relatively recent; you could argue that we could have got there earlier. But that is a determined collective effort to present Wales as a good place to study, with particular messages about what distinguishes studying in Wales from studying more broadly in the UK. In a sense, that is responding to the need to increase the presence of Wales in an international market. So, that sort of initiative I think is very good, very welcome. It will take a while to actually have an impact, but I think that's exactly the sort of work the sector need to be doing more of. Mark Reckless AM: What are those messages on why prospective students should study in Wales? Dr David Blaney: One of them in particular is relative safety. We know that one of the considerations, particularly for parents of overseas students, is are they going to go to a safe environment, and we know that the perception of international students who study in Wales is that this is a comfortable and safe place to be. That's partly a function of the size of our larger cities--quite a lot smaller than many of the cities in England. So, that's a key message. Being part of a UK system is also an important message there as well. So, we've got a UK-quality system, a UK degree, and the strength of that brand is available in Wales, but it's available in a way that is safer and more supportive, I think is the messaging that's coming through. John Griffiths AM: Okay. We'd better move on, I think, hadn't we? Darren, then. Darren Millar AM: I just wonder to what extent you have been able to plan in your financial forecasts for the next few years ahead for the potential impacts of Brexit. What have you built in, if anything? Bethan Owen: In terms of our funding, we receive our funding annually, but the sector provides us with financial forecasts, and we use those for monitoring sustainability. So, the last full forecasts that we had were in July 2017. We are due to receive a full forecast at the end of this month, and we obviously have updated information from institutions. Darren Millar AM: And they're three-year forecasts that come through to you, aren't they? Bethan Owen: They are four plus the current year. So, we've got numbers to 2019-20 at the moment, and expect to go to 2020-21. Darren Millar AM: And what are the universities expecting? What do they anticipate? Bethan Owen: Well, for 2017-18, which is the year we're about to end now, they were expecting PS38 million income from European students, and approximately PS91 million from the various European programme funding sources, and that's about 8 per cent of the total income--PS1. 5 billion--of the sector. The forecasts are assuming that that continues, albeit that institutions have various scenarios that they have for all sorts of scenarios that we can all speculate on, and, as I mentioned earlier, the balancing act of maintaining infrastructure and resources and staff in the short term is where we are at the moment, or where the sector is at the moment. And there are also signs that the banks and lending institutions are becoming a bit more risk-averse in providing borrowing to institutions, and of more differentiation between individual institutions being made than has possibly been the case in the past. The sector made an operating deficit, again looking at all Welsh institutions collectively last year, 2016-17, of PS17 million. That's before other gains and losses. And we're expecting a similar collective level of deficit for this financial year, if not slightly higher. Now, these are managed deficits and we are not currently seeing critical short-term cash availability issues in the sector. However, the increase in funding from Diamond is a key part of enabling the sector to return to longer-term financial sustainability. Short-term challenges can be met if there's a reasonable prospect of future funding. You can manage in the short-term, but there comes a point when the big cost reductions and infrastructure reductions have to be made. And, again, having mentioned the pressures on pay, pensions and other challenges, it is difficult to gauge whether, if those factors come into play as well, some of these cost reductions may have to be made before funding comes in to replace--either Diamond funding or the European replacement funding. Darren Millar AM: So, would it be fair to say that, in terms of the funding arrangements, and, in terms of the student numbers, one reason why we've got this recruitment problem is this lack of investment in the capital infrastructure that we've seen in recent years because of the financing arrangements from the Welsh Government, and the fee regime that we had previously, and the student finance regime that we had previously, not getting more cash into our Welsh universities perhaps, and that, over the next few years, there's going to have to be much more significant investment in capital if we're to raise the game and be more competitive, yes? Bethan Owen: Yes, that would be fair to say. Darren Millar AM: So, to what extent are they planning for more capital investment in those financial strategies that they've been preparing and presenting to you? Bethan Owen: They are all planning for capital investment. They are in different positions in terms of capacity to borrow and the assumptions. This year, 2018-19, is the first time that we've had capital funding in our remit letter--so, we've got PS10 million of capital funding, which is very welcome, with a prospect of a further PS20 million. So, that we will be allocating shortly. That will make a difference, particularly to those institutions who are not finding it as easy to borrow from financial institutions. Some of our larger institutions have borrowed--Cardiff University issued a bond. However, there are internal governance processes that are putting tight restrictions and expectations of what that money will be invested in. But they all have plans to do it and they need the confidence that their forecasts and long-term future funding prospects are secure enough that they can get the confidence of borrowers then, and service the costs of those borrowers. Darren Millar AM: So, the Diamond dividend you've mentioned a few times. What clarity is there from the Welsh Government at the moment in terms of how much they anticipate the Diamond dividend will be, and what proportion of that is going to be released to HEIs in the future? Bethan Owen: I was very carefully not describing it as a dividend--a re-establishing of funding that we had in the past for higher cost and innovation and maintaining research funding. The timescales are difficult, because we have an annual remit letter, and we can work with Welsh Government officials, and they can only give us a sense of when they think the funding will be released. But 2018-19 is the start of the system, and because of cohort protection--so, protecting those students who came in on a different deal to the deal from 2018-19--in the early years there is an element of double cost; there's a cost of seeing out the old system and the different cost of implementing the new system. So, at the moment, we're certainly not in a position to tell the sector with any degree of certainty what funding would be beyond what we've allocated for 2018-19, with some sense of what 2019-20 numbers we're working with because we allocate our money over an academic year--so, by definition, we've already made assumptions of four months of the 2019-20 funding, albeit that's not approved yet in the budgetary process. Darren Millar AM: But you're not being given a steer at all as to what you expect the additional resource that you might have to make available to Welsh universities might be as a result of Diamond. You must have some idea. Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say that officials have been as helpful as they can be with us, in terms of the planning assumptions we make and indications about whether or not we are being too ambitious or not ambitious enough. So, I think they're being very helpful; as Bethan said, they're constrained by the process--they can't pre-empt a budget process. And you folks will be fully aware of that, of course. The other question I think you asked was how much of the money released by the new arrangements will come into higher education. At the moment, we are expecting all of it to come into higher education, as the product of the arrangement between the current Cabinet Secretary and the current First Minister. The extent to which any changes there cause that to come under threat is something I can't judge at the moment. But we have had in our remit letter from the Cabinet Secretary a clear indication that we can expect our resource to grow over the next few years, as the Diamond process unfolds. John Griffiths AM: Okay. I'm just going to bring in Llyr at this stage. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Bethan said in an earlier answer that, I think, the financial forecasting from universities forecast something pretty consistent in terms of what they're hoping to be receiving in income, for example. But we've already discussed the near 10 per cent drop, potentially, in international applications. So, does that tally, really, or are they going to be recruiting additional students from the UK market or--? What's the plan? Bethan Owen: I was reflecting on the last point when we had consistent information across the sector. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, they may need to revisit that in the light of this. Bethan Owen: I'm expecting that the forecast that we get at the end of this month will reflect the reduced applications we've seen, and an element of that will be reflected in reduced improvements as well. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, we don't really know, then, whether--it's unlikely that they are going to expect a consistent fee income, really. Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say we would expect them to respond to what they're seeing in the UCAS process. Even if they didn't, they would all, in any case, have sensitivities for what they would do if things don't come out in the way they hope. And if they didn't have that then we would be on their case, of course, because we want them to be properly sighted. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Thanks. John Griffiths AM: And we have to stick to the Brexit impact. Darren. Darren Millar AM: Can I just ask, in terms of the impact of Brexit, have you done any assessment of what you think might happen, or have any of the institutions made available to you any assessments of what they think is likely to happen to their individual institutions, going forward? You've mentioned scenarios earlier on, David, so what scenarios have you set out? Dr David Blaney: There's a Welsh Government HE Brexit working group, which is chaired by one of the Government directors, and we sit on that. And we have provided that group with early summaries of the risks and the potential impact, in terms of the exposure of the sector to EU-sourced funding. We have, as part of that working group, explored those issues that it would be really very helpful for either the Welsh Government to try to put in place or for the Welsh Government to persuade UK Government to do. And I think, in our submission, we identified a number of areas of what we would consider to be a helpful action, and that has been worked through that working group. We know that it has informed Welsh Government's position, in terms of what it does and also in terms of the conversations that they have with Her Majesty's Government. Beyond that, what we haven't done in that working group is share the work that institutions are doing individually to look at how they would respond to different scenarios. We are not able to do that here either because, inevitably, they would have varying degrees of unpalatability and they would have to be managed very, very carefully. You take cost out, which is essentially the response, you actually take people's jobs out, and all of that has to be managed carefully. So, that's not really a matter for public consideration, but we do know that the institutions are looking at a range of scenarios on what they would do. Bethan mentioned earlier on that the current deficit for the sector is a managed deficit--it's not something that has taken them by surprise. They are responding to what they see as the dip between where Diamond was reporting and where the money starts flowing. Similarly, I think we're comfortable that there is a managed approach to the scenarios that they're testing within institutions. So, they will do what they need to do to sustain themselves. The bigger issue really, in a public policy context, is the potential damage for the sector to be able to deliver for Wales in terms of research and skills development and all the other contributions. Darren Millar AM: So, you're confident that they're taking a robust approach to planning for various scenarios, going forward, are you, as individual HEIs? Dr David Blaney: Yes, and as the deal becomes more clear politically, then they will obviously have greater clarity in terms of which of these scenarios they need to work up more fully, but they are sighted on it. Darren Millar AM: Okay. Can I just ask about fee and access plans, and how Brexit might impact them? To what extent do you think that they could be impacted? Dr David Blaney: I think there are two dimensions to maybe touch upon there. Fee and access plans are approved annually by us. They are approved in advance of the recruitment cycle for the year that they apply to. So, we're just in the process now of finalising our consideration of fee and access plans for the 2019-20 academic year. So, there's quite a long lead time. We, as part of that process, go through similar--we look at their financial sustainability, which is based on their forecasts--data to the stuff we've just been discussing. And also, of course, the fee plans themselves make assumptions about how many students of different types, from different domains, are going to be recruited. So, clearly, if there is a continuing downward pressure on EU student recruitment, then that will reduce the amount of fee income that's going to come in, unless they can find other students, and that will reduce the amount of investment in the various activities that are identified in the fee plans. In terms of process, we have two things that we can do. If institutions are becoming aware that the basis upon which they've submitted a fee plan is fundamentally different from the reality, then they can come into us for a change to their fee plan. So, we have a change process. If it's not fundamentally different, but there are always differences between what you plan and what happens three years later--. We also monitor after the event and, if there are differences, we would then obviously require institutions to explain those differences. If they've had fewer students and less investment, we would need to understand that. Conversely, if they'd had more students, and potentially more investment, we'd want to know what they'd spent it on, and if they've done different things, we'd want to understand that as well. So, we do challenge through a monitoring process. The only other thing that's perhaps worth saying is that, in the 2019-20 fee and access plans--they're not published yet, so I can't give you the full detail--five universities have made reference to Brexit and the Brexit impact, and things they want to do through their fee and access plan to try and address some of those issues, so they're in there as well. Darren Millar AM: But we've already said, haven't we, that it may be nothing to do with Brexit, this dip in EU recruitment, because there are other factors like the attractiveness of the estates and the environment that young people might be educated in? But they're making assumptions that it's linked to Brexit, are they? Dr David Blaney: Not really. I think they're making assumptions that it could be. There are things they want to do to enhance and to protect student mobility, and some of that will be funded through fee plan investment. So, the Brexit conversation between the EU and the UK Government might or might not sustain Erasmus engagement, and if it doesn't, then they need to find other ways of trying to support that sort of thing. So, that's what we're beginning to see in the fee plans. It's them thinking about how else we can do this stuff. John Griffiths AM: Okay, Darren? Mark. Mark Reckless AM: You mentioned the fee and access report. What else do you do to assure yourselves that Welsh higher education institutions are effectively planning for Brexit? Bethan Owen: We've touched on contingency plans, but, in an environment of uncertainty, I think it's difficult for any of us to know what the right scenario is. I think rather than looking at worst-case scenarios, what the sector is also focusing on is the promotion and looking for additional or increased sources of funding. So, we touched on strengthening the Global Wales engagement in order to sell Wales, so more focus on marketing Wales overseas, but also within the UK. The other area where the sector is working at a UK level very hard is making the arguments to UK Government for maintaining access to the successor to Horizon 2020, which is arguably a larger part of the whole funding infrastructure--students is one part, but the whole funding infrastructure for maintaining research capacity. So, working with UK universities to make arguments at UK Government level for maintaining access to those sources of funding is also a part of what the institutions are doing. We mentioned the Welsh Government's HE Brexit group. That group, which is the Welsh Government group, is being advised by members on it, and that's informing Welsh Government officials when they engage with UK Government as well. Mark Reckless AM: Do universities seek your advice on what the risks and, indeed, opportunities of Brexit may be and what you think they should be doing to plan for them, or is your role more one of monitoring what they do as opposed to advising what they should do? Bethan Owen: They are autonomous institutions and ultimately their governing bodies are responsible for ensuring their sustainability. It's not a relationship where we would advise and direct, but it is a relationship where we would question the scenarios if we consider from our experience that we would have expected other scenarios to have been tested. It's that nature of conversation, rather than directing. Mark Reckless AM: I understand you don't direct, of course, but my question was about advising. You're overseeing, or monitoring--or whatever you like to describe the role as--quite a number of institutions, and presumably you therefore have particular expertise within your organisation, and I just wondered whether higher education institutions are doing enough to draw on that. Bethan Owen: I think we can advise--we can advise based on data and information that we can see. We can advise based on our judgment. The big thing in this whole Brexit scenario is the uncertainty and the extent to which our speculation is better informed than the governing bodies or the sector collectively is probably the issue. Dr David Blaney: I think that's right. So, there's a relationship with the sector and there's a relationship with individual institutions, and they are different. So, we have engagement collectively with the sector. Bethan meets with the finance directors, and I meet with the vice-chancellors. We actually have the sector and the funding council together on the Welsh Government's group. So, some of these conversations are happening in various ways, where we're all gaining intelligence about what might be a sensible set of planning assumptions. Then, if we see an institution that is manifestly giving signs of not being sighted on some of these risks, either through their forecast or through other assurance activity, we will challenge. We have an annual cycle, with two points in the year where we reassess the overall risks of individual institutions, and that's based on a whole range of hard data but also a range of soft data. Our links into institutions are many and varied. We have lots of conversations and we take all of that in the round and form an assessment about the financial sustainability of the institutions but also the extent to which we think their governance and management arrangements are properly sighted and facing properly the challenges that they face. In some ways, we say it's not about the challenges they face; it's about how they face the challenges. Our alarm bells really ring when we get the sense that, actually, either an executive or a governing body hasn't really noticed. We're not in that place, I'm really pleased to say. I'm not worried about short-term crisis with any of the institutions. There are medium-term real challenges, both because of Brexit and because of other contextual factors, but at the moment the sector is a managed sector, which is good. It's not always like that, but we're in, I think, a good place at the moment. So, our role is definitely to challenge where we don't think they are making sensible assessments, but it's not to say that their assessment is wrong and ours is right; it's just to have a conversation about,'Why have you done this and what has informed your thinking?'It's slightly more one step back and slightly more subtle, but it is, as you imply, us using the intelligence we gain from all of those conversations when we talk to individual institutions as well. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Llyr. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, thank you. We had evidence last week from some of the higher education institutions, including Cardiff University, and it's very interesting, in relation to Erasmus+ and the mobility funding for students that, I think, only 40 per cent of the mobility funding in Cardiff is paid for by Erasmus+. I note that you've been consulting on national measures for higher education performance and that one possibility is using international mobility as a performance indicator. I was just wondering whether you might go further and expect universities to actually make commitments to funding international mobility from their own fee incomes as part of that. Bethan Owen: Again, reflecting on the latest fee and access plans, seven of the universities are referring to mobility--either they have targets in them or are explaining what their plans are--so they are including an element of it from their own income and fee and access income. However, Erasmus is such a well-established and long-term plan--if we were looking at a scenario where that infrastructure wasn't available, to implement anything similar to that would be much less efficient and much more costly. And to enable an infrastructure that allowed--. Ideally, you'd want something that all Welsh institutions could take part in, and that takes some investment and some co-ordinating. And, equally, you need to have the arrangements with your overseas and European institutions. I think it's easy to underestimate the accumulation of time that has gone into establishing Erasmus. So, I think replacing it would be a challenge. Llyr Gruffydd AM: And the point was made clearly last week that the brand is internationally recognised. When you enter into Erasmus+, you know exactly what you're going to get, and all of that. But there have been criticisms as well about degrees of flexibility and this, that and the other, so I'm just wondering whether--and there is presumably going to be some change on that front although I'm hoping we can buy into it, as others have done who aren't in the EU--that emphasis on encouraging institutions to look more proactively at funding their own mobility efforts would be positive. Dr David Blaney: I think the-- Llyr Gruffydd AM: Sorry--especially if it means that they do more of it. Dr David Blaney: Indeed. I think the Welsh sector is definitely committed to trying to find ways of promoting and resourcing that sort of mobility. There are signs that some of the restrictive elements of the Erasmus programme are going to change anyway, because that's under development and that's positive. There have been positive noises as part of the Brexit negotiations about wanting to carry on being able to access the Erasmus programme. Nothing is agreed until it's all agreed apparently, so we'll have to see on that one. That would be far better, I think, as Bethan indicates, than trying to replace it with a made-in-Wales only, but you could have a made-in-Wales on top. All of these challenges also create opportunities because they stimulate thinking, and so the fact that seven of the eight universities are already now using their fee plans as a vehicle for thinking about this is positive, and I think we can take that on from there. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Because that 40/60 split struck me as being the opposite to what I perceived the situation to be. A key part of your role is to work in partnership with students, so I'd just like to ask what work have you done with students, in terms of maybe protecting their interests as the Brexit scenario evolves? Dr David Blaney: Well, as you say, we do work with students. We were the first of the funding councils in the UK to have a memorandum of understanding with the National Union of Students in Wales. We work very closely with them and the president of NUS is an observer on our council. So, we have close links with NUS Wales and we're very proud of that, and it's very productive. They don't have a vote, but they do have a voice and it really matters. We we're, again, ahead of the rest of the UK in requiring all HE providers to have student charters and there are elements of student protection within the student charter. The UK-wide quality code also has elements in it where arrangements have to be specified about the protection of student interests. That is particularly, in essence, around circumstances where a provider gets into difficulties and they might wish to close a course or something more drastic and then what arrangements are in place to make sure that those students who are in train are protected. So, that is there and we've worked hard with the sector and with NUS Wales to get those measures in place. There's more development work in train at the moment, so we've asked Universities Wales to construct a protection that takes account of the approach to protecting the student interests in higher education. We're also requiring further education institutions who are regulated and deliver higher education to do similar or the same, and that's very important. The students who are HE students in FE are absolutely not second-best, and they should have the same protections. Llyr Gruffydd AM: But is all this a general piece of work? It's not Brexit-specific, although, no doubt, it may--. Dr David Blaney: I think that's fair to say, yes. The other dimension around Brexit is the immigration status of EU students, and that's, kind of, beyond our pay scale--that's a UK Government issue. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Is that something that you have a view on? Dr David Blaney: It's clearly in the interest of the enrichment of the curriculum and the student experience for students in Welsh institutions to be able to have students from other EU countries in the mix. So, it would be nice to find ways of continuing to facilitate that. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Now, of course, you have a statutory duty as well to assess the academic quality of the work in our higher education institutions, and I'm just wondering what potential impacts you think that Brexit might have on that particular aspect. Dr David Blaney: I think there are possibly a couple of things to say, and one, in a sense, echoes what I was just saying in the final part of my previous response, which is that part of the quality of the student experience is the richness that you get from having students in your cohort who have different backgrounds and different perspectives. So, if there is a continuing reduction in the number of EU students coming into Welsh institutions, then that richness deteriorates. That doesn't mean to say that the base or the threshold standard of what's required for a degree will come under pressure, it's just about the richness on top of that, which will be, in a sense, a quality-enhancement issue. That would be something that we would wish to try to protect against, but in the end you can't force EU students to come--you have to try and look attractive, and we've touched on that. The baseline requirement assessment of quality will not be affected by Brexit, except in so far as the machinery we use to discharge our statutory responsibility, which is through the Quality Assurance Agency, which themselves are accredited with European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, the European machinery for higher education quality. And there's a set of standards around that, and we would obviously wish not to be in a position where our ability to use and adhere to those standards is adversely impacted upon. Those standards will still exist, and it will be possible for the British system to adhere to them, even if they're not actually able to play in the same way. Then the only other thing I would say is that one of the factors that can cause the quality of the learning and teaching experience to be likely to become inadequate is when institutions come under financial pressure, just because their capacity to maintain the same sort of student experience can get under pressure. So, clearly, we will be looking for and making sure that institutions manage the financial pressures, if there are any--and there are some at the moment, as we've described--and manage those carefully. And in all of that, we will expect institutions to do their duty to make sure that the commitments they've already made to students are carried through. So, where students have already started on the course, they need to be able to finish that course--you can't just pull the plug out. So, all of that comes into the arrangements for quality as well. So, we'll be keeping an eye on that. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. A lot of what you've told us in the last three quarters of an hour or so will have costs attached, depending on the impacts. Certainly, we're in choppy waters as a sector anyway, and the risk is that things will be even more choppy, if you'll excuse that level of political interpretation, over the years to come. I'm just wondering what advice you might have given the Welsh Government in terms of what level of transition funding, or Brexit transition funding, might be required by the sector, and if you have, what the Welsh Government might have told you. Bethan Owen: I mentioned earlier that, obviously, we've provided information in terms of the assumptions that the sector are making on income. So, for the year 2017-18, that was PS129 million. I think the extent to which that needs to be replaced or supported with transition funding depends absolutely on what the final arrangements for Brexit are, but it's an appropriate point to refer to the report that Professor Graeme Reid has produced, commissioned by Welsh Government. That was, and has, provided advice and recommendations for supporting research and innovation in the transition period. But, again, the Reid recommendations in that report build on the Diamond recommendations, and as soon as Diamond is in place--and Reid is providing recommendations in addition, to establish funding on the basis that the funding needs to be available in Wales to maintain and develop and strengthen the research and innovation infrastructure that we have. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Are you not worried, though, that the clock is ticking and that we really don't know what the situation is at this point? Dr David Blaney: Do you mean the Brexit situation? Llyr Gruffydd AM: The Brexit clock, yes. Dr David Blaney: Uncertainty is unhelpful, because as I've said several times, the sector is a managed sector at the moment. I don't think there's--. We're not seeing maverick stuff, but actually you can only manage, really, what you can see and what you can reasonably predict. So, the longer the uncertainty persists, the more difficult that is for institutional management and, indeed, for the rest of the machinery to support them. So, yes, the sooner we get clarity, the better for everybody, I imagine. Darren Millar AM: Chair, can I just ask a question? John Griffiths AM: Yes, Darren. Darren Millar AM: In terms of uncertainty, though, we've still got this uncertainty over whether the extra cash that the Government's going to have to spend as a result of Diamond being implemented is coming to the HE sector. They've given a political commitment, but you've got absolutely no other assurance of the sums of money that are coming in. We've got the reform of tertiary education arrangements in Wales, which are also under way, so it's a bit of a perfect storm for you, isn't it, really, with all of these three things happening at the same time? Dr David Blaney: We're certainly kept busy. Darren Millar AM: But two of those things are in the gift of the Welsh Government to sort out for you, aren't they? Dr David Blaney: Well, the policy on the reform of the post-compulsory sector absolutely is a Welsh Government policy. The extent to which they can pre-empt a budgetary process and give us clear sight of the amount of money in future years is--. Well, again, it's not for me to comment. My understanding is that that's difficult for them to do, and I would repeat what I said earlier: officials have been as helpful as I think they can be in respect of that. I mean, you're right, we've only got a political commitment between two people currently in post. It would be great to have that firmer. I'm not sure how that could be done. Darren Millar AM: I mean, that statement about the savings accrued from Diamond being reinvested wholly into the HE sector has not been repeated, frankly, has it, since the coalition deal was struck? Dr David Blaney: No, but it hasn't been rescinded either, so--. Darren Millar AM: No, but there have been opportunities--repeated opportunities--in the Chamber, where the Cabinet Secretary's been asked to repeat that commitment, and the First Minister's been asked to repeat that commitment and has not given that commitment. That must concern you, and must concern your university sector even more than, perhaps, some of the elements of Brexit that we're discussing. Dr David Blaney: Bethan has outlined earlier on in this session the fact that institutions are currently running deficit budgets in order not to lose the infrastructure on the assumption that the Diamond money will come in. If anything were to cause significant perturbation, either to the timeline of that or to it coming in at all, then there would be much more of what Medwin Hughes calls'houskeeping'that would be required, and that would be significant. So, at the moment--I don't like the expression'valley of death', but there is a valley to cross, and I think the sector is reasonably confident about how wide and how deep that valley is. There's a demographic valley as well. So, there are several valleys that they're crossing--the metaphor fails, doesn't it, really, but I think you get the drift? So, there are a number of challenges and they can see their way out of some of those challenges, but if any one of these starts to get significantly disrupted, then that would be a real issue for them. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I go on to ask about other barriers to Welsh universities gaining more funding from UK research councils? What would you say those barriers are? Dr David Blaney: Well, I think there are a couple of things, really, to say. The first one--and we'll sound like a stuck record if we're not careful--is that there's an issue about investment and the Reid report makes this very clear. So, he has reaffirmed research that had been done previously that identifies that, actually, the quality of the research base in Welsh universities and the productivity of that Welsh research base are both good, there's just not enough of them, and that, in the end, is a product of investment decisions. They have particularly looked at the deficit in science, technology, engineering and mathematics areas, and I always say that research is not just STEM. I mean, STEM is important, and I'm not denying the deficit in that area, but we have to also remember that the research agenda for Wales is not just STEM--it's arts, humanities, it's social sciences. If you look at the impact on public policy that could come from social science research--tremendous. And we're very good at it in Wales. The Welsh impact in its research is better than anywhere else in the UK, so that's good. So, they do very well, and we just really need to invest a little bit further--so continue to do very well, but put it on a broader front. If you want to be able to play into the UK-wide research funding, then the investment has two dimensions to it. One is just having enough researchers to be able to play into those increasingly larger projects rather than small-scale projects. If you haven't got the critical mass, it's very hard to make the case that you can play. And the second thing is that UK-wide research pots nearly always fund at about 80 per cent of the total cost of the research, and the other 20 per cent is meant to be found from the core research funding for the university, and if you're in a situation where your core research funding is not competitive, then you're not going to be competitive at getting that money. So, that's, kind of, straightforward. There are other things. I think it's fair to say that the Welsh sector has not been sufficiently focused on getting in on the conversations with the research councils, making sure they're in the various committees and so on. We are intending to do a bit of work to see if we can systematise that a bit better--that engagement--because there's no doubt about it: it's not to say that this system is in any way inappropriate, but the more you're in the conversations, the more likely you are to be better placed to respond to the research challenges that come up. John Griffiths AM: Okay. One final question: in terms of the researcher collaborations and networks that exist, do you see potential difficulties after Brexit for the continuation and enhancement of those, and are there any particular lessons to learn from Ser Cymru II? Dr David Blaney: I think that there are two things to say here as well. First of all, the Brexit deal might or might not impact adversely on the capacity of Welsh and, indeed, UK research infrastructure to play into broader collaborative activity across Europe, and, in a sense, that's a function of the deal whatever the deal looks like, and we'll have to wait and see. But we've mentioned playing into Horizon Europe, and being able to continue with that would be an important part of that capacity. It's not just the money, it's being in the club and it's the signalling that we're in the game. So, all of that would be important. And then the other part of my response to this would be that, actually, Wales will need to continue to be good at the research it does, so maintaining the quality, maintaining the impact, and hopefully growing the critical mass. The Ser Cymru initiative has been quite important in doing that, because it's been very focused, capturing key research players, and the attractiveness that that has then to other researchers around them, and to industry collaboration, and they have been areas of real strength that we've invested in. And I think they are already showing dividends in terms of the capacity to win more research funding, and to establish an even stronger presence in the international research market. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Just one further point, from Darren. Darren Millar AM: Just very briefly, one of the pieces of feedback that the committee members received at a stakeholder engagement event, which took place prior to this inquiry starting, to receive oral evidence, was about the research funding that is available from the charitable sector, and how poorly Wales does in attracting some of that research. I think we had some figures from the British Heart Foundation, which said they have PS100 million a year available for research grants, or something like that, and we're getting 1 per cent of that coming into Wales, which is obviously pretty low down. I appreciate that research into the type of activity that they want to put their money into, Wales may not be particularly good at, and there may be other opportunities with other charities and partnerships. What work are you doing in order to build the capacity that Wales has to attract more of that charitable sector research funding into Wales? Bethan Owen: One of the issues is the capacity to engage with that funding, because of the overhead issue that David mentioned. Charitable funding at the moment doesn't attract any overhead funding. Again, that could be built in to our funding, if we had the capacity to increase our quality-related research funding. There is an element in England. Darren Millar AM: But that pressure's the same in other parts of the UK, is it not? So the overhead funding is still an issue in England, and in other places. Bethan Owen: There is an increased contribution, and I think it's an element that was increased this year to acknowledge that. But there will be differentiation between different charities. I'm fairly certain that some of our institutions will be very strong with the cancer charities, possibly not the heart foundation. And some of that will reflect on focusing on our strengths, but to have that fuller picture. Darren Millar AM: So, this gearing issue that you mentioned earlier on, for every PS1 that somebody else puts on the table, they can draw in another PS4 on top, because that PS1 will cover the overheads, whereas the rest of the research cash--. Dr David Blaney: That's exactly it. So, the more you're able to invest--. You know, we sometimes get into a conversation about the unhypothecated nature of our research funding, but actually that creates a flexibility and the infrastructure investment that allows institutions to be able to respond to these other opportunities. Without that, they can't do it, because if you're not careful, you've got institutions engaging in UK-wide or charity-based research activities where they're actually having to pay for it themselves--they're running at a loss. Darren Millar AM: So that's the main problem; it's not that Welsh universities aren't doing their best to get this cash in. Or is it a bit of both? Dr David Blaney: I think, in the main, universities and researchers will get their cash from wherever they can, so I don't think it's a lack of appetite. Darren Millar AM: Okay. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Well, thank you, both, for coming in to give evidence to the committee this morning. You will be sent a draft of the transcript, to check for accuracy. Diolch yn fawr. Okay then, the next item is item 3, papers to note, the first of which is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education on the school organisation code. The second is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill. Paper to note 3 is a letter from the Chair of the Finance Committee regarding scrutiny of the Welsh Government's draft budget for the forthcoming financial year, which we will be discussing under item 6 on the agenda. Paper to note 4 is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on parental attitudes towards managing young children's behaviour. And the final paper to note, paper to note 5, is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the children and family delivery grant, which we will discuss later on in private session, if Members are content. Okay. Are you content to note those papers on that basis? Okay. Thanks very much. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17. 42 to exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting, and also for items 1 and 2 of the 20 September meeting. Is the committee content? Yes. Thank you very much. We will move then into private session.

He thinks there may be two reasons. The first one is about the change in student support arrangements for EU students, which will have an effect of perturbation. Wales'institutions'fee level is slightly lower, but they do struggle in terms of the Anglocentric nature of the media and so on. The other dimension is about the attractiveness of the higher institutions in a highly competitive recruitment market. Wales universities don't have enough investment in facilities, and particularly buildings and kits.

tr-sq-670

tr-sq-670_0

What does Dr. Blaney think of the reasons why prospective students should study in Wales? Gareth Rogers: Good morning, and welcome to today's meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. Unfortunately, the Chair is unable to attend today, so in accordance with Standing Order 17. 22 I call for nominations for a temporary Chair for the duration of today's meeting. Julie Morgan AM: I nominate John Griffiths. Gareth Rogers: Thank you. Darren Millar AM: I'll second that nomination. Gareth Rogers: As there's only one nomination, I declare that John Griffiths has been appointed as temporary Chair. Thank you, John. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Thank you all very much, and item 1 on our agenda today is introductions, apologies, substitutions and declarations of interest. We've received apologies from Hefin David and Lynne Neagle. There are no substitutions. Are there any declarations of interest? No. We will move on then to item 2, and our inquiry into the impact of Brexit on higher and further education, and our first evidence session. I'm very pleased to welcome the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales here today, and Dr David Blaney as chief executive, and Bethan Owen, director of institutional engagement. Welcome to you both. Thanks for coming along to give evidence today. If it's okay with you, we'll move straight to questions, and Julie Morgan. Julie Morgan AM: Good morning. Bore da. I wondered if we could start off with you telling us what evidence you can see that the Brexit process has had any impact on Welsh higher education so far. Dr David Blaney: Can I preface the response by just reminding you that we are, by contract and by role, apolitical, and a lot of the judgments about the impact of Brexit essentially reflect where people sit politically in terms of whether they think it's a good thing or a bad thing? We're not going to go there, obviously, today, so we'll stick to the facts as we can see them, and hopefully we'll be able to help you, but there are areas where we are unable to help. That's part of the reason. John Griffiths AM: We certainly do not expect you to enter the political fray in any way. Dr David Blaney: Thank you. But even in terms of your assessment of whether this is going to be a good thing or a bad thing, a good impact or a bad impact, some of that inevitably in the end becomes a matter of your politics on it, so we will be as careful as we can be on that. In terms of the impact of Brexit on higher education, clearly, the significance here is about the contribution that higher education can make to Wales. So, we fund provision; we don't fund providers, technically, although obviously there's not much provision without providers. So, we are interested in the sustainability of higher education providers, but fundamentally the issue is: what does the HE system in Wales do for Wales, and what impact might Brexit have on the capacity of the system to continue to deliver for Wales? So, we know that universities make annually about PS5 billion of impact; 50,000 jobs. Of course, in Wales, all of that economic impact is really very significant, and uncertainty about the relationships and the arrangements with Europe is one of the most significant issues confronting university management at the moment. That has an impact in a number of ways. We can identify at the moment the extent to which the HE sector in Wales is exposed to sources of income that are located from the EU, so EU students, structural funds, and EU research funding, and so on, from the EU. We can identify some of that, but, actually, what happens in the future is much harder to be clear about. We are beginning to see some impact in terms of applications from EU students and I'll ask Bethan to share some details on that in a moment. We're also beginning to pick up, only anecdotally, some signs that there are increasing difficulties in the UK sector, and the Welsh sector as part of that, in playing in some of the EU collaborative research activities. And that, I think, just reflects the extent to which EU partners consider that British partners might be a stable partner as we go through this transition period. We don't have data on that--that's anecdotal--but there are signs that some of those relationships are beginning to become a little bit more difficult. In terms of the financial impact of that, clearly, if it is accepted that the UK is a net contributor to the EU then, presumably, some of the money--we're almost immediately straight into politics if you're not careful--but some of the money will be available back to the UK, and the extent to which Wales benefits or not from that returned money is a function of the political relationship between the Welsh Government and Her Majesty's Government. It's not necessarily the case that Wales will always lose out in that relationship, but that will become a matter of politics. There's a broader dimension, which is about the economic impact of Brexit on the UK economy and how much tax revenue there is and all of that. I think it's very hard for us to be definitive about how that's going to play out. I think that depends on the deal and how it all unfolds over the next several years. But we can certainly anticipate some turbulence and exactly how that plays for institutions remains to be seen. We can touch later on on the extent to which they are sighted on this and preparing for it. So, in terms of recruitment, Bethan. Bethan Owen: This is based on the UCAS applications and the report that was published at the end of June, 30 June. The European Union-domiciled applicants to Wales have decreased by 8 per cent, which contrasts with a 2 per cent increase for English institutions, and non-EU--so international students, not from Europe--have also decreased by 9 per cent to Welsh institutions, again contrasting with a 7 per cent increase in England. So, those are the signs of changes. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I then just ask you what you see as the main pressures on the Welsh higher education sector at the moment? Bethan Owen: The funding position would be the main pressure. The recommendations made by Sir Ian Diamond in his review of higher education funding and student finance are in the process of being implemented, and the changes to the student finance arrangements will take effect from this September. However, the recommendations for re-establishing funding at Welsh institutions are expected to take quite a bit longer. That funding, when it returns to institutions, is intended to re-establish funding for higher cost provision, both full time and part time; reinstate funding for innovation; and maintain, at the very least, the research funding in real terms. Universities, in the meantime, are trying to minimise the cost reductions that they're making in order to maintain the infrastructure, so that when the funding comes they can get the best value out of it. We have announced our funding allocations for 2018-19. For the research and teaching grant, though, we are still funding at a lower level--PS12. 5 million less--then the starting point for the Diamond report, the 2015-16 starting report. But we expect to be able to start introducing funding from 2019-20 to make a start on implementing Diamond. And it's probably important to note that the Diamond recommendations predated Brexit, therefore the challenges introduced by Brexit are in addition to those that the Diamond report was addressing. The other pressures relate to student recruitment. I mentioned the EU and international students. There is also the start of a reduction, both in Welsh-domiciled and English-domiciled applications to Wales. Enrolments are obviously the key important number, which we'll see later. And the other pressures include pay and pension costs, not least the issues around the universities superannuation scheme pension fund, where there's potentially a significant increase in cost. Increased student expectations for modern facilities and infrastructure bring a requirement for capital expenditure and borrowing, which bring their own pressures. And finally, the uncertainty about potential consequences that could arise from the review in England of fees and funding--the Augar review. John Griffiths AM: In terms of European Union students and enrolment, is Wales forecast to do less well than England and, if so, why might that be? Bethan Owen: They are not forecasting it. It's very difficult until the enrolments are made, and it's also very hard to see--the data that we see is the UCAS data. Institutions also recruit directly, so until we see the actual recruitment--. I think the arrangements that have changed from 2018-19 also impact on EU students. So, now, they have to find the full fee, whereas previously they were getting the grant in the same way as Welsh students. So, I'm speculating that that might be having an impact as well on EU students'appetite to come. John Griffiths AM: Okay. First of all Llyr, then Mark. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, that's straight into what I was going to ask, really, about what you think the factors are that led to this 8 per cent or 9 per cent drop in EU students applying to study in Wales, where we see a 2 per cent increase in England. Is that it, or are there other things that you've taken into account? What's your assessment of the reasons behind this? Dr David Blaney: It's very difficult to be definitive about the reasons, but I think there are probably two. The one that Bethan has already indicated, which is the change in student support arrangements for EU students, will have an effect of perturbation. That's probably relatively temporary--let's hope it is--as that settles down because, actually, the deal for EU students coming into Wales is no worse than that coming into England. Ours would be better because the fee level is slightly lower, but we do struggle in Wales in terms of the Anglocentric nature of the media and so on. So, getting the messages out is a challenge. The other dimension is that when you're in a highly competitive recruitment market, you have to do what you can to look attractive. Part of that is about being able to invest in facilities, and particularly buildings and kit, and the relative levels of investment between Wales and England over quite a long period of time now probably have an impact on that. Certainly, anecdotally I know, from my own family, that a lot of the choices have been made in terms of the state of repair of campuses and so on. There's something rational about that, isn't there? If you've got a system that is relatively better invested, then you're likely to have a better student experience because the resources are likely to be better. So, that's not irrational. We saw a sort of similar but opposite effect when the PS9,000 fee maximum limit came in, and some institutions, mostly in England--there was one in Wales--chose to pitch their fee levels really quite low, relative to that PS9,000, and caught a cold in the student recruitment market because fee levels denote quality in the student mind. So, the price sensitivities work quite differently. So, again, if you've got a relatively better invested part of the system, then that might well be one of the reasons why it looks more attractive. Llyr Gruffydd AM: That latter factor would affect the whole of the cohort, not just the international recruitment, of course. Dr David Blaney: Indeed. Yes, indeed. The implementation of the Diamond recommendations is crucial to that because that's re-balancing where the policy of investment goes. John Griffiths AM: Okay. And Mark. Mark Reckless AM: If I heard you correctly earlier, you said that the applications from non-EU students were also down by 8 per cent or 9 per cent. So, forgive me a certain scepticism about the explanation of the fall in the EU students being that they did get the fee grant and now they do not. If that's the explanation, why are we seeing the same fall in non-EU applications? Dr David Blaney: Well, I think the Welsh domiciled are also now having to face the prospect of finding a loan for the whole of the fee. So, that would potentially account for that. There's also a demographic dimension here with the downturn in the 18-year-old school-leaver profile, and that actually is happening in Wales at a slightly later point than in England. Mark Reckless AM: But this is non-EU students, and I think you said, Bethan, an 8 per cent or 9 per cent fall in them as well. Dr David Blaney: International non-EU. I beg your pardon. I misunderstood. Bethan Owen: There's also a mix effect. I gave a number that was for all English institutions that there will be differential impacts on. Mark Reckless AM: All English or all Welsh? Bethan Owen: Well, I contrasted the Welsh position with the English position where they were seeing growth. If you look, then--and we don't have the detailed information, but, again, what UCAS publish is some analysis by tariff. They analyse by type of institution--in other words, the grades that you need to get into institutions--and there is a trend for growth being in the higher tariff institutions. So, there's a mix effect in there as well, and I think there's undoubtedly an element of perception of how welcome overseas and international students are, and that's something that we know the sector are working on with Government. Mark Reckless AM: Why would that affect Wales more than England? Do you think there's been perhaps too great a negativity about Brexit in the sector? Bethan Owen: I think it's the mix of institutions that we have. So, we only have sector information published at the moment. When we look at the mix of institutions that we have, we will probably see a differential impact between Cardiff University and others. John Griffiths AM: Okay, Mark? Sorry, David, did you want to add anything? Dr David Blaney: I was just going to say that we would expect to see quite differential performance in the English sector, so the overall numbers are being brought up by substantial increased performance with some of that sector, and it's a question of how many of that type of institution you have in Wales. Mark Reckless AM: So, performance is increasing amongst the English universities, but not amongst the Welsh, you think. Dr David Blaney: I think performance is increasing, but increasing substantially with some of the English sector, not all of it. So, you get an average for the sector that is increased performance, but actually the stronger players within that sector, with the stronger international profiles, are bringing that up, and we have fewer in Wales that have that sort of presence. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Darren. Darren Millar AM: Would it be fair to say, then, that the universities over the border in England are better at selling themselves internationally than our Welsh institutions? Or is it just this fact that we've got fewer very high tariff universities versus the English market? Dr David Blaney: I suspect, and this is speculation--I suspect that it's a bit of both. I think some of it is to do with the mix of different types of institution. I would then come back to the point I was making about the Anglocentric nature of the UK media. If you're looking overseas, I think Wales has to work harder to penetrate the consciousness. Darren Millar AM: But, forgive me, don't international students just look at the UK as a whole? How are we comparing to Scotland, for example, or Northern Ireland, in terms of their universities? Do you have a comparative figure for Scottish universities? Bethan Owen: I haven't got that one with me for now, but there will be one in the data. Dr David Blaney: Yes, we could get that. Bethan Owen: Again, it's a combination of being part of the UK but differentiating, and the ability to differentiate the strengths of Wales, so attracting those students to Wales specifically, on top of the UK draw. Dr David Blaney: So, in terms of the efforts that have been made, there's a programme now that is being run by the sector in Wales--it's'Study in Wales'. It's relatively recent; you could argue that we could have got there earlier. But that is a determined collective effort to present Wales as a good place to study, with particular messages about what distinguishes studying in Wales from studying more broadly in the UK. In a sense, that is responding to the need to increase the presence of Wales in an international market. So, that sort of initiative I think is very good, very welcome. It will take a while to actually have an impact, but I think that's exactly the sort of work the sector need to be doing more of. Mark Reckless AM: What are those messages on why prospective students should study in Wales? Dr David Blaney: One of them in particular is relative safety. We know that one of the considerations, particularly for parents of overseas students, is are they going to go to a safe environment, and we know that the perception of international students who study in Wales is that this is a comfortable and safe place to be. That's partly a function of the size of our larger cities--quite a lot smaller than many of the cities in England. So, that's a key message. Being part of a UK system is also an important message there as well. So, we've got a UK-quality system, a UK degree, and the strength of that brand is available in Wales, but it's available in a way that is safer and more supportive, I think is the messaging that's coming through. John Griffiths AM: Okay. We'd better move on, I think, hadn't we? Darren, then. Darren Millar AM: I just wonder to what extent you have been able to plan in your financial forecasts for the next few years ahead for the potential impacts of Brexit. What have you built in, if anything? Bethan Owen: In terms of our funding, we receive our funding annually, but the sector provides us with financial forecasts, and we use those for monitoring sustainability. So, the last full forecasts that we had were in July 2017. We are due to receive a full forecast at the end of this month, and we obviously have updated information from institutions. Darren Millar AM: And they're three-year forecasts that come through to you, aren't they? Bethan Owen: They are four plus the current year. So, we've got numbers to 2019-20 at the moment, and expect to go to 2020-21. Darren Millar AM: And what are the universities expecting? What do they anticipate? Bethan Owen: Well, for 2017-18, which is the year we're about to end now, they were expecting PS38 million income from European students, and approximately PS91 million from the various European programme funding sources, and that's about 8 per cent of the total income--PS1. 5 billion--of the sector. The forecasts are assuming that that continues, albeit that institutions have various scenarios that they have for all sorts of scenarios that we can all speculate on, and, as I mentioned earlier, the balancing act of maintaining infrastructure and resources and staff in the short term is where we are at the moment, or where the sector is at the moment. And there are also signs that the banks and lending institutions are becoming a bit more risk-averse in providing borrowing to institutions, and of more differentiation between individual institutions being made than has possibly been the case in the past. The sector made an operating deficit, again looking at all Welsh institutions collectively last year, 2016-17, of PS17 million. That's before other gains and losses. And we're expecting a similar collective level of deficit for this financial year, if not slightly higher. Now, these are managed deficits and we are not currently seeing critical short-term cash availability issues in the sector. However, the increase in funding from Diamond is a key part of enabling the sector to return to longer-term financial sustainability. Short-term challenges can be met if there's a reasonable prospect of future funding. You can manage in the short-term, but there comes a point when the big cost reductions and infrastructure reductions have to be made. And, again, having mentioned the pressures on pay, pensions and other challenges, it is difficult to gauge whether, if those factors come into play as well, some of these cost reductions may have to be made before funding comes in to replace--either Diamond funding or the European replacement funding. Darren Millar AM: So, would it be fair to say that, in terms of the funding arrangements, and, in terms of the student numbers, one reason why we've got this recruitment problem is this lack of investment in the capital infrastructure that we've seen in recent years because of the financing arrangements from the Welsh Government, and the fee regime that we had previously, and the student finance regime that we had previously, not getting more cash into our Welsh universities perhaps, and that, over the next few years, there's going to have to be much more significant investment in capital if we're to raise the game and be more competitive, yes? Bethan Owen: Yes, that would be fair to say. Darren Millar AM: So, to what extent are they planning for more capital investment in those financial strategies that they've been preparing and presenting to you? Bethan Owen: They are all planning for capital investment. They are in different positions in terms of capacity to borrow and the assumptions. This year, 2018-19, is the first time that we've had capital funding in our remit letter--so, we've got PS10 million of capital funding, which is very welcome, with a prospect of a further PS20 million. So, that we will be allocating shortly. That will make a difference, particularly to those institutions who are not finding it as easy to borrow from financial institutions. Some of our larger institutions have borrowed--Cardiff University issued a bond. However, there are internal governance processes that are putting tight restrictions and expectations of what that money will be invested in. But they all have plans to do it and they need the confidence that their forecasts and long-term future funding prospects are secure enough that they can get the confidence of borrowers then, and service the costs of those borrowers. Darren Millar AM: So, the Diamond dividend you've mentioned a few times. What clarity is there from the Welsh Government at the moment in terms of how much they anticipate the Diamond dividend will be, and what proportion of that is going to be released to HEIs in the future? Bethan Owen: I was very carefully not describing it as a dividend--a re-establishing of funding that we had in the past for higher cost and innovation and maintaining research funding. The timescales are difficult, because we have an annual remit letter, and we can work with Welsh Government officials, and they can only give us a sense of when they think the funding will be released. But 2018-19 is the start of the system, and because of cohort protection--so, protecting those students who came in on a different deal to the deal from 2018-19--in the early years there is an element of double cost; there's a cost of seeing out the old system and the different cost of implementing the new system. So, at the moment, we're certainly not in a position to tell the sector with any degree of certainty what funding would be beyond what we've allocated for 2018-19, with some sense of what 2019-20 numbers we're working with because we allocate our money over an academic year--so, by definition, we've already made assumptions of four months of the 2019-20 funding, albeit that's not approved yet in the budgetary process. Darren Millar AM: But you're not being given a steer at all as to what you expect the additional resource that you might have to make available to Welsh universities might be as a result of Diamond. You must have some idea. Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say that officials have been as helpful as they can be with us, in terms of the planning assumptions we make and indications about whether or not we are being too ambitious or not ambitious enough. So, I think they're being very helpful; as Bethan said, they're constrained by the process--they can't pre-empt a budget process. And you folks will be fully aware of that, of course. The other question I think you asked was how much of the money released by the new arrangements will come into higher education. At the moment, we are expecting all of it to come into higher education, as the product of the arrangement between the current Cabinet Secretary and the current First Minister. The extent to which any changes there cause that to come under threat is something I can't judge at the moment. But we have had in our remit letter from the Cabinet Secretary a clear indication that we can expect our resource to grow over the next few years, as the Diamond process unfolds. John Griffiths AM: Okay. I'm just going to bring in Llyr at this stage. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Bethan said in an earlier answer that, I think, the financial forecasting from universities forecast something pretty consistent in terms of what they're hoping to be receiving in income, for example. But we've already discussed the near 10 per cent drop, potentially, in international applications. So, does that tally, really, or are they going to be recruiting additional students from the UK market or--? What's the plan? Bethan Owen: I was reflecting on the last point when we had consistent information across the sector. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, they may need to revisit that in the light of this. Bethan Owen: I'm expecting that the forecast that we get at the end of this month will reflect the reduced applications we've seen, and an element of that will be reflected in reduced improvements as well. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, we don't really know, then, whether--it's unlikely that they are going to expect a consistent fee income, really. Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say we would expect them to respond to what they're seeing in the UCAS process. Even if they didn't, they would all, in any case, have sensitivities for what they would do if things don't come out in the way they hope. And if they didn't have that then we would be on their case, of course, because we want them to be properly sighted. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Thanks. John Griffiths AM: And we have to stick to the Brexit impact. Darren. Darren Millar AM: Can I just ask, in terms of the impact of Brexit, have you done any assessment of what you think might happen, or have any of the institutions made available to you any assessments of what they think is likely to happen to their individual institutions, going forward? You've mentioned scenarios earlier on, David, so what scenarios have you set out? Dr David Blaney: There's a Welsh Government HE Brexit working group, which is chaired by one of the Government directors, and we sit on that. And we have provided that group with early summaries of the risks and the potential impact, in terms of the exposure of the sector to EU-sourced funding. We have, as part of that working group, explored those issues that it would be really very helpful for either the Welsh Government to try to put in place or for the Welsh Government to persuade UK Government to do. And I think, in our submission, we identified a number of areas of what we would consider to be a helpful action, and that has been worked through that working group. We know that it has informed Welsh Government's position, in terms of what it does and also in terms of the conversations that they have with Her Majesty's Government. Beyond that, what we haven't done in that working group is share the work that institutions are doing individually to look at how they would respond to different scenarios. We are not able to do that here either because, inevitably, they would have varying degrees of unpalatability and they would have to be managed very, very carefully. You take cost out, which is essentially the response, you actually take people's jobs out, and all of that has to be managed carefully. So, that's not really a matter for public consideration, but we do know that the institutions are looking at a range of scenarios on what they would do. Bethan mentioned earlier on that the current deficit for the sector is a managed deficit--it's not something that has taken them by surprise. They are responding to what they see as the dip between where Diamond was reporting and where the money starts flowing. Similarly, I think we're comfortable that there is a managed approach to the scenarios that they're testing within institutions. So, they will do what they need to do to sustain themselves. The bigger issue really, in a public policy context, is the potential damage for the sector to be able to deliver for Wales in terms of research and skills development and all the other contributions. Darren Millar AM: So, you're confident that they're taking a robust approach to planning for various scenarios, going forward, are you, as individual HEIs? Dr David Blaney: Yes, and as the deal becomes more clear politically, then they will obviously have greater clarity in terms of which of these scenarios they need to work up more fully, but they are sighted on it. Darren Millar AM: Okay. Can I just ask about fee and access plans, and how Brexit might impact them? To what extent do you think that they could be impacted? Dr David Blaney: I think there are two dimensions to maybe touch upon there. Fee and access plans are approved annually by us. They are approved in advance of the recruitment cycle for the year that they apply to. So, we're just in the process now of finalising our consideration of fee and access plans for the 2019-20 academic year. So, there's quite a long lead time. We, as part of that process, go through similar--we look at their financial sustainability, which is based on their forecasts--data to the stuff we've just been discussing. And also, of course, the fee plans themselves make assumptions about how many students of different types, from different domains, are going to be recruited. So, clearly, if there is a continuing downward pressure on EU student recruitment, then that will reduce the amount of fee income that's going to come in, unless they can find other students, and that will reduce the amount of investment in the various activities that are identified in the fee plans. In terms of process, we have two things that we can do. If institutions are becoming aware that the basis upon which they've submitted a fee plan is fundamentally different from the reality, then they can come into us for a change to their fee plan. So, we have a change process. If it's not fundamentally different, but there are always differences between what you plan and what happens three years later--. We also monitor after the event and, if there are differences, we would then obviously require institutions to explain those differences. If they've had fewer students and less investment, we would need to understand that. Conversely, if they'd had more students, and potentially more investment, we'd want to know what they'd spent it on, and if they've done different things, we'd want to understand that as well. So, we do challenge through a monitoring process. The only other thing that's perhaps worth saying is that, in the 2019-20 fee and access plans--they're not published yet, so I can't give you the full detail--five universities have made reference to Brexit and the Brexit impact, and things they want to do through their fee and access plan to try and address some of those issues, so they're in there as well. Darren Millar AM: But we've already said, haven't we, that it may be nothing to do with Brexit, this dip in EU recruitment, because there are other factors like the attractiveness of the estates and the environment that young people might be educated in? But they're making assumptions that it's linked to Brexit, are they? Dr David Blaney: Not really. I think they're making assumptions that it could be. There are things they want to do to enhance and to protect student mobility, and some of that will be funded through fee plan investment. So, the Brexit conversation between the EU and the UK Government might or might not sustain Erasmus engagement, and if it doesn't, then they need to find other ways of trying to support that sort of thing. So, that's what we're beginning to see in the fee plans. It's them thinking about how else we can do this stuff. John Griffiths AM: Okay, Darren? Mark. Mark Reckless AM: You mentioned the fee and access report. What else do you do to assure yourselves that Welsh higher education institutions are effectively planning for Brexit? Bethan Owen: We've touched on contingency plans, but, in an environment of uncertainty, I think it's difficult for any of us to know what the right scenario is. I think rather than looking at worst-case scenarios, what the sector is also focusing on is the promotion and looking for additional or increased sources of funding. So, we touched on strengthening the Global Wales engagement in order to sell Wales, so more focus on marketing Wales overseas, but also within the UK. The other area where the sector is working at a UK level very hard is making the arguments to UK Government for maintaining access to the successor to Horizon 2020, which is arguably a larger part of the whole funding infrastructure--students is one part, but the whole funding infrastructure for maintaining research capacity. So, working with UK universities to make arguments at UK Government level for maintaining access to those sources of funding is also a part of what the institutions are doing. We mentioned the Welsh Government's HE Brexit group. That group, which is the Welsh Government group, is being advised by members on it, and that's informing Welsh Government officials when they engage with UK Government as well. Mark Reckless AM: Do universities seek your advice on what the risks and, indeed, opportunities of Brexit may be and what you think they should be doing to plan for them, or is your role more one of monitoring what they do as opposed to advising what they should do? Bethan Owen: They are autonomous institutions and ultimately their governing bodies are responsible for ensuring their sustainability. It's not a relationship where we would advise and direct, but it is a relationship where we would question the scenarios if we consider from our experience that we would have expected other scenarios to have been tested. It's that nature of conversation, rather than directing. Mark Reckless AM: I understand you don't direct, of course, but my question was about advising. You're overseeing, or monitoring--or whatever you like to describe the role as--quite a number of institutions, and presumably you therefore have particular expertise within your organisation, and I just wondered whether higher education institutions are doing enough to draw on that. Bethan Owen: I think we can advise--we can advise based on data and information that we can see. We can advise based on our judgment. The big thing in this whole Brexit scenario is the uncertainty and the extent to which our speculation is better informed than the governing bodies or the sector collectively is probably the issue. Dr David Blaney: I think that's right. So, there's a relationship with the sector and there's a relationship with individual institutions, and they are different. So, we have engagement collectively with the sector. Bethan meets with the finance directors, and I meet with the vice-chancellors. We actually have the sector and the funding council together on the Welsh Government's group. So, some of these conversations are happening in various ways, where we're all gaining intelligence about what might be a sensible set of planning assumptions. Then, if we see an institution that is manifestly giving signs of not being sighted on some of these risks, either through their forecast or through other assurance activity, we will challenge. We have an annual cycle, with two points in the year where we reassess the overall risks of individual institutions, and that's based on a whole range of hard data but also a range of soft data. Our links into institutions are many and varied. We have lots of conversations and we take all of that in the round and form an assessment about the financial sustainability of the institutions but also the extent to which we think their governance and management arrangements are properly sighted and facing properly the challenges that they face. In some ways, we say it's not about the challenges they face; it's about how they face the challenges. Our alarm bells really ring when we get the sense that, actually, either an executive or a governing body hasn't really noticed. We're not in that place, I'm really pleased to say. I'm not worried about short-term crisis with any of the institutions. There are medium-term real challenges, both because of Brexit and because of other contextual factors, but at the moment the sector is a managed sector, which is good. It's not always like that, but we're in, I think, a good place at the moment. So, our role is definitely to challenge where we don't think they are making sensible assessments, but it's not to say that their assessment is wrong and ours is right; it's just to have a conversation about,'Why have you done this and what has informed your thinking?'It's slightly more one step back and slightly more subtle, but it is, as you imply, us using the intelligence we gain from all of those conversations when we talk to individual institutions as well. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Llyr. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, thank you. We had evidence last week from some of the higher education institutions, including Cardiff University, and it's very interesting, in relation to Erasmus+ and the mobility funding for students that, I think, only 40 per cent of the mobility funding in Cardiff is paid for by Erasmus+. I note that you've been consulting on national measures for higher education performance and that one possibility is using international mobility as a performance indicator. I was just wondering whether you might go further and expect universities to actually make commitments to funding international mobility from their own fee incomes as part of that. Bethan Owen: Again, reflecting on the latest fee and access plans, seven of the universities are referring to mobility--either they have targets in them or are explaining what their plans are--so they are including an element of it from their own income and fee and access income. However, Erasmus is such a well-established and long-term plan--if we were looking at a scenario where that infrastructure wasn't available, to implement anything similar to that would be much less efficient and much more costly. And to enable an infrastructure that allowed--. Ideally, you'd want something that all Welsh institutions could take part in, and that takes some investment and some co-ordinating. And, equally, you need to have the arrangements with your overseas and European institutions. I think it's easy to underestimate the accumulation of time that has gone into establishing Erasmus. So, I think replacing it would be a challenge. Llyr Gruffydd AM: And the point was made clearly last week that the brand is internationally recognised. When you enter into Erasmus+, you know exactly what you're going to get, and all of that. But there have been criticisms as well about degrees of flexibility and this, that and the other, so I'm just wondering whether--and there is presumably going to be some change on that front although I'm hoping we can buy into it, as others have done who aren't in the EU--that emphasis on encouraging institutions to look more proactively at funding their own mobility efforts would be positive. Dr David Blaney: I think the-- Llyr Gruffydd AM: Sorry--especially if it means that they do more of it. Dr David Blaney: Indeed. I think the Welsh sector is definitely committed to trying to find ways of promoting and resourcing that sort of mobility. There are signs that some of the restrictive elements of the Erasmus programme are going to change anyway, because that's under development and that's positive. There have been positive noises as part of the Brexit negotiations about wanting to carry on being able to access the Erasmus programme. Nothing is agreed until it's all agreed apparently, so we'll have to see on that one. That would be far better, I think, as Bethan indicates, than trying to replace it with a made-in-Wales only, but you could have a made-in-Wales on top. All of these challenges also create opportunities because they stimulate thinking, and so the fact that seven of the eight universities are already now using their fee plans as a vehicle for thinking about this is positive, and I think we can take that on from there. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Because that 40/60 split struck me as being the opposite to what I perceived the situation to be. A key part of your role is to work in partnership with students, so I'd just like to ask what work have you done with students, in terms of maybe protecting their interests as the Brexit scenario evolves? Dr David Blaney: Well, as you say, we do work with students. We were the first of the funding councils in the UK to have a memorandum of understanding with the National Union of Students in Wales. We work very closely with them and the president of NUS is an observer on our council. So, we have close links with NUS Wales and we're very proud of that, and it's very productive. They don't have a vote, but they do have a voice and it really matters. We we're, again, ahead of the rest of the UK in requiring all HE providers to have student charters and there are elements of student protection within the student charter. The UK-wide quality code also has elements in it where arrangements have to be specified about the protection of student interests. That is particularly, in essence, around circumstances where a provider gets into difficulties and they might wish to close a course or something more drastic and then what arrangements are in place to make sure that those students who are in train are protected. So, that is there and we've worked hard with the sector and with NUS Wales to get those measures in place. There's more development work in train at the moment, so we've asked Universities Wales to construct a protection that takes account of the approach to protecting the student interests in higher education. We're also requiring further education institutions who are regulated and deliver higher education to do similar or the same, and that's very important. The students who are HE students in FE are absolutely not second-best, and they should have the same protections. Llyr Gruffydd AM: But is all this a general piece of work? It's not Brexit-specific, although, no doubt, it may--. Dr David Blaney: I think that's fair to say, yes. The other dimension around Brexit is the immigration status of EU students, and that's, kind of, beyond our pay scale--that's a UK Government issue. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Is that something that you have a view on? Dr David Blaney: It's clearly in the interest of the enrichment of the curriculum and the student experience for students in Welsh institutions to be able to have students from other EU countries in the mix. So, it would be nice to find ways of continuing to facilitate that. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Now, of course, you have a statutory duty as well to assess the academic quality of the work in our higher education institutions, and I'm just wondering what potential impacts you think that Brexit might have on that particular aspect. Dr David Blaney: I think there are possibly a couple of things to say, and one, in a sense, echoes what I was just saying in the final part of my previous response, which is that part of the quality of the student experience is the richness that you get from having students in your cohort who have different backgrounds and different perspectives. So, if there is a continuing reduction in the number of EU students coming into Welsh institutions, then that richness deteriorates. That doesn't mean to say that the base or the threshold standard of what's required for a degree will come under pressure, it's just about the richness on top of that, which will be, in a sense, a quality-enhancement issue. That would be something that we would wish to try to protect against, but in the end you can't force EU students to come--you have to try and look attractive, and we've touched on that. The baseline requirement assessment of quality will not be affected by Brexit, except in so far as the machinery we use to discharge our statutory responsibility, which is through the Quality Assurance Agency, which themselves are accredited with European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, the European machinery for higher education quality. And there's a set of standards around that, and we would obviously wish not to be in a position where our ability to use and adhere to those standards is adversely impacted upon. Those standards will still exist, and it will be possible for the British system to adhere to them, even if they're not actually able to play in the same way. Then the only other thing I would say is that one of the factors that can cause the quality of the learning and teaching experience to be likely to become inadequate is when institutions come under financial pressure, just because their capacity to maintain the same sort of student experience can get under pressure. So, clearly, we will be looking for and making sure that institutions manage the financial pressures, if there are any--and there are some at the moment, as we've described--and manage those carefully. And in all of that, we will expect institutions to do their duty to make sure that the commitments they've already made to students are carried through. So, where students have already started on the course, they need to be able to finish that course--you can't just pull the plug out. So, all of that comes into the arrangements for quality as well. So, we'll be keeping an eye on that. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. A lot of what you've told us in the last three quarters of an hour or so will have costs attached, depending on the impacts. Certainly, we're in choppy waters as a sector anyway, and the risk is that things will be even more choppy, if you'll excuse that level of political interpretation, over the years to come. I'm just wondering what advice you might have given the Welsh Government in terms of what level of transition funding, or Brexit transition funding, might be required by the sector, and if you have, what the Welsh Government might have told you. Bethan Owen: I mentioned earlier that, obviously, we've provided information in terms of the assumptions that the sector are making on income. So, for the year 2017-18, that was PS129 million. I think the extent to which that needs to be replaced or supported with transition funding depends absolutely on what the final arrangements for Brexit are, but it's an appropriate point to refer to the report that Professor Graeme Reid has produced, commissioned by Welsh Government. That was, and has, provided advice and recommendations for supporting research and innovation in the transition period. But, again, the Reid recommendations in that report build on the Diamond recommendations, and as soon as Diamond is in place--and Reid is providing recommendations in addition, to establish funding on the basis that the funding needs to be available in Wales to maintain and develop and strengthen the research and innovation infrastructure that we have. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Are you not worried, though, that the clock is ticking and that we really don't know what the situation is at this point? Dr David Blaney: Do you mean the Brexit situation? Llyr Gruffydd AM: The Brexit clock, yes. Dr David Blaney: Uncertainty is unhelpful, because as I've said several times, the sector is a managed sector at the moment. I don't think there's--. We're not seeing maverick stuff, but actually you can only manage, really, what you can see and what you can reasonably predict. So, the longer the uncertainty persists, the more difficult that is for institutional management and, indeed, for the rest of the machinery to support them. So, yes, the sooner we get clarity, the better for everybody, I imagine. Darren Millar AM: Chair, can I just ask a question? John Griffiths AM: Yes, Darren. Darren Millar AM: In terms of uncertainty, though, we've still got this uncertainty over whether the extra cash that the Government's going to have to spend as a result of Diamond being implemented is coming to the HE sector. They've given a political commitment, but you've got absolutely no other assurance of the sums of money that are coming in. We've got the reform of tertiary education arrangements in Wales, which are also under way, so it's a bit of a perfect storm for you, isn't it, really, with all of these three things happening at the same time? Dr David Blaney: We're certainly kept busy. Darren Millar AM: But two of those things are in the gift of the Welsh Government to sort out for you, aren't they? Dr David Blaney: Well, the policy on the reform of the post-compulsory sector absolutely is a Welsh Government policy. The extent to which they can pre-empt a budgetary process and give us clear sight of the amount of money in future years is--. Well, again, it's not for me to comment. My understanding is that that's difficult for them to do, and I would repeat what I said earlier: officials have been as helpful as I think they can be in respect of that. I mean, you're right, we've only got a political commitment between two people currently in post. It would be great to have that firmer. I'm not sure how that could be done. Darren Millar AM: I mean, that statement about the savings accrued from Diamond being reinvested wholly into the HE sector has not been repeated, frankly, has it, since the coalition deal was struck? Dr David Blaney: No, but it hasn't been rescinded either, so--. Darren Millar AM: No, but there have been opportunities--repeated opportunities--in the Chamber, where the Cabinet Secretary's been asked to repeat that commitment, and the First Minister's been asked to repeat that commitment and has not given that commitment. That must concern you, and must concern your university sector even more than, perhaps, some of the elements of Brexit that we're discussing. Dr David Blaney: Bethan has outlined earlier on in this session the fact that institutions are currently running deficit budgets in order not to lose the infrastructure on the assumption that the Diamond money will come in. If anything were to cause significant perturbation, either to the timeline of that or to it coming in at all, then there would be much more of what Medwin Hughes calls'houskeeping'that would be required, and that would be significant. So, at the moment--I don't like the expression'valley of death', but there is a valley to cross, and I think the sector is reasonably confident about how wide and how deep that valley is. There's a demographic valley as well. So, there are several valleys that they're crossing--the metaphor fails, doesn't it, really, but I think you get the drift? So, there are a number of challenges and they can see their way out of some of those challenges, but if any one of these starts to get significantly disrupted, then that would be a real issue for them. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I go on to ask about other barriers to Welsh universities gaining more funding from UK research councils? What would you say those barriers are? Dr David Blaney: Well, I think there are a couple of things, really, to say. The first one--and we'll sound like a stuck record if we're not careful--is that there's an issue about investment and the Reid report makes this very clear. So, he has reaffirmed research that had been done previously that identifies that, actually, the quality of the research base in Welsh universities and the productivity of that Welsh research base are both good, there's just not enough of them, and that, in the end, is a product of investment decisions. They have particularly looked at the deficit in science, technology, engineering and mathematics areas, and I always say that research is not just STEM. I mean, STEM is important, and I'm not denying the deficit in that area, but we have to also remember that the research agenda for Wales is not just STEM--it's arts, humanities, it's social sciences. If you look at the impact on public policy that could come from social science research--tremendous. And we're very good at it in Wales. The Welsh impact in its research is better than anywhere else in the UK, so that's good. So, they do very well, and we just really need to invest a little bit further--so continue to do very well, but put it on a broader front. If you want to be able to play into the UK-wide research funding, then the investment has two dimensions to it. One is just having enough researchers to be able to play into those increasingly larger projects rather than small-scale projects. If you haven't got the critical mass, it's very hard to make the case that you can play. And the second thing is that UK-wide research pots nearly always fund at about 80 per cent of the total cost of the research, and the other 20 per cent is meant to be found from the core research funding for the university, and if you're in a situation where your core research funding is not competitive, then you're not going to be competitive at getting that money. So, that's, kind of, straightforward. There are other things. I think it's fair to say that the Welsh sector has not been sufficiently focused on getting in on the conversations with the research councils, making sure they're in the various committees and so on. We are intending to do a bit of work to see if we can systematise that a bit better--that engagement--because there's no doubt about it: it's not to say that this system is in any way inappropriate, but the more you're in the conversations, the more likely you are to be better placed to respond to the research challenges that come up. John Griffiths AM: Okay. One final question: in terms of the researcher collaborations and networks that exist, do you see potential difficulties after Brexit for the continuation and enhancement of those, and are there any particular lessons to learn from Ser Cymru II? Dr David Blaney: I think that there are two things to say here as well. First of all, the Brexit deal might or might not impact adversely on the capacity of Welsh and, indeed, UK research infrastructure to play into broader collaborative activity across Europe, and, in a sense, that's a function of the deal whatever the deal looks like, and we'll have to wait and see. But we've mentioned playing into Horizon Europe, and being able to continue with that would be an important part of that capacity. It's not just the money, it's being in the club and it's the signalling that we're in the game. So, all of that would be important. And then the other part of my response to this would be that, actually, Wales will need to continue to be good at the research it does, so maintaining the quality, maintaining the impact, and hopefully growing the critical mass. The Ser Cymru initiative has been quite important in doing that, because it's been very focused, capturing key research players, and the attractiveness that that has then to other researchers around them, and to industry collaboration, and they have been areas of real strength that we've invested in. And I think they are already showing dividends in terms of the capacity to win more research funding, and to establish an even stronger presence in the international research market. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Just one further point, from Darren. Darren Millar AM: Just very briefly, one of the pieces of feedback that the committee members received at a stakeholder engagement event, which took place prior to this inquiry starting, to receive oral evidence, was about the research funding that is available from the charitable sector, and how poorly Wales does in attracting some of that research. I think we had some figures from the British Heart Foundation, which said they have PS100 million a year available for research grants, or something like that, and we're getting 1 per cent of that coming into Wales, which is obviously pretty low down. I appreciate that research into the type of activity that they want to put their money into, Wales may not be particularly good at, and there may be other opportunities with other charities and partnerships. What work are you doing in order to build the capacity that Wales has to attract more of that charitable sector research funding into Wales? Bethan Owen: One of the issues is the capacity to engage with that funding, because of the overhead issue that David mentioned. Charitable funding at the moment doesn't attract any overhead funding. Again, that could be built in to our funding, if we had the capacity to increase our quality-related research funding. There is an element in England. Darren Millar AM: But that pressure's the same in other parts of the UK, is it not? So the overhead funding is still an issue in England, and in other places. Bethan Owen: There is an increased contribution, and I think it's an element that was increased this year to acknowledge that. But there will be differentiation between different charities. I'm fairly certain that some of our institutions will be very strong with the cancer charities, possibly not the heart foundation. And some of that will reflect on focusing on our strengths, but to have that fuller picture. Darren Millar AM: So, this gearing issue that you mentioned earlier on, for every PS1 that somebody else puts on the table, they can draw in another PS4 on top, because that PS1 will cover the overheads, whereas the rest of the research cash--. Dr David Blaney: That's exactly it. So, the more you're able to invest--. You know, we sometimes get into a conversation about the unhypothecated nature of our research funding, but actually that creates a flexibility and the infrastructure investment that allows institutions to be able to respond to these other opportunities. Without that, they can't do it, because if you're not careful, you've got institutions engaging in UK-wide or charity-based research activities where they're actually having to pay for it themselves--they're running at a loss. Darren Millar AM: So that's the main problem; it's not that Welsh universities aren't doing their best to get this cash in. Or is it a bit of both? Dr David Blaney: I think, in the main, universities and researchers will get their cash from wherever they can, so I don't think it's a lack of appetite. Darren Millar AM: Okay. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Well, thank you, both, for coming in to give evidence to the committee this morning. You will be sent a draft of the transcript, to check for accuracy. Diolch yn fawr. Okay then, the next item is item 3, papers to note, the first of which is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education on the school organisation code. The second is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill. Paper to note 3 is a letter from the Chair of the Finance Committee regarding scrutiny of the Welsh Government's draft budget for the forthcoming financial year, which we will be discussing under item 6 on the agenda. Paper to note 4 is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on parental attitudes towards managing young children's behaviour. And the final paper to note, paper to note 5, is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the children and family delivery grant, which we will discuss later on in private session, if Members are content. Okay. Are you content to note those papers on that basis? Okay. Thanks very much. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17. 42 to exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting, and also for items 1 and 2 of the 20 September meeting. Is the committee content? Yes. Thank you very much. We will move then into private session.

One of the reasons is relative safety, Wales is a comfortable and safe place to be. Then, being part of a UK system is also an important message there as well. Students enjoy a UK-quality system, a UK degree, and the strength of that brand is available in Wales, and they can be safer and more supportive in Wales.

tr-sq-671

tr-sq-671_0

Summarize the efforts of assessments on the future of the institutions. Gareth Rogers: Good morning, and welcome to today's meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. Unfortunately, the Chair is unable to attend today, so in accordance with Standing Order 17. 22 I call for nominations for a temporary Chair for the duration of today's meeting. Julie Morgan AM: I nominate John Griffiths. Gareth Rogers: Thank you. Darren Millar AM: I'll second that nomination. Gareth Rogers: As there's only one nomination, I declare that John Griffiths has been appointed as temporary Chair. Thank you, John. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Thank you all very much, and item 1 on our agenda today is introductions, apologies, substitutions and declarations of interest. We've received apologies from Hefin David and Lynne Neagle. There are no substitutions. Are there any declarations of interest? No. We will move on then to item 2, and our inquiry into the impact of Brexit on higher and further education, and our first evidence session. I'm very pleased to welcome the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales here today, and Dr David Blaney as chief executive, and Bethan Owen, director of institutional engagement. Welcome to you both. Thanks for coming along to give evidence today. If it's okay with you, we'll move straight to questions, and Julie Morgan. Julie Morgan AM: Good morning. Bore da. I wondered if we could start off with you telling us what evidence you can see that the Brexit process has had any impact on Welsh higher education so far. Dr David Blaney: Can I preface the response by just reminding you that we are, by contract and by role, apolitical, and a lot of the judgments about the impact of Brexit essentially reflect where people sit politically in terms of whether they think it's a good thing or a bad thing? We're not going to go there, obviously, today, so we'll stick to the facts as we can see them, and hopefully we'll be able to help you, but there are areas where we are unable to help. That's part of the reason. John Griffiths AM: We certainly do not expect you to enter the political fray in any way. Dr David Blaney: Thank you. But even in terms of your assessment of whether this is going to be a good thing or a bad thing, a good impact or a bad impact, some of that inevitably in the end becomes a matter of your politics on it, so we will be as careful as we can be on that. In terms of the impact of Brexit on higher education, clearly, the significance here is about the contribution that higher education can make to Wales. So, we fund provision; we don't fund providers, technically, although obviously there's not much provision without providers. So, we are interested in the sustainability of higher education providers, but fundamentally the issue is: what does the HE system in Wales do for Wales, and what impact might Brexit have on the capacity of the system to continue to deliver for Wales? So, we know that universities make annually about PS5 billion of impact; 50,000 jobs. Of course, in Wales, all of that economic impact is really very significant, and uncertainty about the relationships and the arrangements with Europe is one of the most significant issues confronting university management at the moment. That has an impact in a number of ways. We can identify at the moment the extent to which the HE sector in Wales is exposed to sources of income that are located from the EU, so EU students, structural funds, and EU research funding, and so on, from the EU. We can identify some of that, but, actually, what happens in the future is much harder to be clear about. We are beginning to see some impact in terms of applications from EU students and I'll ask Bethan to share some details on that in a moment. We're also beginning to pick up, only anecdotally, some signs that there are increasing difficulties in the UK sector, and the Welsh sector as part of that, in playing in some of the EU collaborative research activities. And that, I think, just reflects the extent to which EU partners consider that British partners might be a stable partner as we go through this transition period. We don't have data on that--that's anecdotal--but there are signs that some of those relationships are beginning to become a little bit more difficult. In terms of the financial impact of that, clearly, if it is accepted that the UK is a net contributor to the EU then, presumably, some of the money--we're almost immediately straight into politics if you're not careful--but some of the money will be available back to the UK, and the extent to which Wales benefits or not from that returned money is a function of the political relationship between the Welsh Government and Her Majesty's Government. It's not necessarily the case that Wales will always lose out in that relationship, but that will become a matter of politics. There's a broader dimension, which is about the economic impact of Brexit on the UK economy and how much tax revenue there is and all of that. I think it's very hard for us to be definitive about how that's going to play out. I think that depends on the deal and how it all unfolds over the next several years. But we can certainly anticipate some turbulence and exactly how that plays for institutions remains to be seen. We can touch later on on the extent to which they are sighted on this and preparing for it. So, in terms of recruitment, Bethan. Bethan Owen: This is based on the UCAS applications and the report that was published at the end of June, 30 June. The European Union-domiciled applicants to Wales have decreased by 8 per cent, which contrasts with a 2 per cent increase for English institutions, and non-EU--so international students, not from Europe--have also decreased by 9 per cent to Welsh institutions, again contrasting with a 7 per cent increase in England. So, those are the signs of changes. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I then just ask you what you see as the main pressures on the Welsh higher education sector at the moment? Bethan Owen: The funding position would be the main pressure. The recommendations made by Sir Ian Diamond in his review of higher education funding and student finance are in the process of being implemented, and the changes to the student finance arrangements will take effect from this September. However, the recommendations for re-establishing funding at Welsh institutions are expected to take quite a bit longer. That funding, when it returns to institutions, is intended to re-establish funding for higher cost provision, both full time and part time; reinstate funding for innovation; and maintain, at the very least, the research funding in real terms. Universities, in the meantime, are trying to minimise the cost reductions that they're making in order to maintain the infrastructure, so that when the funding comes they can get the best value out of it. We have announced our funding allocations for 2018-19. For the research and teaching grant, though, we are still funding at a lower level--PS12. 5 million less--then the starting point for the Diamond report, the 2015-16 starting report. But we expect to be able to start introducing funding from 2019-20 to make a start on implementing Diamond. And it's probably important to note that the Diamond recommendations predated Brexit, therefore the challenges introduced by Brexit are in addition to those that the Diamond report was addressing. The other pressures relate to student recruitment. I mentioned the EU and international students. There is also the start of a reduction, both in Welsh-domiciled and English-domiciled applications to Wales. Enrolments are obviously the key important number, which we'll see later. And the other pressures include pay and pension costs, not least the issues around the universities superannuation scheme pension fund, where there's potentially a significant increase in cost. Increased student expectations for modern facilities and infrastructure bring a requirement for capital expenditure and borrowing, which bring their own pressures. And finally, the uncertainty about potential consequences that could arise from the review in England of fees and funding--the Augar review. John Griffiths AM: In terms of European Union students and enrolment, is Wales forecast to do less well than England and, if so, why might that be? Bethan Owen: They are not forecasting it. It's very difficult until the enrolments are made, and it's also very hard to see--the data that we see is the UCAS data. Institutions also recruit directly, so until we see the actual recruitment--. I think the arrangements that have changed from 2018-19 also impact on EU students. So, now, they have to find the full fee, whereas previously they were getting the grant in the same way as Welsh students. So, I'm speculating that that might be having an impact as well on EU students'appetite to come. John Griffiths AM: Okay. First of all Llyr, then Mark. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, that's straight into what I was going to ask, really, about what you think the factors are that led to this 8 per cent or 9 per cent drop in EU students applying to study in Wales, where we see a 2 per cent increase in England. Is that it, or are there other things that you've taken into account? What's your assessment of the reasons behind this? Dr David Blaney: It's very difficult to be definitive about the reasons, but I think there are probably two. The one that Bethan has already indicated, which is the change in student support arrangements for EU students, will have an effect of perturbation. That's probably relatively temporary--let's hope it is--as that settles down because, actually, the deal for EU students coming into Wales is no worse than that coming into England. Ours would be better because the fee level is slightly lower, but we do struggle in Wales in terms of the Anglocentric nature of the media and so on. So, getting the messages out is a challenge. The other dimension is that when you're in a highly competitive recruitment market, you have to do what you can to look attractive. Part of that is about being able to invest in facilities, and particularly buildings and kit, and the relative levels of investment between Wales and England over quite a long period of time now probably have an impact on that. Certainly, anecdotally I know, from my own family, that a lot of the choices have been made in terms of the state of repair of campuses and so on. There's something rational about that, isn't there? If you've got a system that is relatively better invested, then you're likely to have a better student experience because the resources are likely to be better. So, that's not irrational. We saw a sort of similar but opposite effect when the PS9,000 fee maximum limit came in, and some institutions, mostly in England--there was one in Wales--chose to pitch their fee levels really quite low, relative to that PS9,000, and caught a cold in the student recruitment market because fee levels denote quality in the student mind. So, the price sensitivities work quite differently. So, again, if you've got a relatively better invested part of the system, then that might well be one of the reasons why it looks more attractive. Llyr Gruffydd AM: That latter factor would affect the whole of the cohort, not just the international recruitment, of course. Dr David Blaney: Indeed. Yes, indeed. The implementation of the Diamond recommendations is crucial to that because that's re-balancing where the policy of investment goes. John Griffiths AM: Okay. And Mark. Mark Reckless AM: If I heard you correctly earlier, you said that the applications from non-EU students were also down by 8 per cent or 9 per cent. So, forgive me a certain scepticism about the explanation of the fall in the EU students being that they did get the fee grant and now they do not. If that's the explanation, why are we seeing the same fall in non-EU applications? Dr David Blaney: Well, I think the Welsh domiciled are also now having to face the prospect of finding a loan for the whole of the fee. So, that would potentially account for that. There's also a demographic dimension here with the downturn in the 18-year-old school-leaver profile, and that actually is happening in Wales at a slightly later point than in England. Mark Reckless AM: But this is non-EU students, and I think you said, Bethan, an 8 per cent or 9 per cent fall in them as well. Dr David Blaney: International non-EU. I beg your pardon. I misunderstood. Bethan Owen: There's also a mix effect. I gave a number that was for all English institutions that there will be differential impacts on. Mark Reckless AM: All English or all Welsh? Bethan Owen: Well, I contrasted the Welsh position with the English position where they were seeing growth. If you look, then--and we don't have the detailed information, but, again, what UCAS publish is some analysis by tariff. They analyse by type of institution--in other words, the grades that you need to get into institutions--and there is a trend for growth being in the higher tariff institutions. So, there's a mix effect in there as well, and I think there's undoubtedly an element of perception of how welcome overseas and international students are, and that's something that we know the sector are working on with Government. Mark Reckless AM: Why would that affect Wales more than England? Do you think there's been perhaps too great a negativity about Brexit in the sector? Bethan Owen: I think it's the mix of institutions that we have. So, we only have sector information published at the moment. When we look at the mix of institutions that we have, we will probably see a differential impact between Cardiff University and others. John Griffiths AM: Okay, Mark? Sorry, David, did you want to add anything? Dr David Blaney: I was just going to say that we would expect to see quite differential performance in the English sector, so the overall numbers are being brought up by substantial increased performance with some of that sector, and it's a question of how many of that type of institution you have in Wales. Mark Reckless AM: So, performance is increasing amongst the English universities, but not amongst the Welsh, you think. Dr David Blaney: I think performance is increasing, but increasing substantially with some of the English sector, not all of it. So, you get an average for the sector that is increased performance, but actually the stronger players within that sector, with the stronger international profiles, are bringing that up, and we have fewer in Wales that have that sort of presence. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Darren. Darren Millar AM: Would it be fair to say, then, that the universities over the border in England are better at selling themselves internationally than our Welsh institutions? Or is it just this fact that we've got fewer very high tariff universities versus the English market? Dr David Blaney: I suspect, and this is speculation--I suspect that it's a bit of both. I think some of it is to do with the mix of different types of institution. I would then come back to the point I was making about the Anglocentric nature of the UK media. If you're looking overseas, I think Wales has to work harder to penetrate the consciousness. Darren Millar AM: But, forgive me, don't international students just look at the UK as a whole? How are we comparing to Scotland, for example, or Northern Ireland, in terms of their universities? Do you have a comparative figure for Scottish universities? Bethan Owen: I haven't got that one with me for now, but there will be one in the data. Dr David Blaney: Yes, we could get that. Bethan Owen: Again, it's a combination of being part of the UK but differentiating, and the ability to differentiate the strengths of Wales, so attracting those students to Wales specifically, on top of the UK draw. Dr David Blaney: So, in terms of the efforts that have been made, there's a programme now that is being run by the sector in Wales--it's'Study in Wales'. It's relatively recent; you could argue that we could have got there earlier. But that is a determined collective effort to present Wales as a good place to study, with particular messages about what distinguishes studying in Wales from studying more broadly in the UK. In a sense, that is responding to the need to increase the presence of Wales in an international market. So, that sort of initiative I think is very good, very welcome. It will take a while to actually have an impact, but I think that's exactly the sort of work the sector need to be doing more of. Mark Reckless AM: What are those messages on why prospective students should study in Wales? Dr David Blaney: One of them in particular is relative safety. We know that one of the considerations, particularly for parents of overseas students, is are they going to go to a safe environment, and we know that the perception of international students who study in Wales is that this is a comfortable and safe place to be. That's partly a function of the size of our larger cities--quite a lot smaller than many of the cities in England. So, that's a key message. Being part of a UK system is also an important message there as well. So, we've got a UK-quality system, a UK degree, and the strength of that brand is available in Wales, but it's available in a way that is safer and more supportive, I think is the messaging that's coming through. John Griffiths AM: Okay. We'd better move on, I think, hadn't we? Darren, then. Darren Millar AM: I just wonder to what extent you have been able to plan in your financial forecasts for the next few years ahead for the potential impacts of Brexit. What have you built in, if anything? Bethan Owen: In terms of our funding, we receive our funding annually, but the sector provides us with financial forecasts, and we use those for monitoring sustainability. So, the last full forecasts that we had were in July 2017. We are due to receive a full forecast at the end of this month, and we obviously have updated information from institutions. Darren Millar AM: And they're three-year forecasts that come through to you, aren't they? Bethan Owen: They are four plus the current year. So, we've got numbers to 2019-20 at the moment, and expect to go to 2020-21. Darren Millar AM: And what are the universities expecting? What do they anticipate? Bethan Owen: Well, for 2017-18, which is the year we're about to end now, they were expecting PS38 million income from European students, and approximately PS91 million from the various European programme funding sources, and that's about 8 per cent of the total income--PS1. 5 billion--of the sector. The forecasts are assuming that that continues, albeit that institutions have various scenarios that they have for all sorts of scenarios that we can all speculate on, and, as I mentioned earlier, the balancing act of maintaining infrastructure and resources and staff in the short term is where we are at the moment, or where the sector is at the moment. And there are also signs that the banks and lending institutions are becoming a bit more risk-averse in providing borrowing to institutions, and of more differentiation between individual institutions being made than has possibly been the case in the past. The sector made an operating deficit, again looking at all Welsh institutions collectively last year, 2016-17, of PS17 million. That's before other gains and losses. And we're expecting a similar collective level of deficit for this financial year, if not slightly higher. Now, these are managed deficits and we are not currently seeing critical short-term cash availability issues in the sector. However, the increase in funding from Diamond is a key part of enabling the sector to return to longer-term financial sustainability. Short-term challenges can be met if there's a reasonable prospect of future funding. You can manage in the short-term, but there comes a point when the big cost reductions and infrastructure reductions have to be made. And, again, having mentioned the pressures on pay, pensions and other challenges, it is difficult to gauge whether, if those factors come into play as well, some of these cost reductions may have to be made before funding comes in to replace--either Diamond funding or the European replacement funding. Darren Millar AM: So, would it be fair to say that, in terms of the funding arrangements, and, in terms of the student numbers, one reason why we've got this recruitment problem is this lack of investment in the capital infrastructure that we've seen in recent years because of the financing arrangements from the Welsh Government, and the fee regime that we had previously, and the student finance regime that we had previously, not getting more cash into our Welsh universities perhaps, and that, over the next few years, there's going to have to be much more significant investment in capital if we're to raise the game and be more competitive, yes? Bethan Owen: Yes, that would be fair to say. Darren Millar AM: So, to what extent are they planning for more capital investment in those financial strategies that they've been preparing and presenting to you? Bethan Owen: They are all planning for capital investment. They are in different positions in terms of capacity to borrow and the assumptions. This year, 2018-19, is the first time that we've had capital funding in our remit letter--so, we've got PS10 million of capital funding, which is very welcome, with a prospect of a further PS20 million. So, that we will be allocating shortly. That will make a difference, particularly to those institutions who are not finding it as easy to borrow from financial institutions. Some of our larger institutions have borrowed--Cardiff University issued a bond. However, there are internal governance processes that are putting tight restrictions and expectations of what that money will be invested in. But they all have plans to do it and they need the confidence that their forecasts and long-term future funding prospects are secure enough that they can get the confidence of borrowers then, and service the costs of those borrowers. Darren Millar AM: So, the Diamond dividend you've mentioned a few times. What clarity is there from the Welsh Government at the moment in terms of how much they anticipate the Diamond dividend will be, and what proportion of that is going to be released to HEIs in the future? Bethan Owen: I was very carefully not describing it as a dividend--a re-establishing of funding that we had in the past for higher cost and innovation and maintaining research funding. The timescales are difficult, because we have an annual remit letter, and we can work with Welsh Government officials, and they can only give us a sense of when they think the funding will be released. But 2018-19 is the start of the system, and because of cohort protection--so, protecting those students who came in on a different deal to the deal from 2018-19--in the early years there is an element of double cost; there's a cost of seeing out the old system and the different cost of implementing the new system. So, at the moment, we're certainly not in a position to tell the sector with any degree of certainty what funding would be beyond what we've allocated for 2018-19, with some sense of what 2019-20 numbers we're working with because we allocate our money over an academic year--so, by definition, we've already made assumptions of four months of the 2019-20 funding, albeit that's not approved yet in the budgetary process. Darren Millar AM: But you're not being given a steer at all as to what you expect the additional resource that you might have to make available to Welsh universities might be as a result of Diamond. You must have some idea. Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say that officials have been as helpful as they can be with us, in terms of the planning assumptions we make and indications about whether or not we are being too ambitious or not ambitious enough. So, I think they're being very helpful; as Bethan said, they're constrained by the process--they can't pre-empt a budget process. And you folks will be fully aware of that, of course. The other question I think you asked was how much of the money released by the new arrangements will come into higher education. At the moment, we are expecting all of it to come into higher education, as the product of the arrangement between the current Cabinet Secretary and the current First Minister. The extent to which any changes there cause that to come under threat is something I can't judge at the moment. But we have had in our remit letter from the Cabinet Secretary a clear indication that we can expect our resource to grow over the next few years, as the Diamond process unfolds. John Griffiths AM: Okay. I'm just going to bring in Llyr at this stage. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Bethan said in an earlier answer that, I think, the financial forecasting from universities forecast something pretty consistent in terms of what they're hoping to be receiving in income, for example. But we've already discussed the near 10 per cent drop, potentially, in international applications. So, does that tally, really, or are they going to be recruiting additional students from the UK market or--? What's the plan? Bethan Owen: I was reflecting on the last point when we had consistent information across the sector. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, they may need to revisit that in the light of this. Bethan Owen: I'm expecting that the forecast that we get at the end of this month will reflect the reduced applications we've seen, and an element of that will be reflected in reduced improvements as well. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, we don't really know, then, whether--it's unlikely that they are going to expect a consistent fee income, really. Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say we would expect them to respond to what they're seeing in the UCAS process. Even if they didn't, they would all, in any case, have sensitivities for what they would do if things don't come out in the way they hope. And if they didn't have that then we would be on their case, of course, because we want them to be properly sighted. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Thanks. John Griffiths AM: And we have to stick to the Brexit impact. Darren. Darren Millar AM: Can I just ask, in terms of the impact of Brexit, have you done any assessment of what you think might happen, or have any of the institutions made available to you any assessments of what they think is likely to happen to their individual institutions, going forward? You've mentioned scenarios earlier on, David, so what scenarios have you set out? Dr David Blaney: There's a Welsh Government HE Brexit working group, which is chaired by one of the Government directors, and we sit on that. And we have provided that group with early summaries of the risks and the potential impact, in terms of the exposure of the sector to EU-sourced funding. We have, as part of that working group, explored those issues that it would be really very helpful for either the Welsh Government to try to put in place or for the Welsh Government to persuade UK Government to do. And I think, in our submission, we identified a number of areas of what we would consider to be a helpful action, and that has been worked through that working group. We know that it has informed Welsh Government's position, in terms of what it does and also in terms of the conversations that they have with Her Majesty's Government. Beyond that, what we haven't done in that working group is share the work that institutions are doing individually to look at how they would respond to different scenarios. We are not able to do that here either because, inevitably, they would have varying degrees of unpalatability and they would have to be managed very, very carefully. You take cost out, which is essentially the response, you actually take people's jobs out, and all of that has to be managed carefully. So, that's not really a matter for public consideration, but we do know that the institutions are looking at a range of scenarios on what they would do. Bethan mentioned earlier on that the current deficit for the sector is a managed deficit--it's not something that has taken them by surprise. They are responding to what they see as the dip between where Diamond was reporting and where the money starts flowing. Similarly, I think we're comfortable that there is a managed approach to the scenarios that they're testing within institutions. So, they will do what they need to do to sustain themselves. The bigger issue really, in a public policy context, is the potential damage for the sector to be able to deliver for Wales in terms of research and skills development and all the other contributions. Darren Millar AM: So, you're confident that they're taking a robust approach to planning for various scenarios, going forward, are you, as individual HEIs? Dr David Blaney: Yes, and as the deal becomes more clear politically, then they will obviously have greater clarity in terms of which of these scenarios they need to work up more fully, but they are sighted on it. Darren Millar AM: Okay. Can I just ask about fee and access plans, and how Brexit might impact them? To what extent do you think that they could be impacted? Dr David Blaney: I think there are two dimensions to maybe touch upon there. Fee and access plans are approved annually by us. They are approved in advance of the recruitment cycle for the year that they apply to. So, we're just in the process now of finalising our consideration of fee and access plans for the 2019-20 academic year. So, there's quite a long lead time. We, as part of that process, go through similar--we look at their financial sustainability, which is based on their forecasts--data to the stuff we've just been discussing. And also, of course, the fee plans themselves make assumptions about how many students of different types, from different domains, are going to be recruited. So, clearly, if there is a continuing downward pressure on EU student recruitment, then that will reduce the amount of fee income that's going to come in, unless they can find other students, and that will reduce the amount of investment in the various activities that are identified in the fee plans. In terms of process, we have two things that we can do. If institutions are becoming aware that the basis upon which they've submitted a fee plan is fundamentally different from the reality, then they can come into us for a change to their fee plan. So, we have a change process. If it's not fundamentally different, but there are always differences between what you plan and what happens three years later--. We also monitor after the event and, if there are differences, we would then obviously require institutions to explain those differences. If they've had fewer students and less investment, we would need to understand that. Conversely, if they'd had more students, and potentially more investment, we'd want to know what they'd spent it on, and if they've done different things, we'd want to understand that as well. So, we do challenge through a monitoring process. The only other thing that's perhaps worth saying is that, in the 2019-20 fee and access plans--they're not published yet, so I can't give you the full detail--five universities have made reference to Brexit and the Brexit impact, and things they want to do through their fee and access plan to try and address some of those issues, so they're in there as well. Darren Millar AM: But we've already said, haven't we, that it may be nothing to do with Brexit, this dip in EU recruitment, because there are other factors like the attractiveness of the estates and the environment that young people might be educated in? But they're making assumptions that it's linked to Brexit, are they? Dr David Blaney: Not really. I think they're making assumptions that it could be. There are things they want to do to enhance and to protect student mobility, and some of that will be funded through fee plan investment. So, the Brexit conversation between the EU and the UK Government might or might not sustain Erasmus engagement, and if it doesn't, then they need to find other ways of trying to support that sort of thing. So, that's what we're beginning to see in the fee plans. It's them thinking about how else we can do this stuff. John Griffiths AM: Okay, Darren? Mark. Mark Reckless AM: You mentioned the fee and access report. What else do you do to assure yourselves that Welsh higher education institutions are effectively planning for Brexit? Bethan Owen: We've touched on contingency plans, but, in an environment of uncertainty, I think it's difficult for any of us to know what the right scenario is. I think rather than looking at worst-case scenarios, what the sector is also focusing on is the promotion and looking for additional or increased sources of funding. So, we touched on strengthening the Global Wales engagement in order to sell Wales, so more focus on marketing Wales overseas, but also within the UK. The other area where the sector is working at a UK level very hard is making the arguments to UK Government for maintaining access to the successor to Horizon 2020, which is arguably a larger part of the whole funding infrastructure--students is one part, but the whole funding infrastructure for maintaining research capacity. So, working with UK universities to make arguments at UK Government level for maintaining access to those sources of funding is also a part of what the institutions are doing. We mentioned the Welsh Government's HE Brexit group. That group, which is the Welsh Government group, is being advised by members on it, and that's informing Welsh Government officials when they engage with UK Government as well. Mark Reckless AM: Do universities seek your advice on what the risks and, indeed, opportunities of Brexit may be and what you think they should be doing to plan for them, or is your role more one of monitoring what they do as opposed to advising what they should do? Bethan Owen: They are autonomous institutions and ultimately their governing bodies are responsible for ensuring their sustainability. It's not a relationship where we would advise and direct, but it is a relationship where we would question the scenarios if we consider from our experience that we would have expected other scenarios to have been tested. It's that nature of conversation, rather than directing. Mark Reckless AM: I understand you don't direct, of course, but my question was about advising. You're overseeing, or monitoring--or whatever you like to describe the role as--quite a number of institutions, and presumably you therefore have particular expertise within your organisation, and I just wondered whether higher education institutions are doing enough to draw on that. Bethan Owen: I think we can advise--we can advise based on data and information that we can see. We can advise based on our judgment. The big thing in this whole Brexit scenario is the uncertainty and the extent to which our speculation is better informed than the governing bodies or the sector collectively is probably the issue. Dr David Blaney: I think that's right. So, there's a relationship with the sector and there's a relationship with individual institutions, and they are different. So, we have engagement collectively with the sector. Bethan meets with the finance directors, and I meet with the vice-chancellors. We actually have the sector and the funding council together on the Welsh Government's group. So, some of these conversations are happening in various ways, where we're all gaining intelligence about what might be a sensible set of planning assumptions. Then, if we see an institution that is manifestly giving signs of not being sighted on some of these risks, either through their forecast or through other assurance activity, we will challenge. We have an annual cycle, with two points in the year where we reassess the overall risks of individual institutions, and that's based on a whole range of hard data but also a range of soft data. Our links into institutions are many and varied. We have lots of conversations and we take all of that in the round and form an assessment about the financial sustainability of the institutions but also the extent to which we think their governance and management arrangements are properly sighted and facing properly the challenges that they face. In some ways, we say it's not about the challenges they face; it's about how they face the challenges. Our alarm bells really ring when we get the sense that, actually, either an executive or a governing body hasn't really noticed. We're not in that place, I'm really pleased to say. I'm not worried about short-term crisis with any of the institutions. There are medium-term real challenges, both because of Brexit and because of other contextual factors, but at the moment the sector is a managed sector, which is good. It's not always like that, but we're in, I think, a good place at the moment. So, our role is definitely to challenge where we don't think they are making sensible assessments, but it's not to say that their assessment is wrong and ours is right; it's just to have a conversation about,'Why have you done this and what has informed your thinking?'It's slightly more one step back and slightly more subtle, but it is, as you imply, us using the intelligence we gain from all of those conversations when we talk to individual institutions as well. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Llyr. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, thank you. We had evidence last week from some of the higher education institutions, including Cardiff University, and it's very interesting, in relation to Erasmus+ and the mobility funding for students that, I think, only 40 per cent of the mobility funding in Cardiff is paid for by Erasmus+. I note that you've been consulting on national measures for higher education performance and that one possibility is using international mobility as a performance indicator. I was just wondering whether you might go further and expect universities to actually make commitments to funding international mobility from their own fee incomes as part of that. Bethan Owen: Again, reflecting on the latest fee and access plans, seven of the universities are referring to mobility--either they have targets in them or are explaining what their plans are--so they are including an element of it from their own income and fee and access income. However, Erasmus is such a well-established and long-term plan--if we were looking at a scenario where that infrastructure wasn't available, to implement anything similar to that would be much less efficient and much more costly. And to enable an infrastructure that allowed--. Ideally, you'd want something that all Welsh institutions could take part in, and that takes some investment and some co-ordinating. And, equally, you need to have the arrangements with your overseas and European institutions. I think it's easy to underestimate the accumulation of time that has gone into establishing Erasmus. So, I think replacing it would be a challenge. Llyr Gruffydd AM: And the point was made clearly last week that the brand is internationally recognised. When you enter into Erasmus+, you know exactly what you're going to get, and all of that. But there have been criticisms as well about degrees of flexibility and this, that and the other, so I'm just wondering whether--and there is presumably going to be some change on that front although I'm hoping we can buy into it, as others have done who aren't in the EU--that emphasis on encouraging institutions to look more proactively at funding their own mobility efforts would be positive. Dr David Blaney: I think the-- Llyr Gruffydd AM: Sorry--especially if it means that they do more of it. Dr David Blaney: Indeed. I think the Welsh sector is definitely committed to trying to find ways of promoting and resourcing that sort of mobility. There are signs that some of the restrictive elements of the Erasmus programme are going to change anyway, because that's under development and that's positive. There have been positive noises as part of the Brexit negotiations about wanting to carry on being able to access the Erasmus programme. Nothing is agreed until it's all agreed apparently, so we'll have to see on that one. That would be far better, I think, as Bethan indicates, than trying to replace it with a made-in-Wales only, but you could have a made-in-Wales on top. All of these challenges also create opportunities because they stimulate thinking, and so the fact that seven of the eight universities are already now using their fee plans as a vehicle for thinking about this is positive, and I think we can take that on from there. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Because that 40/60 split struck me as being the opposite to what I perceived the situation to be. A key part of your role is to work in partnership with students, so I'd just like to ask what work have you done with students, in terms of maybe protecting their interests as the Brexit scenario evolves? Dr David Blaney: Well, as you say, we do work with students. We were the first of the funding councils in the UK to have a memorandum of understanding with the National Union of Students in Wales. We work very closely with them and the president of NUS is an observer on our council. So, we have close links with NUS Wales and we're very proud of that, and it's very productive. They don't have a vote, but they do have a voice and it really matters. We we're, again, ahead of the rest of the UK in requiring all HE providers to have student charters and there are elements of student protection within the student charter. The UK-wide quality code also has elements in it where arrangements have to be specified about the protection of student interests. That is particularly, in essence, around circumstances where a provider gets into difficulties and they might wish to close a course or something more drastic and then what arrangements are in place to make sure that those students who are in train are protected. So, that is there and we've worked hard with the sector and with NUS Wales to get those measures in place. There's more development work in train at the moment, so we've asked Universities Wales to construct a protection that takes account of the approach to protecting the student interests in higher education. We're also requiring further education institutions who are regulated and deliver higher education to do similar or the same, and that's very important. The students who are HE students in FE are absolutely not second-best, and they should have the same protections. Llyr Gruffydd AM: But is all this a general piece of work? It's not Brexit-specific, although, no doubt, it may--. Dr David Blaney: I think that's fair to say, yes. The other dimension around Brexit is the immigration status of EU students, and that's, kind of, beyond our pay scale--that's a UK Government issue. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Is that something that you have a view on? Dr David Blaney: It's clearly in the interest of the enrichment of the curriculum and the student experience for students in Welsh institutions to be able to have students from other EU countries in the mix. So, it would be nice to find ways of continuing to facilitate that. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Now, of course, you have a statutory duty as well to assess the academic quality of the work in our higher education institutions, and I'm just wondering what potential impacts you think that Brexit might have on that particular aspect. Dr David Blaney: I think there are possibly a couple of things to say, and one, in a sense, echoes what I was just saying in the final part of my previous response, which is that part of the quality of the student experience is the richness that you get from having students in your cohort who have different backgrounds and different perspectives. So, if there is a continuing reduction in the number of EU students coming into Welsh institutions, then that richness deteriorates. That doesn't mean to say that the base or the threshold standard of what's required for a degree will come under pressure, it's just about the richness on top of that, which will be, in a sense, a quality-enhancement issue. That would be something that we would wish to try to protect against, but in the end you can't force EU students to come--you have to try and look attractive, and we've touched on that. The baseline requirement assessment of quality will not be affected by Brexit, except in so far as the machinery we use to discharge our statutory responsibility, which is through the Quality Assurance Agency, which themselves are accredited with European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, the European machinery for higher education quality. And there's a set of standards around that, and we would obviously wish not to be in a position where our ability to use and adhere to those standards is adversely impacted upon. Those standards will still exist, and it will be possible for the British system to adhere to them, even if they're not actually able to play in the same way. Then the only other thing I would say is that one of the factors that can cause the quality of the learning and teaching experience to be likely to become inadequate is when institutions come under financial pressure, just because their capacity to maintain the same sort of student experience can get under pressure. So, clearly, we will be looking for and making sure that institutions manage the financial pressures, if there are any--and there are some at the moment, as we've described--and manage those carefully. And in all of that, we will expect institutions to do their duty to make sure that the commitments they've already made to students are carried through. So, where students have already started on the course, they need to be able to finish that course--you can't just pull the plug out. So, all of that comes into the arrangements for quality as well. So, we'll be keeping an eye on that. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. A lot of what you've told us in the last three quarters of an hour or so will have costs attached, depending on the impacts. Certainly, we're in choppy waters as a sector anyway, and the risk is that things will be even more choppy, if you'll excuse that level of political interpretation, over the years to come. I'm just wondering what advice you might have given the Welsh Government in terms of what level of transition funding, or Brexit transition funding, might be required by the sector, and if you have, what the Welsh Government might have told you. Bethan Owen: I mentioned earlier that, obviously, we've provided information in terms of the assumptions that the sector are making on income. So, for the year 2017-18, that was PS129 million. I think the extent to which that needs to be replaced or supported with transition funding depends absolutely on what the final arrangements for Brexit are, but it's an appropriate point to refer to the report that Professor Graeme Reid has produced, commissioned by Welsh Government. That was, and has, provided advice and recommendations for supporting research and innovation in the transition period. But, again, the Reid recommendations in that report build on the Diamond recommendations, and as soon as Diamond is in place--and Reid is providing recommendations in addition, to establish funding on the basis that the funding needs to be available in Wales to maintain and develop and strengthen the research and innovation infrastructure that we have. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Are you not worried, though, that the clock is ticking and that we really don't know what the situation is at this point? Dr David Blaney: Do you mean the Brexit situation? Llyr Gruffydd AM: The Brexit clock, yes. Dr David Blaney: Uncertainty is unhelpful, because as I've said several times, the sector is a managed sector at the moment. I don't think there's--. We're not seeing maverick stuff, but actually you can only manage, really, what you can see and what you can reasonably predict. So, the longer the uncertainty persists, the more difficult that is for institutional management and, indeed, for the rest of the machinery to support them. So, yes, the sooner we get clarity, the better for everybody, I imagine. Darren Millar AM: Chair, can I just ask a question? John Griffiths AM: Yes, Darren. Darren Millar AM: In terms of uncertainty, though, we've still got this uncertainty over whether the extra cash that the Government's going to have to spend as a result of Diamond being implemented is coming to the HE sector. They've given a political commitment, but you've got absolutely no other assurance of the sums of money that are coming in. We've got the reform of tertiary education arrangements in Wales, which are also under way, so it's a bit of a perfect storm for you, isn't it, really, with all of these three things happening at the same time? Dr David Blaney: We're certainly kept busy. Darren Millar AM: But two of those things are in the gift of the Welsh Government to sort out for you, aren't they? Dr David Blaney: Well, the policy on the reform of the post-compulsory sector absolutely is a Welsh Government policy. The extent to which they can pre-empt a budgetary process and give us clear sight of the amount of money in future years is--. Well, again, it's not for me to comment. My understanding is that that's difficult for them to do, and I would repeat what I said earlier: officials have been as helpful as I think they can be in respect of that. I mean, you're right, we've only got a political commitment between two people currently in post. It would be great to have that firmer. I'm not sure how that could be done. Darren Millar AM: I mean, that statement about the savings accrued from Diamond being reinvested wholly into the HE sector has not been repeated, frankly, has it, since the coalition deal was struck? Dr David Blaney: No, but it hasn't been rescinded either, so--. Darren Millar AM: No, but there have been opportunities--repeated opportunities--in the Chamber, where the Cabinet Secretary's been asked to repeat that commitment, and the First Minister's been asked to repeat that commitment and has not given that commitment. That must concern you, and must concern your university sector even more than, perhaps, some of the elements of Brexit that we're discussing. Dr David Blaney: Bethan has outlined earlier on in this session the fact that institutions are currently running deficit budgets in order not to lose the infrastructure on the assumption that the Diamond money will come in. If anything were to cause significant perturbation, either to the timeline of that or to it coming in at all, then there would be much more of what Medwin Hughes calls'houskeeping'that would be required, and that would be significant. So, at the moment--I don't like the expression'valley of death', but there is a valley to cross, and I think the sector is reasonably confident about how wide and how deep that valley is. There's a demographic valley as well. So, there are several valleys that they're crossing--the metaphor fails, doesn't it, really, but I think you get the drift? So, there are a number of challenges and they can see their way out of some of those challenges, but if any one of these starts to get significantly disrupted, then that would be a real issue for them. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I go on to ask about other barriers to Welsh universities gaining more funding from UK research councils? What would you say those barriers are? Dr David Blaney: Well, I think there are a couple of things, really, to say. The first one--and we'll sound like a stuck record if we're not careful--is that there's an issue about investment and the Reid report makes this very clear. So, he has reaffirmed research that had been done previously that identifies that, actually, the quality of the research base in Welsh universities and the productivity of that Welsh research base are both good, there's just not enough of them, and that, in the end, is a product of investment decisions. They have particularly looked at the deficit in science, technology, engineering and mathematics areas, and I always say that research is not just STEM. I mean, STEM is important, and I'm not denying the deficit in that area, but we have to also remember that the research agenda for Wales is not just STEM--it's arts, humanities, it's social sciences. If you look at the impact on public policy that could come from social science research--tremendous. And we're very good at it in Wales. The Welsh impact in its research is better than anywhere else in the UK, so that's good. So, they do very well, and we just really need to invest a little bit further--so continue to do very well, but put it on a broader front. If you want to be able to play into the UK-wide research funding, then the investment has two dimensions to it. One is just having enough researchers to be able to play into those increasingly larger projects rather than small-scale projects. If you haven't got the critical mass, it's very hard to make the case that you can play. And the second thing is that UK-wide research pots nearly always fund at about 80 per cent of the total cost of the research, and the other 20 per cent is meant to be found from the core research funding for the university, and if you're in a situation where your core research funding is not competitive, then you're not going to be competitive at getting that money. So, that's, kind of, straightforward. There are other things. I think it's fair to say that the Welsh sector has not been sufficiently focused on getting in on the conversations with the research councils, making sure they're in the various committees and so on. We are intending to do a bit of work to see if we can systematise that a bit better--that engagement--because there's no doubt about it: it's not to say that this system is in any way inappropriate, but the more you're in the conversations, the more likely you are to be better placed to respond to the research challenges that come up. John Griffiths AM: Okay. One final question: in terms of the researcher collaborations and networks that exist, do you see potential difficulties after Brexit for the continuation and enhancement of those, and are there any particular lessons to learn from Ser Cymru II? Dr David Blaney: I think that there are two things to say here as well. First of all, the Brexit deal might or might not impact adversely on the capacity of Welsh and, indeed, UK research infrastructure to play into broader collaborative activity across Europe, and, in a sense, that's a function of the deal whatever the deal looks like, and we'll have to wait and see. But we've mentioned playing into Horizon Europe, and being able to continue with that would be an important part of that capacity. It's not just the money, it's being in the club and it's the signalling that we're in the game. So, all of that would be important. And then the other part of my response to this would be that, actually, Wales will need to continue to be good at the research it does, so maintaining the quality, maintaining the impact, and hopefully growing the critical mass. The Ser Cymru initiative has been quite important in doing that, because it's been very focused, capturing key research players, and the attractiveness that that has then to other researchers around them, and to industry collaboration, and they have been areas of real strength that we've invested in. And I think they are already showing dividends in terms of the capacity to win more research funding, and to establish an even stronger presence in the international research market. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Just one further point, from Darren. Darren Millar AM: Just very briefly, one of the pieces of feedback that the committee members received at a stakeholder engagement event, which took place prior to this inquiry starting, to receive oral evidence, was about the research funding that is available from the charitable sector, and how poorly Wales does in attracting some of that research. I think we had some figures from the British Heart Foundation, which said they have PS100 million a year available for research grants, or something like that, and we're getting 1 per cent of that coming into Wales, which is obviously pretty low down. I appreciate that research into the type of activity that they want to put their money into, Wales may not be particularly good at, and there may be other opportunities with other charities and partnerships. What work are you doing in order to build the capacity that Wales has to attract more of that charitable sector research funding into Wales? Bethan Owen: One of the issues is the capacity to engage with that funding, because of the overhead issue that David mentioned. Charitable funding at the moment doesn't attract any overhead funding. Again, that could be built in to our funding, if we had the capacity to increase our quality-related research funding. There is an element in England. Darren Millar AM: But that pressure's the same in other parts of the UK, is it not? So the overhead funding is still an issue in England, and in other places. Bethan Owen: There is an increased contribution, and I think it's an element that was increased this year to acknowledge that. But there will be differentiation between different charities. I'm fairly certain that some of our institutions will be very strong with the cancer charities, possibly not the heart foundation. And some of that will reflect on focusing on our strengths, but to have that fuller picture. Darren Millar AM: So, this gearing issue that you mentioned earlier on, for every PS1 that somebody else puts on the table, they can draw in another PS4 on top, because that PS1 will cover the overheads, whereas the rest of the research cash--. Dr David Blaney: That's exactly it. So, the more you're able to invest--. You know, we sometimes get into a conversation about the unhypothecated nature of our research funding, but actually that creates a flexibility and the infrastructure investment that allows institutions to be able to respond to these other opportunities. Without that, they can't do it, because if you're not careful, you've got institutions engaging in UK-wide or charity-based research activities where they're actually having to pay for it themselves--they're running at a loss. Darren Millar AM: So that's the main problem; it's not that Welsh universities aren't doing their best to get this cash in. Or is it a bit of both? Dr David Blaney: I think, in the main, universities and researchers will get their cash from wherever they can, so I don't think it's a lack of appetite. Darren Millar AM: Okay. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Well, thank you, both, for coming in to give evidence to the committee this morning. You will be sent a draft of the transcript, to check for accuracy. Diolch yn fawr. Okay then, the next item is item 3, papers to note, the first of which is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education on the school organisation code. The second is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill. Paper to note 3 is a letter from the Chair of the Finance Committee regarding scrutiny of the Welsh Government's draft budget for the forthcoming financial year, which we will be discussing under item 6 on the agenda. Paper to note 4 is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on parental attitudes towards managing young children's behaviour. And the final paper to note, paper to note 5, is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the children and family delivery grant, which we will discuss later on in private session, if Members are content. Okay. Are you content to note those papers on that basis? Okay. Thanks very much. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17. 42 to exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting, and also for items 1 and 2 of the 20 September meeting. Is the committee content? Yes. Thank you very much. We will move then into private session.

According to Mr. Blaney, there's a Welsh Government HE Brexit working group, providing early summaries of the risks and the potential impact, in terms of the exposure of the sector to EU-sourced funding. Beyond that, the working group will also share the work that institutions are doing individually to look at how they would respond to different scenarios, which hasn't been implemented yet.

tr-sq-672

tr-sq-672_0

How Brexit might impact the fee and access plans of the higher institutions? Gareth Rogers: Good morning, and welcome to today's meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. Unfortunately, the Chair is unable to attend today, so in accordance with Standing Order 17. 22 I call for nominations for a temporary Chair for the duration of today's meeting. Julie Morgan AM: I nominate John Griffiths. Gareth Rogers: Thank you. Darren Millar AM: I'll second that nomination. Gareth Rogers: As there's only one nomination, I declare that John Griffiths has been appointed as temporary Chair. Thank you, John. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Thank you all very much, and item 1 on our agenda today is introductions, apologies, substitutions and declarations of interest. We've received apologies from Hefin David and Lynne Neagle. There are no substitutions. Are there any declarations of interest? No. We will move on then to item 2, and our inquiry into the impact of Brexit on higher and further education, and our first evidence session. I'm very pleased to welcome the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales here today, and Dr David Blaney as chief executive, and Bethan Owen, director of institutional engagement. Welcome to you both. Thanks for coming along to give evidence today. If it's okay with you, we'll move straight to questions, and Julie Morgan. Julie Morgan AM: Good morning. Bore da. I wondered if we could start off with you telling us what evidence you can see that the Brexit process has had any impact on Welsh higher education so far. Dr David Blaney: Can I preface the response by just reminding you that we are, by contract and by role, apolitical, and a lot of the judgments about the impact of Brexit essentially reflect where people sit politically in terms of whether they think it's a good thing or a bad thing? We're not going to go there, obviously, today, so we'll stick to the facts as we can see them, and hopefully we'll be able to help you, but there are areas where we are unable to help. That's part of the reason. John Griffiths AM: We certainly do not expect you to enter the political fray in any way. Dr David Blaney: Thank you. But even in terms of your assessment of whether this is going to be a good thing or a bad thing, a good impact or a bad impact, some of that inevitably in the end becomes a matter of your politics on it, so we will be as careful as we can be on that. In terms of the impact of Brexit on higher education, clearly, the significance here is about the contribution that higher education can make to Wales. So, we fund provision; we don't fund providers, technically, although obviously there's not much provision without providers. So, we are interested in the sustainability of higher education providers, but fundamentally the issue is: what does the HE system in Wales do for Wales, and what impact might Brexit have on the capacity of the system to continue to deliver for Wales? So, we know that universities make annually about PS5 billion of impact; 50,000 jobs. Of course, in Wales, all of that economic impact is really very significant, and uncertainty about the relationships and the arrangements with Europe is one of the most significant issues confronting university management at the moment. That has an impact in a number of ways. We can identify at the moment the extent to which the HE sector in Wales is exposed to sources of income that are located from the EU, so EU students, structural funds, and EU research funding, and so on, from the EU. We can identify some of that, but, actually, what happens in the future is much harder to be clear about. We are beginning to see some impact in terms of applications from EU students and I'll ask Bethan to share some details on that in a moment. We're also beginning to pick up, only anecdotally, some signs that there are increasing difficulties in the UK sector, and the Welsh sector as part of that, in playing in some of the EU collaborative research activities. And that, I think, just reflects the extent to which EU partners consider that British partners might be a stable partner as we go through this transition period. We don't have data on that--that's anecdotal--but there are signs that some of those relationships are beginning to become a little bit more difficult. In terms of the financial impact of that, clearly, if it is accepted that the UK is a net contributor to the EU then, presumably, some of the money--we're almost immediately straight into politics if you're not careful--but some of the money will be available back to the UK, and the extent to which Wales benefits or not from that returned money is a function of the political relationship between the Welsh Government and Her Majesty's Government. It's not necessarily the case that Wales will always lose out in that relationship, but that will become a matter of politics. There's a broader dimension, which is about the economic impact of Brexit on the UK economy and how much tax revenue there is and all of that. I think it's very hard for us to be definitive about how that's going to play out. I think that depends on the deal and how it all unfolds over the next several years. But we can certainly anticipate some turbulence and exactly how that plays for institutions remains to be seen. We can touch later on on the extent to which they are sighted on this and preparing for it. So, in terms of recruitment, Bethan. Bethan Owen: This is based on the UCAS applications and the report that was published at the end of June, 30 June. The European Union-domiciled applicants to Wales have decreased by 8 per cent, which contrasts with a 2 per cent increase for English institutions, and non-EU--so international students, not from Europe--have also decreased by 9 per cent to Welsh institutions, again contrasting with a 7 per cent increase in England. So, those are the signs of changes. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I then just ask you what you see as the main pressures on the Welsh higher education sector at the moment? Bethan Owen: The funding position would be the main pressure. The recommendations made by Sir Ian Diamond in his review of higher education funding and student finance are in the process of being implemented, and the changes to the student finance arrangements will take effect from this September. However, the recommendations for re-establishing funding at Welsh institutions are expected to take quite a bit longer. That funding, when it returns to institutions, is intended to re-establish funding for higher cost provision, both full time and part time; reinstate funding for innovation; and maintain, at the very least, the research funding in real terms. Universities, in the meantime, are trying to minimise the cost reductions that they're making in order to maintain the infrastructure, so that when the funding comes they can get the best value out of it. We have announced our funding allocations for 2018-19. For the research and teaching grant, though, we are still funding at a lower level--PS12. 5 million less--then the starting point for the Diamond report, the 2015-16 starting report. But we expect to be able to start introducing funding from 2019-20 to make a start on implementing Diamond. And it's probably important to note that the Diamond recommendations predated Brexit, therefore the challenges introduced by Brexit are in addition to those that the Diamond report was addressing. The other pressures relate to student recruitment. I mentioned the EU and international students. There is also the start of a reduction, both in Welsh-domiciled and English-domiciled applications to Wales. Enrolments are obviously the key important number, which we'll see later. And the other pressures include pay and pension costs, not least the issues around the universities superannuation scheme pension fund, where there's potentially a significant increase in cost. Increased student expectations for modern facilities and infrastructure bring a requirement for capital expenditure and borrowing, which bring their own pressures. And finally, the uncertainty about potential consequences that could arise from the review in England of fees and funding--the Augar review. John Griffiths AM: In terms of European Union students and enrolment, is Wales forecast to do less well than England and, if so, why might that be? Bethan Owen: They are not forecasting it. It's very difficult until the enrolments are made, and it's also very hard to see--the data that we see is the UCAS data. Institutions also recruit directly, so until we see the actual recruitment--. I think the arrangements that have changed from 2018-19 also impact on EU students. So, now, they have to find the full fee, whereas previously they were getting the grant in the same way as Welsh students. So, I'm speculating that that might be having an impact as well on EU students'appetite to come. John Griffiths AM: Okay. First of all Llyr, then Mark. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, that's straight into what I was going to ask, really, about what you think the factors are that led to this 8 per cent or 9 per cent drop in EU students applying to study in Wales, where we see a 2 per cent increase in England. Is that it, or are there other things that you've taken into account? What's your assessment of the reasons behind this? Dr David Blaney: It's very difficult to be definitive about the reasons, but I think there are probably two. The one that Bethan has already indicated, which is the change in student support arrangements for EU students, will have an effect of perturbation. That's probably relatively temporary--let's hope it is--as that settles down because, actually, the deal for EU students coming into Wales is no worse than that coming into England. Ours would be better because the fee level is slightly lower, but we do struggle in Wales in terms of the Anglocentric nature of the media and so on. So, getting the messages out is a challenge. The other dimension is that when you're in a highly competitive recruitment market, you have to do what you can to look attractive. Part of that is about being able to invest in facilities, and particularly buildings and kit, and the relative levels of investment between Wales and England over quite a long period of time now probably have an impact on that. Certainly, anecdotally I know, from my own family, that a lot of the choices have been made in terms of the state of repair of campuses and so on. There's something rational about that, isn't there? If you've got a system that is relatively better invested, then you're likely to have a better student experience because the resources are likely to be better. So, that's not irrational. We saw a sort of similar but opposite effect when the PS9,000 fee maximum limit came in, and some institutions, mostly in England--there was one in Wales--chose to pitch their fee levels really quite low, relative to that PS9,000, and caught a cold in the student recruitment market because fee levels denote quality in the student mind. So, the price sensitivities work quite differently. So, again, if you've got a relatively better invested part of the system, then that might well be one of the reasons why it looks more attractive. Llyr Gruffydd AM: That latter factor would affect the whole of the cohort, not just the international recruitment, of course. Dr David Blaney: Indeed. Yes, indeed. The implementation of the Diamond recommendations is crucial to that because that's re-balancing where the policy of investment goes. John Griffiths AM: Okay. And Mark. Mark Reckless AM: If I heard you correctly earlier, you said that the applications from non-EU students were also down by 8 per cent or 9 per cent. So, forgive me a certain scepticism about the explanation of the fall in the EU students being that they did get the fee grant and now they do not. If that's the explanation, why are we seeing the same fall in non-EU applications? Dr David Blaney: Well, I think the Welsh domiciled are also now having to face the prospect of finding a loan for the whole of the fee. So, that would potentially account for that. There's also a demographic dimension here with the downturn in the 18-year-old school-leaver profile, and that actually is happening in Wales at a slightly later point than in England. Mark Reckless AM: But this is non-EU students, and I think you said, Bethan, an 8 per cent or 9 per cent fall in them as well. Dr David Blaney: International non-EU. I beg your pardon. I misunderstood. Bethan Owen: There's also a mix effect. I gave a number that was for all English institutions that there will be differential impacts on. Mark Reckless AM: All English or all Welsh? Bethan Owen: Well, I contrasted the Welsh position with the English position where they were seeing growth. If you look, then--and we don't have the detailed information, but, again, what UCAS publish is some analysis by tariff. They analyse by type of institution--in other words, the grades that you need to get into institutions--and there is a trend for growth being in the higher tariff institutions. So, there's a mix effect in there as well, and I think there's undoubtedly an element of perception of how welcome overseas and international students are, and that's something that we know the sector are working on with Government. Mark Reckless AM: Why would that affect Wales more than England? Do you think there's been perhaps too great a negativity about Brexit in the sector? Bethan Owen: I think it's the mix of institutions that we have. So, we only have sector information published at the moment. When we look at the mix of institutions that we have, we will probably see a differential impact between Cardiff University and others. John Griffiths AM: Okay, Mark? Sorry, David, did you want to add anything? Dr David Blaney: I was just going to say that we would expect to see quite differential performance in the English sector, so the overall numbers are being brought up by substantial increased performance with some of that sector, and it's a question of how many of that type of institution you have in Wales. Mark Reckless AM: So, performance is increasing amongst the English universities, but not amongst the Welsh, you think. Dr David Blaney: I think performance is increasing, but increasing substantially with some of the English sector, not all of it. So, you get an average for the sector that is increased performance, but actually the stronger players within that sector, with the stronger international profiles, are bringing that up, and we have fewer in Wales that have that sort of presence. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Darren. Darren Millar AM: Would it be fair to say, then, that the universities over the border in England are better at selling themselves internationally than our Welsh institutions? Or is it just this fact that we've got fewer very high tariff universities versus the English market? Dr David Blaney: I suspect, and this is speculation--I suspect that it's a bit of both. I think some of it is to do with the mix of different types of institution. I would then come back to the point I was making about the Anglocentric nature of the UK media. If you're looking overseas, I think Wales has to work harder to penetrate the consciousness. Darren Millar AM: But, forgive me, don't international students just look at the UK as a whole? How are we comparing to Scotland, for example, or Northern Ireland, in terms of their universities? Do you have a comparative figure for Scottish universities? Bethan Owen: I haven't got that one with me for now, but there will be one in the data. Dr David Blaney: Yes, we could get that. Bethan Owen: Again, it's a combination of being part of the UK but differentiating, and the ability to differentiate the strengths of Wales, so attracting those students to Wales specifically, on top of the UK draw. Dr David Blaney: So, in terms of the efforts that have been made, there's a programme now that is being run by the sector in Wales--it's'Study in Wales'. It's relatively recent; you could argue that we could have got there earlier. But that is a determined collective effort to present Wales as a good place to study, with particular messages about what distinguishes studying in Wales from studying more broadly in the UK. In a sense, that is responding to the need to increase the presence of Wales in an international market. So, that sort of initiative I think is very good, very welcome. It will take a while to actually have an impact, but I think that's exactly the sort of work the sector need to be doing more of. Mark Reckless AM: What are those messages on why prospective students should study in Wales? Dr David Blaney: One of them in particular is relative safety. We know that one of the considerations, particularly for parents of overseas students, is are they going to go to a safe environment, and we know that the perception of international students who study in Wales is that this is a comfortable and safe place to be. That's partly a function of the size of our larger cities--quite a lot smaller than many of the cities in England. So, that's a key message. Being part of a UK system is also an important message there as well. So, we've got a UK-quality system, a UK degree, and the strength of that brand is available in Wales, but it's available in a way that is safer and more supportive, I think is the messaging that's coming through. John Griffiths AM: Okay. We'd better move on, I think, hadn't we? Darren, then. Darren Millar AM: I just wonder to what extent you have been able to plan in your financial forecasts for the next few years ahead for the potential impacts of Brexit. What have you built in, if anything? Bethan Owen: In terms of our funding, we receive our funding annually, but the sector provides us with financial forecasts, and we use those for monitoring sustainability. So, the last full forecasts that we had were in July 2017. We are due to receive a full forecast at the end of this month, and we obviously have updated information from institutions. Darren Millar AM: And they're three-year forecasts that come through to you, aren't they? Bethan Owen: They are four plus the current year. So, we've got numbers to 2019-20 at the moment, and expect to go to 2020-21. Darren Millar AM: And what are the universities expecting? What do they anticipate? Bethan Owen: Well, for 2017-18, which is the year we're about to end now, they were expecting PS38 million income from European students, and approximately PS91 million from the various European programme funding sources, and that's about 8 per cent of the total income--PS1. 5 billion--of the sector. The forecasts are assuming that that continues, albeit that institutions have various scenarios that they have for all sorts of scenarios that we can all speculate on, and, as I mentioned earlier, the balancing act of maintaining infrastructure and resources and staff in the short term is where we are at the moment, or where the sector is at the moment. And there are also signs that the banks and lending institutions are becoming a bit more risk-averse in providing borrowing to institutions, and of more differentiation between individual institutions being made than has possibly been the case in the past. The sector made an operating deficit, again looking at all Welsh institutions collectively last year, 2016-17, of PS17 million. That's before other gains and losses. And we're expecting a similar collective level of deficit for this financial year, if not slightly higher. Now, these are managed deficits and we are not currently seeing critical short-term cash availability issues in the sector. However, the increase in funding from Diamond is a key part of enabling the sector to return to longer-term financial sustainability. Short-term challenges can be met if there's a reasonable prospect of future funding. You can manage in the short-term, but there comes a point when the big cost reductions and infrastructure reductions have to be made. And, again, having mentioned the pressures on pay, pensions and other challenges, it is difficult to gauge whether, if those factors come into play as well, some of these cost reductions may have to be made before funding comes in to replace--either Diamond funding or the European replacement funding. Darren Millar AM: So, would it be fair to say that, in terms of the funding arrangements, and, in terms of the student numbers, one reason why we've got this recruitment problem is this lack of investment in the capital infrastructure that we've seen in recent years because of the financing arrangements from the Welsh Government, and the fee regime that we had previously, and the student finance regime that we had previously, not getting more cash into our Welsh universities perhaps, and that, over the next few years, there's going to have to be much more significant investment in capital if we're to raise the game and be more competitive, yes? Bethan Owen: Yes, that would be fair to say. Darren Millar AM: So, to what extent are they planning for more capital investment in those financial strategies that they've been preparing and presenting to you? Bethan Owen: They are all planning for capital investment. They are in different positions in terms of capacity to borrow and the assumptions. This year, 2018-19, is the first time that we've had capital funding in our remit letter--so, we've got PS10 million of capital funding, which is very welcome, with a prospect of a further PS20 million. So, that we will be allocating shortly. That will make a difference, particularly to those institutions who are not finding it as easy to borrow from financial institutions. Some of our larger institutions have borrowed--Cardiff University issued a bond. However, there are internal governance processes that are putting tight restrictions and expectations of what that money will be invested in. But they all have plans to do it and they need the confidence that their forecasts and long-term future funding prospects are secure enough that they can get the confidence of borrowers then, and service the costs of those borrowers. Darren Millar AM: So, the Diamond dividend you've mentioned a few times. What clarity is there from the Welsh Government at the moment in terms of how much they anticipate the Diamond dividend will be, and what proportion of that is going to be released to HEIs in the future? Bethan Owen: I was very carefully not describing it as a dividend--a re-establishing of funding that we had in the past for higher cost and innovation and maintaining research funding. The timescales are difficult, because we have an annual remit letter, and we can work with Welsh Government officials, and they can only give us a sense of when they think the funding will be released. But 2018-19 is the start of the system, and because of cohort protection--so, protecting those students who came in on a different deal to the deal from 2018-19--in the early years there is an element of double cost; there's a cost of seeing out the old system and the different cost of implementing the new system. So, at the moment, we're certainly not in a position to tell the sector with any degree of certainty what funding would be beyond what we've allocated for 2018-19, with some sense of what 2019-20 numbers we're working with because we allocate our money over an academic year--so, by definition, we've already made assumptions of four months of the 2019-20 funding, albeit that's not approved yet in the budgetary process. Darren Millar AM: But you're not being given a steer at all as to what you expect the additional resource that you might have to make available to Welsh universities might be as a result of Diamond. You must have some idea. Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say that officials have been as helpful as they can be with us, in terms of the planning assumptions we make and indications about whether or not we are being too ambitious or not ambitious enough. So, I think they're being very helpful; as Bethan said, they're constrained by the process--they can't pre-empt a budget process. And you folks will be fully aware of that, of course. The other question I think you asked was how much of the money released by the new arrangements will come into higher education. At the moment, we are expecting all of it to come into higher education, as the product of the arrangement between the current Cabinet Secretary and the current First Minister. The extent to which any changes there cause that to come under threat is something I can't judge at the moment. But we have had in our remit letter from the Cabinet Secretary a clear indication that we can expect our resource to grow over the next few years, as the Diamond process unfolds. John Griffiths AM: Okay. I'm just going to bring in Llyr at this stage. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Bethan said in an earlier answer that, I think, the financial forecasting from universities forecast something pretty consistent in terms of what they're hoping to be receiving in income, for example. But we've already discussed the near 10 per cent drop, potentially, in international applications. So, does that tally, really, or are they going to be recruiting additional students from the UK market or--? What's the plan? Bethan Owen: I was reflecting on the last point when we had consistent information across the sector. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, they may need to revisit that in the light of this. Bethan Owen: I'm expecting that the forecast that we get at the end of this month will reflect the reduced applications we've seen, and an element of that will be reflected in reduced improvements as well. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, we don't really know, then, whether--it's unlikely that they are going to expect a consistent fee income, really. Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say we would expect them to respond to what they're seeing in the UCAS process. Even if they didn't, they would all, in any case, have sensitivities for what they would do if things don't come out in the way they hope. And if they didn't have that then we would be on their case, of course, because we want them to be properly sighted. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Thanks. John Griffiths AM: And we have to stick to the Brexit impact. Darren. Darren Millar AM: Can I just ask, in terms of the impact of Brexit, have you done any assessment of what you think might happen, or have any of the institutions made available to you any assessments of what they think is likely to happen to their individual institutions, going forward? You've mentioned scenarios earlier on, David, so what scenarios have you set out? Dr David Blaney: There's a Welsh Government HE Brexit working group, which is chaired by one of the Government directors, and we sit on that. And we have provided that group with early summaries of the risks and the potential impact, in terms of the exposure of the sector to EU-sourced funding. We have, as part of that working group, explored those issues that it would be really very helpful for either the Welsh Government to try to put in place or for the Welsh Government to persuade UK Government to do. And I think, in our submission, we identified a number of areas of what we would consider to be a helpful action, and that has been worked through that working group. We know that it has informed Welsh Government's position, in terms of what it does and also in terms of the conversations that they have with Her Majesty's Government. Beyond that, what we haven't done in that working group is share the work that institutions are doing individually to look at how they would respond to different scenarios. We are not able to do that here either because, inevitably, they would have varying degrees of unpalatability and they would have to be managed very, very carefully. You take cost out, which is essentially the response, you actually take people's jobs out, and all of that has to be managed carefully. So, that's not really a matter for public consideration, but we do know that the institutions are looking at a range of scenarios on what they would do. Bethan mentioned earlier on that the current deficit for the sector is a managed deficit--it's not something that has taken them by surprise. They are responding to what they see as the dip between where Diamond was reporting and where the money starts flowing. Similarly, I think we're comfortable that there is a managed approach to the scenarios that they're testing within institutions. So, they will do what they need to do to sustain themselves. The bigger issue really, in a public policy context, is the potential damage for the sector to be able to deliver for Wales in terms of research and skills development and all the other contributions. Darren Millar AM: So, you're confident that they're taking a robust approach to planning for various scenarios, going forward, are you, as individual HEIs? Dr David Blaney: Yes, and as the deal becomes more clear politically, then they will obviously have greater clarity in terms of which of these scenarios they need to work up more fully, but they are sighted on it. Darren Millar AM: Okay. Can I just ask about fee and access plans, and how Brexit might impact them? To what extent do you think that they could be impacted? Dr David Blaney: I think there are two dimensions to maybe touch upon there. Fee and access plans are approved annually by us. They are approved in advance of the recruitment cycle for the year that they apply to. So, we're just in the process now of finalising our consideration of fee and access plans for the 2019-20 academic year. So, there's quite a long lead time. We, as part of that process, go through similar--we look at their financial sustainability, which is based on their forecasts--data to the stuff we've just been discussing. And also, of course, the fee plans themselves make assumptions about how many students of different types, from different domains, are going to be recruited. So, clearly, if there is a continuing downward pressure on EU student recruitment, then that will reduce the amount of fee income that's going to come in, unless they can find other students, and that will reduce the amount of investment in the various activities that are identified in the fee plans. In terms of process, we have two things that we can do. If institutions are becoming aware that the basis upon which they've submitted a fee plan is fundamentally different from the reality, then they can come into us for a change to their fee plan. So, we have a change process. If it's not fundamentally different, but there are always differences between what you plan and what happens three years later--. We also monitor after the event and, if there are differences, we would then obviously require institutions to explain those differences. If they've had fewer students and less investment, we would need to understand that. Conversely, if they'd had more students, and potentially more investment, we'd want to know what they'd spent it on, and if they've done different things, we'd want to understand that as well. So, we do challenge through a monitoring process. The only other thing that's perhaps worth saying is that, in the 2019-20 fee and access plans--they're not published yet, so I can't give you the full detail--five universities have made reference to Brexit and the Brexit impact, and things they want to do through their fee and access plan to try and address some of those issues, so they're in there as well. Darren Millar AM: But we've already said, haven't we, that it may be nothing to do with Brexit, this dip in EU recruitment, because there are other factors like the attractiveness of the estates and the environment that young people might be educated in? But they're making assumptions that it's linked to Brexit, are they? Dr David Blaney: Not really. I think they're making assumptions that it could be. There are things they want to do to enhance and to protect student mobility, and some of that will be funded through fee plan investment. So, the Brexit conversation between the EU and the UK Government might or might not sustain Erasmus engagement, and if it doesn't, then they need to find other ways of trying to support that sort of thing. So, that's what we're beginning to see in the fee plans. It's them thinking about how else we can do this stuff. John Griffiths AM: Okay, Darren? Mark. Mark Reckless AM: You mentioned the fee and access report. What else do you do to assure yourselves that Welsh higher education institutions are effectively planning for Brexit? Bethan Owen: We've touched on contingency plans, but, in an environment of uncertainty, I think it's difficult for any of us to know what the right scenario is. I think rather than looking at worst-case scenarios, what the sector is also focusing on is the promotion and looking for additional or increased sources of funding. So, we touched on strengthening the Global Wales engagement in order to sell Wales, so more focus on marketing Wales overseas, but also within the UK. The other area where the sector is working at a UK level very hard is making the arguments to UK Government for maintaining access to the successor to Horizon 2020, which is arguably a larger part of the whole funding infrastructure--students is one part, but the whole funding infrastructure for maintaining research capacity. So, working with UK universities to make arguments at UK Government level for maintaining access to those sources of funding is also a part of what the institutions are doing. We mentioned the Welsh Government's HE Brexit group. That group, which is the Welsh Government group, is being advised by members on it, and that's informing Welsh Government officials when they engage with UK Government as well. Mark Reckless AM: Do universities seek your advice on what the risks and, indeed, opportunities of Brexit may be and what you think they should be doing to plan for them, or is your role more one of monitoring what they do as opposed to advising what they should do? Bethan Owen: They are autonomous institutions and ultimately their governing bodies are responsible for ensuring their sustainability. It's not a relationship where we would advise and direct, but it is a relationship where we would question the scenarios if we consider from our experience that we would have expected other scenarios to have been tested. It's that nature of conversation, rather than directing. Mark Reckless AM: I understand you don't direct, of course, but my question was about advising. You're overseeing, or monitoring--or whatever you like to describe the role as--quite a number of institutions, and presumably you therefore have particular expertise within your organisation, and I just wondered whether higher education institutions are doing enough to draw on that. Bethan Owen: I think we can advise--we can advise based on data and information that we can see. We can advise based on our judgment. The big thing in this whole Brexit scenario is the uncertainty and the extent to which our speculation is better informed than the governing bodies or the sector collectively is probably the issue. Dr David Blaney: I think that's right. So, there's a relationship with the sector and there's a relationship with individual institutions, and they are different. So, we have engagement collectively with the sector. Bethan meets with the finance directors, and I meet with the vice-chancellors. We actually have the sector and the funding council together on the Welsh Government's group. So, some of these conversations are happening in various ways, where we're all gaining intelligence about what might be a sensible set of planning assumptions. Then, if we see an institution that is manifestly giving signs of not being sighted on some of these risks, either through their forecast or through other assurance activity, we will challenge. We have an annual cycle, with two points in the year where we reassess the overall risks of individual institutions, and that's based on a whole range of hard data but also a range of soft data. Our links into institutions are many and varied. We have lots of conversations and we take all of that in the round and form an assessment about the financial sustainability of the institutions but also the extent to which we think their governance and management arrangements are properly sighted and facing properly the challenges that they face. In some ways, we say it's not about the challenges they face; it's about how they face the challenges. Our alarm bells really ring when we get the sense that, actually, either an executive or a governing body hasn't really noticed. We're not in that place, I'm really pleased to say. I'm not worried about short-term crisis with any of the institutions. There are medium-term real challenges, both because of Brexit and because of other contextual factors, but at the moment the sector is a managed sector, which is good. It's not always like that, but we're in, I think, a good place at the moment. So, our role is definitely to challenge where we don't think they are making sensible assessments, but it's not to say that their assessment is wrong and ours is right; it's just to have a conversation about,'Why have you done this and what has informed your thinking?'It's slightly more one step back and slightly more subtle, but it is, as you imply, us using the intelligence we gain from all of those conversations when we talk to individual institutions as well. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Llyr. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, thank you. We had evidence last week from some of the higher education institutions, including Cardiff University, and it's very interesting, in relation to Erasmus+ and the mobility funding for students that, I think, only 40 per cent of the mobility funding in Cardiff is paid for by Erasmus+. I note that you've been consulting on national measures for higher education performance and that one possibility is using international mobility as a performance indicator. I was just wondering whether you might go further and expect universities to actually make commitments to funding international mobility from their own fee incomes as part of that. Bethan Owen: Again, reflecting on the latest fee and access plans, seven of the universities are referring to mobility--either they have targets in them or are explaining what their plans are--so they are including an element of it from their own income and fee and access income. However, Erasmus is such a well-established and long-term plan--if we were looking at a scenario where that infrastructure wasn't available, to implement anything similar to that would be much less efficient and much more costly. And to enable an infrastructure that allowed--. Ideally, you'd want something that all Welsh institutions could take part in, and that takes some investment and some co-ordinating. And, equally, you need to have the arrangements with your overseas and European institutions. I think it's easy to underestimate the accumulation of time that has gone into establishing Erasmus. So, I think replacing it would be a challenge. Llyr Gruffydd AM: And the point was made clearly last week that the brand is internationally recognised. When you enter into Erasmus+, you know exactly what you're going to get, and all of that. But there have been criticisms as well about degrees of flexibility and this, that and the other, so I'm just wondering whether--and there is presumably going to be some change on that front although I'm hoping we can buy into it, as others have done who aren't in the EU--that emphasis on encouraging institutions to look more proactively at funding their own mobility efforts would be positive. Dr David Blaney: I think the-- Llyr Gruffydd AM: Sorry--especially if it means that they do more of it. Dr David Blaney: Indeed. I think the Welsh sector is definitely committed to trying to find ways of promoting and resourcing that sort of mobility. There are signs that some of the restrictive elements of the Erasmus programme are going to change anyway, because that's under development and that's positive. There have been positive noises as part of the Brexit negotiations about wanting to carry on being able to access the Erasmus programme. Nothing is agreed until it's all agreed apparently, so we'll have to see on that one. That would be far better, I think, as Bethan indicates, than trying to replace it with a made-in-Wales only, but you could have a made-in-Wales on top. All of these challenges also create opportunities because they stimulate thinking, and so the fact that seven of the eight universities are already now using their fee plans as a vehicle for thinking about this is positive, and I think we can take that on from there. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Because that 40/60 split struck me as being the opposite to what I perceived the situation to be. A key part of your role is to work in partnership with students, so I'd just like to ask what work have you done with students, in terms of maybe protecting their interests as the Brexit scenario evolves? Dr David Blaney: Well, as you say, we do work with students. We were the first of the funding councils in the UK to have a memorandum of understanding with the National Union of Students in Wales. We work very closely with them and the president of NUS is an observer on our council. So, we have close links with NUS Wales and we're very proud of that, and it's very productive. They don't have a vote, but they do have a voice and it really matters. We we're, again, ahead of the rest of the UK in requiring all HE providers to have student charters and there are elements of student protection within the student charter. The UK-wide quality code also has elements in it where arrangements have to be specified about the protection of student interests. That is particularly, in essence, around circumstances where a provider gets into difficulties and they might wish to close a course or something more drastic and then what arrangements are in place to make sure that those students who are in train are protected. So, that is there and we've worked hard with the sector and with NUS Wales to get those measures in place. There's more development work in train at the moment, so we've asked Universities Wales to construct a protection that takes account of the approach to protecting the student interests in higher education. We're also requiring further education institutions who are regulated and deliver higher education to do similar or the same, and that's very important. The students who are HE students in FE are absolutely not second-best, and they should have the same protections. Llyr Gruffydd AM: But is all this a general piece of work? It's not Brexit-specific, although, no doubt, it may--. Dr David Blaney: I think that's fair to say, yes. The other dimension around Brexit is the immigration status of EU students, and that's, kind of, beyond our pay scale--that's a UK Government issue. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Is that something that you have a view on? Dr David Blaney: It's clearly in the interest of the enrichment of the curriculum and the student experience for students in Welsh institutions to be able to have students from other EU countries in the mix. So, it would be nice to find ways of continuing to facilitate that. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Now, of course, you have a statutory duty as well to assess the academic quality of the work in our higher education institutions, and I'm just wondering what potential impacts you think that Brexit might have on that particular aspect. Dr David Blaney: I think there are possibly a couple of things to say, and one, in a sense, echoes what I was just saying in the final part of my previous response, which is that part of the quality of the student experience is the richness that you get from having students in your cohort who have different backgrounds and different perspectives. So, if there is a continuing reduction in the number of EU students coming into Welsh institutions, then that richness deteriorates. That doesn't mean to say that the base or the threshold standard of what's required for a degree will come under pressure, it's just about the richness on top of that, which will be, in a sense, a quality-enhancement issue. That would be something that we would wish to try to protect against, but in the end you can't force EU students to come--you have to try and look attractive, and we've touched on that. The baseline requirement assessment of quality will not be affected by Brexit, except in so far as the machinery we use to discharge our statutory responsibility, which is through the Quality Assurance Agency, which themselves are accredited with European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, the European machinery for higher education quality. And there's a set of standards around that, and we would obviously wish not to be in a position where our ability to use and adhere to those standards is adversely impacted upon. Those standards will still exist, and it will be possible for the British system to adhere to them, even if they're not actually able to play in the same way. Then the only other thing I would say is that one of the factors that can cause the quality of the learning and teaching experience to be likely to become inadequate is when institutions come under financial pressure, just because their capacity to maintain the same sort of student experience can get under pressure. So, clearly, we will be looking for and making sure that institutions manage the financial pressures, if there are any--and there are some at the moment, as we've described--and manage those carefully. And in all of that, we will expect institutions to do their duty to make sure that the commitments they've already made to students are carried through. So, where students have already started on the course, they need to be able to finish that course--you can't just pull the plug out. So, all of that comes into the arrangements for quality as well. So, we'll be keeping an eye on that. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. A lot of what you've told us in the last three quarters of an hour or so will have costs attached, depending on the impacts. Certainly, we're in choppy waters as a sector anyway, and the risk is that things will be even more choppy, if you'll excuse that level of political interpretation, over the years to come. I'm just wondering what advice you might have given the Welsh Government in terms of what level of transition funding, or Brexit transition funding, might be required by the sector, and if you have, what the Welsh Government might have told you. Bethan Owen: I mentioned earlier that, obviously, we've provided information in terms of the assumptions that the sector are making on income. So, for the year 2017-18, that was PS129 million. I think the extent to which that needs to be replaced or supported with transition funding depends absolutely on what the final arrangements for Brexit are, but it's an appropriate point to refer to the report that Professor Graeme Reid has produced, commissioned by Welsh Government. That was, and has, provided advice and recommendations for supporting research and innovation in the transition period. But, again, the Reid recommendations in that report build on the Diamond recommendations, and as soon as Diamond is in place--and Reid is providing recommendations in addition, to establish funding on the basis that the funding needs to be available in Wales to maintain and develop and strengthen the research and innovation infrastructure that we have. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Are you not worried, though, that the clock is ticking and that we really don't know what the situation is at this point? Dr David Blaney: Do you mean the Brexit situation? Llyr Gruffydd AM: The Brexit clock, yes. Dr David Blaney: Uncertainty is unhelpful, because as I've said several times, the sector is a managed sector at the moment. I don't think there's--. We're not seeing maverick stuff, but actually you can only manage, really, what you can see and what you can reasonably predict. So, the longer the uncertainty persists, the more difficult that is for institutional management and, indeed, for the rest of the machinery to support them. So, yes, the sooner we get clarity, the better for everybody, I imagine. Darren Millar AM: Chair, can I just ask a question? John Griffiths AM: Yes, Darren. Darren Millar AM: In terms of uncertainty, though, we've still got this uncertainty over whether the extra cash that the Government's going to have to spend as a result of Diamond being implemented is coming to the HE sector. They've given a political commitment, but you've got absolutely no other assurance of the sums of money that are coming in. We've got the reform of tertiary education arrangements in Wales, which are also under way, so it's a bit of a perfect storm for you, isn't it, really, with all of these three things happening at the same time? Dr David Blaney: We're certainly kept busy. Darren Millar AM: But two of those things are in the gift of the Welsh Government to sort out for you, aren't they? Dr David Blaney: Well, the policy on the reform of the post-compulsory sector absolutely is a Welsh Government policy. The extent to which they can pre-empt a budgetary process and give us clear sight of the amount of money in future years is--. Well, again, it's not for me to comment. My understanding is that that's difficult for them to do, and I would repeat what I said earlier: officials have been as helpful as I think they can be in respect of that. I mean, you're right, we've only got a political commitment between two people currently in post. It would be great to have that firmer. I'm not sure how that could be done. Darren Millar AM: I mean, that statement about the savings accrued from Diamond being reinvested wholly into the HE sector has not been repeated, frankly, has it, since the coalition deal was struck? Dr David Blaney: No, but it hasn't been rescinded either, so--. Darren Millar AM: No, but there have been opportunities--repeated opportunities--in the Chamber, where the Cabinet Secretary's been asked to repeat that commitment, and the First Minister's been asked to repeat that commitment and has not given that commitment. That must concern you, and must concern your university sector even more than, perhaps, some of the elements of Brexit that we're discussing. Dr David Blaney: Bethan has outlined earlier on in this session the fact that institutions are currently running deficit budgets in order not to lose the infrastructure on the assumption that the Diamond money will come in. If anything were to cause significant perturbation, either to the timeline of that or to it coming in at all, then there would be much more of what Medwin Hughes calls'houskeeping'that would be required, and that would be significant. So, at the moment--I don't like the expression'valley of death', but there is a valley to cross, and I think the sector is reasonably confident about how wide and how deep that valley is. There's a demographic valley as well. So, there are several valleys that they're crossing--the metaphor fails, doesn't it, really, but I think you get the drift? So, there are a number of challenges and they can see their way out of some of those challenges, but if any one of these starts to get significantly disrupted, then that would be a real issue for them. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I go on to ask about other barriers to Welsh universities gaining more funding from UK research councils? What would you say those barriers are? Dr David Blaney: Well, I think there are a couple of things, really, to say. The first one--and we'll sound like a stuck record if we're not careful--is that there's an issue about investment and the Reid report makes this very clear. So, he has reaffirmed research that had been done previously that identifies that, actually, the quality of the research base in Welsh universities and the productivity of that Welsh research base are both good, there's just not enough of them, and that, in the end, is a product of investment decisions. They have particularly looked at the deficit in science, technology, engineering and mathematics areas, and I always say that research is not just STEM. I mean, STEM is important, and I'm not denying the deficit in that area, but we have to also remember that the research agenda for Wales is not just STEM--it's arts, humanities, it's social sciences. If you look at the impact on public policy that could come from social science research--tremendous. And we're very good at it in Wales. The Welsh impact in its research is better than anywhere else in the UK, so that's good. So, they do very well, and we just really need to invest a little bit further--so continue to do very well, but put it on a broader front. If you want to be able to play into the UK-wide research funding, then the investment has two dimensions to it. One is just having enough researchers to be able to play into those increasingly larger projects rather than small-scale projects. If you haven't got the critical mass, it's very hard to make the case that you can play. And the second thing is that UK-wide research pots nearly always fund at about 80 per cent of the total cost of the research, and the other 20 per cent is meant to be found from the core research funding for the university, and if you're in a situation where your core research funding is not competitive, then you're not going to be competitive at getting that money. So, that's, kind of, straightforward. There are other things. I think it's fair to say that the Welsh sector has not been sufficiently focused on getting in on the conversations with the research councils, making sure they're in the various committees and so on. We are intending to do a bit of work to see if we can systematise that a bit better--that engagement--because there's no doubt about it: it's not to say that this system is in any way inappropriate, but the more you're in the conversations, the more likely you are to be better placed to respond to the research challenges that come up. John Griffiths AM: Okay. One final question: in terms of the researcher collaborations and networks that exist, do you see potential difficulties after Brexit for the continuation and enhancement of those, and are there any particular lessons to learn from Ser Cymru II? Dr David Blaney: I think that there are two things to say here as well. First of all, the Brexit deal might or might not impact adversely on the capacity of Welsh and, indeed, UK research infrastructure to play into broader collaborative activity across Europe, and, in a sense, that's a function of the deal whatever the deal looks like, and we'll have to wait and see. But we've mentioned playing into Horizon Europe, and being able to continue with that would be an important part of that capacity. It's not just the money, it's being in the club and it's the signalling that we're in the game. So, all of that would be important. And then the other part of my response to this would be that, actually, Wales will need to continue to be good at the research it does, so maintaining the quality, maintaining the impact, and hopefully growing the critical mass. The Ser Cymru initiative has been quite important in doing that, because it's been very focused, capturing key research players, and the attractiveness that that has then to other researchers around them, and to industry collaboration, and they have been areas of real strength that we've invested in. And I think they are already showing dividends in terms of the capacity to win more research funding, and to establish an even stronger presence in the international research market. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Just one further point, from Darren. Darren Millar AM: Just very briefly, one of the pieces of feedback that the committee members received at a stakeholder engagement event, which took place prior to this inquiry starting, to receive oral evidence, was about the research funding that is available from the charitable sector, and how poorly Wales does in attracting some of that research. I think we had some figures from the British Heart Foundation, which said they have PS100 million a year available for research grants, or something like that, and we're getting 1 per cent of that coming into Wales, which is obviously pretty low down. I appreciate that research into the type of activity that they want to put their money into, Wales may not be particularly good at, and there may be other opportunities with other charities and partnerships. What work are you doing in order to build the capacity that Wales has to attract more of that charitable sector research funding into Wales? Bethan Owen: One of the issues is the capacity to engage with that funding, because of the overhead issue that David mentioned. Charitable funding at the moment doesn't attract any overhead funding. Again, that could be built in to our funding, if we had the capacity to increase our quality-related research funding. There is an element in England. Darren Millar AM: But that pressure's the same in other parts of the UK, is it not? So the overhead funding is still an issue in England, and in other places. Bethan Owen: There is an increased contribution, and I think it's an element that was increased this year to acknowledge that. But there will be differentiation between different charities. I'm fairly certain that some of our institutions will be very strong with the cancer charities, possibly not the heart foundation. And some of that will reflect on focusing on our strengths, but to have that fuller picture. Darren Millar AM: So, this gearing issue that you mentioned earlier on, for every PS1 that somebody else puts on the table, they can draw in another PS4 on top, because that PS1 will cover the overheads, whereas the rest of the research cash--. Dr David Blaney: That's exactly it. So, the more you're able to invest--. You know, we sometimes get into a conversation about the unhypothecated nature of our research funding, but actually that creates a flexibility and the infrastructure investment that allows institutions to be able to respond to these other opportunities. Without that, they can't do it, because if you're not careful, you've got institutions engaging in UK-wide or charity-based research activities where they're actually having to pay for it themselves--they're running at a loss. Darren Millar AM: So that's the main problem; it's not that Welsh universities aren't doing their best to get this cash in. Or is it a bit of both? Dr David Blaney: I think, in the main, universities and researchers will get their cash from wherever they can, so I don't think it's a lack of appetite. Darren Millar AM: Okay. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Well, thank you, both, for coming in to give evidence to the committee this morning. You will be sent a draft of the transcript, to check for accuracy. Diolch yn fawr. Okay then, the next item is item 3, papers to note, the first of which is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education on the school organisation code. The second is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill. Paper to note 3 is a letter from the Chair of the Finance Committee regarding scrutiny of the Welsh Government's draft budget for the forthcoming financial year, which we will be discussing under item 6 on the agenda. Paper to note 4 is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on parental attitudes towards managing young children's behaviour. And the final paper to note, paper to note 5, is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the children and family delivery grant, which we will discuss later on in private session, if Members are content. Okay. Are you content to note those papers on that basis? Okay. Thanks very much. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17. 42 to exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting, and also for items 1 and 2 of the 20 September meeting. Is the committee content? Yes. Thank you very much. We will move then into private session.

According to Mr. Blaney, there are two dimensions. Fee and access plans are approved annually by Mr. Blaney's group. They go through their financial sustainability, which is based on their forecasts and data. And also, the fee plans themselves make assumptions about how many students of different types are going to be recruited. Unless the institutions can find other students, and they will reduce the amount of investment in the various activities that are identified in the fee plans.

tr-sq-673

tr-sq-673_0

Other than fee and access reports, what else do executives do to assure that Welsh higher education institutions are effectively planning for Brexit? Gareth Rogers: Good morning, and welcome to today's meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. Unfortunately, the Chair is unable to attend today, so in accordance with Standing Order 17. 22 I call for nominations for a temporary Chair for the duration of today's meeting. Julie Morgan AM: I nominate John Griffiths. Gareth Rogers: Thank you. Darren Millar AM: I'll second that nomination. Gareth Rogers: As there's only one nomination, I declare that John Griffiths has been appointed as temporary Chair. Thank you, John. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Thank you all very much, and item 1 on our agenda today is introductions, apologies, substitutions and declarations of interest. We've received apologies from Hefin David and Lynne Neagle. There are no substitutions. Are there any declarations of interest? No. We will move on then to item 2, and our inquiry into the impact of Brexit on higher and further education, and our first evidence session. I'm very pleased to welcome the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales here today, and Dr David Blaney as chief executive, and Bethan Owen, director of institutional engagement. Welcome to you both. Thanks for coming along to give evidence today. If it's okay with you, we'll move straight to questions, and Julie Morgan. Julie Morgan AM: Good morning. Bore da. I wondered if we could start off with you telling us what evidence you can see that the Brexit process has had any impact on Welsh higher education so far. Dr David Blaney: Can I preface the response by just reminding you that we are, by contract and by role, apolitical, and a lot of the judgments about the impact of Brexit essentially reflect where people sit politically in terms of whether they think it's a good thing or a bad thing? We're not going to go there, obviously, today, so we'll stick to the facts as we can see them, and hopefully we'll be able to help you, but there are areas where we are unable to help. That's part of the reason. John Griffiths AM: We certainly do not expect you to enter the political fray in any way. Dr David Blaney: Thank you. But even in terms of your assessment of whether this is going to be a good thing or a bad thing, a good impact or a bad impact, some of that inevitably in the end becomes a matter of your politics on it, so we will be as careful as we can be on that. In terms of the impact of Brexit on higher education, clearly, the significance here is about the contribution that higher education can make to Wales. So, we fund provision; we don't fund providers, technically, although obviously there's not much provision without providers. So, we are interested in the sustainability of higher education providers, but fundamentally the issue is: what does the HE system in Wales do for Wales, and what impact might Brexit have on the capacity of the system to continue to deliver for Wales? So, we know that universities make annually about PS5 billion of impact; 50,000 jobs. Of course, in Wales, all of that economic impact is really very significant, and uncertainty about the relationships and the arrangements with Europe is one of the most significant issues confronting university management at the moment. That has an impact in a number of ways. We can identify at the moment the extent to which the HE sector in Wales is exposed to sources of income that are located from the EU, so EU students, structural funds, and EU research funding, and so on, from the EU. We can identify some of that, but, actually, what happens in the future is much harder to be clear about. We are beginning to see some impact in terms of applications from EU students and I'll ask Bethan to share some details on that in a moment. We're also beginning to pick up, only anecdotally, some signs that there are increasing difficulties in the UK sector, and the Welsh sector as part of that, in playing in some of the EU collaborative research activities. And that, I think, just reflects the extent to which EU partners consider that British partners might be a stable partner as we go through this transition period. We don't have data on that--that's anecdotal--but there are signs that some of those relationships are beginning to become a little bit more difficult. In terms of the financial impact of that, clearly, if it is accepted that the UK is a net contributor to the EU then, presumably, some of the money--we're almost immediately straight into politics if you're not careful--but some of the money will be available back to the UK, and the extent to which Wales benefits or not from that returned money is a function of the political relationship between the Welsh Government and Her Majesty's Government. It's not necessarily the case that Wales will always lose out in that relationship, but that will become a matter of politics. There's a broader dimension, which is about the economic impact of Brexit on the UK economy and how much tax revenue there is and all of that. I think it's very hard for us to be definitive about how that's going to play out. I think that depends on the deal and how it all unfolds over the next several years. But we can certainly anticipate some turbulence and exactly how that plays for institutions remains to be seen. We can touch later on on the extent to which they are sighted on this and preparing for it. So, in terms of recruitment, Bethan. Bethan Owen: This is based on the UCAS applications and the report that was published at the end of June, 30 June. The European Union-domiciled applicants to Wales have decreased by 8 per cent, which contrasts with a 2 per cent increase for English institutions, and non-EU--so international students, not from Europe--have also decreased by 9 per cent to Welsh institutions, again contrasting with a 7 per cent increase in England. So, those are the signs of changes. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I then just ask you what you see as the main pressures on the Welsh higher education sector at the moment? Bethan Owen: The funding position would be the main pressure. The recommendations made by Sir Ian Diamond in his review of higher education funding and student finance are in the process of being implemented, and the changes to the student finance arrangements will take effect from this September. However, the recommendations for re-establishing funding at Welsh institutions are expected to take quite a bit longer. That funding, when it returns to institutions, is intended to re-establish funding for higher cost provision, both full time and part time; reinstate funding for innovation; and maintain, at the very least, the research funding in real terms. Universities, in the meantime, are trying to minimise the cost reductions that they're making in order to maintain the infrastructure, so that when the funding comes they can get the best value out of it. We have announced our funding allocations for 2018-19. For the research and teaching grant, though, we are still funding at a lower level--PS12. 5 million less--then the starting point for the Diamond report, the 2015-16 starting report. But we expect to be able to start introducing funding from 2019-20 to make a start on implementing Diamond. And it's probably important to note that the Diamond recommendations predated Brexit, therefore the challenges introduced by Brexit are in addition to those that the Diamond report was addressing. The other pressures relate to student recruitment. I mentioned the EU and international students. There is also the start of a reduction, both in Welsh-domiciled and English-domiciled applications to Wales. Enrolments are obviously the key important number, which we'll see later. And the other pressures include pay and pension costs, not least the issues around the universities superannuation scheme pension fund, where there's potentially a significant increase in cost. Increased student expectations for modern facilities and infrastructure bring a requirement for capital expenditure and borrowing, which bring their own pressures. And finally, the uncertainty about potential consequences that could arise from the review in England of fees and funding--the Augar review. John Griffiths AM: In terms of European Union students and enrolment, is Wales forecast to do less well than England and, if so, why might that be? Bethan Owen: They are not forecasting it. It's very difficult until the enrolments are made, and it's also very hard to see--the data that we see is the UCAS data. Institutions also recruit directly, so until we see the actual recruitment--. I think the arrangements that have changed from 2018-19 also impact on EU students. So, now, they have to find the full fee, whereas previously they were getting the grant in the same way as Welsh students. So, I'm speculating that that might be having an impact as well on EU students'appetite to come. John Griffiths AM: Okay. First of all Llyr, then Mark. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, that's straight into what I was going to ask, really, about what you think the factors are that led to this 8 per cent or 9 per cent drop in EU students applying to study in Wales, where we see a 2 per cent increase in England. Is that it, or are there other things that you've taken into account? What's your assessment of the reasons behind this? Dr David Blaney: It's very difficult to be definitive about the reasons, but I think there are probably two. The one that Bethan has already indicated, which is the change in student support arrangements for EU students, will have an effect of perturbation. That's probably relatively temporary--let's hope it is--as that settles down because, actually, the deal for EU students coming into Wales is no worse than that coming into England. Ours would be better because the fee level is slightly lower, but we do struggle in Wales in terms of the Anglocentric nature of the media and so on. So, getting the messages out is a challenge. The other dimension is that when you're in a highly competitive recruitment market, you have to do what you can to look attractive. Part of that is about being able to invest in facilities, and particularly buildings and kit, and the relative levels of investment between Wales and England over quite a long period of time now probably have an impact on that. Certainly, anecdotally I know, from my own family, that a lot of the choices have been made in terms of the state of repair of campuses and so on. There's something rational about that, isn't there? If you've got a system that is relatively better invested, then you're likely to have a better student experience because the resources are likely to be better. So, that's not irrational. We saw a sort of similar but opposite effect when the PS9,000 fee maximum limit came in, and some institutions, mostly in England--there was one in Wales--chose to pitch their fee levels really quite low, relative to that PS9,000, and caught a cold in the student recruitment market because fee levels denote quality in the student mind. So, the price sensitivities work quite differently. So, again, if you've got a relatively better invested part of the system, then that might well be one of the reasons why it looks more attractive. Llyr Gruffydd AM: That latter factor would affect the whole of the cohort, not just the international recruitment, of course. Dr David Blaney: Indeed. Yes, indeed. The implementation of the Diamond recommendations is crucial to that because that's re-balancing where the policy of investment goes. John Griffiths AM: Okay. And Mark. Mark Reckless AM: If I heard you correctly earlier, you said that the applications from non-EU students were also down by 8 per cent or 9 per cent. So, forgive me a certain scepticism about the explanation of the fall in the EU students being that they did get the fee grant and now they do not. If that's the explanation, why are we seeing the same fall in non-EU applications? Dr David Blaney: Well, I think the Welsh domiciled are also now having to face the prospect of finding a loan for the whole of the fee. So, that would potentially account for that. There's also a demographic dimension here with the downturn in the 18-year-old school-leaver profile, and that actually is happening in Wales at a slightly later point than in England. Mark Reckless AM: But this is non-EU students, and I think you said, Bethan, an 8 per cent or 9 per cent fall in them as well. Dr David Blaney: International non-EU. I beg your pardon. I misunderstood. Bethan Owen: There's also a mix effect. I gave a number that was for all English institutions that there will be differential impacts on. Mark Reckless AM: All English or all Welsh? Bethan Owen: Well, I contrasted the Welsh position with the English position where they were seeing growth. If you look, then--and we don't have the detailed information, but, again, what UCAS publish is some analysis by tariff. They analyse by type of institution--in other words, the grades that you need to get into institutions--and there is a trend for growth being in the higher tariff institutions. So, there's a mix effect in there as well, and I think there's undoubtedly an element of perception of how welcome overseas and international students are, and that's something that we know the sector are working on with Government. Mark Reckless AM: Why would that affect Wales more than England? Do you think there's been perhaps too great a negativity about Brexit in the sector? Bethan Owen: I think it's the mix of institutions that we have. So, we only have sector information published at the moment. When we look at the mix of institutions that we have, we will probably see a differential impact between Cardiff University and others. John Griffiths AM: Okay, Mark? Sorry, David, did you want to add anything? Dr David Blaney: I was just going to say that we would expect to see quite differential performance in the English sector, so the overall numbers are being brought up by substantial increased performance with some of that sector, and it's a question of how many of that type of institution you have in Wales. Mark Reckless AM: So, performance is increasing amongst the English universities, but not amongst the Welsh, you think. Dr David Blaney: I think performance is increasing, but increasing substantially with some of the English sector, not all of it. So, you get an average for the sector that is increased performance, but actually the stronger players within that sector, with the stronger international profiles, are bringing that up, and we have fewer in Wales that have that sort of presence. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Darren. Darren Millar AM: Would it be fair to say, then, that the universities over the border in England are better at selling themselves internationally than our Welsh institutions? Or is it just this fact that we've got fewer very high tariff universities versus the English market? Dr David Blaney: I suspect, and this is speculation--I suspect that it's a bit of both. I think some of it is to do with the mix of different types of institution. I would then come back to the point I was making about the Anglocentric nature of the UK media. If you're looking overseas, I think Wales has to work harder to penetrate the consciousness. Darren Millar AM: But, forgive me, don't international students just look at the UK as a whole? How are we comparing to Scotland, for example, or Northern Ireland, in terms of their universities? Do you have a comparative figure for Scottish universities? Bethan Owen: I haven't got that one with me for now, but there will be one in the data. Dr David Blaney: Yes, we could get that. Bethan Owen: Again, it's a combination of being part of the UK but differentiating, and the ability to differentiate the strengths of Wales, so attracting those students to Wales specifically, on top of the UK draw. Dr David Blaney: So, in terms of the efforts that have been made, there's a programme now that is being run by the sector in Wales--it's'Study in Wales'. It's relatively recent; you could argue that we could have got there earlier. But that is a determined collective effort to present Wales as a good place to study, with particular messages about what distinguishes studying in Wales from studying more broadly in the UK. In a sense, that is responding to the need to increase the presence of Wales in an international market. So, that sort of initiative I think is very good, very welcome. It will take a while to actually have an impact, but I think that's exactly the sort of work the sector need to be doing more of. Mark Reckless AM: What are those messages on why prospective students should study in Wales? Dr David Blaney: One of them in particular is relative safety. We know that one of the considerations, particularly for parents of overseas students, is are they going to go to a safe environment, and we know that the perception of international students who study in Wales is that this is a comfortable and safe place to be. That's partly a function of the size of our larger cities--quite a lot smaller than many of the cities in England. So, that's a key message. Being part of a UK system is also an important message there as well. So, we've got a UK-quality system, a UK degree, and the strength of that brand is available in Wales, but it's available in a way that is safer and more supportive, I think is the messaging that's coming through. John Griffiths AM: Okay. We'd better move on, I think, hadn't we? Darren, then. Darren Millar AM: I just wonder to what extent you have been able to plan in your financial forecasts for the next few years ahead for the potential impacts of Brexit. What have you built in, if anything? Bethan Owen: In terms of our funding, we receive our funding annually, but the sector provides us with financial forecasts, and we use those for monitoring sustainability. So, the last full forecasts that we had were in July 2017. We are due to receive a full forecast at the end of this month, and we obviously have updated information from institutions. Darren Millar AM: And they're three-year forecasts that come through to you, aren't they? Bethan Owen: They are four plus the current year. So, we've got numbers to 2019-20 at the moment, and expect to go to 2020-21. Darren Millar AM: And what are the universities expecting? What do they anticipate? Bethan Owen: Well, for 2017-18, which is the year we're about to end now, they were expecting PS38 million income from European students, and approximately PS91 million from the various European programme funding sources, and that's about 8 per cent of the total income--PS1. 5 billion--of the sector. The forecasts are assuming that that continues, albeit that institutions have various scenarios that they have for all sorts of scenarios that we can all speculate on, and, as I mentioned earlier, the balancing act of maintaining infrastructure and resources and staff in the short term is where we are at the moment, or where the sector is at the moment. And there are also signs that the banks and lending institutions are becoming a bit more risk-averse in providing borrowing to institutions, and of more differentiation between individual institutions being made than has possibly been the case in the past. The sector made an operating deficit, again looking at all Welsh institutions collectively last year, 2016-17, of PS17 million. That's before other gains and losses. And we're expecting a similar collective level of deficit for this financial year, if not slightly higher. Now, these are managed deficits and we are not currently seeing critical short-term cash availability issues in the sector. However, the increase in funding from Diamond is a key part of enabling the sector to return to longer-term financial sustainability. Short-term challenges can be met if there's a reasonable prospect of future funding. You can manage in the short-term, but there comes a point when the big cost reductions and infrastructure reductions have to be made. And, again, having mentioned the pressures on pay, pensions and other challenges, it is difficult to gauge whether, if those factors come into play as well, some of these cost reductions may have to be made before funding comes in to replace--either Diamond funding or the European replacement funding. Darren Millar AM: So, would it be fair to say that, in terms of the funding arrangements, and, in terms of the student numbers, one reason why we've got this recruitment problem is this lack of investment in the capital infrastructure that we've seen in recent years because of the financing arrangements from the Welsh Government, and the fee regime that we had previously, and the student finance regime that we had previously, not getting more cash into our Welsh universities perhaps, and that, over the next few years, there's going to have to be much more significant investment in capital if we're to raise the game and be more competitive, yes? Bethan Owen: Yes, that would be fair to say. Darren Millar AM: So, to what extent are they planning for more capital investment in those financial strategies that they've been preparing and presenting to you? Bethan Owen: They are all planning for capital investment. They are in different positions in terms of capacity to borrow and the assumptions. This year, 2018-19, is the first time that we've had capital funding in our remit letter--so, we've got PS10 million of capital funding, which is very welcome, with a prospect of a further PS20 million. So, that we will be allocating shortly. That will make a difference, particularly to those institutions who are not finding it as easy to borrow from financial institutions. Some of our larger institutions have borrowed--Cardiff University issued a bond. However, there are internal governance processes that are putting tight restrictions and expectations of what that money will be invested in. But they all have plans to do it and they need the confidence that their forecasts and long-term future funding prospects are secure enough that they can get the confidence of borrowers then, and service the costs of those borrowers. Darren Millar AM: So, the Diamond dividend you've mentioned a few times. What clarity is there from the Welsh Government at the moment in terms of how much they anticipate the Diamond dividend will be, and what proportion of that is going to be released to HEIs in the future? Bethan Owen: I was very carefully not describing it as a dividend--a re-establishing of funding that we had in the past for higher cost and innovation and maintaining research funding. The timescales are difficult, because we have an annual remit letter, and we can work with Welsh Government officials, and they can only give us a sense of when they think the funding will be released. But 2018-19 is the start of the system, and because of cohort protection--so, protecting those students who came in on a different deal to the deal from 2018-19--in the early years there is an element of double cost; there's a cost of seeing out the old system and the different cost of implementing the new system. So, at the moment, we're certainly not in a position to tell the sector with any degree of certainty what funding would be beyond what we've allocated for 2018-19, with some sense of what 2019-20 numbers we're working with because we allocate our money over an academic year--so, by definition, we've already made assumptions of four months of the 2019-20 funding, albeit that's not approved yet in the budgetary process. Darren Millar AM: But you're not being given a steer at all as to what you expect the additional resource that you might have to make available to Welsh universities might be as a result of Diamond. You must have some idea. Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say that officials have been as helpful as they can be with us, in terms of the planning assumptions we make and indications about whether or not we are being too ambitious or not ambitious enough. So, I think they're being very helpful; as Bethan said, they're constrained by the process--they can't pre-empt a budget process. And you folks will be fully aware of that, of course. The other question I think you asked was how much of the money released by the new arrangements will come into higher education. At the moment, we are expecting all of it to come into higher education, as the product of the arrangement between the current Cabinet Secretary and the current First Minister. The extent to which any changes there cause that to come under threat is something I can't judge at the moment. But we have had in our remit letter from the Cabinet Secretary a clear indication that we can expect our resource to grow over the next few years, as the Diamond process unfolds. John Griffiths AM: Okay. I'm just going to bring in Llyr at this stage. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Bethan said in an earlier answer that, I think, the financial forecasting from universities forecast something pretty consistent in terms of what they're hoping to be receiving in income, for example. But we've already discussed the near 10 per cent drop, potentially, in international applications. So, does that tally, really, or are they going to be recruiting additional students from the UK market or--? What's the plan? Bethan Owen: I was reflecting on the last point when we had consistent information across the sector. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, they may need to revisit that in the light of this. Bethan Owen: I'm expecting that the forecast that we get at the end of this month will reflect the reduced applications we've seen, and an element of that will be reflected in reduced improvements as well. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, we don't really know, then, whether--it's unlikely that they are going to expect a consistent fee income, really. Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say we would expect them to respond to what they're seeing in the UCAS process. Even if they didn't, they would all, in any case, have sensitivities for what they would do if things don't come out in the way they hope. And if they didn't have that then we would be on their case, of course, because we want them to be properly sighted. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Thanks. John Griffiths AM: And we have to stick to the Brexit impact. Darren. Darren Millar AM: Can I just ask, in terms of the impact of Brexit, have you done any assessment of what you think might happen, or have any of the institutions made available to you any assessments of what they think is likely to happen to their individual institutions, going forward? You've mentioned scenarios earlier on, David, so what scenarios have you set out? Dr David Blaney: There's a Welsh Government HE Brexit working group, which is chaired by one of the Government directors, and we sit on that. And we have provided that group with early summaries of the risks and the potential impact, in terms of the exposure of the sector to EU-sourced funding. We have, as part of that working group, explored those issues that it would be really very helpful for either the Welsh Government to try to put in place or for the Welsh Government to persuade UK Government to do. And I think, in our submission, we identified a number of areas of what we would consider to be a helpful action, and that has been worked through that working group. We know that it has informed Welsh Government's position, in terms of what it does and also in terms of the conversations that they have with Her Majesty's Government. Beyond that, what we haven't done in that working group is share the work that institutions are doing individually to look at how they would respond to different scenarios. We are not able to do that here either because, inevitably, they would have varying degrees of unpalatability and they would have to be managed very, very carefully. You take cost out, which is essentially the response, you actually take people's jobs out, and all of that has to be managed carefully. So, that's not really a matter for public consideration, but we do know that the institutions are looking at a range of scenarios on what they would do. Bethan mentioned earlier on that the current deficit for the sector is a managed deficit--it's not something that has taken them by surprise. They are responding to what they see as the dip between where Diamond was reporting and where the money starts flowing. Similarly, I think we're comfortable that there is a managed approach to the scenarios that they're testing within institutions. So, they will do what they need to do to sustain themselves. The bigger issue really, in a public policy context, is the potential damage for the sector to be able to deliver for Wales in terms of research and skills development and all the other contributions. Darren Millar AM: So, you're confident that they're taking a robust approach to planning for various scenarios, going forward, are you, as individual HEIs? Dr David Blaney: Yes, and as the deal becomes more clear politically, then they will obviously have greater clarity in terms of which of these scenarios they need to work up more fully, but they are sighted on it. Darren Millar AM: Okay. Can I just ask about fee and access plans, and how Brexit might impact them? To what extent do you think that they could be impacted? Dr David Blaney: I think there are two dimensions to maybe touch upon there. Fee and access plans are approved annually by us. They are approved in advance of the recruitment cycle for the year that they apply to. So, we're just in the process now of finalising our consideration of fee and access plans for the 2019-20 academic year. So, there's quite a long lead time. We, as part of that process, go through similar--we look at their financial sustainability, which is based on their forecasts--data to the stuff we've just been discussing. And also, of course, the fee plans themselves make assumptions about how many students of different types, from different domains, are going to be recruited. So, clearly, if there is a continuing downward pressure on EU student recruitment, then that will reduce the amount of fee income that's going to come in, unless they can find other students, and that will reduce the amount of investment in the various activities that are identified in the fee plans. In terms of process, we have two things that we can do. If institutions are becoming aware that the basis upon which they've submitted a fee plan is fundamentally different from the reality, then they can come into us for a change to their fee plan. So, we have a change process. If it's not fundamentally different, but there are always differences between what you plan and what happens three years later--. We also monitor after the event and, if there are differences, we would then obviously require institutions to explain those differences. If they've had fewer students and less investment, we would need to understand that. Conversely, if they'd had more students, and potentially more investment, we'd want to know what they'd spent it on, and if they've done different things, we'd want to understand that as well. So, we do challenge through a monitoring process. The only other thing that's perhaps worth saying is that, in the 2019-20 fee and access plans--they're not published yet, so I can't give you the full detail--five universities have made reference to Brexit and the Brexit impact, and things they want to do through their fee and access plan to try and address some of those issues, so they're in there as well. Darren Millar AM: But we've already said, haven't we, that it may be nothing to do with Brexit, this dip in EU recruitment, because there are other factors like the attractiveness of the estates and the environment that young people might be educated in? But they're making assumptions that it's linked to Brexit, are they? Dr David Blaney: Not really. I think they're making assumptions that it could be. There are things they want to do to enhance and to protect student mobility, and some of that will be funded through fee plan investment. So, the Brexit conversation between the EU and the UK Government might or might not sustain Erasmus engagement, and if it doesn't, then they need to find other ways of trying to support that sort of thing. So, that's what we're beginning to see in the fee plans. It's them thinking about how else we can do this stuff. John Griffiths AM: Okay, Darren? Mark. Mark Reckless AM: You mentioned the fee and access report. What else do you do to assure yourselves that Welsh higher education institutions are effectively planning for Brexit? Bethan Owen: We've touched on contingency plans, but, in an environment of uncertainty, I think it's difficult for any of us to know what the right scenario is. I think rather than looking at worst-case scenarios, what the sector is also focusing on is the promotion and looking for additional or increased sources of funding. So, we touched on strengthening the Global Wales engagement in order to sell Wales, so more focus on marketing Wales overseas, but also within the UK. The other area where the sector is working at a UK level very hard is making the arguments to UK Government for maintaining access to the successor to Horizon 2020, which is arguably a larger part of the whole funding infrastructure--students is one part, but the whole funding infrastructure for maintaining research capacity. So, working with UK universities to make arguments at UK Government level for maintaining access to those sources of funding is also a part of what the institutions are doing. We mentioned the Welsh Government's HE Brexit group. That group, which is the Welsh Government group, is being advised by members on it, and that's informing Welsh Government officials when they engage with UK Government as well. Mark Reckless AM: Do universities seek your advice on what the risks and, indeed, opportunities of Brexit may be and what you think they should be doing to plan for them, or is your role more one of monitoring what they do as opposed to advising what they should do? Bethan Owen: They are autonomous institutions and ultimately their governing bodies are responsible for ensuring their sustainability. It's not a relationship where we would advise and direct, but it is a relationship where we would question the scenarios if we consider from our experience that we would have expected other scenarios to have been tested. It's that nature of conversation, rather than directing. Mark Reckless AM: I understand you don't direct, of course, but my question was about advising. You're overseeing, or monitoring--or whatever you like to describe the role as--quite a number of institutions, and presumably you therefore have particular expertise within your organisation, and I just wondered whether higher education institutions are doing enough to draw on that. Bethan Owen: I think we can advise--we can advise based on data and information that we can see. We can advise based on our judgment. The big thing in this whole Brexit scenario is the uncertainty and the extent to which our speculation is better informed than the governing bodies or the sector collectively is probably the issue. Dr David Blaney: I think that's right. So, there's a relationship with the sector and there's a relationship with individual institutions, and they are different. So, we have engagement collectively with the sector. Bethan meets with the finance directors, and I meet with the vice-chancellors. We actually have the sector and the funding council together on the Welsh Government's group. So, some of these conversations are happening in various ways, where we're all gaining intelligence about what might be a sensible set of planning assumptions. Then, if we see an institution that is manifestly giving signs of not being sighted on some of these risks, either through their forecast or through other assurance activity, we will challenge. We have an annual cycle, with two points in the year where we reassess the overall risks of individual institutions, and that's based on a whole range of hard data but also a range of soft data. Our links into institutions are many and varied. We have lots of conversations and we take all of that in the round and form an assessment about the financial sustainability of the institutions but also the extent to which we think their governance and management arrangements are properly sighted and facing properly the challenges that they face. In some ways, we say it's not about the challenges they face; it's about how they face the challenges. Our alarm bells really ring when we get the sense that, actually, either an executive or a governing body hasn't really noticed. We're not in that place, I'm really pleased to say. I'm not worried about short-term crisis with any of the institutions. There are medium-term real challenges, both because of Brexit and because of other contextual factors, but at the moment the sector is a managed sector, which is good. It's not always like that, but we're in, I think, a good place at the moment. So, our role is definitely to challenge where we don't think they are making sensible assessments, but it's not to say that their assessment is wrong and ours is right; it's just to have a conversation about,'Why have you done this and what has informed your thinking?'It's slightly more one step back and slightly more subtle, but it is, as you imply, us using the intelligence we gain from all of those conversations when we talk to individual institutions as well. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Llyr. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, thank you. We had evidence last week from some of the higher education institutions, including Cardiff University, and it's very interesting, in relation to Erasmus+ and the mobility funding for students that, I think, only 40 per cent of the mobility funding in Cardiff is paid for by Erasmus+. I note that you've been consulting on national measures for higher education performance and that one possibility is using international mobility as a performance indicator. I was just wondering whether you might go further and expect universities to actually make commitments to funding international mobility from their own fee incomes as part of that. Bethan Owen: Again, reflecting on the latest fee and access plans, seven of the universities are referring to mobility--either they have targets in them or are explaining what their plans are--so they are including an element of it from their own income and fee and access income. However, Erasmus is such a well-established and long-term plan--if we were looking at a scenario where that infrastructure wasn't available, to implement anything similar to that would be much less efficient and much more costly. And to enable an infrastructure that allowed--. Ideally, you'd want something that all Welsh institutions could take part in, and that takes some investment and some co-ordinating. And, equally, you need to have the arrangements with your overseas and European institutions. I think it's easy to underestimate the accumulation of time that has gone into establishing Erasmus. So, I think replacing it would be a challenge. Llyr Gruffydd AM: And the point was made clearly last week that the brand is internationally recognised. When you enter into Erasmus+, you know exactly what you're going to get, and all of that. But there have been criticisms as well about degrees of flexibility and this, that and the other, so I'm just wondering whether--and there is presumably going to be some change on that front although I'm hoping we can buy into it, as others have done who aren't in the EU--that emphasis on encouraging institutions to look more proactively at funding their own mobility efforts would be positive. Dr David Blaney: I think the-- Llyr Gruffydd AM: Sorry--especially if it means that they do more of it. Dr David Blaney: Indeed. I think the Welsh sector is definitely committed to trying to find ways of promoting and resourcing that sort of mobility. There are signs that some of the restrictive elements of the Erasmus programme are going to change anyway, because that's under development and that's positive. There have been positive noises as part of the Brexit negotiations about wanting to carry on being able to access the Erasmus programme. Nothing is agreed until it's all agreed apparently, so we'll have to see on that one. That would be far better, I think, as Bethan indicates, than trying to replace it with a made-in-Wales only, but you could have a made-in-Wales on top. All of these challenges also create opportunities because they stimulate thinking, and so the fact that seven of the eight universities are already now using their fee plans as a vehicle for thinking about this is positive, and I think we can take that on from there. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Because that 40/60 split struck me as being the opposite to what I perceived the situation to be. A key part of your role is to work in partnership with students, so I'd just like to ask what work have you done with students, in terms of maybe protecting their interests as the Brexit scenario evolves? Dr David Blaney: Well, as you say, we do work with students. We were the first of the funding councils in the UK to have a memorandum of understanding with the National Union of Students in Wales. We work very closely with them and the president of NUS is an observer on our council. So, we have close links with NUS Wales and we're very proud of that, and it's very productive. They don't have a vote, but they do have a voice and it really matters. We we're, again, ahead of the rest of the UK in requiring all HE providers to have student charters and there are elements of student protection within the student charter. The UK-wide quality code also has elements in it where arrangements have to be specified about the protection of student interests. That is particularly, in essence, around circumstances where a provider gets into difficulties and they might wish to close a course or something more drastic and then what arrangements are in place to make sure that those students who are in train are protected. So, that is there and we've worked hard with the sector and with NUS Wales to get those measures in place. There's more development work in train at the moment, so we've asked Universities Wales to construct a protection that takes account of the approach to protecting the student interests in higher education. We're also requiring further education institutions who are regulated and deliver higher education to do similar or the same, and that's very important. The students who are HE students in FE are absolutely not second-best, and they should have the same protections. Llyr Gruffydd AM: But is all this a general piece of work? It's not Brexit-specific, although, no doubt, it may--. Dr David Blaney: I think that's fair to say, yes. The other dimension around Brexit is the immigration status of EU students, and that's, kind of, beyond our pay scale--that's a UK Government issue. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Is that something that you have a view on? Dr David Blaney: It's clearly in the interest of the enrichment of the curriculum and the student experience for students in Welsh institutions to be able to have students from other EU countries in the mix. So, it would be nice to find ways of continuing to facilitate that. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Now, of course, you have a statutory duty as well to assess the academic quality of the work in our higher education institutions, and I'm just wondering what potential impacts you think that Brexit might have on that particular aspect. Dr David Blaney: I think there are possibly a couple of things to say, and one, in a sense, echoes what I was just saying in the final part of my previous response, which is that part of the quality of the student experience is the richness that you get from having students in your cohort who have different backgrounds and different perspectives. So, if there is a continuing reduction in the number of EU students coming into Welsh institutions, then that richness deteriorates. That doesn't mean to say that the base or the threshold standard of what's required for a degree will come under pressure, it's just about the richness on top of that, which will be, in a sense, a quality-enhancement issue. That would be something that we would wish to try to protect against, but in the end you can't force EU students to come--you have to try and look attractive, and we've touched on that. The baseline requirement assessment of quality will not be affected by Brexit, except in so far as the machinery we use to discharge our statutory responsibility, which is through the Quality Assurance Agency, which themselves are accredited with European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, the European machinery for higher education quality. And there's a set of standards around that, and we would obviously wish not to be in a position where our ability to use and adhere to those standards is adversely impacted upon. Those standards will still exist, and it will be possible for the British system to adhere to them, even if they're not actually able to play in the same way. Then the only other thing I would say is that one of the factors that can cause the quality of the learning and teaching experience to be likely to become inadequate is when institutions come under financial pressure, just because their capacity to maintain the same sort of student experience can get under pressure. So, clearly, we will be looking for and making sure that institutions manage the financial pressures, if there are any--and there are some at the moment, as we've described--and manage those carefully. And in all of that, we will expect institutions to do their duty to make sure that the commitments they've already made to students are carried through. So, where students have already started on the course, they need to be able to finish that course--you can't just pull the plug out. So, all of that comes into the arrangements for quality as well. So, we'll be keeping an eye on that. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. A lot of what you've told us in the last three quarters of an hour or so will have costs attached, depending on the impacts. Certainly, we're in choppy waters as a sector anyway, and the risk is that things will be even more choppy, if you'll excuse that level of political interpretation, over the years to come. I'm just wondering what advice you might have given the Welsh Government in terms of what level of transition funding, or Brexit transition funding, might be required by the sector, and if you have, what the Welsh Government might have told you. Bethan Owen: I mentioned earlier that, obviously, we've provided information in terms of the assumptions that the sector are making on income. So, for the year 2017-18, that was PS129 million. I think the extent to which that needs to be replaced or supported with transition funding depends absolutely on what the final arrangements for Brexit are, but it's an appropriate point to refer to the report that Professor Graeme Reid has produced, commissioned by Welsh Government. That was, and has, provided advice and recommendations for supporting research and innovation in the transition period. But, again, the Reid recommendations in that report build on the Diamond recommendations, and as soon as Diamond is in place--and Reid is providing recommendations in addition, to establish funding on the basis that the funding needs to be available in Wales to maintain and develop and strengthen the research and innovation infrastructure that we have. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Are you not worried, though, that the clock is ticking and that we really don't know what the situation is at this point? Dr David Blaney: Do you mean the Brexit situation? Llyr Gruffydd AM: The Brexit clock, yes. Dr David Blaney: Uncertainty is unhelpful, because as I've said several times, the sector is a managed sector at the moment. I don't think there's--. We're not seeing maverick stuff, but actually you can only manage, really, what you can see and what you can reasonably predict. So, the longer the uncertainty persists, the more difficult that is for institutional management and, indeed, for the rest of the machinery to support them. So, yes, the sooner we get clarity, the better for everybody, I imagine. Darren Millar AM: Chair, can I just ask a question? John Griffiths AM: Yes, Darren. Darren Millar AM: In terms of uncertainty, though, we've still got this uncertainty over whether the extra cash that the Government's going to have to spend as a result of Diamond being implemented is coming to the HE sector. They've given a political commitment, but you've got absolutely no other assurance of the sums of money that are coming in. We've got the reform of tertiary education arrangements in Wales, which are also under way, so it's a bit of a perfect storm for you, isn't it, really, with all of these three things happening at the same time? Dr David Blaney: We're certainly kept busy. Darren Millar AM: But two of those things are in the gift of the Welsh Government to sort out for you, aren't they? Dr David Blaney: Well, the policy on the reform of the post-compulsory sector absolutely is a Welsh Government policy. The extent to which they can pre-empt a budgetary process and give us clear sight of the amount of money in future years is--. Well, again, it's not for me to comment. My understanding is that that's difficult for them to do, and I would repeat what I said earlier: officials have been as helpful as I think they can be in respect of that. I mean, you're right, we've only got a political commitment between two people currently in post. It would be great to have that firmer. I'm not sure how that could be done. Darren Millar AM: I mean, that statement about the savings accrued from Diamond being reinvested wholly into the HE sector has not been repeated, frankly, has it, since the coalition deal was struck? Dr David Blaney: No, but it hasn't been rescinded either, so--. Darren Millar AM: No, but there have been opportunities--repeated opportunities--in the Chamber, where the Cabinet Secretary's been asked to repeat that commitment, and the First Minister's been asked to repeat that commitment and has not given that commitment. That must concern you, and must concern your university sector even more than, perhaps, some of the elements of Brexit that we're discussing. Dr David Blaney: Bethan has outlined earlier on in this session the fact that institutions are currently running deficit budgets in order not to lose the infrastructure on the assumption that the Diamond money will come in. If anything were to cause significant perturbation, either to the timeline of that or to it coming in at all, then there would be much more of what Medwin Hughes calls'houskeeping'that would be required, and that would be significant. So, at the moment--I don't like the expression'valley of death', but there is a valley to cross, and I think the sector is reasonably confident about how wide and how deep that valley is. There's a demographic valley as well. So, there are several valleys that they're crossing--the metaphor fails, doesn't it, really, but I think you get the drift? So, there are a number of challenges and they can see their way out of some of those challenges, but if any one of these starts to get significantly disrupted, then that would be a real issue for them. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I go on to ask about other barriers to Welsh universities gaining more funding from UK research councils? What would you say those barriers are? Dr David Blaney: Well, I think there are a couple of things, really, to say. The first one--and we'll sound like a stuck record if we're not careful--is that there's an issue about investment and the Reid report makes this very clear. So, he has reaffirmed research that had been done previously that identifies that, actually, the quality of the research base in Welsh universities and the productivity of that Welsh research base are both good, there's just not enough of them, and that, in the end, is a product of investment decisions. They have particularly looked at the deficit in science, technology, engineering and mathematics areas, and I always say that research is not just STEM. I mean, STEM is important, and I'm not denying the deficit in that area, but we have to also remember that the research agenda for Wales is not just STEM--it's arts, humanities, it's social sciences. If you look at the impact on public policy that could come from social science research--tremendous. And we're very good at it in Wales. The Welsh impact in its research is better than anywhere else in the UK, so that's good. So, they do very well, and we just really need to invest a little bit further--so continue to do very well, but put it on a broader front. If you want to be able to play into the UK-wide research funding, then the investment has two dimensions to it. One is just having enough researchers to be able to play into those increasingly larger projects rather than small-scale projects. If you haven't got the critical mass, it's very hard to make the case that you can play. And the second thing is that UK-wide research pots nearly always fund at about 80 per cent of the total cost of the research, and the other 20 per cent is meant to be found from the core research funding for the university, and if you're in a situation where your core research funding is not competitive, then you're not going to be competitive at getting that money. So, that's, kind of, straightforward. There are other things. I think it's fair to say that the Welsh sector has not been sufficiently focused on getting in on the conversations with the research councils, making sure they're in the various committees and so on. We are intending to do a bit of work to see if we can systematise that a bit better--that engagement--because there's no doubt about it: it's not to say that this system is in any way inappropriate, but the more you're in the conversations, the more likely you are to be better placed to respond to the research challenges that come up. John Griffiths AM: Okay. One final question: in terms of the researcher collaborations and networks that exist, do you see potential difficulties after Brexit for the continuation and enhancement of those, and are there any particular lessons to learn from Ser Cymru II? Dr David Blaney: I think that there are two things to say here as well. First of all, the Brexit deal might or might not impact adversely on the capacity of Welsh and, indeed, UK research infrastructure to play into broader collaborative activity across Europe, and, in a sense, that's a function of the deal whatever the deal looks like, and we'll have to wait and see. But we've mentioned playing into Horizon Europe, and being able to continue with that would be an important part of that capacity. It's not just the money, it's being in the club and it's the signalling that we're in the game. So, all of that would be important. And then the other part of my response to this would be that, actually, Wales will need to continue to be good at the research it does, so maintaining the quality, maintaining the impact, and hopefully growing the critical mass. The Ser Cymru initiative has been quite important in doing that, because it's been very focused, capturing key research players, and the attractiveness that that has then to other researchers around them, and to industry collaboration, and they have been areas of real strength that we've invested in. And I think they are already showing dividends in terms of the capacity to win more research funding, and to establish an even stronger presence in the international research market. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Just one further point, from Darren. Darren Millar AM: Just very briefly, one of the pieces of feedback that the committee members received at a stakeholder engagement event, which took place prior to this inquiry starting, to receive oral evidence, was about the research funding that is available from the charitable sector, and how poorly Wales does in attracting some of that research. I think we had some figures from the British Heart Foundation, which said they have PS100 million a year available for research grants, or something like that, and we're getting 1 per cent of that coming into Wales, which is obviously pretty low down. I appreciate that research into the type of activity that they want to put their money into, Wales may not be particularly good at, and there may be other opportunities with other charities and partnerships. What work are you doing in order to build the capacity that Wales has to attract more of that charitable sector research funding into Wales? Bethan Owen: One of the issues is the capacity to engage with that funding, because of the overhead issue that David mentioned. Charitable funding at the moment doesn't attract any overhead funding. Again, that could be built in to our funding, if we had the capacity to increase our quality-related research funding. There is an element in England. Darren Millar AM: But that pressure's the same in other parts of the UK, is it not? So the overhead funding is still an issue in England, and in other places. Bethan Owen: There is an increased contribution, and I think it's an element that was increased this year to acknowledge that. But there will be differentiation between different charities. I'm fairly certain that some of our institutions will be very strong with the cancer charities, possibly not the heart foundation. And some of that will reflect on focusing on our strengths, but to have that fuller picture. Darren Millar AM: So, this gearing issue that you mentioned earlier on, for every PS1 that somebody else puts on the table, they can draw in another PS4 on top, because that PS1 will cover the overheads, whereas the rest of the research cash--. Dr David Blaney: That's exactly it. So, the more you're able to invest--. You know, we sometimes get into a conversation about the unhypothecated nature of our research funding, but actually that creates a flexibility and the infrastructure investment that allows institutions to be able to respond to these other opportunities. Without that, they can't do it, because if you're not careful, you've got institutions engaging in UK-wide or charity-based research activities where they're actually having to pay for it themselves--they're running at a loss. Darren Millar AM: So that's the main problem; it's not that Welsh universities aren't doing their best to get this cash in. Or is it a bit of both? Dr David Blaney: I think, in the main, universities and researchers will get their cash from wherever they can, so I don't think it's a lack of appetite. Darren Millar AM: Okay. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Well, thank you, both, for coming in to give evidence to the committee this morning. You will be sent a draft of the transcript, to check for accuracy. Diolch yn fawr. Okay then, the next item is item 3, papers to note, the first of which is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education on the school organisation code. The second is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill. Paper to note 3 is a letter from the Chair of the Finance Committee regarding scrutiny of the Welsh Government's draft budget for the forthcoming financial year, which we will be discussing under item 6 on the agenda. Paper to note 4 is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on parental attitudes towards managing young children's behaviour. And the final paper to note, paper to note 5, is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the children and family delivery grant, which we will discuss later on in private session, if Members are content. Okay. Are you content to note those papers on that basis? Okay. Thanks very much. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17. 42 to exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting, and also for items 1 and 2 of the 20 September meeting. Is the committee content? Yes. Thank you very much. We will move then into private session.

They touched on contingency plans, which also focus on promotion and look for additional or increased sources of funding, and touched on strengthening the Global Wales engagement in order to sell Wales. The other sector that they worked on is the funding of infrastructure. So they worked with UK universities to make arguments at UK Government level.

tr-sq-674

tr-sq-674_0

According to the group, are higher education institutions having enough preparations on expertises to react to the current situation? Gareth Rogers: Good morning, and welcome to today's meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. Unfortunately, the Chair is unable to attend today, so in accordance with Standing Order 17. 22 I call for nominations for a temporary Chair for the duration of today's meeting. Julie Morgan AM: I nominate John Griffiths. Gareth Rogers: Thank you. Darren Millar AM: I'll second that nomination. Gareth Rogers: As there's only one nomination, I declare that John Griffiths has been appointed as temporary Chair. Thank you, John. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Thank you all very much, and item 1 on our agenda today is introductions, apologies, substitutions and declarations of interest. We've received apologies from Hefin David and Lynne Neagle. There are no substitutions. Are there any declarations of interest? No. We will move on then to item 2, and our inquiry into the impact of Brexit on higher and further education, and our first evidence session. I'm very pleased to welcome the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales here today, and Dr David Blaney as chief executive, and Bethan Owen, director of institutional engagement. Welcome to you both. Thanks for coming along to give evidence today. If it's okay with you, we'll move straight to questions, and Julie Morgan. Julie Morgan AM: Good morning. Bore da. I wondered if we could start off with you telling us what evidence you can see that the Brexit process has had any impact on Welsh higher education so far. Dr David Blaney: Can I preface the response by just reminding you that we are, by contract and by role, apolitical, and a lot of the judgments about the impact of Brexit essentially reflect where people sit politically in terms of whether they think it's a good thing or a bad thing? We're not going to go there, obviously, today, so we'll stick to the facts as we can see them, and hopefully we'll be able to help you, but there are areas where we are unable to help. That's part of the reason. John Griffiths AM: We certainly do not expect you to enter the political fray in any way. Dr David Blaney: Thank you. But even in terms of your assessment of whether this is going to be a good thing or a bad thing, a good impact or a bad impact, some of that inevitably in the end becomes a matter of your politics on it, so we will be as careful as we can be on that. In terms of the impact of Brexit on higher education, clearly, the significance here is about the contribution that higher education can make to Wales. So, we fund provision; we don't fund providers, technically, although obviously there's not much provision without providers. So, we are interested in the sustainability of higher education providers, but fundamentally the issue is: what does the HE system in Wales do for Wales, and what impact might Brexit have on the capacity of the system to continue to deliver for Wales? So, we know that universities make annually about PS5 billion of impact; 50,000 jobs. Of course, in Wales, all of that economic impact is really very significant, and uncertainty about the relationships and the arrangements with Europe is one of the most significant issues confronting university management at the moment. That has an impact in a number of ways. We can identify at the moment the extent to which the HE sector in Wales is exposed to sources of income that are located from the EU, so EU students, structural funds, and EU research funding, and so on, from the EU. We can identify some of that, but, actually, what happens in the future is much harder to be clear about. We are beginning to see some impact in terms of applications from EU students and I'll ask Bethan to share some details on that in a moment. We're also beginning to pick up, only anecdotally, some signs that there are increasing difficulties in the UK sector, and the Welsh sector as part of that, in playing in some of the EU collaborative research activities. And that, I think, just reflects the extent to which EU partners consider that British partners might be a stable partner as we go through this transition period. We don't have data on that--that's anecdotal--but there are signs that some of those relationships are beginning to become a little bit more difficult. In terms of the financial impact of that, clearly, if it is accepted that the UK is a net contributor to the EU then, presumably, some of the money--we're almost immediately straight into politics if you're not careful--but some of the money will be available back to the UK, and the extent to which Wales benefits or not from that returned money is a function of the political relationship between the Welsh Government and Her Majesty's Government. It's not necessarily the case that Wales will always lose out in that relationship, but that will become a matter of politics. There's a broader dimension, which is about the economic impact of Brexit on the UK economy and how much tax revenue there is and all of that. I think it's very hard for us to be definitive about how that's going to play out. I think that depends on the deal and how it all unfolds over the next several years. But we can certainly anticipate some turbulence and exactly how that plays for institutions remains to be seen. We can touch later on on the extent to which they are sighted on this and preparing for it. So, in terms of recruitment, Bethan. Bethan Owen: This is based on the UCAS applications and the report that was published at the end of June, 30 June. The European Union-domiciled applicants to Wales have decreased by 8 per cent, which contrasts with a 2 per cent increase for English institutions, and non-EU--so international students, not from Europe--have also decreased by 9 per cent to Welsh institutions, again contrasting with a 7 per cent increase in England. So, those are the signs of changes. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I then just ask you what you see as the main pressures on the Welsh higher education sector at the moment? Bethan Owen: The funding position would be the main pressure. The recommendations made by Sir Ian Diamond in his review of higher education funding and student finance are in the process of being implemented, and the changes to the student finance arrangements will take effect from this September. However, the recommendations for re-establishing funding at Welsh institutions are expected to take quite a bit longer. That funding, when it returns to institutions, is intended to re-establish funding for higher cost provision, both full time and part time; reinstate funding for innovation; and maintain, at the very least, the research funding in real terms. Universities, in the meantime, are trying to minimise the cost reductions that they're making in order to maintain the infrastructure, so that when the funding comes they can get the best value out of it. We have announced our funding allocations for 2018-19. For the research and teaching grant, though, we are still funding at a lower level--PS12. 5 million less--then the starting point for the Diamond report, the 2015-16 starting report. But we expect to be able to start introducing funding from 2019-20 to make a start on implementing Diamond. And it's probably important to note that the Diamond recommendations predated Brexit, therefore the challenges introduced by Brexit are in addition to those that the Diamond report was addressing. The other pressures relate to student recruitment. I mentioned the EU and international students. There is also the start of a reduction, both in Welsh-domiciled and English-domiciled applications to Wales. Enrolments are obviously the key important number, which we'll see later. And the other pressures include pay and pension costs, not least the issues around the universities superannuation scheme pension fund, where there's potentially a significant increase in cost. Increased student expectations for modern facilities and infrastructure bring a requirement for capital expenditure and borrowing, which bring their own pressures. And finally, the uncertainty about potential consequences that could arise from the review in England of fees and funding--the Augar review. John Griffiths AM: In terms of European Union students and enrolment, is Wales forecast to do less well than England and, if so, why might that be? Bethan Owen: They are not forecasting it. It's very difficult until the enrolments are made, and it's also very hard to see--the data that we see is the UCAS data. Institutions also recruit directly, so until we see the actual recruitment--. I think the arrangements that have changed from 2018-19 also impact on EU students. So, now, they have to find the full fee, whereas previously they were getting the grant in the same way as Welsh students. So, I'm speculating that that might be having an impact as well on EU students'appetite to come. John Griffiths AM: Okay. First of all Llyr, then Mark. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, that's straight into what I was going to ask, really, about what you think the factors are that led to this 8 per cent or 9 per cent drop in EU students applying to study in Wales, where we see a 2 per cent increase in England. Is that it, or are there other things that you've taken into account? What's your assessment of the reasons behind this? Dr David Blaney: It's very difficult to be definitive about the reasons, but I think there are probably two. The one that Bethan has already indicated, which is the change in student support arrangements for EU students, will have an effect of perturbation. That's probably relatively temporary--let's hope it is--as that settles down because, actually, the deal for EU students coming into Wales is no worse than that coming into England. Ours would be better because the fee level is slightly lower, but we do struggle in Wales in terms of the Anglocentric nature of the media and so on. So, getting the messages out is a challenge. The other dimension is that when you're in a highly competitive recruitment market, you have to do what you can to look attractive. Part of that is about being able to invest in facilities, and particularly buildings and kit, and the relative levels of investment between Wales and England over quite a long period of time now probably have an impact on that. Certainly, anecdotally I know, from my own family, that a lot of the choices have been made in terms of the state of repair of campuses and so on. There's something rational about that, isn't there? If you've got a system that is relatively better invested, then you're likely to have a better student experience because the resources are likely to be better. So, that's not irrational. We saw a sort of similar but opposite effect when the PS9,000 fee maximum limit came in, and some institutions, mostly in England--there was one in Wales--chose to pitch their fee levels really quite low, relative to that PS9,000, and caught a cold in the student recruitment market because fee levels denote quality in the student mind. So, the price sensitivities work quite differently. So, again, if you've got a relatively better invested part of the system, then that might well be one of the reasons why it looks more attractive. Llyr Gruffydd AM: That latter factor would affect the whole of the cohort, not just the international recruitment, of course. Dr David Blaney: Indeed. Yes, indeed. The implementation of the Diamond recommendations is crucial to that because that's re-balancing where the policy of investment goes. John Griffiths AM: Okay. And Mark. Mark Reckless AM: If I heard you correctly earlier, you said that the applications from non-EU students were also down by 8 per cent or 9 per cent. So, forgive me a certain scepticism about the explanation of the fall in the EU students being that they did get the fee grant and now they do not. If that's the explanation, why are we seeing the same fall in non-EU applications? Dr David Blaney: Well, I think the Welsh domiciled are also now having to face the prospect of finding a loan for the whole of the fee. So, that would potentially account for that. There's also a demographic dimension here with the downturn in the 18-year-old school-leaver profile, and that actually is happening in Wales at a slightly later point than in England. Mark Reckless AM: But this is non-EU students, and I think you said, Bethan, an 8 per cent or 9 per cent fall in them as well. Dr David Blaney: International non-EU. I beg your pardon. I misunderstood. Bethan Owen: There's also a mix effect. I gave a number that was for all English institutions that there will be differential impacts on. Mark Reckless AM: All English or all Welsh? Bethan Owen: Well, I contrasted the Welsh position with the English position where they were seeing growth. If you look, then--and we don't have the detailed information, but, again, what UCAS publish is some analysis by tariff. They analyse by type of institution--in other words, the grades that you need to get into institutions--and there is a trend for growth being in the higher tariff institutions. So, there's a mix effect in there as well, and I think there's undoubtedly an element of perception of how welcome overseas and international students are, and that's something that we know the sector are working on with Government. Mark Reckless AM: Why would that affect Wales more than England? Do you think there's been perhaps too great a negativity about Brexit in the sector? Bethan Owen: I think it's the mix of institutions that we have. So, we only have sector information published at the moment. When we look at the mix of institutions that we have, we will probably see a differential impact between Cardiff University and others. John Griffiths AM: Okay, Mark? Sorry, David, did you want to add anything? Dr David Blaney: I was just going to say that we would expect to see quite differential performance in the English sector, so the overall numbers are being brought up by substantial increased performance with some of that sector, and it's a question of how many of that type of institution you have in Wales. Mark Reckless AM: So, performance is increasing amongst the English universities, but not amongst the Welsh, you think. Dr David Blaney: I think performance is increasing, but increasing substantially with some of the English sector, not all of it. So, you get an average for the sector that is increased performance, but actually the stronger players within that sector, with the stronger international profiles, are bringing that up, and we have fewer in Wales that have that sort of presence. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Darren. Darren Millar AM: Would it be fair to say, then, that the universities over the border in England are better at selling themselves internationally than our Welsh institutions? Or is it just this fact that we've got fewer very high tariff universities versus the English market? Dr David Blaney: I suspect, and this is speculation--I suspect that it's a bit of both. I think some of it is to do with the mix of different types of institution. I would then come back to the point I was making about the Anglocentric nature of the UK media. If you're looking overseas, I think Wales has to work harder to penetrate the consciousness. Darren Millar AM: But, forgive me, don't international students just look at the UK as a whole? How are we comparing to Scotland, for example, or Northern Ireland, in terms of their universities? Do you have a comparative figure for Scottish universities? Bethan Owen: I haven't got that one with me for now, but there will be one in the data. Dr David Blaney: Yes, we could get that. Bethan Owen: Again, it's a combination of being part of the UK but differentiating, and the ability to differentiate the strengths of Wales, so attracting those students to Wales specifically, on top of the UK draw. Dr David Blaney: So, in terms of the efforts that have been made, there's a programme now that is being run by the sector in Wales--it's'Study in Wales'. It's relatively recent; you could argue that we could have got there earlier. But that is a determined collective effort to present Wales as a good place to study, with particular messages about what distinguishes studying in Wales from studying more broadly in the UK. In a sense, that is responding to the need to increase the presence of Wales in an international market. So, that sort of initiative I think is very good, very welcome. It will take a while to actually have an impact, but I think that's exactly the sort of work the sector need to be doing more of. Mark Reckless AM: What are those messages on why prospective students should study in Wales? Dr David Blaney: One of them in particular is relative safety. We know that one of the considerations, particularly for parents of overseas students, is are they going to go to a safe environment, and we know that the perception of international students who study in Wales is that this is a comfortable and safe place to be. That's partly a function of the size of our larger cities--quite a lot smaller than many of the cities in England. So, that's a key message. Being part of a UK system is also an important message there as well. So, we've got a UK-quality system, a UK degree, and the strength of that brand is available in Wales, but it's available in a way that is safer and more supportive, I think is the messaging that's coming through. John Griffiths AM: Okay. We'd better move on, I think, hadn't we? Darren, then. Darren Millar AM: I just wonder to what extent you have been able to plan in your financial forecasts for the next few years ahead for the potential impacts of Brexit. What have you built in, if anything? Bethan Owen: In terms of our funding, we receive our funding annually, but the sector provides us with financial forecasts, and we use those for monitoring sustainability. So, the last full forecasts that we had were in July 2017. We are due to receive a full forecast at the end of this month, and we obviously have updated information from institutions. Darren Millar AM: And they're three-year forecasts that come through to you, aren't they? Bethan Owen: They are four plus the current year. So, we've got numbers to 2019-20 at the moment, and expect to go to 2020-21. Darren Millar AM: And what are the universities expecting? What do they anticipate? Bethan Owen: Well, for 2017-18, which is the year we're about to end now, they were expecting PS38 million income from European students, and approximately PS91 million from the various European programme funding sources, and that's about 8 per cent of the total income--PS1. 5 billion--of the sector. The forecasts are assuming that that continues, albeit that institutions have various scenarios that they have for all sorts of scenarios that we can all speculate on, and, as I mentioned earlier, the balancing act of maintaining infrastructure and resources and staff in the short term is where we are at the moment, or where the sector is at the moment. And there are also signs that the banks and lending institutions are becoming a bit more risk-averse in providing borrowing to institutions, and of more differentiation between individual institutions being made than has possibly been the case in the past. The sector made an operating deficit, again looking at all Welsh institutions collectively last year, 2016-17, of PS17 million. That's before other gains and losses. And we're expecting a similar collective level of deficit for this financial year, if not slightly higher. Now, these are managed deficits and we are not currently seeing critical short-term cash availability issues in the sector. However, the increase in funding from Diamond is a key part of enabling the sector to return to longer-term financial sustainability. Short-term challenges can be met if there's a reasonable prospect of future funding. You can manage in the short-term, but there comes a point when the big cost reductions and infrastructure reductions have to be made. And, again, having mentioned the pressures on pay, pensions and other challenges, it is difficult to gauge whether, if those factors come into play as well, some of these cost reductions may have to be made before funding comes in to replace--either Diamond funding or the European replacement funding. Darren Millar AM: So, would it be fair to say that, in terms of the funding arrangements, and, in terms of the student numbers, one reason why we've got this recruitment problem is this lack of investment in the capital infrastructure that we've seen in recent years because of the financing arrangements from the Welsh Government, and the fee regime that we had previously, and the student finance regime that we had previously, not getting more cash into our Welsh universities perhaps, and that, over the next few years, there's going to have to be much more significant investment in capital if we're to raise the game and be more competitive, yes? Bethan Owen: Yes, that would be fair to say. Darren Millar AM: So, to what extent are they planning for more capital investment in those financial strategies that they've been preparing and presenting to you? Bethan Owen: They are all planning for capital investment. They are in different positions in terms of capacity to borrow and the assumptions. This year, 2018-19, is the first time that we've had capital funding in our remit letter--so, we've got PS10 million of capital funding, which is very welcome, with a prospect of a further PS20 million. So, that we will be allocating shortly. That will make a difference, particularly to those institutions who are not finding it as easy to borrow from financial institutions. Some of our larger institutions have borrowed--Cardiff University issued a bond. However, there are internal governance processes that are putting tight restrictions and expectations of what that money will be invested in. But they all have plans to do it and they need the confidence that their forecasts and long-term future funding prospects are secure enough that they can get the confidence of borrowers then, and service the costs of those borrowers. Darren Millar AM: So, the Diamond dividend you've mentioned a few times. What clarity is there from the Welsh Government at the moment in terms of how much they anticipate the Diamond dividend will be, and what proportion of that is going to be released to HEIs in the future? Bethan Owen: I was very carefully not describing it as a dividend--a re-establishing of funding that we had in the past for higher cost and innovation and maintaining research funding. The timescales are difficult, because we have an annual remit letter, and we can work with Welsh Government officials, and they can only give us a sense of when they think the funding will be released. But 2018-19 is the start of the system, and because of cohort protection--so, protecting those students who came in on a different deal to the deal from 2018-19--in the early years there is an element of double cost; there's a cost of seeing out the old system and the different cost of implementing the new system. So, at the moment, we're certainly not in a position to tell the sector with any degree of certainty what funding would be beyond what we've allocated for 2018-19, with some sense of what 2019-20 numbers we're working with because we allocate our money over an academic year--so, by definition, we've already made assumptions of four months of the 2019-20 funding, albeit that's not approved yet in the budgetary process. Darren Millar AM: But you're not being given a steer at all as to what you expect the additional resource that you might have to make available to Welsh universities might be as a result of Diamond. You must have some idea. Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say that officials have been as helpful as they can be with us, in terms of the planning assumptions we make and indications about whether or not we are being too ambitious or not ambitious enough. So, I think they're being very helpful; as Bethan said, they're constrained by the process--they can't pre-empt a budget process. And you folks will be fully aware of that, of course. The other question I think you asked was how much of the money released by the new arrangements will come into higher education. At the moment, we are expecting all of it to come into higher education, as the product of the arrangement between the current Cabinet Secretary and the current First Minister. The extent to which any changes there cause that to come under threat is something I can't judge at the moment. But we have had in our remit letter from the Cabinet Secretary a clear indication that we can expect our resource to grow over the next few years, as the Diamond process unfolds. John Griffiths AM: Okay. I'm just going to bring in Llyr at this stage. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Bethan said in an earlier answer that, I think, the financial forecasting from universities forecast something pretty consistent in terms of what they're hoping to be receiving in income, for example. But we've already discussed the near 10 per cent drop, potentially, in international applications. So, does that tally, really, or are they going to be recruiting additional students from the UK market or--? What's the plan? Bethan Owen: I was reflecting on the last point when we had consistent information across the sector. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, they may need to revisit that in the light of this. Bethan Owen: I'm expecting that the forecast that we get at the end of this month will reflect the reduced applications we've seen, and an element of that will be reflected in reduced improvements as well. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, we don't really know, then, whether--it's unlikely that they are going to expect a consistent fee income, really. Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say we would expect them to respond to what they're seeing in the UCAS process. Even if they didn't, they would all, in any case, have sensitivities for what they would do if things don't come out in the way they hope. And if they didn't have that then we would be on their case, of course, because we want them to be properly sighted. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Thanks. John Griffiths AM: And we have to stick to the Brexit impact. Darren. Darren Millar AM: Can I just ask, in terms of the impact of Brexit, have you done any assessment of what you think might happen, or have any of the institutions made available to you any assessments of what they think is likely to happen to their individual institutions, going forward? You've mentioned scenarios earlier on, David, so what scenarios have you set out? Dr David Blaney: There's a Welsh Government HE Brexit working group, which is chaired by one of the Government directors, and we sit on that. And we have provided that group with early summaries of the risks and the potential impact, in terms of the exposure of the sector to EU-sourced funding. We have, as part of that working group, explored those issues that it would be really very helpful for either the Welsh Government to try to put in place or for the Welsh Government to persuade UK Government to do. And I think, in our submission, we identified a number of areas of what we would consider to be a helpful action, and that has been worked through that working group. We know that it has informed Welsh Government's position, in terms of what it does and also in terms of the conversations that they have with Her Majesty's Government. Beyond that, what we haven't done in that working group is share the work that institutions are doing individually to look at how they would respond to different scenarios. We are not able to do that here either because, inevitably, they would have varying degrees of unpalatability and they would have to be managed very, very carefully. You take cost out, which is essentially the response, you actually take people's jobs out, and all of that has to be managed carefully. So, that's not really a matter for public consideration, but we do know that the institutions are looking at a range of scenarios on what they would do. Bethan mentioned earlier on that the current deficit for the sector is a managed deficit--it's not something that has taken them by surprise. They are responding to what they see as the dip between where Diamond was reporting and where the money starts flowing. Similarly, I think we're comfortable that there is a managed approach to the scenarios that they're testing within institutions. So, they will do what they need to do to sustain themselves. The bigger issue really, in a public policy context, is the potential damage for the sector to be able to deliver for Wales in terms of research and skills development and all the other contributions. Darren Millar AM: So, you're confident that they're taking a robust approach to planning for various scenarios, going forward, are you, as individual HEIs? Dr David Blaney: Yes, and as the deal becomes more clear politically, then they will obviously have greater clarity in terms of which of these scenarios they need to work up more fully, but they are sighted on it. Darren Millar AM: Okay. Can I just ask about fee and access plans, and how Brexit might impact them? To what extent do you think that they could be impacted? Dr David Blaney: I think there are two dimensions to maybe touch upon there. Fee and access plans are approved annually by us. They are approved in advance of the recruitment cycle for the year that they apply to. So, we're just in the process now of finalising our consideration of fee and access plans for the 2019-20 academic year. So, there's quite a long lead time. We, as part of that process, go through similar--we look at their financial sustainability, which is based on their forecasts--data to the stuff we've just been discussing. And also, of course, the fee plans themselves make assumptions about how many students of different types, from different domains, are going to be recruited. So, clearly, if there is a continuing downward pressure on EU student recruitment, then that will reduce the amount of fee income that's going to come in, unless they can find other students, and that will reduce the amount of investment in the various activities that are identified in the fee plans. In terms of process, we have two things that we can do. If institutions are becoming aware that the basis upon which they've submitted a fee plan is fundamentally different from the reality, then they can come into us for a change to their fee plan. So, we have a change process. If it's not fundamentally different, but there are always differences between what you plan and what happens three years later--. We also monitor after the event and, if there are differences, we would then obviously require institutions to explain those differences. If they've had fewer students and less investment, we would need to understand that. Conversely, if they'd had more students, and potentially more investment, we'd want to know what they'd spent it on, and if they've done different things, we'd want to understand that as well. So, we do challenge through a monitoring process. The only other thing that's perhaps worth saying is that, in the 2019-20 fee and access plans--they're not published yet, so I can't give you the full detail--five universities have made reference to Brexit and the Brexit impact, and things they want to do through their fee and access plan to try and address some of those issues, so they're in there as well. Darren Millar AM: But we've already said, haven't we, that it may be nothing to do with Brexit, this dip in EU recruitment, because there are other factors like the attractiveness of the estates and the environment that young people might be educated in? But they're making assumptions that it's linked to Brexit, are they? Dr David Blaney: Not really. I think they're making assumptions that it could be. There are things they want to do to enhance and to protect student mobility, and some of that will be funded through fee plan investment. So, the Brexit conversation between the EU and the UK Government might or might not sustain Erasmus engagement, and if it doesn't, then they need to find other ways of trying to support that sort of thing. So, that's what we're beginning to see in the fee plans. It's them thinking about how else we can do this stuff. John Griffiths AM: Okay, Darren? Mark. Mark Reckless AM: You mentioned the fee and access report. What else do you do to assure yourselves that Welsh higher education institutions are effectively planning for Brexit? Bethan Owen: We've touched on contingency plans, but, in an environment of uncertainty, I think it's difficult for any of us to know what the right scenario is. I think rather than looking at worst-case scenarios, what the sector is also focusing on is the promotion and looking for additional or increased sources of funding. So, we touched on strengthening the Global Wales engagement in order to sell Wales, so more focus on marketing Wales overseas, but also within the UK. The other area where the sector is working at a UK level very hard is making the arguments to UK Government for maintaining access to the successor to Horizon 2020, which is arguably a larger part of the whole funding infrastructure--students is one part, but the whole funding infrastructure for maintaining research capacity. So, working with UK universities to make arguments at UK Government level for maintaining access to those sources of funding is also a part of what the institutions are doing. We mentioned the Welsh Government's HE Brexit group. That group, which is the Welsh Government group, is being advised by members on it, and that's informing Welsh Government officials when they engage with UK Government as well. Mark Reckless AM: Do universities seek your advice on what the risks and, indeed, opportunities of Brexit may be and what you think they should be doing to plan for them, or is your role more one of monitoring what they do as opposed to advising what they should do? Bethan Owen: They are autonomous institutions and ultimately their governing bodies are responsible for ensuring their sustainability. It's not a relationship where we would advise and direct, but it is a relationship where we would question the scenarios if we consider from our experience that we would have expected other scenarios to have been tested. It's that nature of conversation, rather than directing. Mark Reckless AM: I understand you don't direct, of course, but my question was about advising. You're overseeing, or monitoring--or whatever you like to describe the role as--quite a number of institutions, and presumably you therefore have particular expertise within your organisation, and I just wondered whether higher education institutions are doing enough to draw on that. Bethan Owen: I think we can advise--we can advise based on data and information that we can see. We can advise based on our judgment. The big thing in this whole Brexit scenario is the uncertainty and the extent to which our speculation is better informed than the governing bodies or the sector collectively is probably the issue. Dr David Blaney: I think that's right. So, there's a relationship with the sector and there's a relationship with individual institutions, and they are different. So, we have engagement collectively with the sector. Bethan meets with the finance directors, and I meet with the vice-chancellors. We actually have the sector and the funding council together on the Welsh Government's group. So, some of these conversations are happening in various ways, where we're all gaining intelligence about what might be a sensible set of planning assumptions. Then, if we see an institution that is manifestly giving signs of not being sighted on some of these risks, either through their forecast or through other assurance activity, we will challenge. We have an annual cycle, with two points in the year where we reassess the overall risks of individual institutions, and that's based on a whole range of hard data but also a range of soft data. Our links into institutions are many and varied. We have lots of conversations and we take all of that in the round and form an assessment about the financial sustainability of the institutions but also the extent to which we think their governance and management arrangements are properly sighted and facing properly the challenges that they face. In some ways, we say it's not about the challenges they face; it's about how they face the challenges. Our alarm bells really ring when we get the sense that, actually, either an executive or a governing body hasn't really noticed. We're not in that place, I'm really pleased to say. I'm not worried about short-term crisis with any of the institutions. There are medium-term real challenges, both because of Brexit and because of other contextual factors, but at the moment the sector is a managed sector, which is good. It's not always like that, but we're in, I think, a good place at the moment. So, our role is definitely to challenge where we don't think they are making sensible assessments, but it's not to say that their assessment is wrong and ours is right; it's just to have a conversation about,'Why have you done this and what has informed your thinking?'It's slightly more one step back and slightly more subtle, but it is, as you imply, us using the intelligence we gain from all of those conversations when we talk to individual institutions as well. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Llyr. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, thank you. We had evidence last week from some of the higher education institutions, including Cardiff University, and it's very interesting, in relation to Erasmus+ and the mobility funding for students that, I think, only 40 per cent of the mobility funding in Cardiff is paid for by Erasmus+. I note that you've been consulting on national measures for higher education performance and that one possibility is using international mobility as a performance indicator. I was just wondering whether you might go further and expect universities to actually make commitments to funding international mobility from their own fee incomes as part of that. Bethan Owen: Again, reflecting on the latest fee and access plans, seven of the universities are referring to mobility--either they have targets in them or are explaining what their plans are--so they are including an element of it from their own income and fee and access income. However, Erasmus is such a well-established and long-term plan--if we were looking at a scenario where that infrastructure wasn't available, to implement anything similar to that would be much less efficient and much more costly. And to enable an infrastructure that allowed--. Ideally, you'd want something that all Welsh institutions could take part in, and that takes some investment and some co-ordinating. And, equally, you need to have the arrangements with your overseas and European institutions. I think it's easy to underestimate the accumulation of time that has gone into establishing Erasmus. So, I think replacing it would be a challenge. Llyr Gruffydd AM: And the point was made clearly last week that the brand is internationally recognised. When you enter into Erasmus+, you know exactly what you're going to get, and all of that. But there have been criticisms as well about degrees of flexibility and this, that and the other, so I'm just wondering whether--and there is presumably going to be some change on that front although I'm hoping we can buy into it, as others have done who aren't in the EU--that emphasis on encouraging institutions to look more proactively at funding their own mobility efforts would be positive. Dr David Blaney: I think the-- Llyr Gruffydd AM: Sorry--especially if it means that they do more of it. Dr David Blaney: Indeed. I think the Welsh sector is definitely committed to trying to find ways of promoting and resourcing that sort of mobility. There are signs that some of the restrictive elements of the Erasmus programme are going to change anyway, because that's under development and that's positive. There have been positive noises as part of the Brexit negotiations about wanting to carry on being able to access the Erasmus programme. Nothing is agreed until it's all agreed apparently, so we'll have to see on that one. That would be far better, I think, as Bethan indicates, than trying to replace it with a made-in-Wales only, but you could have a made-in-Wales on top. All of these challenges also create opportunities because they stimulate thinking, and so the fact that seven of the eight universities are already now using their fee plans as a vehicle for thinking about this is positive, and I think we can take that on from there. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Because that 40/60 split struck me as being the opposite to what I perceived the situation to be. A key part of your role is to work in partnership with students, so I'd just like to ask what work have you done with students, in terms of maybe protecting their interests as the Brexit scenario evolves? Dr David Blaney: Well, as you say, we do work with students. We were the first of the funding councils in the UK to have a memorandum of understanding with the National Union of Students in Wales. We work very closely with them and the president of NUS is an observer on our council. So, we have close links with NUS Wales and we're very proud of that, and it's very productive. They don't have a vote, but they do have a voice and it really matters. We we're, again, ahead of the rest of the UK in requiring all HE providers to have student charters and there are elements of student protection within the student charter. The UK-wide quality code also has elements in it where arrangements have to be specified about the protection of student interests. That is particularly, in essence, around circumstances where a provider gets into difficulties and they might wish to close a course or something more drastic and then what arrangements are in place to make sure that those students who are in train are protected. So, that is there and we've worked hard with the sector and with NUS Wales to get those measures in place. There's more development work in train at the moment, so we've asked Universities Wales to construct a protection that takes account of the approach to protecting the student interests in higher education. We're also requiring further education institutions who are regulated and deliver higher education to do similar or the same, and that's very important. The students who are HE students in FE are absolutely not second-best, and they should have the same protections. Llyr Gruffydd AM: But is all this a general piece of work? It's not Brexit-specific, although, no doubt, it may--. Dr David Blaney: I think that's fair to say, yes. The other dimension around Brexit is the immigration status of EU students, and that's, kind of, beyond our pay scale--that's a UK Government issue. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Is that something that you have a view on? Dr David Blaney: It's clearly in the interest of the enrichment of the curriculum and the student experience for students in Welsh institutions to be able to have students from other EU countries in the mix. So, it would be nice to find ways of continuing to facilitate that. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Now, of course, you have a statutory duty as well to assess the academic quality of the work in our higher education institutions, and I'm just wondering what potential impacts you think that Brexit might have on that particular aspect. Dr David Blaney: I think there are possibly a couple of things to say, and one, in a sense, echoes what I was just saying in the final part of my previous response, which is that part of the quality of the student experience is the richness that you get from having students in your cohort who have different backgrounds and different perspectives. So, if there is a continuing reduction in the number of EU students coming into Welsh institutions, then that richness deteriorates. That doesn't mean to say that the base or the threshold standard of what's required for a degree will come under pressure, it's just about the richness on top of that, which will be, in a sense, a quality-enhancement issue. That would be something that we would wish to try to protect against, but in the end you can't force EU students to come--you have to try and look attractive, and we've touched on that. The baseline requirement assessment of quality will not be affected by Brexit, except in so far as the machinery we use to discharge our statutory responsibility, which is through the Quality Assurance Agency, which themselves are accredited with European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, the European machinery for higher education quality. And there's a set of standards around that, and we would obviously wish not to be in a position where our ability to use and adhere to those standards is adversely impacted upon. Those standards will still exist, and it will be possible for the British system to adhere to them, even if they're not actually able to play in the same way. Then the only other thing I would say is that one of the factors that can cause the quality of the learning and teaching experience to be likely to become inadequate is when institutions come under financial pressure, just because their capacity to maintain the same sort of student experience can get under pressure. So, clearly, we will be looking for and making sure that institutions manage the financial pressures, if there are any--and there are some at the moment, as we've described--and manage those carefully. And in all of that, we will expect institutions to do their duty to make sure that the commitments they've already made to students are carried through. So, where students have already started on the course, they need to be able to finish that course--you can't just pull the plug out. So, all of that comes into the arrangements for quality as well. So, we'll be keeping an eye on that. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. A lot of what you've told us in the last three quarters of an hour or so will have costs attached, depending on the impacts. Certainly, we're in choppy waters as a sector anyway, and the risk is that things will be even more choppy, if you'll excuse that level of political interpretation, over the years to come. I'm just wondering what advice you might have given the Welsh Government in terms of what level of transition funding, or Brexit transition funding, might be required by the sector, and if you have, what the Welsh Government might have told you. Bethan Owen: I mentioned earlier that, obviously, we've provided information in terms of the assumptions that the sector are making on income. So, for the year 2017-18, that was PS129 million. I think the extent to which that needs to be replaced or supported with transition funding depends absolutely on what the final arrangements for Brexit are, but it's an appropriate point to refer to the report that Professor Graeme Reid has produced, commissioned by Welsh Government. That was, and has, provided advice and recommendations for supporting research and innovation in the transition period. But, again, the Reid recommendations in that report build on the Diamond recommendations, and as soon as Diamond is in place--and Reid is providing recommendations in addition, to establish funding on the basis that the funding needs to be available in Wales to maintain and develop and strengthen the research and innovation infrastructure that we have. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Are you not worried, though, that the clock is ticking and that we really don't know what the situation is at this point? Dr David Blaney: Do you mean the Brexit situation? Llyr Gruffydd AM: The Brexit clock, yes. Dr David Blaney: Uncertainty is unhelpful, because as I've said several times, the sector is a managed sector at the moment. I don't think there's--. We're not seeing maverick stuff, but actually you can only manage, really, what you can see and what you can reasonably predict. So, the longer the uncertainty persists, the more difficult that is for institutional management and, indeed, for the rest of the machinery to support them. So, yes, the sooner we get clarity, the better for everybody, I imagine. Darren Millar AM: Chair, can I just ask a question? John Griffiths AM: Yes, Darren. Darren Millar AM: In terms of uncertainty, though, we've still got this uncertainty over whether the extra cash that the Government's going to have to spend as a result of Diamond being implemented is coming to the HE sector. They've given a political commitment, but you've got absolutely no other assurance of the sums of money that are coming in. We've got the reform of tertiary education arrangements in Wales, which are also under way, so it's a bit of a perfect storm for you, isn't it, really, with all of these three things happening at the same time? Dr David Blaney: We're certainly kept busy. Darren Millar AM: But two of those things are in the gift of the Welsh Government to sort out for you, aren't they? Dr David Blaney: Well, the policy on the reform of the post-compulsory sector absolutely is a Welsh Government policy. The extent to which they can pre-empt a budgetary process and give us clear sight of the amount of money in future years is--. Well, again, it's not for me to comment. My understanding is that that's difficult for them to do, and I would repeat what I said earlier: officials have been as helpful as I think they can be in respect of that. I mean, you're right, we've only got a political commitment between two people currently in post. It would be great to have that firmer. I'm not sure how that could be done. Darren Millar AM: I mean, that statement about the savings accrued from Diamond being reinvested wholly into the HE sector has not been repeated, frankly, has it, since the coalition deal was struck? Dr David Blaney: No, but it hasn't been rescinded either, so--. Darren Millar AM: No, but there have been opportunities--repeated opportunities--in the Chamber, where the Cabinet Secretary's been asked to repeat that commitment, and the First Minister's been asked to repeat that commitment and has not given that commitment. That must concern you, and must concern your university sector even more than, perhaps, some of the elements of Brexit that we're discussing. Dr David Blaney: Bethan has outlined earlier on in this session the fact that institutions are currently running deficit budgets in order not to lose the infrastructure on the assumption that the Diamond money will come in. If anything were to cause significant perturbation, either to the timeline of that or to it coming in at all, then there would be much more of what Medwin Hughes calls'houskeeping'that would be required, and that would be significant. So, at the moment--I don't like the expression'valley of death', but there is a valley to cross, and I think the sector is reasonably confident about how wide and how deep that valley is. There's a demographic valley as well. So, there are several valleys that they're crossing--the metaphor fails, doesn't it, really, but I think you get the drift? So, there are a number of challenges and they can see their way out of some of those challenges, but if any one of these starts to get significantly disrupted, then that would be a real issue for them. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I go on to ask about other barriers to Welsh universities gaining more funding from UK research councils? What would you say those barriers are? Dr David Blaney: Well, I think there are a couple of things, really, to say. The first one--and we'll sound like a stuck record if we're not careful--is that there's an issue about investment and the Reid report makes this very clear. So, he has reaffirmed research that had been done previously that identifies that, actually, the quality of the research base in Welsh universities and the productivity of that Welsh research base are both good, there's just not enough of them, and that, in the end, is a product of investment decisions. They have particularly looked at the deficit in science, technology, engineering and mathematics areas, and I always say that research is not just STEM. I mean, STEM is important, and I'm not denying the deficit in that area, but we have to also remember that the research agenda for Wales is not just STEM--it's arts, humanities, it's social sciences. If you look at the impact on public policy that could come from social science research--tremendous. And we're very good at it in Wales. The Welsh impact in its research is better than anywhere else in the UK, so that's good. So, they do very well, and we just really need to invest a little bit further--so continue to do very well, but put it on a broader front. If you want to be able to play into the UK-wide research funding, then the investment has two dimensions to it. One is just having enough researchers to be able to play into those increasingly larger projects rather than small-scale projects. If you haven't got the critical mass, it's very hard to make the case that you can play. And the second thing is that UK-wide research pots nearly always fund at about 80 per cent of the total cost of the research, and the other 20 per cent is meant to be found from the core research funding for the university, and if you're in a situation where your core research funding is not competitive, then you're not going to be competitive at getting that money. So, that's, kind of, straightforward. There are other things. I think it's fair to say that the Welsh sector has not been sufficiently focused on getting in on the conversations with the research councils, making sure they're in the various committees and so on. We are intending to do a bit of work to see if we can systematise that a bit better--that engagement--because there's no doubt about it: it's not to say that this system is in any way inappropriate, but the more you're in the conversations, the more likely you are to be better placed to respond to the research challenges that come up. John Griffiths AM: Okay. One final question: in terms of the researcher collaborations and networks that exist, do you see potential difficulties after Brexit for the continuation and enhancement of those, and are there any particular lessons to learn from Ser Cymru II? Dr David Blaney: I think that there are two things to say here as well. First of all, the Brexit deal might or might not impact adversely on the capacity of Welsh and, indeed, UK research infrastructure to play into broader collaborative activity across Europe, and, in a sense, that's a function of the deal whatever the deal looks like, and we'll have to wait and see. But we've mentioned playing into Horizon Europe, and being able to continue with that would be an important part of that capacity. It's not just the money, it's being in the club and it's the signalling that we're in the game. So, all of that would be important. And then the other part of my response to this would be that, actually, Wales will need to continue to be good at the research it does, so maintaining the quality, maintaining the impact, and hopefully growing the critical mass. The Ser Cymru initiative has been quite important in doing that, because it's been very focused, capturing key research players, and the attractiveness that that has then to other researchers around them, and to industry collaboration, and they have been areas of real strength that we've invested in. And I think they are already showing dividends in terms of the capacity to win more research funding, and to establish an even stronger presence in the international research market. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Just one further point, from Darren. Darren Millar AM: Just very briefly, one of the pieces of feedback that the committee members received at a stakeholder engagement event, which took place prior to this inquiry starting, to receive oral evidence, was about the research funding that is available from the charitable sector, and how poorly Wales does in attracting some of that research. I think we had some figures from the British Heart Foundation, which said they have PS100 million a year available for research grants, or something like that, and we're getting 1 per cent of that coming into Wales, which is obviously pretty low down. I appreciate that research into the type of activity that they want to put their money into, Wales may not be particularly good at, and there may be other opportunities with other charities and partnerships. What work are you doing in order to build the capacity that Wales has to attract more of that charitable sector research funding into Wales? Bethan Owen: One of the issues is the capacity to engage with that funding, because of the overhead issue that David mentioned. Charitable funding at the moment doesn't attract any overhead funding. Again, that could be built in to our funding, if we had the capacity to increase our quality-related research funding. There is an element in England. Darren Millar AM: But that pressure's the same in other parts of the UK, is it not? So the overhead funding is still an issue in England, and in other places. Bethan Owen: There is an increased contribution, and I think it's an element that was increased this year to acknowledge that. But there will be differentiation between different charities. I'm fairly certain that some of our institutions will be very strong with the cancer charities, possibly not the heart foundation. And some of that will reflect on focusing on our strengths, but to have that fuller picture. Darren Millar AM: So, this gearing issue that you mentioned earlier on, for every PS1 that somebody else puts on the table, they can draw in another PS4 on top, because that PS1 will cover the overheads, whereas the rest of the research cash--. Dr David Blaney: That's exactly it. So, the more you're able to invest--. You know, we sometimes get into a conversation about the unhypothecated nature of our research funding, but actually that creates a flexibility and the infrastructure investment that allows institutions to be able to respond to these other opportunities. Without that, they can't do it, because if you're not careful, you've got institutions engaging in UK-wide or charity-based research activities where they're actually having to pay for it themselves--they're running at a loss. Darren Millar AM: So that's the main problem; it's not that Welsh universities aren't doing their best to get this cash in. Or is it a bit of both? Dr David Blaney: I think, in the main, universities and researchers will get their cash from wherever they can, so I don't think it's a lack of appetite. Darren Millar AM: Okay. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Well, thank you, both, for coming in to give evidence to the committee this morning. You will be sent a draft of the transcript, to check for accuracy. Diolch yn fawr. Okay then, the next item is item 3, papers to note, the first of which is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education on the school organisation code. The second is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill. Paper to note 3 is a letter from the Chair of the Finance Committee regarding scrutiny of the Welsh Government's draft budget for the forthcoming financial year, which we will be discussing under item 6 on the agenda. Paper to note 4 is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on parental attitudes towards managing young children's behaviour. And the final paper to note, paper to note 5, is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the children and family delivery grant, which we will discuss later on in private session, if Members are content. Okay. Are you content to note those papers on that basis? Okay. Thanks very much. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17. 42 to exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting, and also for items 1 and 2 of the 20 September meeting. Is the committee content? Yes. Thank you very much. We will move then into private session.

Bethan Owen thinks that they can advise based on visible data and information and on their judgment. The big thing in this whole Brexit scenario contains so much uncertainty. And according to Dr David Blaney, they have varied links into institutions, having lots of conversations, getting information for the assessment about the financial sustainability of the institutions, assessing governance and management levels and foreseeing challenges.

tr-sq-675

tr-sq-675_0

What do the group think of the existing problem of Erasmus and the mobility funding for students? Gareth Rogers: Good morning, and welcome to today's meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. Unfortunately, the Chair is unable to attend today, so in accordance with Standing Order 17. 22 I call for nominations for a temporary Chair for the duration of today's meeting. Julie Morgan AM: I nominate John Griffiths. Gareth Rogers: Thank you. Darren Millar AM: I'll second that nomination. Gareth Rogers: As there's only one nomination, I declare that John Griffiths has been appointed as temporary Chair. Thank you, John. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Thank you all very much, and item 1 on our agenda today is introductions, apologies, substitutions and declarations of interest. We've received apologies from Hefin David and Lynne Neagle. There are no substitutions. Are there any declarations of interest? No. We will move on then to item 2, and our inquiry into the impact of Brexit on higher and further education, and our first evidence session. I'm very pleased to welcome the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales here today, and Dr David Blaney as chief executive, and Bethan Owen, director of institutional engagement. Welcome to you both. Thanks for coming along to give evidence today. If it's okay with you, we'll move straight to questions, and Julie Morgan. Julie Morgan AM: Good morning. Bore da. I wondered if we could start off with you telling us what evidence you can see that the Brexit process has had any impact on Welsh higher education so far. Dr David Blaney: Can I preface the response by just reminding you that we are, by contract and by role, apolitical, and a lot of the judgments about the impact of Brexit essentially reflect where people sit politically in terms of whether they think it's a good thing or a bad thing? We're not going to go there, obviously, today, so we'll stick to the facts as we can see them, and hopefully we'll be able to help you, but there are areas where we are unable to help. That's part of the reason. John Griffiths AM: We certainly do not expect you to enter the political fray in any way. Dr David Blaney: Thank you. But even in terms of your assessment of whether this is going to be a good thing or a bad thing, a good impact or a bad impact, some of that inevitably in the end becomes a matter of your politics on it, so we will be as careful as we can be on that. In terms of the impact of Brexit on higher education, clearly, the significance here is about the contribution that higher education can make to Wales. So, we fund provision; we don't fund providers, technically, although obviously there's not much provision without providers. So, we are interested in the sustainability of higher education providers, but fundamentally the issue is: what does the HE system in Wales do for Wales, and what impact might Brexit have on the capacity of the system to continue to deliver for Wales? So, we know that universities make annually about PS5 billion of impact; 50,000 jobs. Of course, in Wales, all of that economic impact is really very significant, and uncertainty about the relationships and the arrangements with Europe is one of the most significant issues confronting university management at the moment. That has an impact in a number of ways. We can identify at the moment the extent to which the HE sector in Wales is exposed to sources of income that are located from the EU, so EU students, structural funds, and EU research funding, and so on, from the EU. We can identify some of that, but, actually, what happens in the future is much harder to be clear about. We are beginning to see some impact in terms of applications from EU students and I'll ask Bethan to share some details on that in a moment. We're also beginning to pick up, only anecdotally, some signs that there are increasing difficulties in the UK sector, and the Welsh sector as part of that, in playing in some of the EU collaborative research activities. And that, I think, just reflects the extent to which EU partners consider that British partners might be a stable partner as we go through this transition period. We don't have data on that--that's anecdotal--but there are signs that some of those relationships are beginning to become a little bit more difficult. In terms of the financial impact of that, clearly, if it is accepted that the UK is a net contributor to the EU then, presumably, some of the money--we're almost immediately straight into politics if you're not careful--but some of the money will be available back to the UK, and the extent to which Wales benefits or not from that returned money is a function of the political relationship between the Welsh Government and Her Majesty's Government. It's not necessarily the case that Wales will always lose out in that relationship, but that will become a matter of politics. There's a broader dimension, which is about the economic impact of Brexit on the UK economy and how much tax revenue there is and all of that. I think it's very hard for us to be definitive about how that's going to play out. I think that depends on the deal and how it all unfolds over the next several years. But we can certainly anticipate some turbulence and exactly how that plays for institutions remains to be seen. We can touch later on on the extent to which they are sighted on this and preparing for it. So, in terms of recruitment, Bethan. Bethan Owen: This is based on the UCAS applications and the report that was published at the end of June, 30 June. The European Union-domiciled applicants to Wales have decreased by 8 per cent, which contrasts with a 2 per cent increase for English institutions, and non-EU--so international students, not from Europe--have also decreased by 9 per cent to Welsh institutions, again contrasting with a 7 per cent increase in England. So, those are the signs of changes. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I then just ask you what you see as the main pressures on the Welsh higher education sector at the moment? Bethan Owen: The funding position would be the main pressure. The recommendations made by Sir Ian Diamond in his review of higher education funding and student finance are in the process of being implemented, and the changes to the student finance arrangements will take effect from this September. However, the recommendations for re-establishing funding at Welsh institutions are expected to take quite a bit longer. That funding, when it returns to institutions, is intended to re-establish funding for higher cost provision, both full time and part time; reinstate funding for innovation; and maintain, at the very least, the research funding in real terms. Universities, in the meantime, are trying to minimise the cost reductions that they're making in order to maintain the infrastructure, so that when the funding comes they can get the best value out of it. We have announced our funding allocations for 2018-19. For the research and teaching grant, though, we are still funding at a lower level--PS12. 5 million less--then the starting point for the Diamond report, the 2015-16 starting report. But we expect to be able to start introducing funding from 2019-20 to make a start on implementing Diamond. And it's probably important to note that the Diamond recommendations predated Brexit, therefore the challenges introduced by Brexit are in addition to those that the Diamond report was addressing. The other pressures relate to student recruitment. I mentioned the EU and international students. There is also the start of a reduction, both in Welsh-domiciled and English-domiciled applications to Wales. Enrolments are obviously the key important number, which we'll see later. And the other pressures include pay and pension costs, not least the issues around the universities superannuation scheme pension fund, where there's potentially a significant increase in cost. Increased student expectations for modern facilities and infrastructure bring a requirement for capital expenditure and borrowing, which bring their own pressures. And finally, the uncertainty about potential consequences that could arise from the review in England of fees and funding--the Augar review. John Griffiths AM: In terms of European Union students and enrolment, is Wales forecast to do less well than England and, if so, why might that be? Bethan Owen: They are not forecasting it. It's very difficult until the enrolments are made, and it's also very hard to see--the data that we see is the UCAS data. Institutions also recruit directly, so until we see the actual recruitment--. I think the arrangements that have changed from 2018-19 also impact on EU students. So, now, they have to find the full fee, whereas previously they were getting the grant in the same way as Welsh students. So, I'm speculating that that might be having an impact as well on EU students'appetite to come. John Griffiths AM: Okay. First of all Llyr, then Mark. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, that's straight into what I was going to ask, really, about what you think the factors are that led to this 8 per cent or 9 per cent drop in EU students applying to study in Wales, where we see a 2 per cent increase in England. Is that it, or are there other things that you've taken into account? What's your assessment of the reasons behind this? Dr David Blaney: It's very difficult to be definitive about the reasons, but I think there are probably two. The one that Bethan has already indicated, which is the change in student support arrangements for EU students, will have an effect of perturbation. That's probably relatively temporary--let's hope it is--as that settles down because, actually, the deal for EU students coming into Wales is no worse than that coming into England. Ours would be better because the fee level is slightly lower, but we do struggle in Wales in terms of the Anglocentric nature of the media and so on. So, getting the messages out is a challenge. The other dimension is that when you're in a highly competitive recruitment market, you have to do what you can to look attractive. Part of that is about being able to invest in facilities, and particularly buildings and kit, and the relative levels of investment between Wales and England over quite a long period of time now probably have an impact on that. Certainly, anecdotally I know, from my own family, that a lot of the choices have been made in terms of the state of repair of campuses and so on. There's something rational about that, isn't there? If you've got a system that is relatively better invested, then you're likely to have a better student experience because the resources are likely to be better. So, that's not irrational. We saw a sort of similar but opposite effect when the PS9,000 fee maximum limit came in, and some institutions, mostly in England--there was one in Wales--chose to pitch their fee levels really quite low, relative to that PS9,000, and caught a cold in the student recruitment market because fee levels denote quality in the student mind. So, the price sensitivities work quite differently. So, again, if you've got a relatively better invested part of the system, then that might well be one of the reasons why it looks more attractive. Llyr Gruffydd AM: That latter factor would affect the whole of the cohort, not just the international recruitment, of course. Dr David Blaney: Indeed. Yes, indeed. The implementation of the Diamond recommendations is crucial to that because that's re-balancing where the policy of investment goes. John Griffiths AM: Okay. And Mark. Mark Reckless AM: If I heard you correctly earlier, you said that the applications from non-EU students were also down by 8 per cent or 9 per cent. So, forgive me a certain scepticism about the explanation of the fall in the EU students being that they did get the fee grant and now they do not. If that's the explanation, why are we seeing the same fall in non-EU applications? Dr David Blaney: Well, I think the Welsh domiciled are also now having to face the prospect of finding a loan for the whole of the fee. So, that would potentially account for that. There's also a demographic dimension here with the downturn in the 18-year-old school-leaver profile, and that actually is happening in Wales at a slightly later point than in England. Mark Reckless AM: But this is non-EU students, and I think you said, Bethan, an 8 per cent or 9 per cent fall in them as well. Dr David Blaney: International non-EU. I beg your pardon. I misunderstood. Bethan Owen: There's also a mix effect. I gave a number that was for all English institutions that there will be differential impacts on. Mark Reckless AM: All English or all Welsh? Bethan Owen: Well, I contrasted the Welsh position with the English position where they were seeing growth. If you look, then--and we don't have the detailed information, but, again, what UCAS publish is some analysis by tariff. They analyse by type of institution--in other words, the grades that you need to get into institutions--and there is a trend for growth being in the higher tariff institutions. So, there's a mix effect in there as well, and I think there's undoubtedly an element of perception of how welcome overseas and international students are, and that's something that we know the sector are working on with Government. Mark Reckless AM: Why would that affect Wales more than England? Do you think there's been perhaps too great a negativity about Brexit in the sector? Bethan Owen: I think it's the mix of institutions that we have. So, we only have sector information published at the moment. When we look at the mix of institutions that we have, we will probably see a differential impact between Cardiff University and others. John Griffiths AM: Okay, Mark? Sorry, David, did you want to add anything? Dr David Blaney: I was just going to say that we would expect to see quite differential performance in the English sector, so the overall numbers are being brought up by substantial increased performance with some of that sector, and it's a question of how many of that type of institution you have in Wales. Mark Reckless AM: So, performance is increasing amongst the English universities, but not amongst the Welsh, you think. Dr David Blaney: I think performance is increasing, but increasing substantially with some of the English sector, not all of it. So, you get an average for the sector that is increased performance, but actually the stronger players within that sector, with the stronger international profiles, are bringing that up, and we have fewer in Wales that have that sort of presence. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Darren. Darren Millar AM: Would it be fair to say, then, that the universities over the border in England are better at selling themselves internationally than our Welsh institutions? Or is it just this fact that we've got fewer very high tariff universities versus the English market? Dr David Blaney: I suspect, and this is speculation--I suspect that it's a bit of both. I think some of it is to do with the mix of different types of institution. I would then come back to the point I was making about the Anglocentric nature of the UK media. If you're looking overseas, I think Wales has to work harder to penetrate the consciousness. Darren Millar AM: But, forgive me, don't international students just look at the UK as a whole? How are we comparing to Scotland, for example, or Northern Ireland, in terms of their universities? Do you have a comparative figure for Scottish universities? Bethan Owen: I haven't got that one with me for now, but there will be one in the data. Dr David Blaney: Yes, we could get that. Bethan Owen: Again, it's a combination of being part of the UK but differentiating, and the ability to differentiate the strengths of Wales, so attracting those students to Wales specifically, on top of the UK draw. Dr David Blaney: So, in terms of the efforts that have been made, there's a programme now that is being run by the sector in Wales--it's'Study in Wales'. It's relatively recent; you could argue that we could have got there earlier. But that is a determined collective effort to present Wales as a good place to study, with particular messages about what distinguishes studying in Wales from studying more broadly in the UK. In a sense, that is responding to the need to increase the presence of Wales in an international market. So, that sort of initiative I think is very good, very welcome. It will take a while to actually have an impact, but I think that's exactly the sort of work the sector need to be doing more of. Mark Reckless AM: What are those messages on why prospective students should study in Wales? Dr David Blaney: One of them in particular is relative safety. We know that one of the considerations, particularly for parents of overseas students, is are they going to go to a safe environment, and we know that the perception of international students who study in Wales is that this is a comfortable and safe place to be. That's partly a function of the size of our larger cities--quite a lot smaller than many of the cities in England. So, that's a key message. Being part of a UK system is also an important message there as well. So, we've got a UK-quality system, a UK degree, and the strength of that brand is available in Wales, but it's available in a way that is safer and more supportive, I think is the messaging that's coming through. John Griffiths AM: Okay. We'd better move on, I think, hadn't we? Darren, then. Darren Millar AM: I just wonder to what extent you have been able to plan in your financial forecasts for the next few years ahead for the potential impacts of Brexit. What have you built in, if anything? Bethan Owen: In terms of our funding, we receive our funding annually, but the sector provides us with financial forecasts, and we use those for monitoring sustainability. So, the last full forecasts that we had were in July 2017. We are due to receive a full forecast at the end of this month, and we obviously have updated information from institutions. Darren Millar AM: And they're three-year forecasts that come through to you, aren't they? Bethan Owen: They are four plus the current year. So, we've got numbers to 2019-20 at the moment, and expect to go to 2020-21. Darren Millar AM: And what are the universities expecting? What do they anticipate? Bethan Owen: Well, for 2017-18, which is the year we're about to end now, they were expecting PS38 million income from European students, and approximately PS91 million from the various European programme funding sources, and that's about 8 per cent of the total income--PS1. 5 billion--of the sector. The forecasts are assuming that that continues, albeit that institutions have various scenarios that they have for all sorts of scenarios that we can all speculate on, and, as I mentioned earlier, the balancing act of maintaining infrastructure and resources and staff in the short term is where we are at the moment, or where the sector is at the moment. And there are also signs that the banks and lending institutions are becoming a bit more risk-averse in providing borrowing to institutions, and of more differentiation between individual institutions being made than has possibly been the case in the past. The sector made an operating deficit, again looking at all Welsh institutions collectively last year, 2016-17, of PS17 million. That's before other gains and losses. And we're expecting a similar collective level of deficit for this financial year, if not slightly higher. Now, these are managed deficits and we are not currently seeing critical short-term cash availability issues in the sector. However, the increase in funding from Diamond is a key part of enabling the sector to return to longer-term financial sustainability. Short-term challenges can be met if there's a reasonable prospect of future funding. You can manage in the short-term, but there comes a point when the big cost reductions and infrastructure reductions have to be made. And, again, having mentioned the pressures on pay, pensions and other challenges, it is difficult to gauge whether, if those factors come into play as well, some of these cost reductions may have to be made before funding comes in to replace--either Diamond funding or the European replacement funding. Darren Millar AM: So, would it be fair to say that, in terms of the funding arrangements, and, in terms of the student numbers, one reason why we've got this recruitment problem is this lack of investment in the capital infrastructure that we've seen in recent years because of the financing arrangements from the Welsh Government, and the fee regime that we had previously, and the student finance regime that we had previously, not getting more cash into our Welsh universities perhaps, and that, over the next few years, there's going to have to be much more significant investment in capital if we're to raise the game and be more competitive, yes? Bethan Owen: Yes, that would be fair to say. Darren Millar AM: So, to what extent are they planning for more capital investment in those financial strategies that they've been preparing and presenting to you? Bethan Owen: They are all planning for capital investment. They are in different positions in terms of capacity to borrow and the assumptions. This year, 2018-19, is the first time that we've had capital funding in our remit letter--so, we've got PS10 million of capital funding, which is very welcome, with a prospect of a further PS20 million. So, that we will be allocating shortly. That will make a difference, particularly to those institutions who are not finding it as easy to borrow from financial institutions. Some of our larger institutions have borrowed--Cardiff University issued a bond. However, there are internal governance processes that are putting tight restrictions and expectations of what that money will be invested in. But they all have plans to do it and they need the confidence that their forecasts and long-term future funding prospects are secure enough that they can get the confidence of borrowers then, and service the costs of those borrowers. Darren Millar AM: So, the Diamond dividend you've mentioned a few times. What clarity is there from the Welsh Government at the moment in terms of how much they anticipate the Diamond dividend will be, and what proportion of that is going to be released to HEIs in the future? Bethan Owen: I was very carefully not describing it as a dividend--a re-establishing of funding that we had in the past for higher cost and innovation and maintaining research funding. The timescales are difficult, because we have an annual remit letter, and we can work with Welsh Government officials, and they can only give us a sense of when they think the funding will be released. But 2018-19 is the start of the system, and because of cohort protection--so, protecting those students who came in on a different deal to the deal from 2018-19--in the early years there is an element of double cost; there's a cost of seeing out the old system and the different cost of implementing the new system. So, at the moment, we're certainly not in a position to tell the sector with any degree of certainty what funding would be beyond what we've allocated for 2018-19, with some sense of what 2019-20 numbers we're working with because we allocate our money over an academic year--so, by definition, we've already made assumptions of four months of the 2019-20 funding, albeit that's not approved yet in the budgetary process. Darren Millar AM: But you're not being given a steer at all as to what you expect the additional resource that you might have to make available to Welsh universities might be as a result of Diamond. You must have some idea. Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say that officials have been as helpful as they can be with us, in terms of the planning assumptions we make and indications about whether or not we are being too ambitious or not ambitious enough. So, I think they're being very helpful; as Bethan said, they're constrained by the process--they can't pre-empt a budget process. And you folks will be fully aware of that, of course. The other question I think you asked was how much of the money released by the new arrangements will come into higher education. At the moment, we are expecting all of it to come into higher education, as the product of the arrangement between the current Cabinet Secretary and the current First Minister. The extent to which any changes there cause that to come under threat is something I can't judge at the moment. But we have had in our remit letter from the Cabinet Secretary a clear indication that we can expect our resource to grow over the next few years, as the Diamond process unfolds. John Griffiths AM: Okay. I'm just going to bring in Llyr at this stage. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Bethan said in an earlier answer that, I think, the financial forecasting from universities forecast something pretty consistent in terms of what they're hoping to be receiving in income, for example. But we've already discussed the near 10 per cent drop, potentially, in international applications. So, does that tally, really, or are they going to be recruiting additional students from the UK market or--? What's the plan? Bethan Owen: I was reflecting on the last point when we had consistent information across the sector. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, they may need to revisit that in the light of this. Bethan Owen: I'm expecting that the forecast that we get at the end of this month will reflect the reduced applications we've seen, and an element of that will be reflected in reduced improvements as well. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, we don't really know, then, whether--it's unlikely that they are going to expect a consistent fee income, really. Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say we would expect them to respond to what they're seeing in the UCAS process. Even if they didn't, they would all, in any case, have sensitivities for what they would do if things don't come out in the way they hope. And if they didn't have that then we would be on their case, of course, because we want them to be properly sighted. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Thanks. John Griffiths AM: And we have to stick to the Brexit impact. Darren. Darren Millar AM: Can I just ask, in terms of the impact of Brexit, have you done any assessment of what you think might happen, or have any of the institutions made available to you any assessments of what they think is likely to happen to their individual institutions, going forward? You've mentioned scenarios earlier on, David, so what scenarios have you set out? Dr David Blaney: There's a Welsh Government HE Brexit working group, which is chaired by one of the Government directors, and we sit on that. And we have provided that group with early summaries of the risks and the potential impact, in terms of the exposure of the sector to EU-sourced funding. We have, as part of that working group, explored those issues that it would be really very helpful for either the Welsh Government to try to put in place or for the Welsh Government to persuade UK Government to do. And I think, in our submission, we identified a number of areas of what we would consider to be a helpful action, and that has been worked through that working group. We know that it has informed Welsh Government's position, in terms of what it does and also in terms of the conversations that they have with Her Majesty's Government. Beyond that, what we haven't done in that working group is share the work that institutions are doing individually to look at how they would respond to different scenarios. We are not able to do that here either because, inevitably, they would have varying degrees of unpalatability and they would have to be managed very, very carefully. You take cost out, which is essentially the response, you actually take people's jobs out, and all of that has to be managed carefully. So, that's not really a matter for public consideration, but we do know that the institutions are looking at a range of scenarios on what they would do. Bethan mentioned earlier on that the current deficit for the sector is a managed deficit--it's not something that has taken them by surprise. They are responding to what they see as the dip between where Diamond was reporting and where the money starts flowing. Similarly, I think we're comfortable that there is a managed approach to the scenarios that they're testing within institutions. So, they will do what they need to do to sustain themselves. The bigger issue really, in a public policy context, is the potential damage for the sector to be able to deliver for Wales in terms of research and skills development and all the other contributions. Darren Millar AM: So, you're confident that they're taking a robust approach to planning for various scenarios, going forward, are you, as individual HEIs? Dr David Blaney: Yes, and as the deal becomes more clear politically, then they will obviously have greater clarity in terms of which of these scenarios they need to work up more fully, but they are sighted on it. Darren Millar AM: Okay. Can I just ask about fee and access plans, and how Brexit might impact them? To what extent do you think that they could be impacted? Dr David Blaney: I think there are two dimensions to maybe touch upon there. Fee and access plans are approved annually by us. They are approved in advance of the recruitment cycle for the year that they apply to. So, we're just in the process now of finalising our consideration of fee and access plans for the 2019-20 academic year. So, there's quite a long lead time. We, as part of that process, go through similar--we look at their financial sustainability, which is based on their forecasts--data to the stuff we've just been discussing. And also, of course, the fee plans themselves make assumptions about how many students of different types, from different domains, are going to be recruited. So, clearly, if there is a continuing downward pressure on EU student recruitment, then that will reduce the amount of fee income that's going to come in, unless they can find other students, and that will reduce the amount of investment in the various activities that are identified in the fee plans. In terms of process, we have two things that we can do. If institutions are becoming aware that the basis upon which they've submitted a fee plan is fundamentally different from the reality, then they can come into us for a change to their fee plan. So, we have a change process. If it's not fundamentally different, but there are always differences between what you plan and what happens three years later--. We also monitor after the event and, if there are differences, we would then obviously require institutions to explain those differences. If they've had fewer students and less investment, we would need to understand that. Conversely, if they'd had more students, and potentially more investment, we'd want to know what they'd spent it on, and if they've done different things, we'd want to understand that as well. So, we do challenge through a monitoring process. The only other thing that's perhaps worth saying is that, in the 2019-20 fee and access plans--they're not published yet, so I can't give you the full detail--five universities have made reference to Brexit and the Brexit impact, and things they want to do through their fee and access plan to try and address some of those issues, so they're in there as well. Darren Millar AM: But we've already said, haven't we, that it may be nothing to do with Brexit, this dip in EU recruitment, because there are other factors like the attractiveness of the estates and the environment that young people might be educated in? But they're making assumptions that it's linked to Brexit, are they? Dr David Blaney: Not really. I think they're making assumptions that it could be. There are things they want to do to enhance and to protect student mobility, and some of that will be funded through fee plan investment. So, the Brexit conversation between the EU and the UK Government might or might not sustain Erasmus engagement, and if it doesn't, then they need to find other ways of trying to support that sort of thing. So, that's what we're beginning to see in the fee plans. It's them thinking about how else we can do this stuff. John Griffiths AM: Okay, Darren? Mark. Mark Reckless AM: You mentioned the fee and access report. What else do you do to assure yourselves that Welsh higher education institutions are effectively planning for Brexit? Bethan Owen: We've touched on contingency plans, but, in an environment of uncertainty, I think it's difficult for any of us to know what the right scenario is. I think rather than looking at worst-case scenarios, what the sector is also focusing on is the promotion and looking for additional or increased sources of funding. So, we touched on strengthening the Global Wales engagement in order to sell Wales, so more focus on marketing Wales overseas, but also within the UK. The other area where the sector is working at a UK level very hard is making the arguments to UK Government for maintaining access to the successor to Horizon 2020, which is arguably a larger part of the whole funding infrastructure--students is one part, but the whole funding infrastructure for maintaining research capacity. So, working with UK universities to make arguments at UK Government level for maintaining access to those sources of funding is also a part of what the institutions are doing. We mentioned the Welsh Government's HE Brexit group. That group, which is the Welsh Government group, is being advised by members on it, and that's informing Welsh Government officials when they engage with UK Government as well. Mark Reckless AM: Do universities seek your advice on what the risks and, indeed, opportunities of Brexit may be and what you think they should be doing to plan for them, or is your role more one of monitoring what they do as opposed to advising what they should do? Bethan Owen: They are autonomous institutions and ultimately their governing bodies are responsible for ensuring their sustainability. It's not a relationship where we would advise and direct, but it is a relationship where we would question the scenarios if we consider from our experience that we would have expected other scenarios to have been tested. It's that nature of conversation, rather than directing. Mark Reckless AM: I understand you don't direct, of course, but my question was about advising. You're overseeing, or monitoring--or whatever you like to describe the role as--quite a number of institutions, and presumably you therefore have particular expertise within your organisation, and I just wondered whether higher education institutions are doing enough to draw on that. Bethan Owen: I think we can advise--we can advise based on data and information that we can see. We can advise based on our judgment. The big thing in this whole Brexit scenario is the uncertainty and the extent to which our speculation is better informed than the governing bodies or the sector collectively is probably the issue. Dr David Blaney: I think that's right. So, there's a relationship with the sector and there's a relationship with individual institutions, and they are different. So, we have engagement collectively with the sector. Bethan meets with the finance directors, and I meet with the vice-chancellors. We actually have the sector and the funding council together on the Welsh Government's group. So, some of these conversations are happening in various ways, where we're all gaining intelligence about what might be a sensible set of planning assumptions. Then, if we see an institution that is manifestly giving signs of not being sighted on some of these risks, either through their forecast or through other assurance activity, we will challenge. We have an annual cycle, with two points in the year where we reassess the overall risks of individual institutions, and that's based on a whole range of hard data but also a range of soft data. Our links into institutions are many and varied. We have lots of conversations and we take all of that in the round and form an assessment about the financial sustainability of the institutions but also the extent to which we think their governance and management arrangements are properly sighted and facing properly the challenges that they face. In some ways, we say it's not about the challenges they face; it's about how they face the challenges. Our alarm bells really ring when we get the sense that, actually, either an executive or a governing body hasn't really noticed. We're not in that place, I'm really pleased to say. I'm not worried about short-term crisis with any of the institutions. There are medium-term real challenges, both because of Brexit and because of other contextual factors, but at the moment the sector is a managed sector, which is good. It's not always like that, but we're in, I think, a good place at the moment. So, our role is definitely to challenge where we don't think they are making sensible assessments, but it's not to say that their assessment is wrong and ours is right; it's just to have a conversation about,'Why have you done this and what has informed your thinking?'It's slightly more one step back and slightly more subtle, but it is, as you imply, us using the intelligence we gain from all of those conversations when we talk to individual institutions as well. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Llyr. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, thank you. We had evidence last week from some of the higher education institutions, including Cardiff University, and it's very interesting, in relation to Erasmus+ and the mobility funding for students that, I think, only 40 per cent of the mobility funding in Cardiff is paid for by Erasmus+. I note that you've been consulting on national measures for higher education performance and that one possibility is using international mobility as a performance indicator. I was just wondering whether you might go further and expect universities to actually make commitments to funding international mobility from their own fee incomes as part of that. Bethan Owen: Again, reflecting on the latest fee and access plans, seven of the universities are referring to mobility--either they have targets in them or are explaining what their plans are--so they are including an element of it from their own income and fee and access income. However, Erasmus is such a well-established and long-term plan--if we were looking at a scenario where that infrastructure wasn't available, to implement anything similar to that would be much less efficient and much more costly. And to enable an infrastructure that allowed--. Ideally, you'd want something that all Welsh institutions could take part in, and that takes some investment and some co-ordinating. And, equally, you need to have the arrangements with your overseas and European institutions. I think it's easy to underestimate the accumulation of time that has gone into establishing Erasmus. So, I think replacing it would be a challenge. Llyr Gruffydd AM: And the point was made clearly last week that the brand is internationally recognised. When you enter into Erasmus+, you know exactly what you're going to get, and all of that. But there have been criticisms as well about degrees of flexibility and this, that and the other, so I'm just wondering whether--and there is presumably going to be some change on that front although I'm hoping we can buy into it, as others have done who aren't in the EU--that emphasis on encouraging institutions to look more proactively at funding their own mobility efforts would be positive. Dr David Blaney: I think the-- Llyr Gruffydd AM: Sorry--especially if it means that they do more of it. Dr David Blaney: Indeed. I think the Welsh sector is definitely committed to trying to find ways of promoting and resourcing that sort of mobility. There are signs that some of the restrictive elements of the Erasmus programme are going to change anyway, because that's under development and that's positive. There have been positive noises as part of the Brexit negotiations about wanting to carry on being able to access the Erasmus programme. Nothing is agreed until it's all agreed apparently, so we'll have to see on that one. That would be far better, I think, as Bethan indicates, than trying to replace it with a made-in-Wales only, but you could have a made-in-Wales on top. All of these challenges also create opportunities because they stimulate thinking, and so the fact that seven of the eight universities are already now using their fee plans as a vehicle for thinking about this is positive, and I think we can take that on from there. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Because that 40/60 split struck me as being the opposite to what I perceived the situation to be. A key part of your role is to work in partnership with students, so I'd just like to ask what work have you done with students, in terms of maybe protecting their interests as the Brexit scenario evolves? Dr David Blaney: Well, as you say, we do work with students. We were the first of the funding councils in the UK to have a memorandum of understanding with the National Union of Students in Wales. We work very closely with them and the president of NUS is an observer on our council. So, we have close links with NUS Wales and we're very proud of that, and it's very productive. They don't have a vote, but they do have a voice and it really matters. We we're, again, ahead of the rest of the UK in requiring all HE providers to have student charters and there are elements of student protection within the student charter. The UK-wide quality code also has elements in it where arrangements have to be specified about the protection of student interests. That is particularly, in essence, around circumstances where a provider gets into difficulties and they might wish to close a course or something more drastic and then what arrangements are in place to make sure that those students who are in train are protected. So, that is there and we've worked hard with the sector and with NUS Wales to get those measures in place. There's more development work in train at the moment, so we've asked Universities Wales to construct a protection that takes account of the approach to protecting the student interests in higher education. We're also requiring further education institutions who are regulated and deliver higher education to do similar or the same, and that's very important. The students who are HE students in FE are absolutely not second-best, and they should have the same protections. Llyr Gruffydd AM: But is all this a general piece of work? It's not Brexit-specific, although, no doubt, it may--. Dr David Blaney: I think that's fair to say, yes. The other dimension around Brexit is the immigration status of EU students, and that's, kind of, beyond our pay scale--that's a UK Government issue. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Is that something that you have a view on? Dr David Blaney: It's clearly in the interest of the enrichment of the curriculum and the student experience for students in Welsh institutions to be able to have students from other EU countries in the mix. So, it would be nice to find ways of continuing to facilitate that. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Now, of course, you have a statutory duty as well to assess the academic quality of the work in our higher education institutions, and I'm just wondering what potential impacts you think that Brexit might have on that particular aspect. Dr David Blaney: I think there are possibly a couple of things to say, and one, in a sense, echoes what I was just saying in the final part of my previous response, which is that part of the quality of the student experience is the richness that you get from having students in your cohort who have different backgrounds and different perspectives. So, if there is a continuing reduction in the number of EU students coming into Welsh institutions, then that richness deteriorates. That doesn't mean to say that the base or the threshold standard of what's required for a degree will come under pressure, it's just about the richness on top of that, which will be, in a sense, a quality-enhancement issue. That would be something that we would wish to try to protect against, but in the end you can't force EU students to come--you have to try and look attractive, and we've touched on that. The baseline requirement assessment of quality will not be affected by Brexit, except in so far as the machinery we use to discharge our statutory responsibility, which is through the Quality Assurance Agency, which themselves are accredited with European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, the European machinery for higher education quality. And there's a set of standards around that, and we would obviously wish not to be in a position where our ability to use and adhere to those standards is adversely impacted upon. Those standards will still exist, and it will be possible for the British system to adhere to them, even if they're not actually able to play in the same way. Then the only other thing I would say is that one of the factors that can cause the quality of the learning and teaching experience to be likely to become inadequate is when institutions come under financial pressure, just because their capacity to maintain the same sort of student experience can get under pressure. So, clearly, we will be looking for and making sure that institutions manage the financial pressures, if there are any--and there are some at the moment, as we've described--and manage those carefully. And in all of that, we will expect institutions to do their duty to make sure that the commitments they've already made to students are carried through. So, where students have already started on the course, they need to be able to finish that course--you can't just pull the plug out. So, all of that comes into the arrangements for quality as well. So, we'll be keeping an eye on that. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. A lot of what you've told us in the last three quarters of an hour or so will have costs attached, depending on the impacts. Certainly, we're in choppy waters as a sector anyway, and the risk is that things will be even more choppy, if you'll excuse that level of political interpretation, over the years to come. I'm just wondering what advice you might have given the Welsh Government in terms of what level of transition funding, or Brexit transition funding, might be required by the sector, and if you have, what the Welsh Government might have told you. Bethan Owen: I mentioned earlier that, obviously, we've provided information in terms of the assumptions that the sector are making on income. So, for the year 2017-18, that was PS129 million. I think the extent to which that needs to be replaced or supported with transition funding depends absolutely on what the final arrangements for Brexit are, but it's an appropriate point to refer to the report that Professor Graeme Reid has produced, commissioned by Welsh Government. That was, and has, provided advice and recommendations for supporting research and innovation in the transition period. But, again, the Reid recommendations in that report build on the Diamond recommendations, and as soon as Diamond is in place--and Reid is providing recommendations in addition, to establish funding on the basis that the funding needs to be available in Wales to maintain and develop and strengthen the research and innovation infrastructure that we have. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Are you not worried, though, that the clock is ticking and that we really don't know what the situation is at this point? Dr David Blaney: Do you mean the Brexit situation? Llyr Gruffydd AM: The Brexit clock, yes. Dr David Blaney: Uncertainty is unhelpful, because as I've said several times, the sector is a managed sector at the moment. I don't think there's--. We're not seeing maverick stuff, but actually you can only manage, really, what you can see and what you can reasonably predict. So, the longer the uncertainty persists, the more difficult that is for institutional management and, indeed, for the rest of the machinery to support them. So, yes, the sooner we get clarity, the better for everybody, I imagine. Darren Millar AM: Chair, can I just ask a question? John Griffiths AM: Yes, Darren. Darren Millar AM: In terms of uncertainty, though, we've still got this uncertainty over whether the extra cash that the Government's going to have to spend as a result of Diamond being implemented is coming to the HE sector. They've given a political commitment, but you've got absolutely no other assurance of the sums of money that are coming in. We've got the reform of tertiary education arrangements in Wales, which are also under way, so it's a bit of a perfect storm for you, isn't it, really, with all of these three things happening at the same time? Dr David Blaney: We're certainly kept busy. Darren Millar AM: But two of those things are in the gift of the Welsh Government to sort out for you, aren't they? Dr David Blaney: Well, the policy on the reform of the post-compulsory sector absolutely is a Welsh Government policy. The extent to which they can pre-empt a budgetary process and give us clear sight of the amount of money in future years is--. Well, again, it's not for me to comment. My understanding is that that's difficult for them to do, and I would repeat what I said earlier: officials have been as helpful as I think they can be in respect of that. I mean, you're right, we've only got a political commitment between two people currently in post. It would be great to have that firmer. I'm not sure how that could be done. Darren Millar AM: I mean, that statement about the savings accrued from Diamond being reinvested wholly into the HE sector has not been repeated, frankly, has it, since the coalition deal was struck? Dr David Blaney: No, but it hasn't been rescinded either, so--. Darren Millar AM: No, but there have been opportunities--repeated opportunities--in the Chamber, where the Cabinet Secretary's been asked to repeat that commitment, and the First Minister's been asked to repeat that commitment and has not given that commitment. That must concern you, and must concern your university sector even more than, perhaps, some of the elements of Brexit that we're discussing. Dr David Blaney: Bethan has outlined earlier on in this session the fact that institutions are currently running deficit budgets in order not to lose the infrastructure on the assumption that the Diamond money will come in. If anything were to cause significant perturbation, either to the timeline of that or to it coming in at all, then there would be much more of what Medwin Hughes calls'houskeeping'that would be required, and that would be significant. So, at the moment--I don't like the expression'valley of death', but there is a valley to cross, and I think the sector is reasonably confident about how wide and how deep that valley is. There's a demographic valley as well. So, there are several valleys that they're crossing--the metaphor fails, doesn't it, really, but I think you get the drift? So, there are a number of challenges and they can see their way out of some of those challenges, but if any one of these starts to get significantly disrupted, then that would be a real issue for them. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I go on to ask about other barriers to Welsh universities gaining more funding from UK research councils? What would you say those barriers are? Dr David Blaney: Well, I think there are a couple of things, really, to say. The first one--and we'll sound like a stuck record if we're not careful--is that there's an issue about investment and the Reid report makes this very clear. So, he has reaffirmed research that had been done previously that identifies that, actually, the quality of the research base in Welsh universities and the productivity of that Welsh research base are both good, there's just not enough of them, and that, in the end, is a product of investment decisions. They have particularly looked at the deficit in science, technology, engineering and mathematics areas, and I always say that research is not just STEM. I mean, STEM is important, and I'm not denying the deficit in that area, but we have to also remember that the research agenda for Wales is not just STEM--it's arts, humanities, it's social sciences. If you look at the impact on public policy that could come from social science research--tremendous. And we're very good at it in Wales. The Welsh impact in its research is better than anywhere else in the UK, so that's good. So, they do very well, and we just really need to invest a little bit further--so continue to do very well, but put it on a broader front. If you want to be able to play into the UK-wide research funding, then the investment has two dimensions to it. One is just having enough researchers to be able to play into those increasingly larger projects rather than small-scale projects. If you haven't got the critical mass, it's very hard to make the case that you can play. And the second thing is that UK-wide research pots nearly always fund at about 80 per cent of the total cost of the research, and the other 20 per cent is meant to be found from the core research funding for the university, and if you're in a situation where your core research funding is not competitive, then you're not going to be competitive at getting that money. So, that's, kind of, straightforward. There are other things. I think it's fair to say that the Welsh sector has not been sufficiently focused on getting in on the conversations with the research councils, making sure they're in the various committees and so on. We are intending to do a bit of work to see if we can systematise that a bit better--that engagement--because there's no doubt about it: it's not to say that this system is in any way inappropriate, but the more you're in the conversations, the more likely you are to be better placed to respond to the research challenges that come up. John Griffiths AM: Okay. One final question: in terms of the researcher collaborations and networks that exist, do you see potential difficulties after Brexit for the continuation and enhancement of those, and are there any particular lessons to learn from Ser Cymru II? Dr David Blaney: I think that there are two things to say here as well. First of all, the Brexit deal might or might not impact adversely on the capacity of Welsh and, indeed, UK research infrastructure to play into broader collaborative activity across Europe, and, in a sense, that's a function of the deal whatever the deal looks like, and we'll have to wait and see. But we've mentioned playing into Horizon Europe, and being able to continue with that would be an important part of that capacity. It's not just the money, it's being in the club and it's the signalling that we're in the game. So, all of that would be important. And then the other part of my response to this would be that, actually, Wales will need to continue to be good at the research it does, so maintaining the quality, maintaining the impact, and hopefully growing the critical mass. The Ser Cymru initiative has been quite important in doing that, because it's been very focused, capturing key research players, and the attractiveness that that has then to other researchers around them, and to industry collaboration, and they have been areas of real strength that we've invested in. And I think they are already showing dividends in terms of the capacity to win more research funding, and to establish an even stronger presence in the international research market. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Just one further point, from Darren. Darren Millar AM: Just very briefly, one of the pieces of feedback that the committee members received at a stakeholder engagement event, which took place prior to this inquiry starting, to receive oral evidence, was about the research funding that is available from the charitable sector, and how poorly Wales does in attracting some of that research. I think we had some figures from the British Heart Foundation, which said they have PS100 million a year available for research grants, or something like that, and we're getting 1 per cent of that coming into Wales, which is obviously pretty low down. I appreciate that research into the type of activity that they want to put their money into, Wales may not be particularly good at, and there may be other opportunities with other charities and partnerships. What work are you doing in order to build the capacity that Wales has to attract more of that charitable sector research funding into Wales? Bethan Owen: One of the issues is the capacity to engage with that funding, because of the overhead issue that David mentioned. Charitable funding at the moment doesn't attract any overhead funding. Again, that could be built in to our funding, if we had the capacity to increase our quality-related research funding. There is an element in England. Darren Millar AM: But that pressure's the same in other parts of the UK, is it not? So the overhead funding is still an issue in England, and in other places. Bethan Owen: There is an increased contribution, and I think it's an element that was increased this year to acknowledge that. But there will be differentiation between different charities. I'm fairly certain that some of our institutions will be very strong with the cancer charities, possibly not the heart foundation. And some of that will reflect on focusing on our strengths, but to have that fuller picture. Darren Millar AM: So, this gearing issue that you mentioned earlier on, for every PS1 that somebody else puts on the table, they can draw in another PS4 on top, because that PS1 will cover the overheads, whereas the rest of the research cash--. Dr David Blaney: That's exactly it. So, the more you're able to invest--. You know, we sometimes get into a conversation about the unhypothecated nature of our research funding, but actually that creates a flexibility and the infrastructure investment that allows institutions to be able to respond to these other opportunities. Without that, they can't do it, because if you're not careful, you've got institutions engaging in UK-wide or charity-based research activities where they're actually having to pay for it themselves--they're running at a loss. Darren Millar AM: So that's the main problem; it's not that Welsh universities aren't doing their best to get this cash in. Or is it a bit of both? Dr David Blaney: I think, in the main, universities and researchers will get their cash from wherever they can, so I don't think it's a lack of appetite. Darren Millar AM: Okay. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Well, thank you, both, for coming in to give evidence to the committee this morning. You will be sent a draft of the transcript, to check for accuracy. Diolch yn fawr. Okay then, the next item is item 3, papers to note, the first of which is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education on the school organisation code. The second is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill. Paper to note 3 is a letter from the Chair of the Finance Committee regarding scrutiny of the Welsh Government's draft budget for the forthcoming financial year, which we will be discussing under item 6 on the agenda. Paper to note 4 is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on parental attitudes towards managing young children's behaviour. And the final paper to note, paper to note 5, is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the children and family delivery grant, which we will discuss later on in private session, if Members are content. Okay. Are you content to note those papers on that basis? Okay. Thanks very much. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17. 42 to exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting, and also for items 1 and 2 of the 20 September meeting. Is the committee content? Yes. Thank you very much. We will move then into private session.

According to Bethan Owen, seven of the universities are referring to mobility, so they are including an element of it from their own income and fee and access income. However, Erasmus is such a well-established and long-term plan that to implement anything similar to it would be much less efficient and much more costly, so replacing it would be a challenge.

tr-sq-676

tr-sq-676_0

What does the executives do to protect students'interests as the Brexit scenario evolves? Gareth Rogers: Good morning, and welcome to today's meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. Unfortunately, the Chair is unable to attend today, so in accordance with Standing Order 17. 22 I call for nominations for a temporary Chair for the duration of today's meeting. Julie Morgan AM: I nominate John Griffiths. Gareth Rogers: Thank you. Darren Millar AM: I'll second that nomination. Gareth Rogers: As there's only one nomination, I declare that John Griffiths has been appointed as temporary Chair. Thank you, John. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Thank you all very much, and item 1 on our agenda today is introductions, apologies, substitutions and declarations of interest. We've received apologies from Hefin David and Lynne Neagle. There are no substitutions. Are there any declarations of interest? No. We will move on then to item 2, and our inquiry into the impact of Brexit on higher and further education, and our first evidence session. I'm very pleased to welcome the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales here today, and Dr David Blaney as chief executive, and Bethan Owen, director of institutional engagement. Welcome to you both. Thanks for coming along to give evidence today. If it's okay with you, we'll move straight to questions, and Julie Morgan. Julie Morgan AM: Good morning. Bore da. I wondered if we could start off with you telling us what evidence you can see that the Brexit process has had any impact on Welsh higher education so far. Dr David Blaney: Can I preface the response by just reminding you that we are, by contract and by role, apolitical, and a lot of the judgments about the impact of Brexit essentially reflect where people sit politically in terms of whether they think it's a good thing or a bad thing? We're not going to go there, obviously, today, so we'll stick to the facts as we can see them, and hopefully we'll be able to help you, but there are areas where we are unable to help. That's part of the reason. John Griffiths AM: We certainly do not expect you to enter the political fray in any way. Dr David Blaney: Thank you. But even in terms of your assessment of whether this is going to be a good thing or a bad thing, a good impact or a bad impact, some of that inevitably in the end becomes a matter of your politics on it, so we will be as careful as we can be on that. In terms of the impact of Brexit on higher education, clearly, the significance here is about the contribution that higher education can make to Wales. So, we fund provision; we don't fund providers, technically, although obviously there's not much provision without providers. So, we are interested in the sustainability of higher education providers, but fundamentally the issue is: what does the HE system in Wales do for Wales, and what impact might Brexit have on the capacity of the system to continue to deliver for Wales? So, we know that universities make annually about PS5 billion of impact; 50,000 jobs. Of course, in Wales, all of that economic impact is really very significant, and uncertainty about the relationships and the arrangements with Europe is one of the most significant issues confronting university management at the moment. That has an impact in a number of ways. We can identify at the moment the extent to which the HE sector in Wales is exposed to sources of income that are located from the EU, so EU students, structural funds, and EU research funding, and so on, from the EU. We can identify some of that, but, actually, what happens in the future is much harder to be clear about. We are beginning to see some impact in terms of applications from EU students and I'll ask Bethan to share some details on that in a moment. We're also beginning to pick up, only anecdotally, some signs that there are increasing difficulties in the UK sector, and the Welsh sector as part of that, in playing in some of the EU collaborative research activities. And that, I think, just reflects the extent to which EU partners consider that British partners might be a stable partner as we go through this transition period. We don't have data on that--that's anecdotal--but there are signs that some of those relationships are beginning to become a little bit more difficult. In terms of the financial impact of that, clearly, if it is accepted that the UK is a net contributor to the EU then, presumably, some of the money--we're almost immediately straight into politics if you're not careful--but some of the money will be available back to the UK, and the extent to which Wales benefits or not from that returned money is a function of the political relationship between the Welsh Government and Her Majesty's Government. It's not necessarily the case that Wales will always lose out in that relationship, but that will become a matter of politics. There's a broader dimension, which is about the economic impact of Brexit on the UK economy and how much tax revenue there is and all of that. I think it's very hard for us to be definitive about how that's going to play out. I think that depends on the deal and how it all unfolds over the next several years. But we can certainly anticipate some turbulence and exactly how that plays for institutions remains to be seen. We can touch later on on the extent to which they are sighted on this and preparing for it. So, in terms of recruitment, Bethan. Bethan Owen: This is based on the UCAS applications and the report that was published at the end of June, 30 June. The European Union-domiciled applicants to Wales have decreased by 8 per cent, which contrasts with a 2 per cent increase for English institutions, and non-EU--so international students, not from Europe--have also decreased by 9 per cent to Welsh institutions, again contrasting with a 7 per cent increase in England. So, those are the signs of changes. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I then just ask you what you see as the main pressures on the Welsh higher education sector at the moment? Bethan Owen: The funding position would be the main pressure. The recommendations made by Sir Ian Diamond in his review of higher education funding and student finance are in the process of being implemented, and the changes to the student finance arrangements will take effect from this September. However, the recommendations for re-establishing funding at Welsh institutions are expected to take quite a bit longer. That funding, when it returns to institutions, is intended to re-establish funding for higher cost provision, both full time and part time; reinstate funding for innovation; and maintain, at the very least, the research funding in real terms. Universities, in the meantime, are trying to minimise the cost reductions that they're making in order to maintain the infrastructure, so that when the funding comes they can get the best value out of it. We have announced our funding allocations for 2018-19. For the research and teaching grant, though, we are still funding at a lower level--PS12. 5 million less--then the starting point for the Diamond report, the 2015-16 starting report. But we expect to be able to start introducing funding from 2019-20 to make a start on implementing Diamond. And it's probably important to note that the Diamond recommendations predated Brexit, therefore the challenges introduced by Brexit are in addition to those that the Diamond report was addressing. The other pressures relate to student recruitment. I mentioned the EU and international students. There is also the start of a reduction, both in Welsh-domiciled and English-domiciled applications to Wales. Enrolments are obviously the key important number, which we'll see later. And the other pressures include pay and pension costs, not least the issues around the universities superannuation scheme pension fund, where there's potentially a significant increase in cost. Increased student expectations for modern facilities and infrastructure bring a requirement for capital expenditure and borrowing, which bring their own pressures. And finally, the uncertainty about potential consequences that could arise from the review in England of fees and funding--the Augar review. John Griffiths AM: In terms of European Union students and enrolment, is Wales forecast to do less well than England and, if so, why might that be? Bethan Owen: They are not forecasting it. It's very difficult until the enrolments are made, and it's also very hard to see--the data that we see is the UCAS data. Institutions also recruit directly, so until we see the actual recruitment--. I think the arrangements that have changed from 2018-19 also impact on EU students. So, now, they have to find the full fee, whereas previously they were getting the grant in the same way as Welsh students. So, I'm speculating that that might be having an impact as well on EU students'appetite to come. John Griffiths AM: Okay. First of all Llyr, then Mark. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, that's straight into what I was going to ask, really, about what you think the factors are that led to this 8 per cent or 9 per cent drop in EU students applying to study in Wales, where we see a 2 per cent increase in England. Is that it, or are there other things that you've taken into account? What's your assessment of the reasons behind this? Dr David Blaney: It's very difficult to be definitive about the reasons, but I think there are probably two. The one that Bethan has already indicated, which is the change in student support arrangements for EU students, will have an effect of perturbation. That's probably relatively temporary--let's hope it is--as that settles down because, actually, the deal for EU students coming into Wales is no worse than that coming into England. Ours would be better because the fee level is slightly lower, but we do struggle in Wales in terms of the Anglocentric nature of the media and so on. So, getting the messages out is a challenge. The other dimension is that when you're in a highly competitive recruitment market, you have to do what you can to look attractive. Part of that is about being able to invest in facilities, and particularly buildings and kit, and the relative levels of investment between Wales and England over quite a long period of time now probably have an impact on that. Certainly, anecdotally I know, from my own family, that a lot of the choices have been made in terms of the state of repair of campuses and so on. There's something rational about that, isn't there? If you've got a system that is relatively better invested, then you're likely to have a better student experience because the resources are likely to be better. So, that's not irrational. We saw a sort of similar but opposite effect when the PS9,000 fee maximum limit came in, and some institutions, mostly in England--there was one in Wales--chose to pitch their fee levels really quite low, relative to that PS9,000, and caught a cold in the student recruitment market because fee levels denote quality in the student mind. So, the price sensitivities work quite differently. So, again, if you've got a relatively better invested part of the system, then that might well be one of the reasons why it looks more attractive. Llyr Gruffydd AM: That latter factor would affect the whole of the cohort, not just the international recruitment, of course. Dr David Blaney: Indeed. Yes, indeed. The implementation of the Diamond recommendations is crucial to that because that's re-balancing where the policy of investment goes. John Griffiths AM: Okay. And Mark. Mark Reckless AM: If I heard you correctly earlier, you said that the applications from non-EU students were also down by 8 per cent or 9 per cent. So, forgive me a certain scepticism about the explanation of the fall in the EU students being that they did get the fee grant and now they do not. If that's the explanation, why are we seeing the same fall in non-EU applications? Dr David Blaney: Well, I think the Welsh domiciled are also now having to face the prospect of finding a loan for the whole of the fee. So, that would potentially account for that. There's also a demographic dimension here with the downturn in the 18-year-old school-leaver profile, and that actually is happening in Wales at a slightly later point than in England. Mark Reckless AM: But this is non-EU students, and I think you said, Bethan, an 8 per cent or 9 per cent fall in them as well. Dr David Blaney: International non-EU. I beg your pardon. I misunderstood. Bethan Owen: There's also a mix effect. I gave a number that was for all English institutions that there will be differential impacts on. Mark Reckless AM: All English or all Welsh? Bethan Owen: Well, I contrasted the Welsh position with the English position where they were seeing growth. If you look, then--and we don't have the detailed information, but, again, what UCAS publish is some analysis by tariff. They analyse by type of institution--in other words, the grades that you need to get into institutions--and there is a trend for growth being in the higher tariff institutions. So, there's a mix effect in there as well, and I think there's undoubtedly an element of perception of how welcome overseas and international students are, and that's something that we know the sector are working on with Government. Mark Reckless AM: Why would that affect Wales more than England? Do you think there's been perhaps too great a negativity about Brexit in the sector? Bethan Owen: I think it's the mix of institutions that we have. So, we only have sector information published at the moment. When we look at the mix of institutions that we have, we will probably see a differential impact between Cardiff University and others. John Griffiths AM: Okay, Mark? Sorry, David, did you want to add anything? Dr David Blaney: I was just going to say that we would expect to see quite differential performance in the English sector, so the overall numbers are being brought up by substantial increased performance with some of that sector, and it's a question of how many of that type of institution you have in Wales. Mark Reckless AM: So, performance is increasing amongst the English universities, but not amongst the Welsh, you think. Dr David Blaney: I think performance is increasing, but increasing substantially with some of the English sector, not all of it. So, you get an average for the sector that is increased performance, but actually the stronger players within that sector, with the stronger international profiles, are bringing that up, and we have fewer in Wales that have that sort of presence. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Darren. Darren Millar AM: Would it be fair to say, then, that the universities over the border in England are better at selling themselves internationally than our Welsh institutions? Or is it just this fact that we've got fewer very high tariff universities versus the English market? Dr David Blaney: I suspect, and this is speculation--I suspect that it's a bit of both. I think some of it is to do with the mix of different types of institution. I would then come back to the point I was making about the Anglocentric nature of the UK media. If you're looking overseas, I think Wales has to work harder to penetrate the consciousness. Darren Millar AM: But, forgive me, don't international students just look at the UK as a whole? How are we comparing to Scotland, for example, or Northern Ireland, in terms of their universities? Do you have a comparative figure for Scottish universities? Bethan Owen: I haven't got that one with me for now, but there will be one in the data. Dr David Blaney: Yes, we could get that. Bethan Owen: Again, it's a combination of being part of the UK but differentiating, and the ability to differentiate the strengths of Wales, so attracting those students to Wales specifically, on top of the UK draw. Dr David Blaney: So, in terms of the efforts that have been made, there's a programme now that is being run by the sector in Wales--it's'Study in Wales'. It's relatively recent; you could argue that we could have got there earlier. But that is a determined collective effort to present Wales as a good place to study, with particular messages about what distinguishes studying in Wales from studying more broadly in the UK. In a sense, that is responding to the need to increase the presence of Wales in an international market. So, that sort of initiative I think is very good, very welcome. It will take a while to actually have an impact, but I think that's exactly the sort of work the sector need to be doing more of. Mark Reckless AM: What are those messages on why prospective students should study in Wales? Dr David Blaney: One of them in particular is relative safety. We know that one of the considerations, particularly for parents of overseas students, is are they going to go to a safe environment, and we know that the perception of international students who study in Wales is that this is a comfortable and safe place to be. That's partly a function of the size of our larger cities--quite a lot smaller than many of the cities in England. So, that's a key message. Being part of a UK system is also an important message there as well. So, we've got a UK-quality system, a UK degree, and the strength of that brand is available in Wales, but it's available in a way that is safer and more supportive, I think is the messaging that's coming through. John Griffiths AM: Okay. We'd better move on, I think, hadn't we? Darren, then. Darren Millar AM: I just wonder to what extent you have been able to plan in your financial forecasts for the next few years ahead for the potential impacts of Brexit. What have you built in, if anything? Bethan Owen: In terms of our funding, we receive our funding annually, but the sector provides us with financial forecasts, and we use those for monitoring sustainability. So, the last full forecasts that we had were in July 2017. We are due to receive a full forecast at the end of this month, and we obviously have updated information from institutions. Darren Millar AM: And they're three-year forecasts that come through to you, aren't they? Bethan Owen: They are four plus the current year. So, we've got numbers to 2019-20 at the moment, and expect to go to 2020-21. Darren Millar AM: And what are the universities expecting? What do they anticipate? Bethan Owen: Well, for 2017-18, which is the year we're about to end now, they were expecting PS38 million income from European students, and approximately PS91 million from the various European programme funding sources, and that's about 8 per cent of the total income--PS1. 5 billion--of the sector. The forecasts are assuming that that continues, albeit that institutions have various scenarios that they have for all sorts of scenarios that we can all speculate on, and, as I mentioned earlier, the balancing act of maintaining infrastructure and resources and staff in the short term is where we are at the moment, or where the sector is at the moment. And there are also signs that the banks and lending institutions are becoming a bit more risk-averse in providing borrowing to institutions, and of more differentiation between individual institutions being made than has possibly been the case in the past. The sector made an operating deficit, again looking at all Welsh institutions collectively last year, 2016-17, of PS17 million. That's before other gains and losses. And we're expecting a similar collective level of deficit for this financial year, if not slightly higher. Now, these are managed deficits and we are not currently seeing critical short-term cash availability issues in the sector. However, the increase in funding from Diamond is a key part of enabling the sector to return to longer-term financial sustainability. Short-term challenges can be met if there's a reasonable prospect of future funding. You can manage in the short-term, but there comes a point when the big cost reductions and infrastructure reductions have to be made. And, again, having mentioned the pressures on pay, pensions and other challenges, it is difficult to gauge whether, if those factors come into play as well, some of these cost reductions may have to be made before funding comes in to replace--either Diamond funding or the European replacement funding. Darren Millar AM: So, would it be fair to say that, in terms of the funding arrangements, and, in terms of the student numbers, one reason why we've got this recruitment problem is this lack of investment in the capital infrastructure that we've seen in recent years because of the financing arrangements from the Welsh Government, and the fee regime that we had previously, and the student finance regime that we had previously, not getting more cash into our Welsh universities perhaps, and that, over the next few years, there's going to have to be much more significant investment in capital if we're to raise the game and be more competitive, yes? Bethan Owen: Yes, that would be fair to say. Darren Millar AM: So, to what extent are they planning for more capital investment in those financial strategies that they've been preparing and presenting to you? Bethan Owen: They are all planning for capital investment. They are in different positions in terms of capacity to borrow and the assumptions. This year, 2018-19, is the first time that we've had capital funding in our remit letter--so, we've got PS10 million of capital funding, which is very welcome, with a prospect of a further PS20 million. So, that we will be allocating shortly. That will make a difference, particularly to those institutions who are not finding it as easy to borrow from financial institutions. Some of our larger institutions have borrowed--Cardiff University issued a bond. However, there are internal governance processes that are putting tight restrictions and expectations of what that money will be invested in. But they all have plans to do it and they need the confidence that their forecasts and long-term future funding prospects are secure enough that they can get the confidence of borrowers then, and service the costs of those borrowers. Darren Millar AM: So, the Diamond dividend you've mentioned a few times. What clarity is there from the Welsh Government at the moment in terms of how much they anticipate the Diamond dividend will be, and what proportion of that is going to be released to HEIs in the future? Bethan Owen: I was very carefully not describing it as a dividend--a re-establishing of funding that we had in the past for higher cost and innovation and maintaining research funding. The timescales are difficult, because we have an annual remit letter, and we can work with Welsh Government officials, and they can only give us a sense of when they think the funding will be released. But 2018-19 is the start of the system, and because of cohort protection--so, protecting those students who came in on a different deal to the deal from 2018-19--in the early years there is an element of double cost; there's a cost of seeing out the old system and the different cost of implementing the new system. So, at the moment, we're certainly not in a position to tell the sector with any degree of certainty what funding would be beyond what we've allocated for 2018-19, with some sense of what 2019-20 numbers we're working with because we allocate our money over an academic year--so, by definition, we've already made assumptions of four months of the 2019-20 funding, albeit that's not approved yet in the budgetary process. Darren Millar AM: But you're not being given a steer at all as to what you expect the additional resource that you might have to make available to Welsh universities might be as a result of Diamond. You must have some idea. Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say that officials have been as helpful as they can be with us, in terms of the planning assumptions we make and indications about whether or not we are being too ambitious or not ambitious enough. So, I think they're being very helpful; as Bethan said, they're constrained by the process--they can't pre-empt a budget process. And you folks will be fully aware of that, of course. The other question I think you asked was how much of the money released by the new arrangements will come into higher education. At the moment, we are expecting all of it to come into higher education, as the product of the arrangement between the current Cabinet Secretary and the current First Minister. The extent to which any changes there cause that to come under threat is something I can't judge at the moment. But we have had in our remit letter from the Cabinet Secretary a clear indication that we can expect our resource to grow over the next few years, as the Diamond process unfolds. John Griffiths AM: Okay. I'm just going to bring in Llyr at this stage. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Bethan said in an earlier answer that, I think, the financial forecasting from universities forecast something pretty consistent in terms of what they're hoping to be receiving in income, for example. But we've already discussed the near 10 per cent drop, potentially, in international applications. So, does that tally, really, or are they going to be recruiting additional students from the UK market or--? What's the plan? Bethan Owen: I was reflecting on the last point when we had consistent information across the sector. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, they may need to revisit that in the light of this. Bethan Owen: I'm expecting that the forecast that we get at the end of this month will reflect the reduced applications we've seen, and an element of that will be reflected in reduced improvements as well. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, we don't really know, then, whether--it's unlikely that they are going to expect a consistent fee income, really. Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say we would expect them to respond to what they're seeing in the UCAS process. Even if they didn't, they would all, in any case, have sensitivities for what they would do if things don't come out in the way they hope. And if they didn't have that then we would be on their case, of course, because we want them to be properly sighted. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Thanks. John Griffiths AM: And we have to stick to the Brexit impact. Darren. Darren Millar AM: Can I just ask, in terms of the impact of Brexit, have you done any assessment of what you think might happen, or have any of the institutions made available to you any assessments of what they think is likely to happen to their individual institutions, going forward? You've mentioned scenarios earlier on, David, so what scenarios have you set out? Dr David Blaney: There's a Welsh Government HE Brexit working group, which is chaired by one of the Government directors, and we sit on that. And we have provided that group with early summaries of the risks and the potential impact, in terms of the exposure of the sector to EU-sourced funding. We have, as part of that working group, explored those issues that it would be really very helpful for either the Welsh Government to try to put in place or for the Welsh Government to persuade UK Government to do. And I think, in our submission, we identified a number of areas of what we would consider to be a helpful action, and that has been worked through that working group. We know that it has informed Welsh Government's position, in terms of what it does and also in terms of the conversations that they have with Her Majesty's Government. Beyond that, what we haven't done in that working group is share the work that institutions are doing individually to look at how they would respond to different scenarios. We are not able to do that here either because, inevitably, they would have varying degrees of unpalatability and they would have to be managed very, very carefully. You take cost out, which is essentially the response, you actually take people's jobs out, and all of that has to be managed carefully. So, that's not really a matter for public consideration, but we do know that the institutions are looking at a range of scenarios on what they would do. Bethan mentioned earlier on that the current deficit for the sector is a managed deficit--it's not something that has taken them by surprise. They are responding to what they see as the dip between where Diamond was reporting and where the money starts flowing. Similarly, I think we're comfortable that there is a managed approach to the scenarios that they're testing within institutions. So, they will do what they need to do to sustain themselves. The bigger issue really, in a public policy context, is the potential damage for the sector to be able to deliver for Wales in terms of research and skills development and all the other contributions. Darren Millar AM: So, you're confident that they're taking a robust approach to planning for various scenarios, going forward, are you, as individual HEIs? Dr David Blaney: Yes, and as the deal becomes more clear politically, then they will obviously have greater clarity in terms of which of these scenarios they need to work up more fully, but they are sighted on it. Darren Millar AM: Okay. Can I just ask about fee and access plans, and how Brexit might impact them? To what extent do you think that they could be impacted? Dr David Blaney: I think there are two dimensions to maybe touch upon there. Fee and access plans are approved annually by us. They are approved in advance of the recruitment cycle for the year that they apply to. So, we're just in the process now of finalising our consideration of fee and access plans for the 2019-20 academic year. So, there's quite a long lead time. We, as part of that process, go through similar--we look at their financial sustainability, which is based on their forecasts--data to the stuff we've just been discussing. And also, of course, the fee plans themselves make assumptions about how many students of different types, from different domains, are going to be recruited. So, clearly, if there is a continuing downward pressure on EU student recruitment, then that will reduce the amount of fee income that's going to come in, unless they can find other students, and that will reduce the amount of investment in the various activities that are identified in the fee plans. In terms of process, we have two things that we can do. If institutions are becoming aware that the basis upon which they've submitted a fee plan is fundamentally different from the reality, then they can come into us for a change to their fee plan. So, we have a change process. If it's not fundamentally different, but there are always differences between what you plan and what happens three years later--. We also monitor after the event and, if there are differences, we would then obviously require institutions to explain those differences. If they've had fewer students and less investment, we would need to understand that. Conversely, if they'd had more students, and potentially more investment, we'd want to know what they'd spent it on, and if they've done different things, we'd want to understand that as well. So, we do challenge through a monitoring process. The only other thing that's perhaps worth saying is that, in the 2019-20 fee and access plans--they're not published yet, so I can't give you the full detail--five universities have made reference to Brexit and the Brexit impact, and things they want to do through their fee and access plan to try and address some of those issues, so they're in there as well. Darren Millar AM: But we've already said, haven't we, that it may be nothing to do with Brexit, this dip in EU recruitment, because there are other factors like the attractiveness of the estates and the environment that young people might be educated in? But they're making assumptions that it's linked to Brexit, are they? Dr David Blaney: Not really. I think they're making assumptions that it could be. There are things they want to do to enhance and to protect student mobility, and some of that will be funded through fee plan investment. So, the Brexit conversation between the EU and the UK Government might or might not sustain Erasmus engagement, and if it doesn't, then they need to find other ways of trying to support that sort of thing. So, that's what we're beginning to see in the fee plans. It's them thinking about how else we can do this stuff. John Griffiths AM: Okay, Darren? Mark. Mark Reckless AM: You mentioned the fee and access report. What else do you do to assure yourselves that Welsh higher education institutions are effectively planning for Brexit? Bethan Owen: We've touched on contingency plans, but, in an environment of uncertainty, I think it's difficult for any of us to know what the right scenario is. I think rather than looking at worst-case scenarios, what the sector is also focusing on is the promotion and looking for additional or increased sources of funding. So, we touched on strengthening the Global Wales engagement in order to sell Wales, so more focus on marketing Wales overseas, but also within the UK. The other area where the sector is working at a UK level very hard is making the arguments to UK Government for maintaining access to the successor to Horizon 2020, which is arguably a larger part of the whole funding infrastructure--students is one part, but the whole funding infrastructure for maintaining research capacity. So, working with UK universities to make arguments at UK Government level for maintaining access to those sources of funding is also a part of what the institutions are doing. We mentioned the Welsh Government's HE Brexit group. That group, which is the Welsh Government group, is being advised by members on it, and that's informing Welsh Government officials when they engage with UK Government as well. Mark Reckless AM: Do universities seek your advice on what the risks and, indeed, opportunities of Brexit may be and what you think they should be doing to plan for them, or is your role more one of monitoring what they do as opposed to advising what they should do? Bethan Owen: They are autonomous institutions and ultimately their governing bodies are responsible for ensuring their sustainability. It's not a relationship where we would advise and direct, but it is a relationship where we would question the scenarios if we consider from our experience that we would have expected other scenarios to have been tested. It's that nature of conversation, rather than directing. Mark Reckless AM: I understand you don't direct, of course, but my question was about advising. You're overseeing, or monitoring--or whatever you like to describe the role as--quite a number of institutions, and presumably you therefore have particular expertise within your organisation, and I just wondered whether higher education institutions are doing enough to draw on that. Bethan Owen: I think we can advise--we can advise based on data and information that we can see. We can advise based on our judgment. The big thing in this whole Brexit scenario is the uncertainty and the extent to which our speculation is better informed than the governing bodies or the sector collectively is probably the issue. Dr David Blaney: I think that's right. So, there's a relationship with the sector and there's a relationship with individual institutions, and they are different. So, we have engagement collectively with the sector. Bethan meets with the finance directors, and I meet with the vice-chancellors. We actually have the sector and the funding council together on the Welsh Government's group. So, some of these conversations are happening in various ways, where we're all gaining intelligence about what might be a sensible set of planning assumptions. Then, if we see an institution that is manifestly giving signs of not being sighted on some of these risks, either through their forecast or through other assurance activity, we will challenge. We have an annual cycle, with two points in the year where we reassess the overall risks of individual institutions, and that's based on a whole range of hard data but also a range of soft data. Our links into institutions are many and varied. We have lots of conversations and we take all of that in the round and form an assessment about the financial sustainability of the institutions but also the extent to which we think their governance and management arrangements are properly sighted and facing properly the challenges that they face. In some ways, we say it's not about the challenges they face; it's about how they face the challenges. Our alarm bells really ring when we get the sense that, actually, either an executive or a governing body hasn't really noticed. We're not in that place, I'm really pleased to say. I'm not worried about short-term crisis with any of the institutions. There are medium-term real challenges, both because of Brexit and because of other contextual factors, but at the moment the sector is a managed sector, which is good. It's not always like that, but we're in, I think, a good place at the moment. So, our role is definitely to challenge where we don't think they are making sensible assessments, but it's not to say that their assessment is wrong and ours is right; it's just to have a conversation about,'Why have you done this and what has informed your thinking?'It's slightly more one step back and slightly more subtle, but it is, as you imply, us using the intelligence we gain from all of those conversations when we talk to individual institutions as well. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Llyr. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, thank you. We had evidence last week from some of the higher education institutions, including Cardiff University, and it's very interesting, in relation to Erasmus+ and the mobility funding for students that, I think, only 40 per cent of the mobility funding in Cardiff is paid for by Erasmus+. I note that you've been consulting on national measures for higher education performance and that one possibility is using international mobility as a performance indicator. I was just wondering whether you might go further and expect universities to actually make commitments to funding international mobility from their own fee incomes as part of that. Bethan Owen: Again, reflecting on the latest fee and access plans, seven of the universities are referring to mobility--either they have targets in them or are explaining what their plans are--so they are including an element of it from their own income and fee and access income. However, Erasmus is such a well-established and long-term plan--if we were looking at a scenario where that infrastructure wasn't available, to implement anything similar to that would be much less efficient and much more costly. And to enable an infrastructure that allowed--. Ideally, you'd want something that all Welsh institutions could take part in, and that takes some investment and some co-ordinating. And, equally, you need to have the arrangements with your overseas and European institutions. I think it's easy to underestimate the accumulation of time that has gone into establishing Erasmus. So, I think replacing it would be a challenge. Llyr Gruffydd AM: And the point was made clearly last week that the brand is internationally recognised. When you enter into Erasmus+, you know exactly what you're going to get, and all of that. But there have been criticisms as well about degrees of flexibility and this, that and the other, so I'm just wondering whether--and there is presumably going to be some change on that front although I'm hoping we can buy into it, as others have done who aren't in the EU--that emphasis on encouraging institutions to look more proactively at funding their own mobility efforts would be positive. Dr David Blaney: I think the-- Llyr Gruffydd AM: Sorry--especially if it means that they do more of it. Dr David Blaney: Indeed. I think the Welsh sector is definitely committed to trying to find ways of promoting and resourcing that sort of mobility. There are signs that some of the restrictive elements of the Erasmus programme are going to change anyway, because that's under development and that's positive. There have been positive noises as part of the Brexit negotiations about wanting to carry on being able to access the Erasmus programme. Nothing is agreed until it's all agreed apparently, so we'll have to see on that one. That would be far better, I think, as Bethan indicates, than trying to replace it with a made-in-Wales only, but you could have a made-in-Wales on top. All of these challenges also create opportunities because they stimulate thinking, and so the fact that seven of the eight universities are already now using their fee plans as a vehicle for thinking about this is positive, and I think we can take that on from there. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Because that 40/60 split struck me as being the opposite to what I perceived the situation to be. A key part of your role is to work in partnership with students, so I'd just like to ask what work have you done with students, in terms of maybe protecting their interests as the Brexit scenario evolves? Dr David Blaney: Well, as you say, we do work with students. We were the first of the funding councils in the UK to have a memorandum of understanding with the National Union of Students in Wales. We work very closely with them and the president of NUS is an observer on our council. So, we have close links with NUS Wales and we're very proud of that, and it's very productive. They don't have a vote, but they do have a voice and it really matters. We we're, again, ahead of the rest of the UK in requiring all HE providers to have student charters and there are elements of student protection within the student charter. The UK-wide quality code also has elements in it where arrangements have to be specified about the protection of student interests. That is particularly, in essence, around circumstances where a provider gets into difficulties and they might wish to close a course or something more drastic and then what arrangements are in place to make sure that those students who are in train are protected. So, that is there and we've worked hard with the sector and with NUS Wales to get those measures in place. There's more development work in train at the moment, so we've asked Universities Wales to construct a protection that takes account of the approach to protecting the student interests in higher education. We're also requiring further education institutions who are regulated and deliver higher education to do similar or the same, and that's very important. The students who are HE students in FE are absolutely not second-best, and they should have the same protections. Llyr Gruffydd AM: But is all this a general piece of work? It's not Brexit-specific, although, no doubt, it may--. Dr David Blaney: I think that's fair to say, yes. The other dimension around Brexit is the immigration status of EU students, and that's, kind of, beyond our pay scale--that's a UK Government issue. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Is that something that you have a view on? Dr David Blaney: It's clearly in the interest of the enrichment of the curriculum and the student experience for students in Welsh institutions to be able to have students from other EU countries in the mix. So, it would be nice to find ways of continuing to facilitate that. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Now, of course, you have a statutory duty as well to assess the academic quality of the work in our higher education institutions, and I'm just wondering what potential impacts you think that Brexit might have on that particular aspect. Dr David Blaney: I think there are possibly a couple of things to say, and one, in a sense, echoes what I was just saying in the final part of my previous response, which is that part of the quality of the student experience is the richness that you get from having students in your cohort who have different backgrounds and different perspectives. So, if there is a continuing reduction in the number of EU students coming into Welsh institutions, then that richness deteriorates. That doesn't mean to say that the base or the threshold standard of what's required for a degree will come under pressure, it's just about the richness on top of that, which will be, in a sense, a quality-enhancement issue. That would be something that we would wish to try to protect against, but in the end you can't force EU students to come--you have to try and look attractive, and we've touched on that. The baseline requirement assessment of quality will not be affected by Brexit, except in so far as the machinery we use to discharge our statutory responsibility, which is through the Quality Assurance Agency, which themselves are accredited with European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, the European machinery for higher education quality. And there's a set of standards around that, and we would obviously wish not to be in a position where our ability to use and adhere to those standards is adversely impacted upon. Those standards will still exist, and it will be possible for the British system to adhere to them, even if they're not actually able to play in the same way. Then the only other thing I would say is that one of the factors that can cause the quality of the learning and teaching experience to be likely to become inadequate is when institutions come under financial pressure, just because their capacity to maintain the same sort of student experience can get under pressure. So, clearly, we will be looking for and making sure that institutions manage the financial pressures, if there are any--and there are some at the moment, as we've described--and manage those carefully. And in all of that, we will expect institutions to do their duty to make sure that the commitments they've already made to students are carried through. So, where students have already started on the course, they need to be able to finish that course--you can't just pull the plug out. So, all of that comes into the arrangements for quality as well. So, we'll be keeping an eye on that. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. A lot of what you've told us in the last three quarters of an hour or so will have costs attached, depending on the impacts. Certainly, we're in choppy waters as a sector anyway, and the risk is that things will be even more choppy, if you'll excuse that level of political interpretation, over the years to come. I'm just wondering what advice you might have given the Welsh Government in terms of what level of transition funding, or Brexit transition funding, might be required by the sector, and if you have, what the Welsh Government might have told you. Bethan Owen: I mentioned earlier that, obviously, we've provided information in terms of the assumptions that the sector are making on income. So, for the year 2017-18, that was PS129 million. I think the extent to which that needs to be replaced or supported with transition funding depends absolutely on what the final arrangements for Brexit are, but it's an appropriate point to refer to the report that Professor Graeme Reid has produced, commissioned by Welsh Government. That was, and has, provided advice and recommendations for supporting research and innovation in the transition period. But, again, the Reid recommendations in that report build on the Diamond recommendations, and as soon as Diamond is in place--and Reid is providing recommendations in addition, to establish funding on the basis that the funding needs to be available in Wales to maintain and develop and strengthen the research and innovation infrastructure that we have. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Are you not worried, though, that the clock is ticking and that we really don't know what the situation is at this point? Dr David Blaney: Do you mean the Brexit situation? Llyr Gruffydd AM: The Brexit clock, yes. Dr David Blaney: Uncertainty is unhelpful, because as I've said several times, the sector is a managed sector at the moment. I don't think there's--. We're not seeing maverick stuff, but actually you can only manage, really, what you can see and what you can reasonably predict. So, the longer the uncertainty persists, the more difficult that is for institutional management and, indeed, for the rest of the machinery to support them. So, yes, the sooner we get clarity, the better for everybody, I imagine. Darren Millar AM: Chair, can I just ask a question? John Griffiths AM: Yes, Darren. Darren Millar AM: In terms of uncertainty, though, we've still got this uncertainty over whether the extra cash that the Government's going to have to spend as a result of Diamond being implemented is coming to the HE sector. They've given a political commitment, but you've got absolutely no other assurance of the sums of money that are coming in. We've got the reform of tertiary education arrangements in Wales, which are also under way, so it's a bit of a perfect storm for you, isn't it, really, with all of these three things happening at the same time? Dr David Blaney: We're certainly kept busy. Darren Millar AM: But two of those things are in the gift of the Welsh Government to sort out for you, aren't they? Dr David Blaney: Well, the policy on the reform of the post-compulsory sector absolutely is a Welsh Government policy. The extent to which they can pre-empt a budgetary process and give us clear sight of the amount of money in future years is--. Well, again, it's not for me to comment. My understanding is that that's difficult for them to do, and I would repeat what I said earlier: officials have been as helpful as I think they can be in respect of that. I mean, you're right, we've only got a political commitment between two people currently in post. It would be great to have that firmer. I'm not sure how that could be done. Darren Millar AM: I mean, that statement about the savings accrued from Diamond being reinvested wholly into the HE sector has not been repeated, frankly, has it, since the coalition deal was struck? Dr David Blaney: No, but it hasn't been rescinded either, so--. Darren Millar AM: No, but there have been opportunities--repeated opportunities--in the Chamber, where the Cabinet Secretary's been asked to repeat that commitment, and the First Minister's been asked to repeat that commitment and has not given that commitment. That must concern you, and must concern your university sector even more than, perhaps, some of the elements of Brexit that we're discussing. Dr David Blaney: Bethan has outlined earlier on in this session the fact that institutions are currently running deficit budgets in order not to lose the infrastructure on the assumption that the Diamond money will come in. If anything were to cause significant perturbation, either to the timeline of that or to it coming in at all, then there would be much more of what Medwin Hughes calls'houskeeping'that would be required, and that would be significant. So, at the moment--I don't like the expression'valley of death', but there is a valley to cross, and I think the sector is reasonably confident about how wide and how deep that valley is. There's a demographic valley as well. So, there are several valleys that they're crossing--the metaphor fails, doesn't it, really, but I think you get the drift? So, there are a number of challenges and they can see their way out of some of those challenges, but if any one of these starts to get significantly disrupted, then that would be a real issue for them. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I go on to ask about other barriers to Welsh universities gaining more funding from UK research councils? What would you say those barriers are? Dr David Blaney: Well, I think there are a couple of things, really, to say. The first one--and we'll sound like a stuck record if we're not careful--is that there's an issue about investment and the Reid report makes this very clear. So, he has reaffirmed research that had been done previously that identifies that, actually, the quality of the research base in Welsh universities and the productivity of that Welsh research base are both good, there's just not enough of them, and that, in the end, is a product of investment decisions. They have particularly looked at the deficit in science, technology, engineering and mathematics areas, and I always say that research is not just STEM. I mean, STEM is important, and I'm not denying the deficit in that area, but we have to also remember that the research agenda for Wales is not just STEM--it's arts, humanities, it's social sciences. If you look at the impact on public policy that could come from social science research--tremendous. And we're very good at it in Wales. The Welsh impact in its research is better than anywhere else in the UK, so that's good. So, they do very well, and we just really need to invest a little bit further--so continue to do very well, but put it on a broader front. If you want to be able to play into the UK-wide research funding, then the investment has two dimensions to it. One is just having enough researchers to be able to play into those increasingly larger projects rather than small-scale projects. If you haven't got the critical mass, it's very hard to make the case that you can play. And the second thing is that UK-wide research pots nearly always fund at about 80 per cent of the total cost of the research, and the other 20 per cent is meant to be found from the core research funding for the university, and if you're in a situation where your core research funding is not competitive, then you're not going to be competitive at getting that money. So, that's, kind of, straightforward. There are other things. I think it's fair to say that the Welsh sector has not been sufficiently focused on getting in on the conversations with the research councils, making sure they're in the various committees and so on. We are intending to do a bit of work to see if we can systematise that a bit better--that engagement--because there's no doubt about it: it's not to say that this system is in any way inappropriate, but the more you're in the conversations, the more likely you are to be better placed to respond to the research challenges that come up. John Griffiths AM: Okay. One final question: in terms of the researcher collaborations and networks that exist, do you see potential difficulties after Brexit for the continuation and enhancement of those, and are there any particular lessons to learn from Ser Cymru II? Dr David Blaney: I think that there are two things to say here as well. First of all, the Brexit deal might or might not impact adversely on the capacity of Welsh and, indeed, UK research infrastructure to play into broader collaborative activity across Europe, and, in a sense, that's a function of the deal whatever the deal looks like, and we'll have to wait and see. But we've mentioned playing into Horizon Europe, and being able to continue with that would be an important part of that capacity. It's not just the money, it's being in the club and it's the signalling that we're in the game. So, all of that would be important. And then the other part of my response to this would be that, actually, Wales will need to continue to be good at the research it does, so maintaining the quality, maintaining the impact, and hopefully growing the critical mass. The Ser Cymru initiative has been quite important in doing that, because it's been very focused, capturing key research players, and the attractiveness that that has then to other researchers around them, and to industry collaboration, and they have been areas of real strength that we've invested in. And I think they are already showing dividends in terms of the capacity to win more research funding, and to establish an even stronger presence in the international research market. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Just one further point, from Darren. Darren Millar AM: Just very briefly, one of the pieces of feedback that the committee members received at a stakeholder engagement event, which took place prior to this inquiry starting, to receive oral evidence, was about the research funding that is available from the charitable sector, and how poorly Wales does in attracting some of that research. I think we had some figures from the British Heart Foundation, which said they have PS100 million a year available for research grants, or something like that, and we're getting 1 per cent of that coming into Wales, which is obviously pretty low down. I appreciate that research into the type of activity that they want to put their money into, Wales may not be particularly good at, and there may be other opportunities with other charities and partnerships. What work are you doing in order to build the capacity that Wales has to attract more of that charitable sector research funding into Wales? Bethan Owen: One of the issues is the capacity to engage with that funding, because of the overhead issue that David mentioned. Charitable funding at the moment doesn't attract any overhead funding. Again, that could be built in to our funding, if we had the capacity to increase our quality-related research funding. There is an element in England. Darren Millar AM: But that pressure's the same in other parts of the UK, is it not? So the overhead funding is still an issue in England, and in other places. Bethan Owen: There is an increased contribution, and I think it's an element that was increased this year to acknowledge that. But there will be differentiation between different charities. I'm fairly certain that some of our institutions will be very strong with the cancer charities, possibly not the heart foundation. And some of that will reflect on focusing on our strengths, but to have that fuller picture. Darren Millar AM: So, this gearing issue that you mentioned earlier on, for every PS1 that somebody else puts on the table, they can draw in another PS4 on top, because that PS1 will cover the overheads, whereas the rest of the research cash--. Dr David Blaney: That's exactly it. So, the more you're able to invest--. You know, we sometimes get into a conversation about the unhypothecated nature of our research funding, but actually that creates a flexibility and the infrastructure investment that allows institutions to be able to respond to these other opportunities. Without that, they can't do it, because if you're not careful, you've got institutions engaging in UK-wide or charity-based research activities where they're actually having to pay for it themselves--they're running at a loss. Darren Millar AM: So that's the main problem; it's not that Welsh universities aren't doing their best to get this cash in. Or is it a bit of both? Dr David Blaney: I think, in the main, universities and researchers will get their cash from wherever they can, so I don't think it's a lack of appetite. Darren Millar AM: Okay. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Well, thank you, both, for coming in to give evidence to the committee this morning. You will be sent a draft of the transcript, to check for accuracy. Diolch yn fawr. Okay then, the next item is item 3, papers to note, the first of which is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education on the school organisation code. The second is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill. Paper to note 3 is a letter from the Chair of the Finance Committee regarding scrutiny of the Welsh Government's draft budget for the forthcoming financial year, which we will be discussing under item 6 on the agenda. Paper to note 4 is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on parental attitudes towards managing young children's behaviour. And the final paper to note, paper to note 5, is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the children and family delivery grant, which we will discuss later on in private session, if Members are content. Okay. Are you content to note those papers on that basis? Okay. Thanks very much. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17. 42 to exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting, and also for items 1 and 2 of the 20 September meeting. Is the committee content? Yes. Thank you very much. We will move then into private session.

They were the first of the funding councils in the UK to have a memorandum of understanding with the National Union of Students in Wales, ahead of the rest of the UK in requiring all HE providers to have student charters and there are elements of student protection within the student charter. They're also requiring further education institutions who are regulated and deliver higher education to do similar or the same, and that's very important.

tr-sq-677

tr-sq-677_0

What are the other barriers to Welsh universities gaining more funding from UK research councils? Gareth Rogers: Good morning, and welcome to today's meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. Unfortunately, the Chair is unable to attend today, so in accordance with Standing Order 17. 22 I call for nominations for a temporary Chair for the duration of today's meeting. Julie Morgan AM: I nominate John Griffiths. Gareth Rogers: Thank you. Darren Millar AM: I'll second that nomination. Gareth Rogers: As there's only one nomination, I declare that John Griffiths has been appointed as temporary Chair. Thank you, John. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Thank you all very much, and item 1 on our agenda today is introductions, apologies, substitutions and declarations of interest. We've received apologies from Hefin David and Lynne Neagle. There are no substitutions. Are there any declarations of interest? No. We will move on then to item 2, and our inquiry into the impact of Brexit on higher and further education, and our first evidence session. I'm very pleased to welcome the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales here today, and Dr David Blaney as chief executive, and Bethan Owen, director of institutional engagement. Welcome to you both. Thanks for coming along to give evidence today. If it's okay with you, we'll move straight to questions, and Julie Morgan. Julie Morgan AM: Good morning. Bore da. I wondered if we could start off with you telling us what evidence you can see that the Brexit process has had any impact on Welsh higher education so far. Dr David Blaney: Can I preface the response by just reminding you that we are, by contract and by role, apolitical, and a lot of the judgments about the impact of Brexit essentially reflect where people sit politically in terms of whether they think it's a good thing or a bad thing? We're not going to go there, obviously, today, so we'll stick to the facts as we can see them, and hopefully we'll be able to help you, but there are areas where we are unable to help. That's part of the reason. John Griffiths AM: We certainly do not expect you to enter the political fray in any way. Dr David Blaney: Thank you. But even in terms of your assessment of whether this is going to be a good thing or a bad thing, a good impact or a bad impact, some of that inevitably in the end becomes a matter of your politics on it, so we will be as careful as we can be on that. In terms of the impact of Brexit on higher education, clearly, the significance here is about the contribution that higher education can make to Wales. So, we fund provision; we don't fund providers, technically, although obviously there's not much provision without providers. So, we are interested in the sustainability of higher education providers, but fundamentally the issue is: what does the HE system in Wales do for Wales, and what impact might Brexit have on the capacity of the system to continue to deliver for Wales? So, we know that universities make annually about PS5 billion of impact; 50,000 jobs. Of course, in Wales, all of that economic impact is really very significant, and uncertainty about the relationships and the arrangements with Europe is one of the most significant issues confronting university management at the moment. That has an impact in a number of ways. We can identify at the moment the extent to which the HE sector in Wales is exposed to sources of income that are located from the EU, so EU students, structural funds, and EU research funding, and so on, from the EU. We can identify some of that, but, actually, what happens in the future is much harder to be clear about. We are beginning to see some impact in terms of applications from EU students and I'll ask Bethan to share some details on that in a moment. We're also beginning to pick up, only anecdotally, some signs that there are increasing difficulties in the UK sector, and the Welsh sector as part of that, in playing in some of the EU collaborative research activities. And that, I think, just reflects the extent to which EU partners consider that British partners might be a stable partner as we go through this transition period. We don't have data on that--that's anecdotal--but there are signs that some of those relationships are beginning to become a little bit more difficult. In terms of the financial impact of that, clearly, if it is accepted that the UK is a net contributor to the EU then, presumably, some of the money--we're almost immediately straight into politics if you're not careful--but some of the money will be available back to the UK, and the extent to which Wales benefits or not from that returned money is a function of the political relationship between the Welsh Government and Her Majesty's Government. It's not necessarily the case that Wales will always lose out in that relationship, but that will become a matter of politics. There's a broader dimension, which is about the economic impact of Brexit on the UK economy and how much tax revenue there is and all of that. I think it's very hard for us to be definitive about how that's going to play out. I think that depends on the deal and how it all unfolds over the next several years. But we can certainly anticipate some turbulence and exactly how that plays for institutions remains to be seen. We can touch later on on the extent to which they are sighted on this and preparing for it. So, in terms of recruitment, Bethan. Bethan Owen: This is based on the UCAS applications and the report that was published at the end of June, 30 June. The European Union-domiciled applicants to Wales have decreased by 8 per cent, which contrasts with a 2 per cent increase for English institutions, and non-EU--so international students, not from Europe--have also decreased by 9 per cent to Welsh institutions, again contrasting with a 7 per cent increase in England. So, those are the signs of changes. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I then just ask you what you see as the main pressures on the Welsh higher education sector at the moment? Bethan Owen: The funding position would be the main pressure. The recommendations made by Sir Ian Diamond in his review of higher education funding and student finance are in the process of being implemented, and the changes to the student finance arrangements will take effect from this September. However, the recommendations for re-establishing funding at Welsh institutions are expected to take quite a bit longer. That funding, when it returns to institutions, is intended to re-establish funding for higher cost provision, both full time and part time; reinstate funding for innovation; and maintain, at the very least, the research funding in real terms. Universities, in the meantime, are trying to minimise the cost reductions that they're making in order to maintain the infrastructure, so that when the funding comes they can get the best value out of it. We have announced our funding allocations for 2018-19. For the research and teaching grant, though, we are still funding at a lower level--PS12. 5 million less--then the starting point for the Diamond report, the 2015-16 starting report. But we expect to be able to start introducing funding from 2019-20 to make a start on implementing Diamond. And it's probably important to note that the Diamond recommendations predated Brexit, therefore the challenges introduced by Brexit are in addition to those that the Diamond report was addressing. The other pressures relate to student recruitment. I mentioned the EU and international students. There is also the start of a reduction, both in Welsh-domiciled and English-domiciled applications to Wales. Enrolments are obviously the key important number, which we'll see later. And the other pressures include pay and pension costs, not least the issues around the universities superannuation scheme pension fund, where there's potentially a significant increase in cost. Increased student expectations for modern facilities and infrastructure bring a requirement for capital expenditure and borrowing, which bring their own pressures. And finally, the uncertainty about potential consequences that could arise from the review in England of fees and funding--the Augar review. John Griffiths AM: In terms of European Union students and enrolment, is Wales forecast to do less well than England and, if so, why might that be? Bethan Owen: They are not forecasting it. It's very difficult until the enrolments are made, and it's also very hard to see--the data that we see is the UCAS data. Institutions also recruit directly, so until we see the actual recruitment--. I think the arrangements that have changed from 2018-19 also impact on EU students. So, now, they have to find the full fee, whereas previously they were getting the grant in the same way as Welsh students. So, I'm speculating that that might be having an impact as well on EU students'appetite to come. John Griffiths AM: Okay. First of all Llyr, then Mark. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, that's straight into what I was going to ask, really, about what you think the factors are that led to this 8 per cent or 9 per cent drop in EU students applying to study in Wales, where we see a 2 per cent increase in England. Is that it, or are there other things that you've taken into account? What's your assessment of the reasons behind this? Dr David Blaney: It's very difficult to be definitive about the reasons, but I think there are probably two. The one that Bethan has already indicated, which is the change in student support arrangements for EU students, will have an effect of perturbation. That's probably relatively temporary--let's hope it is--as that settles down because, actually, the deal for EU students coming into Wales is no worse than that coming into England. Ours would be better because the fee level is slightly lower, but we do struggle in Wales in terms of the Anglocentric nature of the media and so on. So, getting the messages out is a challenge. The other dimension is that when you're in a highly competitive recruitment market, you have to do what you can to look attractive. Part of that is about being able to invest in facilities, and particularly buildings and kit, and the relative levels of investment between Wales and England over quite a long period of time now probably have an impact on that. Certainly, anecdotally I know, from my own family, that a lot of the choices have been made in terms of the state of repair of campuses and so on. There's something rational about that, isn't there? If you've got a system that is relatively better invested, then you're likely to have a better student experience because the resources are likely to be better. So, that's not irrational. We saw a sort of similar but opposite effect when the PS9,000 fee maximum limit came in, and some institutions, mostly in England--there was one in Wales--chose to pitch their fee levels really quite low, relative to that PS9,000, and caught a cold in the student recruitment market because fee levels denote quality in the student mind. So, the price sensitivities work quite differently. So, again, if you've got a relatively better invested part of the system, then that might well be one of the reasons why it looks more attractive. Llyr Gruffydd AM: That latter factor would affect the whole of the cohort, not just the international recruitment, of course. Dr David Blaney: Indeed. Yes, indeed. The implementation of the Diamond recommendations is crucial to that because that's re-balancing where the policy of investment goes. John Griffiths AM: Okay. And Mark. Mark Reckless AM: If I heard you correctly earlier, you said that the applications from non-EU students were also down by 8 per cent or 9 per cent. So, forgive me a certain scepticism about the explanation of the fall in the EU students being that they did get the fee grant and now they do not. If that's the explanation, why are we seeing the same fall in non-EU applications? Dr David Blaney: Well, I think the Welsh domiciled are also now having to face the prospect of finding a loan for the whole of the fee. So, that would potentially account for that. There's also a demographic dimension here with the downturn in the 18-year-old school-leaver profile, and that actually is happening in Wales at a slightly later point than in England. Mark Reckless AM: But this is non-EU students, and I think you said, Bethan, an 8 per cent or 9 per cent fall in them as well. Dr David Blaney: International non-EU. I beg your pardon. I misunderstood. Bethan Owen: There's also a mix effect. I gave a number that was for all English institutions that there will be differential impacts on. Mark Reckless AM: All English or all Welsh? Bethan Owen: Well, I contrasted the Welsh position with the English position where they were seeing growth. If you look, then--and we don't have the detailed information, but, again, what UCAS publish is some analysis by tariff. They analyse by type of institution--in other words, the grades that you need to get into institutions--and there is a trend for growth being in the higher tariff institutions. So, there's a mix effect in there as well, and I think there's undoubtedly an element of perception of how welcome overseas and international students are, and that's something that we know the sector are working on with Government. Mark Reckless AM: Why would that affect Wales more than England? Do you think there's been perhaps too great a negativity about Brexit in the sector? Bethan Owen: I think it's the mix of institutions that we have. So, we only have sector information published at the moment. When we look at the mix of institutions that we have, we will probably see a differential impact between Cardiff University and others. John Griffiths AM: Okay, Mark? Sorry, David, did you want to add anything? Dr David Blaney: I was just going to say that we would expect to see quite differential performance in the English sector, so the overall numbers are being brought up by substantial increased performance with some of that sector, and it's a question of how many of that type of institution you have in Wales. Mark Reckless AM: So, performance is increasing amongst the English universities, but not amongst the Welsh, you think. Dr David Blaney: I think performance is increasing, but increasing substantially with some of the English sector, not all of it. So, you get an average for the sector that is increased performance, but actually the stronger players within that sector, with the stronger international profiles, are bringing that up, and we have fewer in Wales that have that sort of presence. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Darren. Darren Millar AM: Would it be fair to say, then, that the universities over the border in England are better at selling themselves internationally than our Welsh institutions? Or is it just this fact that we've got fewer very high tariff universities versus the English market? Dr David Blaney: I suspect, and this is speculation--I suspect that it's a bit of both. I think some of it is to do with the mix of different types of institution. I would then come back to the point I was making about the Anglocentric nature of the UK media. If you're looking overseas, I think Wales has to work harder to penetrate the consciousness. Darren Millar AM: But, forgive me, don't international students just look at the UK as a whole? How are we comparing to Scotland, for example, or Northern Ireland, in terms of their universities? Do you have a comparative figure for Scottish universities? Bethan Owen: I haven't got that one with me for now, but there will be one in the data. Dr David Blaney: Yes, we could get that. Bethan Owen: Again, it's a combination of being part of the UK but differentiating, and the ability to differentiate the strengths of Wales, so attracting those students to Wales specifically, on top of the UK draw. Dr David Blaney: So, in terms of the efforts that have been made, there's a programme now that is being run by the sector in Wales--it's'Study in Wales'. It's relatively recent; you could argue that we could have got there earlier. But that is a determined collective effort to present Wales as a good place to study, with particular messages about what distinguishes studying in Wales from studying more broadly in the UK. In a sense, that is responding to the need to increase the presence of Wales in an international market. So, that sort of initiative I think is very good, very welcome. It will take a while to actually have an impact, but I think that's exactly the sort of work the sector need to be doing more of. Mark Reckless AM: What are those messages on why prospective students should study in Wales? Dr David Blaney: One of them in particular is relative safety. We know that one of the considerations, particularly for parents of overseas students, is are they going to go to a safe environment, and we know that the perception of international students who study in Wales is that this is a comfortable and safe place to be. That's partly a function of the size of our larger cities--quite a lot smaller than many of the cities in England. So, that's a key message. Being part of a UK system is also an important message there as well. So, we've got a UK-quality system, a UK degree, and the strength of that brand is available in Wales, but it's available in a way that is safer and more supportive, I think is the messaging that's coming through. John Griffiths AM: Okay. We'd better move on, I think, hadn't we? Darren, then. Darren Millar AM: I just wonder to what extent you have been able to plan in your financial forecasts for the next few years ahead for the potential impacts of Brexit. What have you built in, if anything? Bethan Owen: In terms of our funding, we receive our funding annually, but the sector provides us with financial forecasts, and we use those for monitoring sustainability. So, the last full forecasts that we had were in July 2017. We are due to receive a full forecast at the end of this month, and we obviously have updated information from institutions. Darren Millar AM: And they're three-year forecasts that come through to you, aren't they? Bethan Owen: They are four plus the current year. So, we've got numbers to 2019-20 at the moment, and expect to go to 2020-21. Darren Millar AM: And what are the universities expecting? What do they anticipate? Bethan Owen: Well, for 2017-18, which is the year we're about to end now, they were expecting PS38 million income from European students, and approximately PS91 million from the various European programme funding sources, and that's about 8 per cent of the total income--PS1. 5 billion--of the sector. The forecasts are assuming that that continues, albeit that institutions have various scenarios that they have for all sorts of scenarios that we can all speculate on, and, as I mentioned earlier, the balancing act of maintaining infrastructure and resources and staff in the short term is where we are at the moment, or where the sector is at the moment. And there are also signs that the banks and lending institutions are becoming a bit more risk-averse in providing borrowing to institutions, and of more differentiation between individual institutions being made than has possibly been the case in the past. The sector made an operating deficit, again looking at all Welsh institutions collectively last year, 2016-17, of PS17 million. That's before other gains and losses. And we're expecting a similar collective level of deficit for this financial year, if not slightly higher. Now, these are managed deficits and we are not currently seeing critical short-term cash availability issues in the sector. However, the increase in funding from Diamond is a key part of enabling the sector to return to longer-term financial sustainability. Short-term challenges can be met if there's a reasonable prospect of future funding. You can manage in the short-term, but there comes a point when the big cost reductions and infrastructure reductions have to be made. And, again, having mentioned the pressures on pay, pensions and other challenges, it is difficult to gauge whether, if those factors come into play as well, some of these cost reductions may have to be made before funding comes in to replace--either Diamond funding or the European replacement funding. Darren Millar AM: So, would it be fair to say that, in terms of the funding arrangements, and, in terms of the student numbers, one reason why we've got this recruitment problem is this lack of investment in the capital infrastructure that we've seen in recent years because of the financing arrangements from the Welsh Government, and the fee regime that we had previously, and the student finance regime that we had previously, not getting more cash into our Welsh universities perhaps, and that, over the next few years, there's going to have to be much more significant investment in capital if we're to raise the game and be more competitive, yes? Bethan Owen: Yes, that would be fair to say. Darren Millar AM: So, to what extent are they planning for more capital investment in those financial strategies that they've been preparing and presenting to you? Bethan Owen: They are all planning for capital investment. They are in different positions in terms of capacity to borrow and the assumptions. This year, 2018-19, is the first time that we've had capital funding in our remit letter--so, we've got PS10 million of capital funding, which is very welcome, with a prospect of a further PS20 million. So, that we will be allocating shortly. That will make a difference, particularly to those institutions who are not finding it as easy to borrow from financial institutions. Some of our larger institutions have borrowed--Cardiff University issued a bond. However, there are internal governance processes that are putting tight restrictions and expectations of what that money will be invested in. But they all have plans to do it and they need the confidence that their forecasts and long-term future funding prospects are secure enough that they can get the confidence of borrowers then, and service the costs of those borrowers. Darren Millar AM: So, the Diamond dividend you've mentioned a few times. What clarity is there from the Welsh Government at the moment in terms of how much they anticipate the Diamond dividend will be, and what proportion of that is going to be released to HEIs in the future? Bethan Owen: I was very carefully not describing it as a dividend--a re-establishing of funding that we had in the past for higher cost and innovation and maintaining research funding. The timescales are difficult, because we have an annual remit letter, and we can work with Welsh Government officials, and they can only give us a sense of when they think the funding will be released. But 2018-19 is the start of the system, and because of cohort protection--so, protecting those students who came in on a different deal to the deal from 2018-19--in the early years there is an element of double cost; there's a cost of seeing out the old system and the different cost of implementing the new system. So, at the moment, we're certainly not in a position to tell the sector with any degree of certainty what funding would be beyond what we've allocated for 2018-19, with some sense of what 2019-20 numbers we're working with because we allocate our money over an academic year--so, by definition, we've already made assumptions of four months of the 2019-20 funding, albeit that's not approved yet in the budgetary process. Darren Millar AM: But you're not being given a steer at all as to what you expect the additional resource that you might have to make available to Welsh universities might be as a result of Diamond. You must have some idea. Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say that officials have been as helpful as they can be with us, in terms of the planning assumptions we make and indications about whether or not we are being too ambitious or not ambitious enough. So, I think they're being very helpful; as Bethan said, they're constrained by the process--they can't pre-empt a budget process. And you folks will be fully aware of that, of course. The other question I think you asked was how much of the money released by the new arrangements will come into higher education. At the moment, we are expecting all of it to come into higher education, as the product of the arrangement between the current Cabinet Secretary and the current First Minister. The extent to which any changes there cause that to come under threat is something I can't judge at the moment. But we have had in our remit letter from the Cabinet Secretary a clear indication that we can expect our resource to grow over the next few years, as the Diamond process unfolds. John Griffiths AM: Okay. I'm just going to bring in Llyr at this stage. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Bethan said in an earlier answer that, I think, the financial forecasting from universities forecast something pretty consistent in terms of what they're hoping to be receiving in income, for example. But we've already discussed the near 10 per cent drop, potentially, in international applications. So, does that tally, really, or are they going to be recruiting additional students from the UK market or--? What's the plan? Bethan Owen: I was reflecting on the last point when we had consistent information across the sector. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, they may need to revisit that in the light of this. Bethan Owen: I'm expecting that the forecast that we get at the end of this month will reflect the reduced applications we've seen, and an element of that will be reflected in reduced improvements as well. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, we don't really know, then, whether--it's unlikely that they are going to expect a consistent fee income, really. Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say we would expect them to respond to what they're seeing in the UCAS process. Even if they didn't, they would all, in any case, have sensitivities for what they would do if things don't come out in the way they hope. And if they didn't have that then we would be on their case, of course, because we want them to be properly sighted. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Thanks. John Griffiths AM: And we have to stick to the Brexit impact. Darren. Darren Millar AM: Can I just ask, in terms of the impact of Brexit, have you done any assessment of what you think might happen, or have any of the institutions made available to you any assessments of what they think is likely to happen to their individual institutions, going forward? You've mentioned scenarios earlier on, David, so what scenarios have you set out? Dr David Blaney: There's a Welsh Government HE Brexit working group, which is chaired by one of the Government directors, and we sit on that. And we have provided that group with early summaries of the risks and the potential impact, in terms of the exposure of the sector to EU-sourced funding. We have, as part of that working group, explored those issues that it would be really very helpful for either the Welsh Government to try to put in place or for the Welsh Government to persuade UK Government to do. And I think, in our submission, we identified a number of areas of what we would consider to be a helpful action, and that has been worked through that working group. We know that it has informed Welsh Government's position, in terms of what it does and also in terms of the conversations that they have with Her Majesty's Government. Beyond that, what we haven't done in that working group is share the work that institutions are doing individually to look at how they would respond to different scenarios. We are not able to do that here either because, inevitably, they would have varying degrees of unpalatability and they would have to be managed very, very carefully. You take cost out, which is essentially the response, you actually take people's jobs out, and all of that has to be managed carefully. So, that's not really a matter for public consideration, but we do know that the institutions are looking at a range of scenarios on what they would do. Bethan mentioned earlier on that the current deficit for the sector is a managed deficit--it's not something that has taken them by surprise. They are responding to what they see as the dip between where Diamond was reporting and where the money starts flowing. Similarly, I think we're comfortable that there is a managed approach to the scenarios that they're testing within institutions. So, they will do what they need to do to sustain themselves. The bigger issue really, in a public policy context, is the potential damage for the sector to be able to deliver for Wales in terms of research and skills development and all the other contributions. Darren Millar AM: So, you're confident that they're taking a robust approach to planning for various scenarios, going forward, are you, as individual HEIs? Dr David Blaney: Yes, and as the deal becomes more clear politically, then they will obviously have greater clarity in terms of which of these scenarios they need to work up more fully, but they are sighted on it. Darren Millar AM: Okay. Can I just ask about fee and access plans, and how Brexit might impact them? To what extent do you think that they could be impacted? Dr David Blaney: I think there are two dimensions to maybe touch upon there. Fee and access plans are approved annually by us. They are approved in advance of the recruitment cycle for the year that they apply to. So, we're just in the process now of finalising our consideration of fee and access plans for the 2019-20 academic year. So, there's quite a long lead time. We, as part of that process, go through similar--we look at their financial sustainability, which is based on their forecasts--data to the stuff we've just been discussing. And also, of course, the fee plans themselves make assumptions about how many students of different types, from different domains, are going to be recruited. So, clearly, if there is a continuing downward pressure on EU student recruitment, then that will reduce the amount of fee income that's going to come in, unless they can find other students, and that will reduce the amount of investment in the various activities that are identified in the fee plans. In terms of process, we have two things that we can do. If institutions are becoming aware that the basis upon which they've submitted a fee plan is fundamentally different from the reality, then they can come into us for a change to their fee plan. So, we have a change process. If it's not fundamentally different, but there are always differences between what you plan and what happens three years later--. We also monitor after the event and, if there are differences, we would then obviously require institutions to explain those differences. If they've had fewer students and less investment, we would need to understand that. Conversely, if they'd had more students, and potentially more investment, we'd want to know what they'd spent it on, and if they've done different things, we'd want to understand that as well. So, we do challenge through a monitoring process. The only other thing that's perhaps worth saying is that, in the 2019-20 fee and access plans--they're not published yet, so I can't give you the full detail--five universities have made reference to Brexit and the Brexit impact, and things they want to do through their fee and access plan to try and address some of those issues, so they're in there as well. Darren Millar AM: But we've already said, haven't we, that it may be nothing to do with Brexit, this dip in EU recruitment, because there are other factors like the attractiveness of the estates and the environment that young people might be educated in? But they're making assumptions that it's linked to Brexit, are they? Dr David Blaney: Not really. I think they're making assumptions that it could be. There are things they want to do to enhance and to protect student mobility, and some of that will be funded through fee plan investment. So, the Brexit conversation between the EU and the UK Government might or might not sustain Erasmus engagement, and if it doesn't, then they need to find other ways of trying to support that sort of thing. So, that's what we're beginning to see in the fee plans. It's them thinking about how else we can do this stuff. John Griffiths AM: Okay, Darren? Mark. Mark Reckless AM: You mentioned the fee and access report. What else do you do to assure yourselves that Welsh higher education institutions are effectively planning for Brexit? Bethan Owen: We've touched on contingency plans, but, in an environment of uncertainty, I think it's difficult for any of us to know what the right scenario is. I think rather than looking at worst-case scenarios, what the sector is also focusing on is the promotion and looking for additional or increased sources of funding. So, we touched on strengthening the Global Wales engagement in order to sell Wales, so more focus on marketing Wales overseas, but also within the UK. The other area where the sector is working at a UK level very hard is making the arguments to UK Government for maintaining access to the successor to Horizon 2020, which is arguably a larger part of the whole funding infrastructure--students is one part, but the whole funding infrastructure for maintaining research capacity. So, working with UK universities to make arguments at UK Government level for maintaining access to those sources of funding is also a part of what the institutions are doing. We mentioned the Welsh Government's HE Brexit group. That group, which is the Welsh Government group, is being advised by members on it, and that's informing Welsh Government officials when they engage with UK Government as well. Mark Reckless AM: Do universities seek your advice on what the risks and, indeed, opportunities of Brexit may be and what you think they should be doing to plan for them, or is your role more one of monitoring what they do as opposed to advising what they should do? Bethan Owen: They are autonomous institutions and ultimately their governing bodies are responsible for ensuring their sustainability. It's not a relationship where we would advise and direct, but it is a relationship where we would question the scenarios if we consider from our experience that we would have expected other scenarios to have been tested. It's that nature of conversation, rather than directing. Mark Reckless AM: I understand you don't direct, of course, but my question was about advising. You're overseeing, or monitoring--or whatever you like to describe the role as--quite a number of institutions, and presumably you therefore have particular expertise within your organisation, and I just wondered whether higher education institutions are doing enough to draw on that. Bethan Owen: I think we can advise--we can advise based on data and information that we can see. We can advise based on our judgment. The big thing in this whole Brexit scenario is the uncertainty and the extent to which our speculation is better informed than the governing bodies or the sector collectively is probably the issue. Dr David Blaney: I think that's right. So, there's a relationship with the sector and there's a relationship with individual institutions, and they are different. So, we have engagement collectively with the sector. Bethan meets with the finance directors, and I meet with the vice-chancellors. We actually have the sector and the funding council together on the Welsh Government's group. So, some of these conversations are happening in various ways, where we're all gaining intelligence about what might be a sensible set of planning assumptions. Then, if we see an institution that is manifestly giving signs of not being sighted on some of these risks, either through their forecast or through other assurance activity, we will challenge. We have an annual cycle, with two points in the year where we reassess the overall risks of individual institutions, and that's based on a whole range of hard data but also a range of soft data. Our links into institutions are many and varied. We have lots of conversations and we take all of that in the round and form an assessment about the financial sustainability of the institutions but also the extent to which we think their governance and management arrangements are properly sighted and facing properly the challenges that they face. In some ways, we say it's not about the challenges they face; it's about how they face the challenges. Our alarm bells really ring when we get the sense that, actually, either an executive or a governing body hasn't really noticed. We're not in that place, I'm really pleased to say. I'm not worried about short-term crisis with any of the institutions. There are medium-term real challenges, both because of Brexit and because of other contextual factors, but at the moment the sector is a managed sector, which is good. It's not always like that, but we're in, I think, a good place at the moment. So, our role is definitely to challenge where we don't think they are making sensible assessments, but it's not to say that their assessment is wrong and ours is right; it's just to have a conversation about,'Why have you done this and what has informed your thinking?'It's slightly more one step back and slightly more subtle, but it is, as you imply, us using the intelligence we gain from all of those conversations when we talk to individual institutions as well. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Llyr. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, thank you. We had evidence last week from some of the higher education institutions, including Cardiff University, and it's very interesting, in relation to Erasmus+ and the mobility funding for students that, I think, only 40 per cent of the mobility funding in Cardiff is paid for by Erasmus+. I note that you've been consulting on national measures for higher education performance and that one possibility is using international mobility as a performance indicator. I was just wondering whether you might go further and expect universities to actually make commitments to funding international mobility from their own fee incomes as part of that. Bethan Owen: Again, reflecting on the latest fee and access plans, seven of the universities are referring to mobility--either they have targets in them or are explaining what their plans are--so they are including an element of it from their own income and fee and access income. However, Erasmus is such a well-established and long-term plan--if we were looking at a scenario where that infrastructure wasn't available, to implement anything similar to that would be much less efficient and much more costly. And to enable an infrastructure that allowed--. Ideally, you'd want something that all Welsh institutions could take part in, and that takes some investment and some co-ordinating. And, equally, you need to have the arrangements with your overseas and European institutions. I think it's easy to underestimate the accumulation of time that has gone into establishing Erasmus. So, I think replacing it would be a challenge. Llyr Gruffydd AM: And the point was made clearly last week that the brand is internationally recognised. When you enter into Erasmus+, you know exactly what you're going to get, and all of that. But there have been criticisms as well about degrees of flexibility and this, that and the other, so I'm just wondering whether--and there is presumably going to be some change on that front although I'm hoping we can buy into it, as others have done who aren't in the EU--that emphasis on encouraging institutions to look more proactively at funding their own mobility efforts would be positive. Dr David Blaney: I think the-- Llyr Gruffydd AM: Sorry--especially if it means that they do more of it. Dr David Blaney: Indeed. I think the Welsh sector is definitely committed to trying to find ways of promoting and resourcing that sort of mobility. There are signs that some of the restrictive elements of the Erasmus programme are going to change anyway, because that's under development and that's positive. There have been positive noises as part of the Brexit negotiations about wanting to carry on being able to access the Erasmus programme. Nothing is agreed until it's all agreed apparently, so we'll have to see on that one. That would be far better, I think, as Bethan indicates, than trying to replace it with a made-in-Wales only, but you could have a made-in-Wales on top. All of these challenges also create opportunities because they stimulate thinking, and so the fact that seven of the eight universities are already now using their fee plans as a vehicle for thinking about this is positive, and I think we can take that on from there. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Because that 40/60 split struck me as being the opposite to what I perceived the situation to be. A key part of your role is to work in partnership with students, so I'd just like to ask what work have you done with students, in terms of maybe protecting their interests as the Brexit scenario evolves? Dr David Blaney: Well, as you say, we do work with students. We were the first of the funding councils in the UK to have a memorandum of understanding with the National Union of Students in Wales. We work very closely with them and the president of NUS is an observer on our council. So, we have close links with NUS Wales and we're very proud of that, and it's very productive. They don't have a vote, but they do have a voice and it really matters. We we're, again, ahead of the rest of the UK in requiring all HE providers to have student charters and there are elements of student protection within the student charter. The UK-wide quality code also has elements in it where arrangements have to be specified about the protection of student interests. That is particularly, in essence, around circumstances where a provider gets into difficulties and they might wish to close a course or something more drastic and then what arrangements are in place to make sure that those students who are in train are protected. So, that is there and we've worked hard with the sector and with NUS Wales to get those measures in place. There's more development work in train at the moment, so we've asked Universities Wales to construct a protection that takes account of the approach to protecting the student interests in higher education. We're also requiring further education institutions who are regulated and deliver higher education to do similar or the same, and that's very important. The students who are HE students in FE are absolutely not second-best, and they should have the same protections. Llyr Gruffydd AM: But is all this a general piece of work? It's not Brexit-specific, although, no doubt, it may--. Dr David Blaney: I think that's fair to say, yes. The other dimension around Brexit is the immigration status of EU students, and that's, kind of, beyond our pay scale--that's a UK Government issue. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Is that something that you have a view on? Dr David Blaney: It's clearly in the interest of the enrichment of the curriculum and the student experience for students in Welsh institutions to be able to have students from other EU countries in the mix. So, it would be nice to find ways of continuing to facilitate that. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Now, of course, you have a statutory duty as well to assess the academic quality of the work in our higher education institutions, and I'm just wondering what potential impacts you think that Brexit might have on that particular aspect. Dr David Blaney: I think there are possibly a couple of things to say, and one, in a sense, echoes what I was just saying in the final part of my previous response, which is that part of the quality of the student experience is the richness that you get from having students in your cohort who have different backgrounds and different perspectives. So, if there is a continuing reduction in the number of EU students coming into Welsh institutions, then that richness deteriorates. That doesn't mean to say that the base or the threshold standard of what's required for a degree will come under pressure, it's just about the richness on top of that, which will be, in a sense, a quality-enhancement issue. That would be something that we would wish to try to protect against, but in the end you can't force EU students to come--you have to try and look attractive, and we've touched on that. The baseline requirement assessment of quality will not be affected by Brexit, except in so far as the machinery we use to discharge our statutory responsibility, which is through the Quality Assurance Agency, which themselves are accredited with European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, the European machinery for higher education quality. And there's a set of standards around that, and we would obviously wish not to be in a position where our ability to use and adhere to those standards is adversely impacted upon. Those standards will still exist, and it will be possible for the British system to adhere to them, even if they're not actually able to play in the same way. Then the only other thing I would say is that one of the factors that can cause the quality of the learning and teaching experience to be likely to become inadequate is when institutions come under financial pressure, just because their capacity to maintain the same sort of student experience can get under pressure. So, clearly, we will be looking for and making sure that institutions manage the financial pressures, if there are any--and there are some at the moment, as we've described--and manage those carefully. And in all of that, we will expect institutions to do their duty to make sure that the commitments they've already made to students are carried through. So, where students have already started on the course, they need to be able to finish that course--you can't just pull the plug out. So, all of that comes into the arrangements for quality as well. So, we'll be keeping an eye on that. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. A lot of what you've told us in the last three quarters of an hour or so will have costs attached, depending on the impacts. Certainly, we're in choppy waters as a sector anyway, and the risk is that things will be even more choppy, if you'll excuse that level of political interpretation, over the years to come. I'm just wondering what advice you might have given the Welsh Government in terms of what level of transition funding, or Brexit transition funding, might be required by the sector, and if you have, what the Welsh Government might have told you. Bethan Owen: I mentioned earlier that, obviously, we've provided information in terms of the assumptions that the sector are making on income. So, for the year 2017-18, that was PS129 million. I think the extent to which that needs to be replaced or supported with transition funding depends absolutely on what the final arrangements for Brexit are, but it's an appropriate point to refer to the report that Professor Graeme Reid has produced, commissioned by Welsh Government. That was, and has, provided advice and recommendations for supporting research and innovation in the transition period. But, again, the Reid recommendations in that report build on the Diamond recommendations, and as soon as Diamond is in place--and Reid is providing recommendations in addition, to establish funding on the basis that the funding needs to be available in Wales to maintain and develop and strengthen the research and innovation infrastructure that we have. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Are you not worried, though, that the clock is ticking and that we really don't know what the situation is at this point? Dr David Blaney: Do you mean the Brexit situation? Llyr Gruffydd AM: The Brexit clock, yes. Dr David Blaney: Uncertainty is unhelpful, because as I've said several times, the sector is a managed sector at the moment. I don't think there's--. We're not seeing maverick stuff, but actually you can only manage, really, what you can see and what you can reasonably predict. So, the longer the uncertainty persists, the more difficult that is for institutional management and, indeed, for the rest of the machinery to support them. So, yes, the sooner we get clarity, the better for everybody, I imagine. Darren Millar AM: Chair, can I just ask a question? John Griffiths AM: Yes, Darren. Darren Millar AM: In terms of uncertainty, though, we've still got this uncertainty over whether the extra cash that the Government's going to have to spend as a result of Diamond being implemented is coming to the HE sector. They've given a political commitment, but you've got absolutely no other assurance of the sums of money that are coming in. We've got the reform of tertiary education arrangements in Wales, which are also under way, so it's a bit of a perfect storm for you, isn't it, really, with all of these three things happening at the same time? Dr David Blaney: We're certainly kept busy. Darren Millar AM: But two of those things are in the gift of the Welsh Government to sort out for you, aren't they? Dr David Blaney: Well, the policy on the reform of the post-compulsory sector absolutely is a Welsh Government policy. The extent to which they can pre-empt a budgetary process and give us clear sight of the amount of money in future years is--. Well, again, it's not for me to comment. My understanding is that that's difficult for them to do, and I would repeat what I said earlier: officials have been as helpful as I think they can be in respect of that. I mean, you're right, we've only got a political commitment between two people currently in post. It would be great to have that firmer. I'm not sure how that could be done. Darren Millar AM: I mean, that statement about the savings accrued from Diamond being reinvested wholly into the HE sector has not been repeated, frankly, has it, since the coalition deal was struck? Dr David Blaney: No, but it hasn't been rescinded either, so--. Darren Millar AM: No, but there have been opportunities--repeated opportunities--in the Chamber, where the Cabinet Secretary's been asked to repeat that commitment, and the First Minister's been asked to repeat that commitment and has not given that commitment. That must concern you, and must concern your university sector even more than, perhaps, some of the elements of Brexit that we're discussing. Dr David Blaney: Bethan has outlined earlier on in this session the fact that institutions are currently running deficit budgets in order not to lose the infrastructure on the assumption that the Diamond money will come in. If anything were to cause significant perturbation, either to the timeline of that or to it coming in at all, then there would be much more of what Medwin Hughes calls'houskeeping'that would be required, and that would be significant. So, at the moment--I don't like the expression'valley of death', but there is a valley to cross, and I think the sector is reasonably confident about how wide and how deep that valley is. There's a demographic valley as well. So, there are several valleys that they're crossing--the metaphor fails, doesn't it, really, but I think you get the drift? So, there are a number of challenges and they can see their way out of some of those challenges, but if any one of these starts to get significantly disrupted, then that would be a real issue for them. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I go on to ask about other barriers to Welsh universities gaining more funding from UK research councils? What would you say those barriers are? Dr David Blaney: Well, I think there are a couple of things, really, to say. The first one--and we'll sound like a stuck record if we're not careful--is that there's an issue about investment and the Reid report makes this very clear. So, he has reaffirmed research that had been done previously that identifies that, actually, the quality of the research base in Welsh universities and the productivity of that Welsh research base are both good, there's just not enough of them, and that, in the end, is a product of investment decisions. They have particularly looked at the deficit in science, technology, engineering and mathematics areas, and I always say that research is not just STEM. I mean, STEM is important, and I'm not denying the deficit in that area, but we have to also remember that the research agenda for Wales is not just STEM--it's arts, humanities, it's social sciences. If you look at the impact on public policy that could come from social science research--tremendous. And we're very good at it in Wales. The Welsh impact in its research is better than anywhere else in the UK, so that's good. So, they do very well, and we just really need to invest a little bit further--so continue to do very well, but put it on a broader front. If you want to be able to play into the UK-wide research funding, then the investment has two dimensions to it. One is just having enough researchers to be able to play into those increasingly larger projects rather than small-scale projects. If you haven't got the critical mass, it's very hard to make the case that you can play. And the second thing is that UK-wide research pots nearly always fund at about 80 per cent of the total cost of the research, and the other 20 per cent is meant to be found from the core research funding for the university, and if you're in a situation where your core research funding is not competitive, then you're not going to be competitive at getting that money. So, that's, kind of, straightforward. There are other things. I think it's fair to say that the Welsh sector has not been sufficiently focused on getting in on the conversations with the research councils, making sure they're in the various committees and so on. We are intending to do a bit of work to see if we can systematise that a bit better--that engagement--because there's no doubt about it: it's not to say that this system is in any way inappropriate, but the more you're in the conversations, the more likely you are to be better placed to respond to the research challenges that come up. John Griffiths AM: Okay. One final question: in terms of the researcher collaborations and networks that exist, do you see potential difficulties after Brexit for the continuation and enhancement of those, and are there any particular lessons to learn from Ser Cymru II? Dr David Blaney: I think that there are two things to say here as well. First of all, the Brexit deal might or might not impact adversely on the capacity of Welsh and, indeed, UK research infrastructure to play into broader collaborative activity across Europe, and, in a sense, that's a function of the deal whatever the deal looks like, and we'll have to wait and see. But we've mentioned playing into Horizon Europe, and being able to continue with that would be an important part of that capacity. It's not just the money, it's being in the club and it's the signalling that we're in the game. So, all of that would be important. And then the other part of my response to this would be that, actually, Wales will need to continue to be good at the research it does, so maintaining the quality, maintaining the impact, and hopefully growing the critical mass. The Ser Cymru initiative has been quite important in doing that, because it's been very focused, capturing key research players, and the attractiveness that that has then to other researchers around them, and to industry collaboration, and they have been areas of real strength that we've invested in. And I think they are already showing dividends in terms of the capacity to win more research funding, and to establish an even stronger presence in the international research market. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Just one further point, from Darren. Darren Millar AM: Just very briefly, one of the pieces of feedback that the committee members received at a stakeholder engagement event, which took place prior to this inquiry starting, to receive oral evidence, was about the research funding that is available from the charitable sector, and how poorly Wales does in attracting some of that research. I think we had some figures from the British Heart Foundation, which said they have PS100 million a year available for research grants, or something like that, and we're getting 1 per cent of that coming into Wales, which is obviously pretty low down. I appreciate that research into the type of activity that they want to put their money into, Wales may not be particularly good at, and there may be other opportunities with other charities and partnerships. What work are you doing in order to build the capacity that Wales has to attract more of that charitable sector research funding into Wales? Bethan Owen: One of the issues is the capacity to engage with that funding, because of the overhead issue that David mentioned. Charitable funding at the moment doesn't attract any overhead funding. Again, that could be built in to our funding, if we had the capacity to increase our quality-related research funding. There is an element in England. Darren Millar AM: But that pressure's the same in other parts of the UK, is it not? So the overhead funding is still an issue in England, and in other places. Bethan Owen: There is an increased contribution, and I think it's an element that was increased this year to acknowledge that. But there will be differentiation between different charities. I'm fairly certain that some of our institutions will be very strong with the cancer charities, possibly not the heart foundation. And some of that will reflect on focusing on our strengths, but to have that fuller picture. Darren Millar AM: So, this gearing issue that you mentioned earlier on, for every PS1 that somebody else puts on the table, they can draw in another PS4 on top, because that PS1 will cover the overheads, whereas the rest of the research cash--. Dr David Blaney: That's exactly it. So, the more you're able to invest--. You know, we sometimes get into a conversation about the unhypothecated nature of our research funding, but actually that creates a flexibility and the infrastructure investment that allows institutions to be able to respond to these other opportunities. Without that, they can't do it, because if you're not careful, you've got institutions engaging in UK-wide or charity-based research activities where they're actually having to pay for it themselves--they're running at a loss. Darren Millar AM: So that's the main problem; it's not that Welsh universities aren't doing their best to get this cash in. Or is it a bit of both? Dr David Blaney: I think, in the main, universities and researchers will get their cash from wherever they can, so I don't think it's a lack of appetite. Darren Millar AM: Okay. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Well, thank you, both, for coming in to give evidence to the committee this morning. You will be sent a draft of the transcript, to check for accuracy. Diolch yn fawr. Okay then, the next item is item 3, papers to note, the first of which is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education on the school organisation code. The second is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill. Paper to note 3 is a letter from the Chair of the Finance Committee regarding scrutiny of the Welsh Government's draft budget for the forthcoming financial year, which we will be discussing under item 6 on the agenda. Paper to note 4 is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on parental attitudes towards managing young children's behaviour. And the final paper to note, paper to note 5, is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the children and family delivery grant, which we will discuss later on in private session, if Members are content. Okay. Are you content to note those papers on that basis? Okay. Thanks very much. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17. 42 to exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting, and also for items 1 and 2 of the 20 September meeting. Is the committee content? Yes. Thank you very much. We will move then into private session.

The biggest is that there's an issue about investment. The quality of the research base in Welsh universities and the productivity of that Welsh research base are both good, there's just not enough of them. If they want to be able to play into the UK-wide research funding, the investment has two dimensions. One is having enough researchers playing in larger projects rather than small-scale projects; and the second thing is that, compared to UK-wide research pots, Wales'core research funding is not competitive. Also, the Welsh sector has not been sufficiently focused on getting in on the conversations with the research councils.

tr-sq-678

tr-sq-678_0

What are the potential difficulties after Brexit for the continuation and enhancement of researcher collaborations and networks? Gareth Rogers: Good morning, and welcome to today's meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. Unfortunately, the Chair is unable to attend today, so in accordance with Standing Order 17. 22 I call for nominations for a temporary Chair for the duration of today's meeting. Julie Morgan AM: I nominate John Griffiths. Gareth Rogers: Thank you. Darren Millar AM: I'll second that nomination. Gareth Rogers: As there's only one nomination, I declare that John Griffiths has been appointed as temporary Chair. Thank you, John. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Thank you all very much, and item 1 on our agenda today is introductions, apologies, substitutions and declarations of interest. We've received apologies from Hefin David and Lynne Neagle. There are no substitutions. Are there any declarations of interest? No. We will move on then to item 2, and our inquiry into the impact of Brexit on higher and further education, and our first evidence session. I'm very pleased to welcome the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales here today, and Dr David Blaney as chief executive, and Bethan Owen, director of institutional engagement. Welcome to you both. Thanks for coming along to give evidence today. If it's okay with you, we'll move straight to questions, and Julie Morgan. Julie Morgan AM: Good morning. Bore da. I wondered if we could start off with you telling us what evidence you can see that the Brexit process has had any impact on Welsh higher education so far. Dr David Blaney: Can I preface the response by just reminding you that we are, by contract and by role, apolitical, and a lot of the judgments about the impact of Brexit essentially reflect where people sit politically in terms of whether they think it's a good thing or a bad thing? We're not going to go there, obviously, today, so we'll stick to the facts as we can see them, and hopefully we'll be able to help you, but there are areas where we are unable to help. That's part of the reason. John Griffiths AM: We certainly do not expect you to enter the political fray in any way. Dr David Blaney: Thank you. But even in terms of your assessment of whether this is going to be a good thing or a bad thing, a good impact or a bad impact, some of that inevitably in the end becomes a matter of your politics on it, so we will be as careful as we can be on that. In terms of the impact of Brexit on higher education, clearly, the significance here is about the contribution that higher education can make to Wales. So, we fund provision; we don't fund providers, technically, although obviously there's not much provision without providers. So, we are interested in the sustainability of higher education providers, but fundamentally the issue is: what does the HE system in Wales do for Wales, and what impact might Brexit have on the capacity of the system to continue to deliver for Wales? So, we know that universities make annually about PS5 billion of impact; 50,000 jobs. Of course, in Wales, all of that economic impact is really very significant, and uncertainty about the relationships and the arrangements with Europe is one of the most significant issues confronting university management at the moment. That has an impact in a number of ways. We can identify at the moment the extent to which the HE sector in Wales is exposed to sources of income that are located from the EU, so EU students, structural funds, and EU research funding, and so on, from the EU. We can identify some of that, but, actually, what happens in the future is much harder to be clear about. We are beginning to see some impact in terms of applications from EU students and I'll ask Bethan to share some details on that in a moment. We're also beginning to pick up, only anecdotally, some signs that there are increasing difficulties in the UK sector, and the Welsh sector as part of that, in playing in some of the EU collaborative research activities. And that, I think, just reflects the extent to which EU partners consider that British partners might be a stable partner as we go through this transition period. We don't have data on that--that's anecdotal--but there are signs that some of those relationships are beginning to become a little bit more difficult. In terms of the financial impact of that, clearly, if it is accepted that the UK is a net contributor to the EU then, presumably, some of the money--we're almost immediately straight into politics if you're not careful--but some of the money will be available back to the UK, and the extent to which Wales benefits or not from that returned money is a function of the political relationship between the Welsh Government and Her Majesty's Government. It's not necessarily the case that Wales will always lose out in that relationship, but that will become a matter of politics. There's a broader dimension, which is about the economic impact of Brexit on the UK economy and how much tax revenue there is and all of that. I think it's very hard for us to be definitive about how that's going to play out. I think that depends on the deal and how it all unfolds over the next several years. But we can certainly anticipate some turbulence and exactly how that plays for institutions remains to be seen. We can touch later on on the extent to which they are sighted on this and preparing for it. So, in terms of recruitment, Bethan. Bethan Owen: This is based on the UCAS applications and the report that was published at the end of June, 30 June. The European Union-domiciled applicants to Wales have decreased by 8 per cent, which contrasts with a 2 per cent increase for English institutions, and non-EU--so international students, not from Europe--have also decreased by 9 per cent to Welsh institutions, again contrasting with a 7 per cent increase in England. So, those are the signs of changes. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I then just ask you what you see as the main pressures on the Welsh higher education sector at the moment? Bethan Owen: The funding position would be the main pressure. The recommendations made by Sir Ian Diamond in his review of higher education funding and student finance are in the process of being implemented, and the changes to the student finance arrangements will take effect from this September. However, the recommendations for re-establishing funding at Welsh institutions are expected to take quite a bit longer. That funding, when it returns to institutions, is intended to re-establish funding for higher cost provision, both full time and part time; reinstate funding for innovation; and maintain, at the very least, the research funding in real terms. Universities, in the meantime, are trying to minimise the cost reductions that they're making in order to maintain the infrastructure, so that when the funding comes they can get the best value out of it. We have announced our funding allocations for 2018-19. For the research and teaching grant, though, we are still funding at a lower level--PS12. 5 million less--then the starting point for the Diamond report, the 2015-16 starting report. But we expect to be able to start introducing funding from 2019-20 to make a start on implementing Diamond. And it's probably important to note that the Diamond recommendations predated Brexit, therefore the challenges introduced by Brexit are in addition to those that the Diamond report was addressing. The other pressures relate to student recruitment. I mentioned the EU and international students. There is also the start of a reduction, both in Welsh-domiciled and English-domiciled applications to Wales. Enrolments are obviously the key important number, which we'll see later. And the other pressures include pay and pension costs, not least the issues around the universities superannuation scheme pension fund, where there's potentially a significant increase in cost. Increased student expectations for modern facilities and infrastructure bring a requirement for capital expenditure and borrowing, which bring their own pressures. And finally, the uncertainty about potential consequences that could arise from the review in England of fees and funding--the Augar review. John Griffiths AM: In terms of European Union students and enrolment, is Wales forecast to do less well than England and, if so, why might that be? Bethan Owen: They are not forecasting it. It's very difficult until the enrolments are made, and it's also very hard to see--the data that we see is the UCAS data. Institutions also recruit directly, so until we see the actual recruitment--. I think the arrangements that have changed from 2018-19 also impact on EU students. So, now, they have to find the full fee, whereas previously they were getting the grant in the same way as Welsh students. So, I'm speculating that that might be having an impact as well on EU students'appetite to come. John Griffiths AM: Okay. First of all Llyr, then Mark. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, that's straight into what I was going to ask, really, about what you think the factors are that led to this 8 per cent or 9 per cent drop in EU students applying to study in Wales, where we see a 2 per cent increase in England. Is that it, or are there other things that you've taken into account? What's your assessment of the reasons behind this? Dr David Blaney: It's very difficult to be definitive about the reasons, but I think there are probably two. The one that Bethan has already indicated, which is the change in student support arrangements for EU students, will have an effect of perturbation. That's probably relatively temporary--let's hope it is--as that settles down because, actually, the deal for EU students coming into Wales is no worse than that coming into England. Ours would be better because the fee level is slightly lower, but we do struggle in Wales in terms of the Anglocentric nature of the media and so on. So, getting the messages out is a challenge. The other dimension is that when you're in a highly competitive recruitment market, you have to do what you can to look attractive. Part of that is about being able to invest in facilities, and particularly buildings and kit, and the relative levels of investment between Wales and England over quite a long period of time now probably have an impact on that. Certainly, anecdotally I know, from my own family, that a lot of the choices have been made in terms of the state of repair of campuses and so on. There's something rational about that, isn't there? If you've got a system that is relatively better invested, then you're likely to have a better student experience because the resources are likely to be better. So, that's not irrational. We saw a sort of similar but opposite effect when the PS9,000 fee maximum limit came in, and some institutions, mostly in England--there was one in Wales--chose to pitch their fee levels really quite low, relative to that PS9,000, and caught a cold in the student recruitment market because fee levels denote quality in the student mind. So, the price sensitivities work quite differently. So, again, if you've got a relatively better invested part of the system, then that might well be one of the reasons why it looks more attractive. Llyr Gruffydd AM: That latter factor would affect the whole of the cohort, not just the international recruitment, of course. Dr David Blaney: Indeed. Yes, indeed. The implementation of the Diamond recommendations is crucial to that because that's re-balancing where the policy of investment goes. John Griffiths AM: Okay. And Mark. Mark Reckless AM: If I heard you correctly earlier, you said that the applications from non-EU students were also down by 8 per cent or 9 per cent. So, forgive me a certain scepticism about the explanation of the fall in the EU students being that they did get the fee grant and now they do not. If that's the explanation, why are we seeing the same fall in non-EU applications? Dr David Blaney: Well, I think the Welsh domiciled are also now having to face the prospect of finding a loan for the whole of the fee. So, that would potentially account for that. There's also a demographic dimension here with the downturn in the 18-year-old school-leaver profile, and that actually is happening in Wales at a slightly later point than in England. Mark Reckless AM: But this is non-EU students, and I think you said, Bethan, an 8 per cent or 9 per cent fall in them as well. Dr David Blaney: International non-EU. I beg your pardon. I misunderstood. Bethan Owen: There's also a mix effect. I gave a number that was for all English institutions that there will be differential impacts on. Mark Reckless AM: All English or all Welsh? Bethan Owen: Well, I contrasted the Welsh position with the English position where they were seeing growth. If you look, then--and we don't have the detailed information, but, again, what UCAS publish is some analysis by tariff. They analyse by type of institution--in other words, the grades that you need to get into institutions--and there is a trend for growth being in the higher tariff institutions. So, there's a mix effect in there as well, and I think there's undoubtedly an element of perception of how welcome overseas and international students are, and that's something that we know the sector are working on with Government. Mark Reckless AM: Why would that affect Wales more than England? Do you think there's been perhaps too great a negativity about Brexit in the sector? Bethan Owen: I think it's the mix of institutions that we have. So, we only have sector information published at the moment. When we look at the mix of institutions that we have, we will probably see a differential impact between Cardiff University and others. John Griffiths AM: Okay, Mark? Sorry, David, did you want to add anything? Dr David Blaney: I was just going to say that we would expect to see quite differential performance in the English sector, so the overall numbers are being brought up by substantial increased performance with some of that sector, and it's a question of how many of that type of institution you have in Wales. Mark Reckless AM: So, performance is increasing amongst the English universities, but not amongst the Welsh, you think. Dr David Blaney: I think performance is increasing, but increasing substantially with some of the English sector, not all of it. So, you get an average for the sector that is increased performance, but actually the stronger players within that sector, with the stronger international profiles, are bringing that up, and we have fewer in Wales that have that sort of presence. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Darren. Darren Millar AM: Would it be fair to say, then, that the universities over the border in England are better at selling themselves internationally than our Welsh institutions? Or is it just this fact that we've got fewer very high tariff universities versus the English market? Dr David Blaney: I suspect, and this is speculation--I suspect that it's a bit of both. I think some of it is to do with the mix of different types of institution. I would then come back to the point I was making about the Anglocentric nature of the UK media. If you're looking overseas, I think Wales has to work harder to penetrate the consciousness. Darren Millar AM: But, forgive me, don't international students just look at the UK as a whole? How are we comparing to Scotland, for example, or Northern Ireland, in terms of their universities? Do you have a comparative figure for Scottish universities? Bethan Owen: I haven't got that one with me for now, but there will be one in the data. Dr David Blaney: Yes, we could get that. Bethan Owen: Again, it's a combination of being part of the UK but differentiating, and the ability to differentiate the strengths of Wales, so attracting those students to Wales specifically, on top of the UK draw. Dr David Blaney: So, in terms of the efforts that have been made, there's a programme now that is being run by the sector in Wales--it's'Study in Wales'. It's relatively recent; you could argue that we could have got there earlier. But that is a determined collective effort to present Wales as a good place to study, with particular messages about what distinguishes studying in Wales from studying more broadly in the UK. In a sense, that is responding to the need to increase the presence of Wales in an international market. So, that sort of initiative I think is very good, very welcome. It will take a while to actually have an impact, but I think that's exactly the sort of work the sector need to be doing more of. Mark Reckless AM: What are those messages on why prospective students should study in Wales? Dr David Blaney: One of them in particular is relative safety. We know that one of the considerations, particularly for parents of overseas students, is are they going to go to a safe environment, and we know that the perception of international students who study in Wales is that this is a comfortable and safe place to be. That's partly a function of the size of our larger cities--quite a lot smaller than many of the cities in England. So, that's a key message. Being part of a UK system is also an important message there as well. So, we've got a UK-quality system, a UK degree, and the strength of that brand is available in Wales, but it's available in a way that is safer and more supportive, I think is the messaging that's coming through. John Griffiths AM: Okay. We'd better move on, I think, hadn't we? Darren, then. Darren Millar AM: I just wonder to what extent you have been able to plan in your financial forecasts for the next few years ahead for the potential impacts of Brexit. What have you built in, if anything? Bethan Owen: In terms of our funding, we receive our funding annually, but the sector provides us with financial forecasts, and we use those for monitoring sustainability. So, the last full forecasts that we had were in July 2017. We are due to receive a full forecast at the end of this month, and we obviously have updated information from institutions. Darren Millar AM: And they're three-year forecasts that come through to you, aren't they? Bethan Owen: They are four plus the current year. So, we've got numbers to 2019-20 at the moment, and expect to go to 2020-21. Darren Millar AM: And what are the universities expecting? What do they anticipate? Bethan Owen: Well, for 2017-18, which is the year we're about to end now, they were expecting PS38 million income from European students, and approximately PS91 million from the various European programme funding sources, and that's about 8 per cent of the total income--PS1. 5 billion--of the sector. The forecasts are assuming that that continues, albeit that institutions have various scenarios that they have for all sorts of scenarios that we can all speculate on, and, as I mentioned earlier, the balancing act of maintaining infrastructure and resources and staff in the short term is where we are at the moment, or where the sector is at the moment. And there are also signs that the banks and lending institutions are becoming a bit more risk-averse in providing borrowing to institutions, and of more differentiation between individual institutions being made than has possibly been the case in the past. The sector made an operating deficit, again looking at all Welsh institutions collectively last year, 2016-17, of PS17 million. That's before other gains and losses. And we're expecting a similar collective level of deficit for this financial year, if not slightly higher. Now, these are managed deficits and we are not currently seeing critical short-term cash availability issues in the sector. However, the increase in funding from Diamond is a key part of enabling the sector to return to longer-term financial sustainability. Short-term challenges can be met if there's a reasonable prospect of future funding. You can manage in the short-term, but there comes a point when the big cost reductions and infrastructure reductions have to be made. And, again, having mentioned the pressures on pay, pensions and other challenges, it is difficult to gauge whether, if those factors come into play as well, some of these cost reductions may have to be made before funding comes in to replace--either Diamond funding or the European replacement funding. Darren Millar AM: So, would it be fair to say that, in terms of the funding arrangements, and, in terms of the student numbers, one reason why we've got this recruitment problem is this lack of investment in the capital infrastructure that we've seen in recent years because of the financing arrangements from the Welsh Government, and the fee regime that we had previously, and the student finance regime that we had previously, not getting more cash into our Welsh universities perhaps, and that, over the next few years, there's going to have to be much more significant investment in capital if we're to raise the game and be more competitive, yes? Bethan Owen: Yes, that would be fair to say. Darren Millar AM: So, to what extent are they planning for more capital investment in those financial strategies that they've been preparing and presenting to you? Bethan Owen: They are all planning for capital investment. They are in different positions in terms of capacity to borrow and the assumptions. This year, 2018-19, is the first time that we've had capital funding in our remit letter--so, we've got PS10 million of capital funding, which is very welcome, with a prospect of a further PS20 million. So, that we will be allocating shortly. That will make a difference, particularly to those institutions who are not finding it as easy to borrow from financial institutions. Some of our larger institutions have borrowed--Cardiff University issued a bond. However, there are internal governance processes that are putting tight restrictions and expectations of what that money will be invested in. But they all have plans to do it and they need the confidence that their forecasts and long-term future funding prospects are secure enough that they can get the confidence of borrowers then, and service the costs of those borrowers. Darren Millar AM: So, the Diamond dividend you've mentioned a few times. What clarity is there from the Welsh Government at the moment in terms of how much they anticipate the Diamond dividend will be, and what proportion of that is going to be released to HEIs in the future? Bethan Owen: I was very carefully not describing it as a dividend--a re-establishing of funding that we had in the past for higher cost and innovation and maintaining research funding. The timescales are difficult, because we have an annual remit letter, and we can work with Welsh Government officials, and they can only give us a sense of when they think the funding will be released. But 2018-19 is the start of the system, and because of cohort protection--so, protecting those students who came in on a different deal to the deal from 2018-19--in the early years there is an element of double cost; there's a cost of seeing out the old system and the different cost of implementing the new system. So, at the moment, we're certainly not in a position to tell the sector with any degree of certainty what funding would be beyond what we've allocated for 2018-19, with some sense of what 2019-20 numbers we're working with because we allocate our money over an academic year--so, by definition, we've already made assumptions of four months of the 2019-20 funding, albeit that's not approved yet in the budgetary process. Darren Millar AM: But you're not being given a steer at all as to what you expect the additional resource that you might have to make available to Welsh universities might be as a result of Diamond. You must have some idea. Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say that officials have been as helpful as they can be with us, in terms of the planning assumptions we make and indications about whether or not we are being too ambitious or not ambitious enough. So, I think they're being very helpful; as Bethan said, they're constrained by the process--they can't pre-empt a budget process. And you folks will be fully aware of that, of course. The other question I think you asked was how much of the money released by the new arrangements will come into higher education. At the moment, we are expecting all of it to come into higher education, as the product of the arrangement between the current Cabinet Secretary and the current First Minister. The extent to which any changes there cause that to come under threat is something I can't judge at the moment. But we have had in our remit letter from the Cabinet Secretary a clear indication that we can expect our resource to grow over the next few years, as the Diamond process unfolds. John Griffiths AM: Okay. I'm just going to bring in Llyr at this stage. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Bethan said in an earlier answer that, I think, the financial forecasting from universities forecast something pretty consistent in terms of what they're hoping to be receiving in income, for example. But we've already discussed the near 10 per cent drop, potentially, in international applications. So, does that tally, really, or are they going to be recruiting additional students from the UK market or--? What's the plan? Bethan Owen: I was reflecting on the last point when we had consistent information across the sector. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, they may need to revisit that in the light of this. Bethan Owen: I'm expecting that the forecast that we get at the end of this month will reflect the reduced applications we've seen, and an element of that will be reflected in reduced improvements as well. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, we don't really know, then, whether--it's unlikely that they are going to expect a consistent fee income, really. Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say we would expect them to respond to what they're seeing in the UCAS process. Even if they didn't, they would all, in any case, have sensitivities for what they would do if things don't come out in the way they hope. And if they didn't have that then we would be on their case, of course, because we want them to be properly sighted. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Thanks. John Griffiths AM: And we have to stick to the Brexit impact. Darren. Darren Millar AM: Can I just ask, in terms of the impact of Brexit, have you done any assessment of what you think might happen, or have any of the institutions made available to you any assessments of what they think is likely to happen to their individual institutions, going forward? You've mentioned scenarios earlier on, David, so what scenarios have you set out? Dr David Blaney: There's a Welsh Government HE Brexit working group, which is chaired by one of the Government directors, and we sit on that. And we have provided that group with early summaries of the risks and the potential impact, in terms of the exposure of the sector to EU-sourced funding. We have, as part of that working group, explored those issues that it would be really very helpful for either the Welsh Government to try to put in place or for the Welsh Government to persuade UK Government to do. And I think, in our submission, we identified a number of areas of what we would consider to be a helpful action, and that has been worked through that working group. We know that it has informed Welsh Government's position, in terms of what it does and also in terms of the conversations that they have with Her Majesty's Government. Beyond that, what we haven't done in that working group is share the work that institutions are doing individually to look at how they would respond to different scenarios. We are not able to do that here either because, inevitably, they would have varying degrees of unpalatability and they would have to be managed very, very carefully. You take cost out, which is essentially the response, you actually take people's jobs out, and all of that has to be managed carefully. So, that's not really a matter for public consideration, but we do know that the institutions are looking at a range of scenarios on what they would do. Bethan mentioned earlier on that the current deficit for the sector is a managed deficit--it's not something that has taken them by surprise. They are responding to what they see as the dip between where Diamond was reporting and where the money starts flowing. Similarly, I think we're comfortable that there is a managed approach to the scenarios that they're testing within institutions. So, they will do what they need to do to sustain themselves. The bigger issue really, in a public policy context, is the potential damage for the sector to be able to deliver for Wales in terms of research and skills development and all the other contributions. Darren Millar AM: So, you're confident that they're taking a robust approach to planning for various scenarios, going forward, are you, as individual HEIs? Dr David Blaney: Yes, and as the deal becomes more clear politically, then they will obviously have greater clarity in terms of which of these scenarios they need to work up more fully, but they are sighted on it. Darren Millar AM: Okay. Can I just ask about fee and access plans, and how Brexit might impact them? To what extent do you think that they could be impacted? Dr David Blaney: I think there are two dimensions to maybe touch upon there. Fee and access plans are approved annually by us. They are approved in advance of the recruitment cycle for the year that they apply to. So, we're just in the process now of finalising our consideration of fee and access plans for the 2019-20 academic year. So, there's quite a long lead time. We, as part of that process, go through similar--we look at their financial sustainability, which is based on their forecasts--data to the stuff we've just been discussing. And also, of course, the fee plans themselves make assumptions about how many students of different types, from different domains, are going to be recruited. So, clearly, if there is a continuing downward pressure on EU student recruitment, then that will reduce the amount of fee income that's going to come in, unless they can find other students, and that will reduce the amount of investment in the various activities that are identified in the fee plans. In terms of process, we have two things that we can do. If institutions are becoming aware that the basis upon which they've submitted a fee plan is fundamentally different from the reality, then they can come into us for a change to their fee plan. So, we have a change process. If it's not fundamentally different, but there are always differences between what you plan and what happens three years later--. We also monitor after the event and, if there are differences, we would then obviously require institutions to explain those differences. If they've had fewer students and less investment, we would need to understand that. Conversely, if they'd had more students, and potentially more investment, we'd want to know what they'd spent it on, and if they've done different things, we'd want to understand that as well. So, we do challenge through a monitoring process. The only other thing that's perhaps worth saying is that, in the 2019-20 fee and access plans--they're not published yet, so I can't give you the full detail--five universities have made reference to Brexit and the Brexit impact, and things they want to do through their fee and access plan to try and address some of those issues, so they're in there as well. Darren Millar AM: But we've already said, haven't we, that it may be nothing to do with Brexit, this dip in EU recruitment, because there are other factors like the attractiveness of the estates and the environment that young people might be educated in? But they're making assumptions that it's linked to Brexit, are they? Dr David Blaney: Not really. I think they're making assumptions that it could be. There are things they want to do to enhance and to protect student mobility, and some of that will be funded through fee plan investment. So, the Brexit conversation between the EU and the UK Government might or might not sustain Erasmus engagement, and if it doesn't, then they need to find other ways of trying to support that sort of thing. So, that's what we're beginning to see in the fee plans. It's them thinking about how else we can do this stuff. John Griffiths AM: Okay, Darren? Mark. Mark Reckless AM: You mentioned the fee and access report. What else do you do to assure yourselves that Welsh higher education institutions are effectively planning for Brexit? Bethan Owen: We've touched on contingency plans, but, in an environment of uncertainty, I think it's difficult for any of us to know what the right scenario is. I think rather than looking at worst-case scenarios, what the sector is also focusing on is the promotion and looking for additional or increased sources of funding. So, we touched on strengthening the Global Wales engagement in order to sell Wales, so more focus on marketing Wales overseas, but also within the UK. The other area where the sector is working at a UK level very hard is making the arguments to UK Government for maintaining access to the successor to Horizon 2020, which is arguably a larger part of the whole funding infrastructure--students is one part, but the whole funding infrastructure for maintaining research capacity. So, working with UK universities to make arguments at UK Government level for maintaining access to those sources of funding is also a part of what the institutions are doing. We mentioned the Welsh Government's HE Brexit group. That group, which is the Welsh Government group, is being advised by members on it, and that's informing Welsh Government officials when they engage with UK Government as well. Mark Reckless AM: Do universities seek your advice on what the risks and, indeed, opportunities of Brexit may be and what you think they should be doing to plan for them, or is your role more one of monitoring what they do as opposed to advising what they should do? Bethan Owen: They are autonomous institutions and ultimately their governing bodies are responsible for ensuring their sustainability. It's not a relationship where we would advise and direct, but it is a relationship where we would question the scenarios if we consider from our experience that we would have expected other scenarios to have been tested. It's that nature of conversation, rather than directing. Mark Reckless AM: I understand you don't direct, of course, but my question was about advising. You're overseeing, or monitoring--or whatever you like to describe the role as--quite a number of institutions, and presumably you therefore have particular expertise within your organisation, and I just wondered whether higher education institutions are doing enough to draw on that. Bethan Owen: I think we can advise--we can advise based on data and information that we can see. We can advise based on our judgment. The big thing in this whole Brexit scenario is the uncertainty and the extent to which our speculation is better informed than the governing bodies or the sector collectively is probably the issue. Dr David Blaney: I think that's right. So, there's a relationship with the sector and there's a relationship with individual institutions, and they are different. So, we have engagement collectively with the sector. Bethan meets with the finance directors, and I meet with the vice-chancellors. We actually have the sector and the funding council together on the Welsh Government's group. So, some of these conversations are happening in various ways, where we're all gaining intelligence about what might be a sensible set of planning assumptions. Then, if we see an institution that is manifestly giving signs of not being sighted on some of these risks, either through their forecast or through other assurance activity, we will challenge. We have an annual cycle, with two points in the year where we reassess the overall risks of individual institutions, and that's based on a whole range of hard data but also a range of soft data. Our links into institutions are many and varied. We have lots of conversations and we take all of that in the round and form an assessment about the financial sustainability of the institutions but also the extent to which we think their governance and management arrangements are properly sighted and facing properly the challenges that they face. In some ways, we say it's not about the challenges they face; it's about how they face the challenges. Our alarm bells really ring when we get the sense that, actually, either an executive or a governing body hasn't really noticed. We're not in that place, I'm really pleased to say. I'm not worried about short-term crisis with any of the institutions. There are medium-term real challenges, both because of Brexit and because of other contextual factors, but at the moment the sector is a managed sector, which is good. It's not always like that, but we're in, I think, a good place at the moment. So, our role is definitely to challenge where we don't think they are making sensible assessments, but it's not to say that their assessment is wrong and ours is right; it's just to have a conversation about,'Why have you done this and what has informed your thinking?'It's slightly more one step back and slightly more subtle, but it is, as you imply, us using the intelligence we gain from all of those conversations when we talk to individual institutions as well. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Llyr. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, thank you. We had evidence last week from some of the higher education institutions, including Cardiff University, and it's very interesting, in relation to Erasmus+ and the mobility funding for students that, I think, only 40 per cent of the mobility funding in Cardiff is paid for by Erasmus+. I note that you've been consulting on national measures for higher education performance and that one possibility is using international mobility as a performance indicator. I was just wondering whether you might go further and expect universities to actually make commitments to funding international mobility from their own fee incomes as part of that. Bethan Owen: Again, reflecting on the latest fee and access plans, seven of the universities are referring to mobility--either they have targets in them or are explaining what their plans are--so they are including an element of it from their own income and fee and access income. However, Erasmus is such a well-established and long-term plan--if we were looking at a scenario where that infrastructure wasn't available, to implement anything similar to that would be much less efficient and much more costly. And to enable an infrastructure that allowed--. Ideally, you'd want something that all Welsh institutions could take part in, and that takes some investment and some co-ordinating. And, equally, you need to have the arrangements with your overseas and European institutions. I think it's easy to underestimate the accumulation of time that has gone into establishing Erasmus. So, I think replacing it would be a challenge. Llyr Gruffydd AM: And the point was made clearly last week that the brand is internationally recognised. When you enter into Erasmus+, you know exactly what you're going to get, and all of that. But there have been criticisms as well about degrees of flexibility and this, that and the other, so I'm just wondering whether--and there is presumably going to be some change on that front although I'm hoping we can buy into it, as others have done who aren't in the EU--that emphasis on encouraging institutions to look more proactively at funding their own mobility efforts would be positive. Dr David Blaney: I think the-- Llyr Gruffydd AM: Sorry--especially if it means that they do more of it. Dr David Blaney: Indeed. I think the Welsh sector is definitely committed to trying to find ways of promoting and resourcing that sort of mobility. There are signs that some of the restrictive elements of the Erasmus programme are going to change anyway, because that's under development and that's positive. There have been positive noises as part of the Brexit negotiations about wanting to carry on being able to access the Erasmus programme. Nothing is agreed until it's all agreed apparently, so we'll have to see on that one. That would be far better, I think, as Bethan indicates, than trying to replace it with a made-in-Wales only, but you could have a made-in-Wales on top. All of these challenges also create opportunities because they stimulate thinking, and so the fact that seven of the eight universities are already now using their fee plans as a vehicle for thinking about this is positive, and I think we can take that on from there. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Because that 40/60 split struck me as being the opposite to what I perceived the situation to be. A key part of your role is to work in partnership with students, so I'd just like to ask what work have you done with students, in terms of maybe protecting their interests as the Brexit scenario evolves? Dr David Blaney: Well, as you say, we do work with students. We were the first of the funding councils in the UK to have a memorandum of understanding with the National Union of Students in Wales. We work very closely with them and the president of NUS is an observer on our council. So, we have close links with NUS Wales and we're very proud of that, and it's very productive. They don't have a vote, but they do have a voice and it really matters. We we're, again, ahead of the rest of the UK in requiring all HE providers to have student charters and there are elements of student protection within the student charter. The UK-wide quality code also has elements in it where arrangements have to be specified about the protection of student interests. That is particularly, in essence, around circumstances where a provider gets into difficulties and they might wish to close a course or something more drastic and then what arrangements are in place to make sure that those students who are in train are protected. So, that is there and we've worked hard with the sector and with NUS Wales to get those measures in place. There's more development work in train at the moment, so we've asked Universities Wales to construct a protection that takes account of the approach to protecting the student interests in higher education. We're also requiring further education institutions who are regulated and deliver higher education to do similar or the same, and that's very important. The students who are HE students in FE are absolutely not second-best, and they should have the same protections. Llyr Gruffydd AM: But is all this a general piece of work? It's not Brexit-specific, although, no doubt, it may--. Dr David Blaney: I think that's fair to say, yes. The other dimension around Brexit is the immigration status of EU students, and that's, kind of, beyond our pay scale--that's a UK Government issue. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Is that something that you have a view on? Dr David Blaney: It's clearly in the interest of the enrichment of the curriculum and the student experience for students in Welsh institutions to be able to have students from other EU countries in the mix. So, it would be nice to find ways of continuing to facilitate that. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Now, of course, you have a statutory duty as well to assess the academic quality of the work in our higher education institutions, and I'm just wondering what potential impacts you think that Brexit might have on that particular aspect. Dr David Blaney: I think there are possibly a couple of things to say, and one, in a sense, echoes what I was just saying in the final part of my previous response, which is that part of the quality of the student experience is the richness that you get from having students in your cohort who have different backgrounds and different perspectives. So, if there is a continuing reduction in the number of EU students coming into Welsh institutions, then that richness deteriorates. That doesn't mean to say that the base or the threshold standard of what's required for a degree will come under pressure, it's just about the richness on top of that, which will be, in a sense, a quality-enhancement issue. That would be something that we would wish to try to protect against, but in the end you can't force EU students to come--you have to try and look attractive, and we've touched on that. The baseline requirement assessment of quality will not be affected by Brexit, except in so far as the machinery we use to discharge our statutory responsibility, which is through the Quality Assurance Agency, which themselves are accredited with European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, the European machinery for higher education quality. And there's a set of standards around that, and we would obviously wish not to be in a position where our ability to use and adhere to those standards is adversely impacted upon. Those standards will still exist, and it will be possible for the British system to adhere to them, even if they're not actually able to play in the same way. Then the only other thing I would say is that one of the factors that can cause the quality of the learning and teaching experience to be likely to become inadequate is when institutions come under financial pressure, just because their capacity to maintain the same sort of student experience can get under pressure. So, clearly, we will be looking for and making sure that institutions manage the financial pressures, if there are any--and there are some at the moment, as we've described--and manage those carefully. And in all of that, we will expect institutions to do their duty to make sure that the commitments they've already made to students are carried through. So, where students have already started on the course, they need to be able to finish that course--you can't just pull the plug out. So, all of that comes into the arrangements for quality as well. So, we'll be keeping an eye on that. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. A lot of what you've told us in the last three quarters of an hour or so will have costs attached, depending on the impacts. Certainly, we're in choppy waters as a sector anyway, and the risk is that things will be even more choppy, if you'll excuse that level of political interpretation, over the years to come. I'm just wondering what advice you might have given the Welsh Government in terms of what level of transition funding, or Brexit transition funding, might be required by the sector, and if you have, what the Welsh Government might have told you. Bethan Owen: I mentioned earlier that, obviously, we've provided information in terms of the assumptions that the sector are making on income. So, for the year 2017-18, that was PS129 million. I think the extent to which that needs to be replaced or supported with transition funding depends absolutely on what the final arrangements for Brexit are, but it's an appropriate point to refer to the report that Professor Graeme Reid has produced, commissioned by Welsh Government. That was, and has, provided advice and recommendations for supporting research and innovation in the transition period. But, again, the Reid recommendations in that report build on the Diamond recommendations, and as soon as Diamond is in place--and Reid is providing recommendations in addition, to establish funding on the basis that the funding needs to be available in Wales to maintain and develop and strengthen the research and innovation infrastructure that we have. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Are you not worried, though, that the clock is ticking and that we really don't know what the situation is at this point? Dr David Blaney: Do you mean the Brexit situation? Llyr Gruffydd AM: The Brexit clock, yes. Dr David Blaney: Uncertainty is unhelpful, because as I've said several times, the sector is a managed sector at the moment. I don't think there's--. We're not seeing maverick stuff, but actually you can only manage, really, what you can see and what you can reasonably predict. So, the longer the uncertainty persists, the more difficult that is for institutional management and, indeed, for the rest of the machinery to support them. So, yes, the sooner we get clarity, the better for everybody, I imagine. Darren Millar AM: Chair, can I just ask a question? John Griffiths AM: Yes, Darren. Darren Millar AM: In terms of uncertainty, though, we've still got this uncertainty over whether the extra cash that the Government's going to have to spend as a result of Diamond being implemented is coming to the HE sector. They've given a political commitment, but you've got absolutely no other assurance of the sums of money that are coming in. We've got the reform of tertiary education arrangements in Wales, which are also under way, so it's a bit of a perfect storm for you, isn't it, really, with all of these three things happening at the same time? Dr David Blaney: We're certainly kept busy. Darren Millar AM: But two of those things are in the gift of the Welsh Government to sort out for you, aren't they? Dr David Blaney: Well, the policy on the reform of the post-compulsory sector absolutely is a Welsh Government policy. The extent to which they can pre-empt a budgetary process and give us clear sight of the amount of money in future years is--. Well, again, it's not for me to comment. My understanding is that that's difficult for them to do, and I would repeat what I said earlier: officials have been as helpful as I think they can be in respect of that. I mean, you're right, we've only got a political commitment between two people currently in post. It would be great to have that firmer. I'm not sure how that could be done. Darren Millar AM: I mean, that statement about the savings accrued from Diamond being reinvested wholly into the HE sector has not been repeated, frankly, has it, since the coalition deal was struck? Dr David Blaney: No, but it hasn't been rescinded either, so--. Darren Millar AM: No, but there have been opportunities--repeated opportunities--in the Chamber, where the Cabinet Secretary's been asked to repeat that commitment, and the First Minister's been asked to repeat that commitment and has not given that commitment. That must concern you, and must concern your university sector even more than, perhaps, some of the elements of Brexit that we're discussing. Dr David Blaney: Bethan has outlined earlier on in this session the fact that institutions are currently running deficit budgets in order not to lose the infrastructure on the assumption that the Diamond money will come in. If anything were to cause significant perturbation, either to the timeline of that or to it coming in at all, then there would be much more of what Medwin Hughes calls'houskeeping'that would be required, and that would be significant. So, at the moment--I don't like the expression'valley of death', but there is a valley to cross, and I think the sector is reasonably confident about how wide and how deep that valley is. There's a demographic valley as well. So, there are several valleys that they're crossing--the metaphor fails, doesn't it, really, but I think you get the drift? So, there are a number of challenges and they can see their way out of some of those challenges, but if any one of these starts to get significantly disrupted, then that would be a real issue for them. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I go on to ask about other barriers to Welsh universities gaining more funding from UK research councils? What would you say those barriers are? Dr David Blaney: Well, I think there are a couple of things, really, to say. The first one--and we'll sound like a stuck record if we're not careful--is that there's an issue about investment and the Reid report makes this very clear. So, he has reaffirmed research that had been done previously that identifies that, actually, the quality of the research base in Welsh universities and the productivity of that Welsh research base are both good, there's just not enough of them, and that, in the end, is a product of investment decisions. They have particularly looked at the deficit in science, technology, engineering and mathematics areas, and I always say that research is not just STEM. I mean, STEM is important, and I'm not denying the deficit in that area, but we have to also remember that the research agenda for Wales is not just STEM--it's arts, humanities, it's social sciences. If you look at the impact on public policy that could come from social science research--tremendous. And we're very good at it in Wales. The Welsh impact in its research is better than anywhere else in the UK, so that's good. So, they do very well, and we just really need to invest a little bit further--so continue to do very well, but put it on a broader front. If you want to be able to play into the UK-wide research funding, then the investment has two dimensions to it. One is just having enough researchers to be able to play into those increasingly larger projects rather than small-scale projects. If you haven't got the critical mass, it's very hard to make the case that you can play. And the second thing is that UK-wide research pots nearly always fund at about 80 per cent of the total cost of the research, and the other 20 per cent is meant to be found from the core research funding for the university, and if you're in a situation where your core research funding is not competitive, then you're not going to be competitive at getting that money. So, that's, kind of, straightforward. There are other things. I think it's fair to say that the Welsh sector has not been sufficiently focused on getting in on the conversations with the research councils, making sure they're in the various committees and so on. We are intending to do a bit of work to see if we can systematise that a bit better--that engagement--because there's no doubt about it: it's not to say that this system is in any way inappropriate, but the more you're in the conversations, the more likely you are to be better placed to respond to the research challenges that come up. John Griffiths AM: Okay. One final question: in terms of the researcher collaborations and networks that exist, do you see potential difficulties after Brexit for the continuation and enhancement of those, and are there any particular lessons to learn from Ser Cymru II? Dr David Blaney: I think that there are two things to say here as well. First of all, the Brexit deal might or might not impact adversely on the capacity of Welsh and, indeed, UK research infrastructure to play into broader collaborative activity across Europe, and, in a sense, that's a function of the deal whatever the deal looks like, and we'll have to wait and see. But we've mentioned playing into Horizon Europe, and being able to continue with that would be an important part of that capacity. It's not just the money, it's being in the club and it's the signalling that we're in the game. So, all of that would be important. And then the other part of my response to this would be that, actually, Wales will need to continue to be good at the research it does, so maintaining the quality, maintaining the impact, and hopefully growing the critical mass. The Ser Cymru initiative has been quite important in doing that, because it's been very focused, capturing key research players, and the attractiveness that that has then to other researchers around them, and to industry collaboration, and they have been areas of real strength that we've invested in. And I think they are already showing dividends in terms of the capacity to win more research funding, and to establish an even stronger presence in the international research market. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Just one further point, from Darren. Darren Millar AM: Just very briefly, one of the pieces of feedback that the committee members received at a stakeholder engagement event, which took place prior to this inquiry starting, to receive oral evidence, was about the research funding that is available from the charitable sector, and how poorly Wales does in attracting some of that research. I think we had some figures from the British Heart Foundation, which said they have PS100 million a year available for research grants, or something like that, and we're getting 1 per cent of that coming into Wales, which is obviously pretty low down. I appreciate that research into the type of activity that they want to put their money into, Wales may not be particularly good at, and there may be other opportunities with other charities and partnerships. What work are you doing in order to build the capacity that Wales has to attract more of that charitable sector research funding into Wales? Bethan Owen: One of the issues is the capacity to engage with that funding, because of the overhead issue that David mentioned. Charitable funding at the moment doesn't attract any overhead funding. Again, that could be built in to our funding, if we had the capacity to increase our quality-related research funding. There is an element in England. Darren Millar AM: But that pressure's the same in other parts of the UK, is it not? So the overhead funding is still an issue in England, and in other places. Bethan Owen: There is an increased contribution, and I think it's an element that was increased this year to acknowledge that. But there will be differentiation between different charities. I'm fairly certain that some of our institutions will be very strong with the cancer charities, possibly not the heart foundation. And some of that will reflect on focusing on our strengths, but to have that fuller picture. Darren Millar AM: So, this gearing issue that you mentioned earlier on, for every PS1 that somebody else puts on the table, they can draw in another PS4 on top, because that PS1 will cover the overheads, whereas the rest of the research cash--. Dr David Blaney: That's exactly it. So, the more you're able to invest--. You know, we sometimes get into a conversation about the unhypothecated nature of our research funding, but actually that creates a flexibility and the infrastructure investment that allows institutions to be able to respond to these other opportunities. Without that, they can't do it, because if you're not careful, you've got institutions engaging in UK-wide or charity-based research activities where they're actually having to pay for it themselves--they're running at a loss. Darren Millar AM: So that's the main problem; it's not that Welsh universities aren't doing their best to get this cash in. Or is it a bit of both? Dr David Blaney: I think, in the main, universities and researchers will get their cash from wherever they can, so I don't think it's a lack of appetite. Darren Millar AM: Okay. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Well, thank you, both, for coming in to give evidence to the committee this morning. You will be sent a draft of the transcript, to check for accuracy. Diolch yn fawr. Okay then, the next item is item 3, papers to note, the first of which is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education on the school organisation code. The second is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill. Paper to note 3 is a letter from the Chair of the Finance Committee regarding scrutiny of the Welsh Government's draft budget for the forthcoming financial year, which we will be discussing under item 6 on the agenda. Paper to note 4 is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on parental attitudes towards managing young children's behaviour. And the final paper to note, paper to note 5, is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the children and family delivery grant, which we will discuss later on in private session, if Members are content. Okay. Are you content to note those papers on that basis? Okay. Thanks very much. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17. 42 to exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting, and also for items 1 and 2 of the 20 September meeting. Is the committee content? Yes. Thank you very much. We will move then into private session.

First of all, whether the Brexit deal might impact adversely on the capacity of the collaborations is still unknown. But we've mentioned playing into Horizon Europe, and being able to continue with that would be an important part of that capacity. Wales should maintain the quality, maintain the impact, and hopefully grow the critical mass. Dr David Blaney thinks that they are already showing dividends in terms of the capacity to win more research funding, and to establish an even stronger presence in the international research market.

tr-gq-679

tr-gq-679_0

Summarize the whole meeting. Gareth Rogers: Good morning, and welcome to today's meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. Unfortunately, the Chair is unable to attend today, so in accordance with Standing Order 17. 22 I call for nominations for a temporary Chair for the duration of today's meeting. Julie Morgan AM: I nominate John Griffiths. Gareth Rogers: Thank you. Darren Millar AM: I'll second that nomination. Gareth Rogers: As there's only one nomination, I declare that John Griffiths has been appointed as temporary Chair. Thank you, John. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Thank you all very much, and item 1 on our agenda today is introductions, apologies, substitutions and declarations of interest. We've received apologies from Hefin David and Lynne Neagle. There are no substitutions. Are there any declarations of interest? No. We will move on then to item 2, and our inquiry into the impact of Brexit on higher and further education, and our first evidence session. I'm very pleased to welcome the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales here today, and Dr David Blaney as chief executive, and Bethan Owen, director of institutional engagement. Welcome to you both. Thanks for coming along to give evidence today. If it's okay with you, we'll move straight to questions, and Julie Morgan. Julie Morgan AM: Good morning. Bore da. I wondered if we could start off with you telling us what evidence you can see that the Brexit process has had any impact on Welsh higher education so far. Dr David Blaney: Can I preface the response by just reminding you that we are, by contract and by role, apolitical, and a lot of the judgments about the impact of Brexit essentially reflect where people sit politically in terms of whether they think it's a good thing or a bad thing? We're not going to go there, obviously, today, so we'll stick to the facts as we can see them, and hopefully we'll be able to help you, but there are areas where we are unable to help. That's part of the reason. John Griffiths AM: We certainly do not expect you to enter the political fray in any way. Dr David Blaney: Thank you. But even in terms of your assessment of whether this is going to be a good thing or a bad thing, a good impact or a bad impact, some of that inevitably in the end becomes a matter of your politics on it, so we will be as careful as we can be on that. In terms of the impact of Brexit on higher education, clearly, the significance here is about the contribution that higher education can make to Wales. So, we fund provision; we don't fund providers, technically, although obviously there's not much provision without providers. So, we are interested in the sustainability of higher education providers, but fundamentally the issue is: what does the HE system in Wales do for Wales, and what impact might Brexit have on the capacity of the system to continue to deliver for Wales? So, we know that universities make annually about PS5 billion of impact; 50,000 jobs. Of course, in Wales, all of that economic impact is really very significant, and uncertainty about the relationships and the arrangements with Europe is one of the most significant issues confronting university management at the moment. That has an impact in a number of ways. We can identify at the moment the extent to which the HE sector in Wales is exposed to sources of income that are located from the EU, so EU students, structural funds, and EU research funding, and so on, from the EU. We can identify some of that, but, actually, what happens in the future is much harder to be clear about. We are beginning to see some impact in terms of applications from EU students and I'll ask Bethan to share some details on that in a moment. We're also beginning to pick up, only anecdotally, some signs that there are increasing difficulties in the UK sector, and the Welsh sector as part of that, in playing in some of the EU collaborative research activities. And that, I think, just reflects the extent to which EU partners consider that British partners might be a stable partner as we go through this transition period. We don't have data on that--that's anecdotal--but there are signs that some of those relationships are beginning to become a little bit more difficult. In terms of the financial impact of that, clearly, if it is accepted that the UK is a net contributor to the EU then, presumably, some of the money--we're almost immediately straight into politics if you're not careful--but some of the money will be available back to the UK, and the extent to which Wales benefits or not from that returned money is a function of the political relationship between the Welsh Government and Her Majesty's Government. It's not necessarily the case that Wales will always lose out in that relationship, but that will become a matter of politics. There's a broader dimension, which is about the economic impact of Brexit on the UK economy and how much tax revenue there is and all of that. I think it's very hard for us to be definitive about how that's going to play out. I think that depends on the deal and how it all unfolds over the next several years. But we can certainly anticipate some turbulence and exactly how that plays for institutions remains to be seen. We can touch later on on the extent to which they are sighted on this and preparing for it. So, in terms of recruitment, Bethan. Bethan Owen: This is based on the UCAS applications and the report that was published at the end of June, 30 June. The European Union-domiciled applicants to Wales have decreased by 8 per cent, which contrasts with a 2 per cent increase for English institutions, and non-EU--so international students, not from Europe--have also decreased by 9 per cent to Welsh institutions, again contrasting with a 7 per cent increase in England. So, those are the signs of changes. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I then just ask you what you see as the main pressures on the Welsh higher education sector at the moment? Bethan Owen: The funding position would be the main pressure. The recommendations made by Sir Ian Diamond in his review of higher education funding and student finance are in the process of being implemented, and the changes to the student finance arrangements will take effect from this September. However, the recommendations for re-establishing funding at Welsh institutions are expected to take quite a bit longer. That funding, when it returns to institutions, is intended to re-establish funding for higher cost provision, both full time and part time; reinstate funding for innovation; and maintain, at the very least, the research funding in real terms. Universities, in the meantime, are trying to minimise the cost reductions that they're making in order to maintain the infrastructure, so that when the funding comes they can get the best value out of it. We have announced our funding allocations for 2018-19. For the research and teaching grant, though, we are still funding at a lower level--PS12. 5 million less--then the starting point for the Diamond report, the 2015-16 starting report. But we expect to be able to start introducing funding from 2019-20 to make a start on implementing Diamond. And it's probably important to note that the Diamond recommendations predated Brexit, therefore the challenges introduced by Brexit are in addition to those that the Diamond report was addressing. The other pressures relate to student recruitment. I mentioned the EU and international students. There is also the start of a reduction, both in Welsh-domiciled and English-domiciled applications to Wales. Enrolments are obviously the key important number, which we'll see later. And the other pressures include pay and pension costs, not least the issues around the universities superannuation scheme pension fund, where there's potentially a significant increase in cost. Increased student expectations for modern facilities and infrastructure bring a requirement for capital expenditure and borrowing, which bring their own pressures. And finally, the uncertainty about potential consequences that could arise from the review in England of fees and funding--the Augar review. John Griffiths AM: In terms of European Union students and enrolment, is Wales forecast to do less well than England and, if so, why might that be? Bethan Owen: They are not forecasting it. It's very difficult until the enrolments are made, and it's also very hard to see--the data that we see is the UCAS data. Institutions also recruit directly, so until we see the actual recruitment--. I think the arrangements that have changed from 2018-19 also impact on EU students. So, now, they have to find the full fee, whereas previously they were getting the grant in the same way as Welsh students. So, I'm speculating that that might be having an impact as well on EU students'appetite to come. John Griffiths AM: Okay. First of all Llyr, then Mark. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, that's straight into what I was going to ask, really, about what you think the factors are that led to this 8 per cent or 9 per cent drop in EU students applying to study in Wales, where we see a 2 per cent increase in England. Is that it, or are there other things that you've taken into account? What's your assessment of the reasons behind this? Dr David Blaney: It's very difficult to be definitive about the reasons, but I think there are probably two. The one that Bethan has already indicated, which is the change in student support arrangements for EU students, will have an effect of perturbation. That's probably relatively temporary--let's hope it is--as that settles down because, actually, the deal for EU students coming into Wales is no worse than that coming into England. Ours would be better because the fee level is slightly lower, but we do struggle in Wales in terms of the Anglocentric nature of the media and so on. So, getting the messages out is a challenge. The other dimension is that when you're in a highly competitive recruitment market, you have to do what you can to look attractive. Part of that is about being able to invest in facilities, and particularly buildings and kit, and the relative levels of investment between Wales and England over quite a long period of time now probably have an impact on that. Certainly, anecdotally I know, from my own family, that a lot of the choices have been made in terms of the state of repair of campuses and so on. There's something rational about that, isn't there? If you've got a system that is relatively better invested, then you're likely to have a better student experience because the resources are likely to be better. So, that's not irrational. We saw a sort of similar but opposite effect when the PS9,000 fee maximum limit came in, and some institutions, mostly in England--there was one in Wales--chose to pitch their fee levels really quite low, relative to that PS9,000, and caught a cold in the student recruitment market because fee levels denote quality in the student mind. So, the price sensitivities work quite differently. So, again, if you've got a relatively better invested part of the system, then that might well be one of the reasons why it looks more attractive. Llyr Gruffydd AM: That latter factor would affect the whole of the cohort, not just the international recruitment, of course. Dr David Blaney: Indeed. Yes, indeed. The implementation of the Diamond recommendations is crucial to that because that's re-balancing where the policy of investment goes. John Griffiths AM: Okay. And Mark. Mark Reckless AM: If I heard you correctly earlier, you said that the applications from non-EU students were also down by 8 per cent or 9 per cent. So, forgive me a certain scepticism about the explanation of the fall in the EU students being that they did get the fee grant and now they do not. If that's the explanation, why are we seeing the same fall in non-EU applications? Dr David Blaney: Well, I think the Welsh domiciled are also now having to face the prospect of finding a loan for the whole of the fee. So, that would potentially account for that. There's also a demographic dimension here with the downturn in the 18-year-old school-leaver profile, and that actually is happening in Wales at a slightly later point than in England. Mark Reckless AM: But this is non-EU students, and I think you said, Bethan, an 8 per cent or 9 per cent fall in them as well. Dr David Blaney: International non-EU. I beg your pardon. I misunderstood. Bethan Owen: There's also a mix effect. I gave a number that was for all English institutions that there will be differential impacts on. Mark Reckless AM: All English or all Welsh? Bethan Owen: Well, I contrasted the Welsh position with the English position where they were seeing growth. If you look, then--and we don't have the detailed information, but, again, what UCAS publish is some analysis by tariff. They analyse by type of institution--in other words, the grades that you need to get into institutions--and there is a trend for growth being in the higher tariff institutions. So, there's a mix effect in there as well, and I think there's undoubtedly an element of perception of how welcome overseas and international students are, and that's something that we know the sector are working on with Government. Mark Reckless AM: Why would that affect Wales more than England? Do you think there's been perhaps too great a negativity about Brexit in the sector? Bethan Owen: I think it's the mix of institutions that we have. So, we only have sector information published at the moment. When we look at the mix of institutions that we have, we will probably see a differential impact between Cardiff University and others. John Griffiths AM: Okay, Mark? Sorry, David, did you want to add anything? Dr David Blaney: I was just going to say that we would expect to see quite differential performance in the English sector, so the overall numbers are being brought up by substantial increased performance with some of that sector, and it's a question of how many of that type of institution you have in Wales. Mark Reckless AM: So, performance is increasing amongst the English universities, but not amongst the Welsh, you think. Dr David Blaney: I think performance is increasing, but increasing substantially with some of the English sector, not all of it. So, you get an average for the sector that is increased performance, but actually the stronger players within that sector, with the stronger international profiles, are bringing that up, and we have fewer in Wales that have that sort of presence. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Darren. Darren Millar AM: Would it be fair to say, then, that the universities over the border in England are better at selling themselves internationally than our Welsh institutions? Or is it just this fact that we've got fewer very high tariff universities versus the English market? Dr David Blaney: I suspect, and this is speculation--I suspect that it's a bit of both. I think some of it is to do with the mix of different types of institution. I would then come back to the point I was making about the Anglocentric nature of the UK media. If you're looking overseas, I think Wales has to work harder to penetrate the consciousness. Darren Millar AM: But, forgive me, don't international students just look at the UK as a whole? How are we comparing to Scotland, for example, or Northern Ireland, in terms of their universities? Do you have a comparative figure for Scottish universities? Bethan Owen: I haven't got that one with me for now, but there will be one in the data. Dr David Blaney: Yes, we could get that. Bethan Owen: Again, it's a combination of being part of the UK but differentiating, and the ability to differentiate the strengths of Wales, so attracting those students to Wales specifically, on top of the UK draw. Dr David Blaney: So, in terms of the efforts that have been made, there's a programme now that is being run by the sector in Wales--it's'Study in Wales'. It's relatively recent; you could argue that we could have got there earlier. But that is a determined collective effort to present Wales as a good place to study, with particular messages about what distinguishes studying in Wales from studying more broadly in the UK. In a sense, that is responding to the need to increase the presence of Wales in an international market. So, that sort of initiative I think is very good, very welcome. It will take a while to actually have an impact, but I think that's exactly the sort of work the sector need to be doing more of. Mark Reckless AM: What are those messages on why prospective students should study in Wales? Dr David Blaney: One of them in particular is relative safety. We know that one of the considerations, particularly for parents of overseas students, is are they going to go to a safe environment, and we know that the perception of international students who study in Wales is that this is a comfortable and safe place to be. That's partly a function of the size of our larger cities--quite a lot smaller than many of the cities in England. So, that's a key message. Being part of a UK system is also an important message there as well. So, we've got a UK-quality system, a UK degree, and the strength of that brand is available in Wales, but it's available in a way that is safer and more supportive, I think is the messaging that's coming through. John Griffiths AM: Okay. We'd better move on, I think, hadn't we? Darren, then. Darren Millar AM: I just wonder to what extent you have been able to plan in your financial forecasts for the next few years ahead for the potential impacts of Brexit. What have you built in, if anything? Bethan Owen: In terms of our funding, we receive our funding annually, but the sector provides us with financial forecasts, and we use those for monitoring sustainability. So, the last full forecasts that we had were in July 2017. We are due to receive a full forecast at the end of this month, and we obviously have updated information from institutions. Darren Millar AM: And they're three-year forecasts that come through to you, aren't they? Bethan Owen: They are four plus the current year. So, we've got numbers to 2019-20 at the moment, and expect to go to 2020-21. Darren Millar AM: And what are the universities expecting? What do they anticipate? Bethan Owen: Well, for 2017-18, which is the year we're about to end now, they were expecting PS38 million income from European students, and approximately PS91 million from the various European programme funding sources, and that's about 8 per cent of the total income--PS1. 5 billion--of the sector. The forecasts are assuming that that continues, albeit that institutions have various scenarios that they have for all sorts of scenarios that we can all speculate on, and, as I mentioned earlier, the balancing act of maintaining infrastructure and resources and staff in the short term is where we are at the moment, or where the sector is at the moment. And there are also signs that the banks and lending institutions are becoming a bit more risk-averse in providing borrowing to institutions, and of more differentiation between individual institutions being made than has possibly been the case in the past. The sector made an operating deficit, again looking at all Welsh institutions collectively last year, 2016-17, of PS17 million. That's before other gains and losses. And we're expecting a similar collective level of deficit for this financial year, if not slightly higher. Now, these are managed deficits and we are not currently seeing critical short-term cash availability issues in the sector. However, the increase in funding from Diamond is a key part of enabling the sector to return to longer-term financial sustainability. Short-term challenges can be met if there's a reasonable prospect of future funding. You can manage in the short-term, but there comes a point when the big cost reductions and infrastructure reductions have to be made. And, again, having mentioned the pressures on pay, pensions and other challenges, it is difficult to gauge whether, if those factors come into play as well, some of these cost reductions may have to be made before funding comes in to replace--either Diamond funding or the European replacement funding. Darren Millar AM: So, would it be fair to say that, in terms of the funding arrangements, and, in terms of the student numbers, one reason why we've got this recruitment problem is this lack of investment in the capital infrastructure that we've seen in recent years because of the financing arrangements from the Welsh Government, and the fee regime that we had previously, and the student finance regime that we had previously, not getting more cash into our Welsh universities perhaps, and that, over the next few years, there's going to have to be much more significant investment in capital if we're to raise the game and be more competitive, yes? Bethan Owen: Yes, that would be fair to say. Darren Millar AM: So, to what extent are they planning for more capital investment in those financial strategies that they've been preparing and presenting to you? Bethan Owen: They are all planning for capital investment. They are in different positions in terms of capacity to borrow and the assumptions. This year, 2018-19, is the first time that we've had capital funding in our remit letter--so, we've got PS10 million of capital funding, which is very welcome, with a prospect of a further PS20 million. So, that we will be allocating shortly. That will make a difference, particularly to those institutions who are not finding it as easy to borrow from financial institutions. Some of our larger institutions have borrowed--Cardiff University issued a bond. However, there are internal governance processes that are putting tight restrictions and expectations of what that money will be invested in. But they all have plans to do it and they need the confidence that their forecasts and long-term future funding prospects are secure enough that they can get the confidence of borrowers then, and service the costs of those borrowers. Darren Millar AM: So, the Diamond dividend you've mentioned a few times. What clarity is there from the Welsh Government at the moment in terms of how much they anticipate the Diamond dividend will be, and what proportion of that is going to be released to HEIs in the future? Bethan Owen: I was very carefully not describing it as a dividend--a re-establishing of funding that we had in the past for higher cost and innovation and maintaining research funding. The timescales are difficult, because we have an annual remit letter, and we can work with Welsh Government officials, and they can only give us a sense of when they think the funding will be released. But 2018-19 is the start of the system, and because of cohort protection--so, protecting those students who came in on a different deal to the deal from 2018-19--in the early years there is an element of double cost; there's a cost of seeing out the old system and the different cost of implementing the new system. So, at the moment, we're certainly not in a position to tell the sector with any degree of certainty what funding would be beyond what we've allocated for 2018-19, with some sense of what 2019-20 numbers we're working with because we allocate our money over an academic year--so, by definition, we've already made assumptions of four months of the 2019-20 funding, albeit that's not approved yet in the budgetary process. Darren Millar AM: But you're not being given a steer at all as to what you expect the additional resource that you might have to make available to Welsh universities might be as a result of Diamond. You must have some idea. Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say that officials have been as helpful as they can be with us, in terms of the planning assumptions we make and indications about whether or not we are being too ambitious or not ambitious enough. So, I think they're being very helpful; as Bethan said, they're constrained by the process--they can't pre-empt a budget process. And you folks will be fully aware of that, of course. The other question I think you asked was how much of the money released by the new arrangements will come into higher education. At the moment, we are expecting all of it to come into higher education, as the product of the arrangement between the current Cabinet Secretary and the current First Minister. The extent to which any changes there cause that to come under threat is something I can't judge at the moment. But we have had in our remit letter from the Cabinet Secretary a clear indication that we can expect our resource to grow over the next few years, as the Diamond process unfolds. John Griffiths AM: Okay. I'm just going to bring in Llyr at this stage. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Bethan said in an earlier answer that, I think, the financial forecasting from universities forecast something pretty consistent in terms of what they're hoping to be receiving in income, for example. But we've already discussed the near 10 per cent drop, potentially, in international applications. So, does that tally, really, or are they going to be recruiting additional students from the UK market or--? What's the plan? Bethan Owen: I was reflecting on the last point when we had consistent information across the sector. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, they may need to revisit that in the light of this. Bethan Owen: I'm expecting that the forecast that we get at the end of this month will reflect the reduced applications we've seen, and an element of that will be reflected in reduced improvements as well. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, we don't really know, then, whether--it's unlikely that they are going to expect a consistent fee income, really. Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say we would expect them to respond to what they're seeing in the UCAS process. Even if they didn't, they would all, in any case, have sensitivities for what they would do if things don't come out in the way they hope. And if they didn't have that then we would be on their case, of course, because we want them to be properly sighted. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Thanks. John Griffiths AM: And we have to stick to the Brexit impact. Darren. Darren Millar AM: Can I just ask, in terms of the impact of Brexit, have you done any assessment of what you think might happen, or have any of the institutions made available to you any assessments of what they think is likely to happen to their individual institutions, going forward? You've mentioned scenarios earlier on, David, so what scenarios have you set out? Dr David Blaney: There's a Welsh Government HE Brexit working group, which is chaired by one of the Government directors, and we sit on that. And we have provided that group with early summaries of the risks and the potential impact, in terms of the exposure of the sector to EU-sourced funding. We have, as part of that working group, explored those issues that it would be really very helpful for either the Welsh Government to try to put in place or for the Welsh Government to persuade UK Government to do. And I think, in our submission, we identified a number of areas of what we would consider to be a helpful action, and that has been worked through that working group. We know that it has informed Welsh Government's position, in terms of what it does and also in terms of the conversations that they have with Her Majesty's Government. Beyond that, what we haven't done in that working group is share the work that institutions are doing individually to look at how they would respond to different scenarios. We are not able to do that here either because, inevitably, they would have varying degrees of unpalatability and they would have to be managed very, very carefully. You take cost out, which is essentially the response, you actually take people's jobs out, and all of that has to be managed carefully. So, that's not really a matter for public consideration, but we do know that the institutions are looking at a range of scenarios on what they would do. Bethan mentioned earlier on that the current deficit for the sector is a managed deficit--it's not something that has taken them by surprise. They are responding to what they see as the dip between where Diamond was reporting and where the money starts flowing. Similarly, I think we're comfortable that there is a managed approach to the scenarios that they're testing within institutions. So, they will do what they need to do to sustain themselves. The bigger issue really, in a public policy context, is the potential damage for the sector to be able to deliver for Wales in terms of research and skills development and all the other contributions. Darren Millar AM: So, you're confident that they're taking a robust approach to planning for various scenarios, going forward, are you, as individual HEIs? Dr David Blaney: Yes, and as the deal becomes more clear politically, then they will obviously have greater clarity in terms of which of these scenarios they need to work up more fully, but they are sighted on it. Darren Millar AM: Okay. Can I just ask about fee and access plans, and how Brexit might impact them? To what extent do you think that they could be impacted? Dr David Blaney: I think there are two dimensions to maybe touch upon there. Fee and access plans are approved annually by us. They are approved in advance of the recruitment cycle for the year that they apply to. So, we're just in the process now of finalising our consideration of fee and access plans for the 2019-20 academic year. So, there's quite a long lead time. We, as part of that process, go through similar--we look at their financial sustainability, which is based on their forecasts--data to the stuff we've just been discussing. And also, of course, the fee plans themselves make assumptions about how many students of different types, from different domains, are going to be recruited. So, clearly, if there is a continuing downward pressure on EU student recruitment, then that will reduce the amount of fee income that's going to come in, unless they can find other students, and that will reduce the amount of investment in the various activities that are identified in the fee plans. In terms of process, we have two things that we can do. If institutions are becoming aware that the basis upon which they've submitted a fee plan is fundamentally different from the reality, then they can come into us for a change to their fee plan. So, we have a change process. If it's not fundamentally different, but there are always differences between what you plan and what happens three years later--. We also monitor after the event and, if there are differences, we would then obviously require institutions to explain those differences. If they've had fewer students and less investment, we would need to understand that. Conversely, if they'd had more students, and potentially more investment, we'd want to know what they'd spent it on, and if they've done different things, we'd want to understand that as well. So, we do challenge through a monitoring process. The only other thing that's perhaps worth saying is that, in the 2019-20 fee and access plans--they're not published yet, so I can't give you the full detail--five universities have made reference to Brexit and the Brexit impact, and things they want to do through their fee and access plan to try and address some of those issues, so they're in there as well. Darren Millar AM: But we've already said, haven't we, that it may be nothing to do with Brexit, this dip in EU recruitment, because there are other factors like the attractiveness of the estates and the environment that young people might be educated in? But they're making assumptions that it's linked to Brexit, are they? Dr David Blaney: Not really. I think they're making assumptions that it could be. There are things they want to do to enhance and to protect student mobility, and some of that will be funded through fee plan investment. So, the Brexit conversation between the EU and the UK Government might or might not sustain Erasmus engagement, and if it doesn't, then they need to find other ways of trying to support that sort of thing. So, that's what we're beginning to see in the fee plans. It's them thinking about how else we can do this stuff. John Griffiths AM: Okay, Darren? Mark. Mark Reckless AM: You mentioned the fee and access report. What else do you do to assure yourselves that Welsh higher education institutions are effectively planning for Brexit? Bethan Owen: We've touched on contingency plans, but, in an environment of uncertainty, I think it's difficult for any of us to know what the right scenario is. I think rather than looking at worst-case scenarios, what the sector is also focusing on is the promotion and looking for additional or increased sources of funding. So, we touched on strengthening the Global Wales engagement in order to sell Wales, so more focus on marketing Wales overseas, but also within the UK. The other area where the sector is working at a UK level very hard is making the arguments to UK Government for maintaining access to the successor to Horizon 2020, which is arguably a larger part of the whole funding infrastructure--students is one part, but the whole funding infrastructure for maintaining research capacity. So, working with UK universities to make arguments at UK Government level for maintaining access to those sources of funding is also a part of what the institutions are doing. We mentioned the Welsh Government's HE Brexit group. That group, which is the Welsh Government group, is being advised by members on it, and that's informing Welsh Government officials when they engage with UK Government as well. Mark Reckless AM: Do universities seek your advice on what the risks and, indeed, opportunities of Brexit may be and what you think they should be doing to plan for them, or is your role more one of monitoring what they do as opposed to advising what they should do? Bethan Owen: They are autonomous institutions and ultimately their governing bodies are responsible for ensuring their sustainability. It's not a relationship where we would advise and direct, but it is a relationship where we would question the scenarios if we consider from our experience that we would have expected other scenarios to have been tested. It's that nature of conversation, rather than directing. Mark Reckless AM: I understand you don't direct, of course, but my question was about advising. You're overseeing, or monitoring--or whatever you like to describe the role as--quite a number of institutions, and presumably you therefore have particular expertise within your organisation, and I just wondered whether higher education institutions are doing enough to draw on that. Bethan Owen: I think we can advise--we can advise based on data and information that we can see. We can advise based on our judgment. The big thing in this whole Brexit scenario is the uncertainty and the extent to which our speculation is better informed than the governing bodies or the sector collectively is probably the issue. Dr David Blaney: I think that's right. So, there's a relationship with the sector and there's a relationship with individual institutions, and they are different. So, we have engagement collectively with the sector. Bethan meets with the finance directors, and I meet with the vice-chancellors. We actually have the sector and the funding council together on the Welsh Government's group. So, some of these conversations are happening in various ways, where we're all gaining intelligence about what might be a sensible set of planning assumptions. Then, if we see an institution that is manifestly giving signs of not being sighted on some of these risks, either through their forecast or through other assurance activity, we will challenge. We have an annual cycle, with two points in the year where we reassess the overall risks of individual institutions, and that's based on a whole range of hard data but also a range of soft data. Our links into institutions are many and varied. We have lots of conversations and we take all of that in the round and form an assessment about the financial sustainability of the institutions but also the extent to which we think their governance and management arrangements are properly sighted and facing properly the challenges that they face. In some ways, we say it's not about the challenges they face; it's about how they face the challenges. Our alarm bells really ring when we get the sense that, actually, either an executive or a governing body hasn't really noticed. We're not in that place, I'm really pleased to say. I'm not worried about short-term crisis with any of the institutions. There are medium-term real challenges, both because of Brexit and because of other contextual factors, but at the moment the sector is a managed sector, which is good. It's not always like that, but we're in, I think, a good place at the moment. So, our role is definitely to challenge where we don't think they are making sensible assessments, but it's not to say that their assessment is wrong and ours is right; it's just to have a conversation about,'Why have you done this and what has informed your thinking?'It's slightly more one step back and slightly more subtle, but it is, as you imply, us using the intelligence we gain from all of those conversations when we talk to individual institutions as well. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Llyr. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, thank you. We had evidence last week from some of the higher education institutions, including Cardiff University, and it's very interesting, in relation to Erasmus+ and the mobility funding for students that, I think, only 40 per cent of the mobility funding in Cardiff is paid for by Erasmus+. I note that you've been consulting on national measures for higher education performance and that one possibility is using international mobility as a performance indicator. I was just wondering whether you might go further and expect universities to actually make commitments to funding international mobility from their own fee incomes as part of that. Bethan Owen: Again, reflecting on the latest fee and access plans, seven of the universities are referring to mobility--either they have targets in them or are explaining what their plans are--so they are including an element of it from their own income and fee and access income. However, Erasmus is such a well-established and long-term plan--if we were looking at a scenario where that infrastructure wasn't available, to implement anything similar to that would be much less efficient and much more costly. And to enable an infrastructure that allowed--. Ideally, you'd want something that all Welsh institutions could take part in, and that takes some investment and some co-ordinating. And, equally, you need to have the arrangements with your overseas and European institutions. I think it's easy to underestimate the accumulation of time that has gone into establishing Erasmus. So, I think replacing it would be a challenge. Llyr Gruffydd AM: And the point was made clearly last week that the brand is internationally recognised. When you enter into Erasmus+, you know exactly what you're going to get, and all of that. But there have been criticisms as well about degrees of flexibility and this, that and the other, so I'm just wondering whether--and there is presumably going to be some change on that front although I'm hoping we can buy into it, as others have done who aren't in the EU--that emphasis on encouraging institutions to look more proactively at funding their own mobility efforts would be positive. Dr David Blaney: I think the-- Llyr Gruffydd AM: Sorry--especially if it means that they do more of it. Dr David Blaney: Indeed. I think the Welsh sector is definitely committed to trying to find ways of promoting and resourcing that sort of mobility. There are signs that some of the restrictive elements of the Erasmus programme are going to change anyway, because that's under development and that's positive. There have been positive noises as part of the Brexit negotiations about wanting to carry on being able to access the Erasmus programme. Nothing is agreed until it's all agreed apparently, so we'll have to see on that one. That would be far better, I think, as Bethan indicates, than trying to replace it with a made-in-Wales only, but you could have a made-in-Wales on top. All of these challenges also create opportunities because they stimulate thinking, and so the fact that seven of the eight universities are already now using their fee plans as a vehicle for thinking about this is positive, and I think we can take that on from there. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Because that 40/60 split struck me as being the opposite to what I perceived the situation to be. A key part of your role is to work in partnership with students, so I'd just like to ask what work have you done with students, in terms of maybe protecting their interests as the Brexit scenario evolves? Dr David Blaney: Well, as you say, we do work with students. We were the first of the funding councils in the UK to have a memorandum of understanding with the National Union of Students in Wales. We work very closely with them and the president of NUS is an observer on our council. So, we have close links with NUS Wales and we're very proud of that, and it's very productive. They don't have a vote, but they do have a voice and it really matters. We we're, again, ahead of the rest of the UK in requiring all HE providers to have student charters and there are elements of student protection within the student charter. The UK-wide quality code also has elements in it where arrangements have to be specified about the protection of student interests. That is particularly, in essence, around circumstances where a provider gets into difficulties and they might wish to close a course or something more drastic and then what arrangements are in place to make sure that those students who are in train are protected. So, that is there and we've worked hard with the sector and with NUS Wales to get those measures in place. There's more development work in train at the moment, so we've asked Universities Wales to construct a protection that takes account of the approach to protecting the student interests in higher education. We're also requiring further education institutions who are regulated and deliver higher education to do similar or the same, and that's very important. The students who are HE students in FE are absolutely not second-best, and they should have the same protections. Llyr Gruffydd AM: But is all this a general piece of work? It's not Brexit-specific, although, no doubt, it may--. Dr David Blaney: I think that's fair to say, yes. The other dimension around Brexit is the immigration status of EU students, and that's, kind of, beyond our pay scale--that's a UK Government issue. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Is that something that you have a view on? Dr David Blaney: It's clearly in the interest of the enrichment of the curriculum and the student experience for students in Welsh institutions to be able to have students from other EU countries in the mix. So, it would be nice to find ways of continuing to facilitate that. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Now, of course, you have a statutory duty as well to assess the academic quality of the work in our higher education institutions, and I'm just wondering what potential impacts you think that Brexit might have on that particular aspect. Dr David Blaney: I think there are possibly a couple of things to say, and one, in a sense, echoes what I was just saying in the final part of my previous response, which is that part of the quality of the student experience is the richness that you get from having students in your cohort who have different backgrounds and different perspectives. So, if there is a continuing reduction in the number of EU students coming into Welsh institutions, then that richness deteriorates. That doesn't mean to say that the base or the threshold standard of what's required for a degree will come under pressure, it's just about the richness on top of that, which will be, in a sense, a quality-enhancement issue. That would be something that we would wish to try to protect against, but in the end you can't force EU students to come--you have to try and look attractive, and we've touched on that. The baseline requirement assessment of quality will not be affected by Brexit, except in so far as the machinery we use to discharge our statutory responsibility, which is through the Quality Assurance Agency, which themselves are accredited with European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, the European machinery for higher education quality. And there's a set of standards around that, and we would obviously wish not to be in a position where our ability to use and adhere to those standards is adversely impacted upon. Those standards will still exist, and it will be possible for the British system to adhere to them, even if they're not actually able to play in the same way. Then the only other thing I would say is that one of the factors that can cause the quality of the learning and teaching experience to be likely to become inadequate is when institutions come under financial pressure, just because their capacity to maintain the same sort of student experience can get under pressure. So, clearly, we will be looking for and making sure that institutions manage the financial pressures, if there are any--and there are some at the moment, as we've described--and manage those carefully. And in all of that, we will expect institutions to do their duty to make sure that the commitments they've already made to students are carried through. So, where students have already started on the course, they need to be able to finish that course--you can't just pull the plug out. So, all of that comes into the arrangements for quality as well. So, we'll be keeping an eye on that. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. A lot of what you've told us in the last three quarters of an hour or so will have costs attached, depending on the impacts. Certainly, we're in choppy waters as a sector anyway, and the risk is that things will be even more choppy, if you'll excuse that level of political interpretation, over the years to come. I'm just wondering what advice you might have given the Welsh Government in terms of what level of transition funding, or Brexit transition funding, might be required by the sector, and if you have, what the Welsh Government might have told you. Bethan Owen: I mentioned earlier that, obviously, we've provided information in terms of the assumptions that the sector are making on income. So, for the year 2017-18, that was PS129 million. I think the extent to which that needs to be replaced or supported with transition funding depends absolutely on what the final arrangements for Brexit are, but it's an appropriate point to refer to the report that Professor Graeme Reid has produced, commissioned by Welsh Government. That was, and has, provided advice and recommendations for supporting research and innovation in the transition period. But, again, the Reid recommendations in that report build on the Diamond recommendations, and as soon as Diamond is in place--and Reid is providing recommendations in addition, to establish funding on the basis that the funding needs to be available in Wales to maintain and develop and strengthen the research and innovation infrastructure that we have. Llyr Gruffydd AM: Are you not worried, though, that the clock is ticking and that we really don't know what the situation is at this point? Dr David Blaney: Do you mean the Brexit situation? Llyr Gruffydd AM: The Brexit clock, yes. Dr David Blaney: Uncertainty is unhelpful, because as I've said several times, the sector is a managed sector at the moment. I don't think there's--. We're not seeing maverick stuff, but actually you can only manage, really, what you can see and what you can reasonably predict. So, the longer the uncertainty persists, the more difficult that is for institutional management and, indeed, for the rest of the machinery to support them. So, yes, the sooner we get clarity, the better for everybody, I imagine. Darren Millar AM: Chair, can I just ask a question? John Griffiths AM: Yes, Darren. Darren Millar AM: In terms of uncertainty, though, we've still got this uncertainty over whether the extra cash that the Government's going to have to spend as a result of Diamond being implemented is coming to the HE sector. They've given a political commitment, but you've got absolutely no other assurance of the sums of money that are coming in. We've got the reform of tertiary education arrangements in Wales, which are also under way, so it's a bit of a perfect storm for you, isn't it, really, with all of these three things happening at the same time? Dr David Blaney: We're certainly kept busy. Darren Millar AM: But two of those things are in the gift of the Welsh Government to sort out for you, aren't they? Dr David Blaney: Well, the policy on the reform of the post-compulsory sector absolutely is a Welsh Government policy. The extent to which they can pre-empt a budgetary process and give us clear sight of the amount of money in future years is--. Well, again, it's not for me to comment. My understanding is that that's difficult for them to do, and I would repeat what I said earlier: officials have been as helpful as I think they can be in respect of that. I mean, you're right, we've only got a political commitment between two people currently in post. It would be great to have that firmer. I'm not sure how that could be done. Darren Millar AM: I mean, that statement about the savings accrued from Diamond being reinvested wholly into the HE sector has not been repeated, frankly, has it, since the coalition deal was struck? Dr David Blaney: No, but it hasn't been rescinded either, so--. Darren Millar AM: No, but there have been opportunities--repeated opportunities--in the Chamber, where the Cabinet Secretary's been asked to repeat that commitment, and the First Minister's been asked to repeat that commitment and has not given that commitment. That must concern you, and must concern your university sector even more than, perhaps, some of the elements of Brexit that we're discussing. Dr David Blaney: Bethan has outlined earlier on in this session the fact that institutions are currently running deficit budgets in order not to lose the infrastructure on the assumption that the Diamond money will come in. If anything were to cause significant perturbation, either to the timeline of that or to it coming in at all, then there would be much more of what Medwin Hughes calls'houskeeping'that would be required, and that would be significant. So, at the moment--I don't like the expression'valley of death', but there is a valley to cross, and I think the sector is reasonably confident about how wide and how deep that valley is. There's a demographic valley as well. So, there are several valleys that they're crossing--the metaphor fails, doesn't it, really, but I think you get the drift? So, there are a number of challenges and they can see their way out of some of those challenges, but if any one of these starts to get significantly disrupted, then that would be a real issue for them. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I go on to ask about other barriers to Welsh universities gaining more funding from UK research councils? What would you say those barriers are? Dr David Blaney: Well, I think there are a couple of things, really, to say. The first one--and we'll sound like a stuck record if we're not careful--is that there's an issue about investment and the Reid report makes this very clear. So, he has reaffirmed research that had been done previously that identifies that, actually, the quality of the research base in Welsh universities and the productivity of that Welsh research base are both good, there's just not enough of them, and that, in the end, is a product of investment decisions. They have particularly looked at the deficit in science, technology, engineering and mathematics areas, and I always say that research is not just STEM. I mean, STEM is important, and I'm not denying the deficit in that area, but we have to also remember that the research agenda for Wales is not just STEM--it's arts, humanities, it's social sciences. If you look at the impact on public policy that could come from social science research--tremendous. And we're very good at it in Wales. The Welsh impact in its research is better than anywhere else in the UK, so that's good. So, they do very well, and we just really need to invest a little bit further--so continue to do very well, but put it on a broader front. If you want to be able to play into the UK-wide research funding, then the investment has two dimensions to it. One is just having enough researchers to be able to play into those increasingly larger projects rather than small-scale projects. If you haven't got the critical mass, it's very hard to make the case that you can play. And the second thing is that UK-wide research pots nearly always fund at about 80 per cent of the total cost of the research, and the other 20 per cent is meant to be found from the core research funding for the university, and if you're in a situation where your core research funding is not competitive, then you're not going to be competitive at getting that money. So, that's, kind of, straightforward. There are other things. I think it's fair to say that the Welsh sector has not been sufficiently focused on getting in on the conversations with the research councils, making sure they're in the various committees and so on. We are intending to do a bit of work to see if we can systematise that a bit better--that engagement--because there's no doubt about it: it's not to say that this system is in any way inappropriate, but the more you're in the conversations, the more likely you are to be better placed to respond to the research challenges that come up. John Griffiths AM: Okay. One final question: in terms of the researcher collaborations and networks that exist, do you see potential difficulties after Brexit for the continuation and enhancement of those, and are there any particular lessons to learn from Ser Cymru II? Dr David Blaney: I think that there are two things to say here as well. First of all, the Brexit deal might or might not impact adversely on the capacity of Welsh and, indeed, UK research infrastructure to play into broader collaborative activity across Europe, and, in a sense, that's a function of the deal whatever the deal looks like, and we'll have to wait and see. But we've mentioned playing into Horizon Europe, and being able to continue with that would be an important part of that capacity. It's not just the money, it's being in the club and it's the signalling that we're in the game. So, all of that would be important. And then the other part of my response to this would be that, actually, Wales will need to continue to be good at the research it does, so maintaining the quality, maintaining the impact, and hopefully growing the critical mass. The Ser Cymru initiative has been quite important in doing that, because it's been very focused, capturing key research players, and the attractiveness that that has then to other researchers around them, and to industry collaboration, and they have been areas of real strength that we've invested in. And I think they are already showing dividends in terms of the capacity to win more research funding, and to establish an even stronger presence in the international research market. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Just one further point, from Darren. Darren Millar AM: Just very briefly, one of the pieces of feedback that the committee members received at a stakeholder engagement event, which took place prior to this inquiry starting, to receive oral evidence, was about the research funding that is available from the charitable sector, and how poorly Wales does in attracting some of that research. I think we had some figures from the British Heart Foundation, which said they have PS100 million a year available for research grants, or something like that, and we're getting 1 per cent of that coming into Wales, which is obviously pretty low down. I appreciate that research into the type of activity that they want to put their money into, Wales may not be particularly good at, and there may be other opportunities with other charities and partnerships. What work are you doing in order to build the capacity that Wales has to attract more of that charitable sector research funding into Wales? Bethan Owen: One of the issues is the capacity to engage with that funding, because of the overhead issue that David mentioned. Charitable funding at the moment doesn't attract any overhead funding. Again, that could be built in to our funding, if we had the capacity to increase our quality-related research funding. There is an element in England. Darren Millar AM: But that pressure's the same in other parts of the UK, is it not? So the overhead funding is still an issue in England, and in other places. Bethan Owen: There is an increased contribution, and I think it's an element that was increased this year to acknowledge that. But there will be differentiation between different charities. I'm fairly certain that some of our institutions will be very strong with the cancer charities, possibly not the heart foundation. And some of that will reflect on focusing on our strengths, but to have that fuller picture. Darren Millar AM: So, this gearing issue that you mentioned earlier on, for every PS1 that somebody else puts on the table, they can draw in another PS4 on top, because that PS1 will cover the overheads, whereas the rest of the research cash--. Dr David Blaney: That's exactly it. So, the more you're able to invest--. You know, we sometimes get into a conversation about the unhypothecated nature of our research funding, but actually that creates a flexibility and the infrastructure investment that allows institutions to be able to respond to these other opportunities. Without that, they can't do it, because if you're not careful, you've got institutions engaging in UK-wide or charity-based research activities where they're actually having to pay for it themselves--they're running at a loss. Darren Millar AM: So that's the main problem; it's not that Welsh universities aren't doing their best to get this cash in. Or is it a bit of both? Dr David Blaney: I think, in the main, universities and researchers will get their cash from wherever they can, so I don't think it's a lack of appetite. Darren Millar AM: Okay. John Griffiths AM: Okay. Well, thank you, both, for coming in to give evidence to the committee this morning. You will be sent a draft of the transcript, to check for accuracy. Diolch yn fawr. Okay then, the next item is item 3, papers to note, the first of which is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education on the school organisation code. The second is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill. Paper to note 3 is a letter from the Chair of the Finance Committee regarding scrutiny of the Welsh Government's draft budget for the forthcoming financial year, which we will be discussing under item 6 on the agenda. Paper to note 4 is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on parental attitudes towards managing young children's behaviour. And the final paper to note, paper to note 5, is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the children and family delivery grant, which we will discuss later on in private session, if Members are content. Okay. Are you content to note those papers on that basis? Okay. Thanks very much. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17. 42 to exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting, and also for items 1 and 2 of the 20 September meeting. Is the committee content? Yes. Thank you very much. We will move then into private session.

The meeting was about the impact of Brexit on the capacity of Wales'higher education system and some future risk assessments for the higher education institutions. The group discussed some current problems caused by Brexit, and the efforts they have made for current and future risks, on discussing the Brexit's impact on program Eramus and international mobility. Finally, the group discussed the financial funding barriers and future financial forecast for Wales'higher education system.

tr-sq-680

tr-sq-680_0

Summarize the discussion about product requirements based on market survey. Marketing: Right first time this time. Nu There we go. It's not that complicated, but I get it wrong every time. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay so we are just waiting for Matthew {gap}. Marketing: For Matthew, yep. Project Manager: Mm. Uh {disfmarker} So I suggest we start the meeting uh without Matthew uh Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Mm'kay. Project Manager: he's uh obviously late for some reason. {vocalsound} Good. Um. Today uh we will uh talk about uh conceptual design. I hope uh you both did some uh some work uh concerning a uh conceptual design. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um this will be the uh agenda for the meeting uh {gap}. Uh I will take some minutes uh again. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um we will have the presentations of y of you different team members, Marketing: Yep. Industrial Designer: Yep. Project Manager: and then try to come to decisions uh about the concepts uh you have presented. So and that uh will uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: we have some uh forty minutes uh to complete this uh. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: So um who has the fir do you ha Anna do you have your presentation ready? Marketing: I have a presentation, I'm just making this {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah the {disfmarker} Matthew it is it's important that Matthew yeah is here Project Manager: Okay. Ah Industrial Designer: because it's really a a team uh project with a team Project Manager: there is Matthew. Industrial Designer: and if someone is not here then we cannot {disfmarker} User Interface: Sorry. Industrial Designer: but it's okay {vocalsound} it's good. {vocalsound} Marketing: Okay I'll just email you this file, my presentation. Project Manager: So. Good. Do {gap} presentation ready? Marketing: Mm-hmm I'm just emailing it to you. Project Manager: Oh okay. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: So {disfmarker} Project Manager: So did you manage uh {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah I sent you the slides, you didn't see them? Project Manager: Oh yes I see him, good yes. User Interface: Okay. {gap}. Project Manager: No. User Interface: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound}'Kay. Marketing: Okay it should've gone through to you. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay mm yes I have it. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Mm-hmm. Okay so this is just a presentation on uh the trends that we're gonna use to make the product stand out from the rest of the products out there at the moment. Um can I just put this on? So we have to work out a way {disfmarker} what we can do with our product to make it stand out and make it so people wanna buy it. Um. This is {disfmarker} to do this I will not remove my microphone. {vocalsound} We basically used um some focus group surveys which I went through with you last time, the main results of that, and um some research on the current design um and fashion trends that are out there at the moment um, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: and as part of this {disfmarker} The important aspects that came out were things that we've already discussed really. The most important by far was the look and feel of it. It needs to be something that's very different from everything else out there. It needs to stand out {vocalsound}. It needs to be not functional like the rest of the things out there at the moment. Most people find remote controls boring at the moment, we need to have something that looks interesting, that looks exciting, that will stand out. People will wanna buy it. Um {disfmarker} That was twice as i important as the next item on here which is that it has to be technologically innovative {disfmarker} has to have something else, apart from just the look of it. People have to then think about it and say {gap} got something there that I want. That's a really cool feature, and it has to make them wanna buy it again. Third on the list, and again innovative was twice as important as this last um aspect, it has to be easy to use. So they have to be able to {disfmarker} be able to look at it and have some intuitive idea of how to use it um. Drawing on the fashion trends at the moment, uh fruit and vegetables um. This is basically talking about just the the feel of it, so probably not the smell of it, but the bright colours, um eye-catching, really bold designs, and a spongy feel. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: Um I had a talk to the design people about this, but having a remote that's tactile, that feels different, that would be really cool. That would make it stand out. Um. Project Manager: Hmm. Industrial Designer: So can you repeat and be more precise about what you just said? Project Manager: Spongy feel? Industrial Designer: Uh about the feeling yeah uh yo Marketing: Well User Interface: {vocalsound} You can {disfmarker} Marketing: ma make it not necessar sp spongy is the current thing. Spongy is the current texture, but basically there are no reports no remotes at the moment which are spongy or tactile at all, so if we make it like maybe furry or soft or something, that'll be something that sets it apart, Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: rather than just bare plastic which they all are at the moment. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: So as far as the design goes, the very most important aspect was the design, to the customers. So going with the fruit and vegetable idea, we've got the bright colours, so makes it stand out, the oranges and the the bright yellows and the florescent colours, part of the fruit and vegetables um. Going back to the idea of taking inspiration from mobile phones, they've all got those {disfmarker} a lot of them have the changeable covers, so they can choose what colour the outside is. That's one way of looking at it um. Textured feel we just talked about. Maybe it's another way of doing that. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: So if it's part of the the changeable covers then may maybe they can choose a different texture, a spongy one or a soft one or something like that. So they can choose it li as they want to to maybe {disfmarker} to fit in with their decor in their living room, or just what they like, their sports team or whatever. Industrial Designer: Yeah that's a very good idea, yeah. Yeah. Marketing: Um and yeah, still taking the inspiration from the mobile phone design so functionality, the way the mobile phones work, the way the keypad looks. Also just the way that a lot of industrial design is going into mobile phones at the moment. They're big selling items. People put a lot of thought into that so we can leverage off that, and we can start using some of their ideas. Um back to technological in in innovation, not quite as important, but still a big issue. Um we talked about having a way of finding a remote control if it's been lost, uh that's one thing we could look at. There are other aspects like L_C_D_ screens and speech recognition which weren't {disfmarker} I don't think, in my personal opinion, gonna be worth the extra expense and the extra effort that will go into them. I think we're better doing something basic like this Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Marketing: which is very important and very {disfmarker} will be a really cool feature to put in. And {disfmarker} {gap} use. I had no real specific ideas for this, maybe we just, the basic idea of having your core functions big and at the top maybe, by themselves, Project Manager: Mm. Yes well Marketing: and then {disfmarker} Project Manager: maybe Matthew can can give some more information on the {disfmarker} Marketing: yeah User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: {disfmarker} and then th th the finer details of buttons you don't use as much either hidden away or completely separate. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: Yep {vocalsound} and that's the presentation. User Interface: Voila. Project Manager: Okay good, that's very clear. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah very clear. Project Manager:'Kay. Um. Uh {disfmarker} Marketing: So does anyone have any comments or ideas on that? I think you {disfmarker} Project Manager: Maybe we yes well we maybe {vocalsound} can decide later on um {vocalsound} the l the the look and feel of uh I've {disfmarker} it was a good idea maybe to to {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: To let the people choose, {gap} you mean? Project Manager: Yes the the the there are changeable covers, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: but on the other hand I I don't know whether my superiors would be so glad with it because {vocalsound} you have to introduce a complete uh uh new l line of uh of supplies Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: uh it would be uh very complicated uh organisational {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Well we're selling so many units of this. This is gonna be a mass marketed product, we can afford to have two or three different designs at least. Project Manager: Hmm. Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Yeah a range of uh yeah, a set of three, four different aspects. Marketing: Mm mm. Project Manager: Yes. Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Sure that fits the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yes {gap} and of course it will be a we we get a {disfmarker} if it works we can get uh after-sales Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: I mean that would {gap} would be very good I mean those covers could go for for three, five Euro {vocalsound}. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: That's a very good idea um {disfmarker} And then uh maybe uh we can go a th Matthew's presentation because User Interface: Yeah Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: s Project Manager: the {disfmarker} User Interface: then we could discuss later like {disfmarker} we can put all ideas together. Project Manager: Together indeed uh, Marketing: Mm. User Interface: It should be easier with that. Project Manager: because you ma might have some some information on the the easy to use, Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah I agree. Marketing: Mm-hmm, yeah. Project Manager: what you were already mentioning. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: So {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: And your part is very related to mine User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: because when you suggest something then it has to be integrated inside. User Interface: Yeah so {vocalsound} I'll I'll go with that actually Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: so um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Okay so m so {vocalsound} then the the idea of uh having a remote is generally you have uh different keys and uh different structures, different forms, and uh they could be like buttons and um they could be of uh a varying sizes if you want to to uh basically emphasize a particular key more than the other, and uh maybe like you can have different colours for example having the r red for the on off switching on and off the button. So this this is the general trend to ha the method they do. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: So what I have found was that uh currently uh the {gap} they are mostly that the T_V_, V_C_R_, music system operated ones actually, and they are very specific to each other, but there are some common keys for example if you want to follow the V_C_R_ and if you want to follow the uh g uh s some uh soundtrack on the w w see they have the common thing actually you can have Marketing: Mm. User Interface: and uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} There is also um a speech recognition to store channel information, names, like {disfmarker} You can basically {disfmarker} if you have a multiple functionality, say T_V_, V_C_R_ or something I say it to the T_V_ and the {gap} T_V_, and you can programme the keys if you want to, certain keys are even the channel information {vocalsound}. Marketing: Mm. Mm. I like the idea though of having speech recognition for like the n the name of a channel like B_B_C_, rather than having to remember the the number of it on the keypad. That's a good idea. User Interface: Yeah yeah so you you you can just uh because uh as more and more channels come then you have more and more problems to remember the v v exact channel numbers ex exactly, Industrial Designer: {gap}. Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: even if you arrange it by {disfmarker} however you arrange it, you still have the problem to remember exactly which channel you want to {disfmarker} Marketing: Hmm. Mm. Yeah I really like that idea. Industrial Designer: So what functionalities do you suggest for that? For facing this problem? User Interface: So it it it's like it {gap} limited one. In the present market I saw it that says something like they are looking for {vocalsound} eighty word thing, eighty word, Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: which shouldn't be th that difficult to implement, like eighty to hundred word. Basically you want you don't want to store all the channels in the remote control, Marketing: Mm. User Interface: you want to st store your favourite channel. Marketing: Maybe ten channels, yeah at the most. User Interface: Yeah some ten twelve channel information. You know you don't want to st store all the hundred channel information into that. Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: And uh basically uh it depends like the remote with L_C_D_ display for browsing because you have multiple functionalities for example you are watching a movie, and uh uh you are {vocalsound} having a universal remote control and you want to uh you don't know really which functionality is {gap} now, so I am using the T_V_ so every time I use it, it could be like, for example I can use a simple toggle switch, and a display, so I press it so the display says, okay, I'm in T_V_ or D_V_D_ or whatever it is, instead of having three keys separately for four keys, Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Oh yeah yeah yeah mm. User Interface: to model the functionalities will increase actually, Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: Mm. User Interface: and for you and you might want {vocalsound} Marketing: Mm. User Interface: you don't want separate keys for all of them. You can't. And uh well there can be children friendly where you can programme your remote so that they they are not allowed uh to browse certain channels which you can block them, and you can operate them. So these are the things presently which are seen in the market scenarios at present. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. User Interface: I personally would look at {vocalsound} things like having a u universal remote, is uh um is a good idea, like instead of having {gap} unusual ones for all of them you can think of having, um with multiple functionality possibly with speech recognition. Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: I got a mail from the the coffee machine interface unit that uh they have uh integrated the s speech recognition into a into the coffee machine, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Mm b User Interface: and so if you say hello coffee machine, it say hi Joe, or something like that, you know, and uh {disfmarker} Marketing: But a coffee machine, there's not too many words they'd be using with that it's a it's a small vocabulary. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah you you won't be using it, so it's a limited vocabulary mm thing, and very isolated word Marketing: Mm. Mm. User Interface: and it's uh it is interesting, and basically storing the channel through voice or other ways of programming your keys, on the display for the browsing Marketing: Mm. User Interface: which is again {disfmarker} and maybe having something like a blinking thing, like uh it could indicate you're uh {disfmarker} it it could indicate what is cal like the uh whether uh you you have enough battery in your in your uh remote, the blinking. Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: At the same time, if it's a dark room, it can be used to locate the remote also Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} or {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: And you want okay {disfmarker} for coming back to one point Marketing: Two thirty five supposed to finish. Industrial Designer: y you want to let the user to programming the keys? Some of them? User Interface: Yeah you can let them to do that. Industrial Designer: And uh isn't that too difficult for the {disfmarker} we want w I don't know if we still want the um R_C_ to be easy to use, Marketing: Hmm. Industrial Designer: that's the {gap} compromise. User Interface: N no but the {disfmarker} if you give {disfmarker} it d depends on the easiness like the user how much effort he can put. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: Like for example uh I would like to store in certain way, so if you want to give the full freedom to the user Marketing: Mm. User Interface: or you want to keep some constraints and let the user use it with that constraint. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Mm. I think you can do it both ways. User Interface: So it de Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: You can have it so it's easy {gap} they can pick it up and use it straight away without doing anythi without customizing it, Industrial Designer: A standard. Marketing: or if they want to they have the option of using these extra features. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Um yes but but I do {vocalsound} {disfmarker} User Interface: So {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: maybe you can {vocalsound} give a hand to us because I I'm not sure whether that that we can implement that for twelve Euro and fifty cents. User Interface: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: I'm sorry to have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Every time I have to come down on this price again Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: to {vocalsound} so this might be a little limiting for your creativity, Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: but it's it's it's the real {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We have to consider it. S so {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: do we think these ideas {vocalsound} an and my uh sp speech recognition, I mean maybe it's possible for for twelve Euro but then then it will be at cost of other functionality we might implement like the uh uh the the the furry uh {vocalsound} uh case of the {disfmarker} Marketing: Mm. Hmm. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm yeah like {vocalsound} I would say that for programming uh keys, you said, uh it could be uh easily uh done within the the package of twel twelve Euros, User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Mm. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: but for the A_S_R_ system, uh I'm not sure if it's feasible to have this User Interface: We well we can still look at {disfmarker} we can talk with the coffee unit Industrial Designer: We {vocalsound} User Interface: and you can uh check how much how much they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah i if if it's a low vocabulary it's already implemented, User Interface: yeah yeah Marketing: Mm. User Interface: yeah. Industrial Designer: and w how much it's cost, maybe with a f cheap chip. User Interface: Maybe we can come {vocalsound} we we can talk to them, and we can come with that, Project Manager: Mm mm. User Interface: you know. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: And also well you can think of having uh since you have a {disfmarker} you know something {gap} maybe if you added little bit of {gap} display, you might need the {disfmarker} to che keep checking the battery, so you really need a some {vocalsound} kind of indicator, Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: so it could be a blinking option of L_E_D_ {vocalsound} Project Manager: Hmm. User Interface: it could actually be used to detect also. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: If it's in a dark room you can basically detect it also. Marketing: Mm. Hmm. Project Manager: Hmm. Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound}. Marketing: I like the idea too of being able to use the remote in the dark, Project Manager: Mm. User Interface: So {disfmarker} Marketing: so either having the buttons so you can feel the difference between them or if they if they light up or something. User Interface: No actually {vocalsound} i if i it is like {disfmarker} you know it tells you um, it can be for two purposes, Marketing: Mm. User Interface: like if you have an L_C_D_ display and all those things it's not going to be the standard remote, Marketing: Mm. Hmm. User Interface: which is having uh which need just uh six six volt uh th sorry three volts um of D_C_. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: It may need more actually, so y you you may need to check your battery usage it {disfmarker} and then you need that, some functionality to indicate the battery limit. Industrial Designer: Mm. Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: And then if the battery limit is indicated, if it could be ind indicated through a blinking something Industrial Designer: It's true. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: and it can change the colour depending on your uh {disfmarker} how much is the battery, well that is good enough to even locate even if you want to. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. User Interface: You know. Project Manager:'Kay good. Industrial Designer: {gap}. User Interface: Yeah so {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: I don't know how if if I have time to talk about the {disfmarker} Project Manager: Mm yes um I would {disfmarker} User Interface: You you have time some more? Yep. Project Manager: Yes yes you can you can still. We have time. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Sure you can you know {vocalsound}. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay. So what I'm gonna present here is very uh um yeah basic knowledge about the all the the components that are inside a a R_C_ a remote control, and how is it manufactured h what is the process, just to explain you. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: So the method is {disfmarker} ther there is a a set of components in a in a remote control like {gap}, and uh what cost {disfmarker} the the components in themself do not cost a lot but the the way to assemble everything costs obviously, and I will uh show you my preferences uh uh at the end. So there are two uh different types of uh um {disfmarker} Two different ways of using the the components for making a a remote control. Project Manager: Nice. {vocalsound} User Interface: Hmm. Industrial Designer: Uh the basic way is to use a an integrated circuit and some uh transistors with an {gap} that aims at communicating uh uh the message and to to send the message to the um to the led that will uh transmit to the receiver. And uh yeah the other components and the circuit board {gap} buttons, infrared {vocalsound}, led, etcetera, for the components um. So you {gap} finding, just to say that the chip can detect uh when a key is pressed, and then it translate to the key, to a sequence, something like morse code, as you know, uh with a different sequence for each key, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. User Interface: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and uh uh that's, with the components we will use, we will have different uh messages, different sequences, and the chips sends that signal signal to the transistor that amplify to make it stronger um. So electronic parts are assembled onto uh printed boards uh because it's easier to mass produce and assemble. And uh so I think {vocalsound} for our design we want some b uh programmable uh you know V_ V_L_S_I_ or F_P_G_A_ uh high technology, User Interface: Yeah mm mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and this is important, and also we'll use uh yeah like in any uh high-tech uh devices a chip of fi fibreglass to {gap} them and connect them. User Interface: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: So my personal design {vocalsound} we need to find a solution what um what is the material of the cover we want to use. If it's plastic Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: or you said that yeah you had some ideas uh like fruit, veg or {vocalsound} Project Manager: Well well Industrial Designer: I dunno. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: m m maybe m maybe we can give the uh the uh the case a very uh uh normal a v very normal case but, with the changeable covers to fancy it up. Industrial Designer: Yes. Yes. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: So like a normal cheap plastic case which can be covered up in, for instance, a wooden case. Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yes. Marketing: Mm just have a yeah {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah like they do in with cars I think. Yeah inside the car Marketing: Just the veneer on it, yeah. Industrial Designer: yeah. So they also emailed me that uh they have {vocalsound} available a bunch of different buttons, a scroll wheels, integrated push buttons s such as a {gap} computer mouse. And uh very cheap L_C_D_s, so liquid crystal displays, User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: so I'm wondering, I think we might be able to integrate L_C_D_ into our R_C_. And the final point okay is um we have {disfmarker} yeah there are some uh compromise to to do. Marketing: Hmm. Industrial Designer: So we have to know that the push button requires a simple chip, but the scroll wheel uh and that kind of higher high-tech stuff needs more money um which is a higher price range alright. And the display requires an advanced chip, which in turns is more expensive than the regular chip, but {vocalsound} I think uh with twelve Euros um and if it's uh uh made for mm four million uh items, then I think w we could be able to handle that. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: So to {vocalsound} to sum up um we need {vocalsound} yeah so I I just said that the components uh the list of components uh has to be uh yeah listed and um and um assembly is a an important process that has to be taken into account. And uh for the designing of the cove uh uh cover layout then it's better to to to maybe see that with uh the the U_R_ exp U_R_I_ Expert User Interface: Sorry. Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: so that we can {disfmarker} it's really a team-working uh. So Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: I I cannot design something without your agreement, Project Manager: No of course. User Interface: Yeah so Industrial Designer: right? User Interface: of course for example uh I wanted to know like if you want to have a a fo if you want to have the L_C_D_ display over there, Industrial Designer: Yes. User Interface: or if you want to store a programmes with a keys {disfmarker} What kind of things you'll need inside your thin inside {disfmarker} W wh what {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah it's kind of um simple {gap} pro progra programmable device, and we have to insert. User Interface: W what {disfmarker} Okay. Okay. Industrial Designer: I think we could insert one that could underlie several functions User Interface: Okay so Industrial Designer: of {disfmarker} User Interface: in that case you can even look at the technology what the mobile phone is trying to use with the {gap} card. Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah, for customizing and yeah. User Interface: Yeah where they do all the wi with with them actually. How f cost effective it would be to put that car chip into it and do the programmable things. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah good idea. Project Manager: So I f I think we we should come to some decisions now uh a about this. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Um so I understand uh when we want a display we need a expensive chip, but when we want a scrolling wheel w we also need the expensive chip, so can we use same chip, so with one expensive chip we can uh implement several complicated uh or advanced features. Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah that's a very good idea, Project Manager: Yes. Industrial Designer: we could have uh one main chip uh that could handle, uh it's called F_P_G_A_ chip, that could handle both uh like scrolling wheels as well as uh L_C_D_ Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and Project Manager: So Industrial Designer: yeah. Project Manager: when the more expensive chip you mentioned there is is possible in the in the given budget, uh maybe we should go for for the more expensive chip, so all features uh which you mentioned can be implemented based on the same chip. Industrial Designer: Yes. User Interface: D well {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Do you think that's feasible? User Interface: Well I don't know if it'll fit into our cost of twelve point five Euro you know. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} You th you think it's possible. User Interface: Is it possible to fit in to that? Industrial Designer: Yeah also thinking, I think both uh {disfmarker} if we had a budget of twenty twenty uh Euros, it will be okay, User Interface: Sorry. Project Manager: Hmm. Industrial Designer: but uh {disfmarker} {gap}. Marketing: Well maybe we need specific costings then. Actually do maybe two designs and then cost them out and see which one is gonna fit in our budget better. Project Manager: Mm yes Industrial Designer: Yeah that's an excellent idea. Project Manager: wh when you make a {vocalsound} a design ca you can {vocalsound} {disfmarker} next meeting you can give an quite an exact cost price. Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah. Yeah Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: That w that would be a very good idea. Industrial Designer: because right now I don't have {gap} price in in head Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: but for next meeting I'm sure yeah be able to do that. Project Manager: Good good. User Interface: Yeah that's uh that's something which I wanted to ask you also, like what will be the each individually the cost of it. For example if f if you want to put wood {disfmarker} I wouldn't suggest for wood Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: uh {gap}'cause it's {disfmarker} I think it's m much easier to use a plastic or a rubber {gap} rather than wood. Industrial Designer: Okay. I agree on that. Yeah. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: It will be much ch much expensive th though it's the most natural thing, but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yes but I can I think uh I think we can just use more cheap plastic for a kind of basic edition, and then people can fancy it up with with more expensive materials Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} Yeah Project Manager: which which come with a with another price. User Interface: it's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah we we can give a preference to them, but it is {gap} but with plastic or the rubber or whatever it is {disfmarker} it's much better with that rather than going for {disfmarker} Project Manager: Do do you agree? Marketing: Mm yeah sure. Industrial Designer: Yeah but i it's a detailed uh yeah yeah uh plastic versus uh wood, User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and we need maybe to centre our description on uh the the really the what buttons what uh functionality we want to offer to the user, and maybe with uh {vocalsound} graphs or I don't know uh {disfmarker} {gap} User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: User Interface Designer you could maybe uh help us on that. Project Manager: Ma I I think uh for next meeting we c {vocalsound} you two can present a real design. Uh so drawing it on the board. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: Yea Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: Okay. Industrial Designer: Perfect yeah. Project Manager: And then we now sh only have to t to decide the general function uh. So um {disfmarker} Let let's say next meeting w {vocalsound} you produce two designs, one one one less advanced and one more advanced and with the cost price. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah sure. Yeah we will uh {disfmarker} Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: Uh furthermore we go for the for the uh basic plastic case User Interface: Uh. Project Manager: which can be later uh fancied up with uh with addit uh additional uh, how do you call them, these like like mobile telephones you can put a cover over it. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: But that that that that can be done later. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: We now can concentrate on the on the basic remote control. User Interface: {gap}. Industrial Designer: Yeah customized. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: Um. User Interface: Okay {vocalsound} {gap}. We can give them smooth keys, you know. Smooth keys with bigger s uh {disfmarker} So that you know {disfmarker} The the problem most of the time we've seen, the keys is that it's small, Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: and every time we have to be very {disfmarker} but if i the {disfmarker} if we if we go to a different ways of designing those keys, then you can merge them together Marketing: So is there any of these that you're looking at particularly User Interface: to {disfmarker} Marketing: or is this just ideas? User Interface: Oh you can actually, for example, if you see, they are they are they are quite small over here, Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: and uh {vocalsound} now you can, for example, as I was {gap} if you make them big, it may change the look of the thing also to the people. Marketing: Hmm. Mm. Mm. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. User Interface: At the same time, it is m more uh like it would be more interesting for people who are having this R_S_I_ and all {gap} problem. Marketing: Mm yeah. Project Manager: Yes yes yes bi big keys is is good thing I think. User Interface: Uh big keys may better {gap} for them actually and uh {disfmarker} Marketing: You see? Industrial Designer: I agree yeah, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and not too m too many keys of course yeah. Marketing: Mm well Project Manager: No no. Marketing: one I've had before, a r r remote control we have at home is one that's actually got a cover on the bottom User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: so the bottom bit is just, covers half the keys most of the time, and then you can slide the cover back to get to the the more advanced keys. Project Manager: Mm mm mm. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Mm w but then you have still have uh when you don't {gap} use it you have such a a an extent of your remote control Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: which you don't use. So maybe it's possible uh, I don't know whether you can can indicate this, that you can elsewhere open your remote control and on the inside are uh buttons you don't use that much. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm. Yeah. Um yeah I've seen that before too. Anoth another like b User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: it flips up and then you've got another layer of buttons underneath. Project Manager: Yes. User Interface: Yes. Yeah so it's something like this, the model here Marketing: Mm. User Interface: s {gap} you can put the keys {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Mm. Marketing: But I've seen also with keys and buttons on the top of here as well. Industrial Designer: That's what you mean? Project Manager: Yes I I th that's what I mean User Interface: Yeah. Yeah. Project Manager: so I mean something like like a book. Marketing: I like this one. I like the shape of this one. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. Marketing: Can we have {disfmarker} can we think about maybe having a a non-recta non non-rectangular one, so with not just the straight little box Industrial Designer: Yeah I like also this one. Marketing: that's a {disfmarker} maybe curved or something. User Interface: Yeah, mm. Industrial Designer: Yeah, the point is w maybe we need to also to make a decision on how how how big we want to be and how many buttons like n we should {vocalsound} dec decide numbers or {disfmarker} Marketing: Mm mm'kay. Is this for the next meeting though? User Interface: We should make a {disfmarker} Marketing: I think we might be out of time out of time for this meeting. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm. User Interface: Yeah that {disfmarker} yeah next meeting we should be {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Ju just make two designs, Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: Yeah that would depend upon us actually. Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah. Project Manager: and the we we can decide decide between th those designs. Marketing: Yep. User Interface: Yeah okay. Project Manager: I think that would be a good idea. So Industrial Designer: Perfect. Project Manager: anyone uh any questions for now? User Interface: {vocalsound} No no. I don't have. Marketing: No. So is this {disfmarker} is there anything else I need to do from a marketing point of view for the next meeting? Project Manager: Um yes I come to that uh uh {disfmarker} User Interface: Maybe it would be interesting if you could look um for the cost inventories of other devices, if you're using speech recognition or something like that. Project Manager: Yes well m maybe uh, I don't know whether that's possible, Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: maybe you can start evaluating uh their work somehow. Marketing: Okay well is this {vocalsound} me designing a way to evaluate it so {disfmarker} Thinking about how to set up test groups and things? Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't know whether that's possible uh in the given time Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: but a as far as possible. Marketing: Okay. Yep. Project Manager: So uh you two will be together w working on a o on two prototypes Industrial Designer: Exactly. User Interface: Mm. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: and further instructions will be uh will be sent to you by uh by email. Industrial Designer: Two or three prototypes? User Interface: Two. Project Manager: Two. User Interface: One for like cost and the one with like higher-end Industrial Designer: Two? Project Manager: I {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: Mm {gap} and then {disfmarker} User Interface: so that then we can be easily comparing them Industrial Designer: Yeah Project Manager: Hmm. {vocalsound} User Interface: or you know find a compromise between both of them, Industrial Designer: and find maybe a compromise. Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: Yes okay. User Interface: yeah that's how it is. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Perfect yeah. User Interface: Yep. Project Manager: Okay let's call this to an end. Marketing: Mm'kay. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: Thanks guys. Industrial Designer: Thanks. User Interface: So we are done for now. {gap}.

The marketing put forward three aspects in product requirements. Most importantly, the look and feel of the remote control should make it stand out from the rest products on the market. Second, it had to be technologically innovative so that people would be attracted to buy it. Third, it should be user-friendly. After that, the group discussed some specific ways to fulfill these requirements.

tr-sq-681

tr-sq-681_0

What did the marketing recommend when discussing product requirements? Marketing: Right first time this time. Nu There we go. It's not that complicated, but I get it wrong every time. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay so we are just waiting for Matthew {gap}. Marketing: For Matthew, yep. Project Manager: Mm. Uh {disfmarker} So I suggest we start the meeting uh without Matthew uh Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Mm'kay. Project Manager: he's uh obviously late for some reason. {vocalsound} Good. Um. Today uh we will uh talk about uh conceptual design. I hope uh you both did some uh some work uh concerning a uh conceptual design. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um this will be the uh agenda for the meeting uh {gap}. Uh I will take some minutes uh again. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um we will have the presentations of y of you different team members, Marketing: Yep. Industrial Designer: Yep. Project Manager: and then try to come to decisions uh about the concepts uh you have presented. So and that uh will uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: we have some uh forty minutes uh to complete this uh. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: So um who has the fir do you ha Anna do you have your presentation ready? Marketing: I have a presentation, I'm just making this {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah the {disfmarker} Matthew it is it's important that Matthew yeah is here Project Manager: Okay. Ah Industrial Designer: because it's really a a team uh project with a team Project Manager: there is Matthew. Industrial Designer: and if someone is not here then we cannot {disfmarker} User Interface: Sorry. Industrial Designer: but it's okay {vocalsound} it's good. {vocalsound} Marketing: Okay I'll just email you this file, my presentation. Project Manager: So. Good. Do {gap} presentation ready? Marketing: Mm-hmm I'm just emailing it to you. Project Manager: Oh okay. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: So {disfmarker} Project Manager: So did you manage uh {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah I sent you the slides, you didn't see them? Project Manager: Oh yes I see him, good yes. User Interface: Okay. {gap}. Project Manager: No. User Interface: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound}'Kay. Marketing: Okay it should've gone through to you. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay mm yes I have it. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Mm-hmm. Okay so this is just a presentation on uh the trends that we're gonna use to make the product stand out from the rest of the products out there at the moment. Um can I just put this on? So we have to work out a way {disfmarker} what we can do with our product to make it stand out and make it so people wanna buy it. Um. This is {disfmarker} to do this I will not remove my microphone. {vocalsound} We basically used um some focus group surveys which I went through with you last time, the main results of that, and um some research on the current design um and fashion trends that are out there at the moment um, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: and as part of this {disfmarker} The important aspects that came out were things that we've already discussed really. The most important by far was the look and feel of it. It needs to be something that's very different from everything else out there. It needs to stand out {vocalsound}. It needs to be not functional like the rest of the things out there at the moment. Most people find remote controls boring at the moment, we need to have something that looks interesting, that looks exciting, that will stand out. People will wanna buy it. Um {disfmarker} That was twice as i important as the next item on here which is that it has to be technologically innovative {disfmarker} has to have something else, apart from just the look of it. People have to then think about it and say {gap} got something there that I want. That's a really cool feature, and it has to make them wanna buy it again. Third on the list, and again innovative was twice as important as this last um aspect, it has to be easy to use. So they have to be able to {disfmarker} be able to look at it and have some intuitive idea of how to use it um. Drawing on the fashion trends at the moment, uh fruit and vegetables um. This is basically talking about just the the feel of it, so probably not the smell of it, but the bright colours, um eye-catching, really bold designs, and a spongy feel. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: Um I had a talk to the design people about this, but having a remote that's tactile, that feels different, that would be really cool. That would make it stand out. Um. Project Manager: Hmm. Industrial Designer: So can you repeat and be more precise about what you just said? Project Manager: Spongy feel? Industrial Designer: Uh about the feeling yeah uh yo Marketing: Well User Interface: {vocalsound} You can {disfmarker} Marketing: ma make it not necessar sp spongy is the current thing. Spongy is the current texture, but basically there are no reports no remotes at the moment which are spongy or tactile at all, so if we make it like maybe furry or soft or something, that'll be something that sets it apart, Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: rather than just bare plastic which they all are at the moment. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: So as far as the design goes, the very most important aspect was the design, to the customers. So going with the fruit and vegetable idea, we've got the bright colours, so makes it stand out, the oranges and the the bright yellows and the florescent colours, part of the fruit and vegetables um. Going back to the idea of taking inspiration from mobile phones, they've all got those {disfmarker} a lot of them have the changeable covers, so they can choose what colour the outside is. That's one way of looking at it um. Textured feel we just talked about. Maybe it's another way of doing that. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: So if it's part of the the changeable covers then may maybe they can choose a different texture, a spongy one or a soft one or something like that. So they can choose it li as they want to to maybe {disfmarker} to fit in with their decor in their living room, or just what they like, their sports team or whatever. Industrial Designer: Yeah that's a very good idea, yeah. Yeah. Marketing: Um and yeah, still taking the inspiration from the mobile phone design so functionality, the way the mobile phones work, the way the keypad looks. Also just the way that a lot of industrial design is going into mobile phones at the moment. They're big selling items. People put a lot of thought into that so we can leverage off that, and we can start using some of their ideas. Um back to technological in in innovation, not quite as important, but still a big issue. Um we talked about having a way of finding a remote control if it's been lost, uh that's one thing we could look at. There are other aspects like L_C_D_ screens and speech recognition which weren't {disfmarker} I don't think, in my personal opinion, gonna be worth the extra expense and the extra effort that will go into them. I think we're better doing something basic like this Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Marketing: which is very important and very {disfmarker} will be a really cool feature to put in. And {disfmarker} {gap} use. I had no real specific ideas for this, maybe we just, the basic idea of having your core functions big and at the top maybe, by themselves, Project Manager: Mm. Yes well Marketing: and then {disfmarker} Project Manager: maybe Matthew can can give some more information on the {disfmarker} Marketing: yeah User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: {disfmarker} and then th th the finer details of buttons you don't use as much either hidden away or completely separate. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: Yep {vocalsound} and that's the presentation. User Interface: Voila. Project Manager: Okay good, that's very clear. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah very clear. Project Manager:'Kay. Um. Uh {disfmarker} Marketing: So does anyone have any comments or ideas on that? I think you {disfmarker} Project Manager: Maybe we yes well we maybe {vocalsound} can decide later on um {vocalsound} the l the the look and feel of uh I've {disfmarker} it was a good idea maybe to to {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: To let the people choose, {gap} you mean? Project Manager: Yes the the the there are changeable covers, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: but on the other hand I I don't know whether my superiors would be so glad with it because {vocalsound} you have to introduce a complete uh uh new l line of uh of supplies Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: uh it would be uh very complicated uh organisational {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Well we're selling so many units of this. This is gonna be a mass marketed product, we can afford to have two or three different designs at least. Project Manager: Hmm. Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Yeah a range of uh yeah, a set of three, four different aspects. Marketing: Mm mm. Project Manager: Yes. Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Sure that fits the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yes {gap} and of course it will be a we we get a {disfmarker} if it works we can get uh after-sales Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: I mean that would {gap} would be very good I mean those covers could go for for three, five Euro {vocalsound}. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: That's a very good idea um {disfmarker} And then uh maybe uh we can go a th Matthew's presentation because User Interface: Yeah Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: s Project Manager: the {disfmarker} User Interface: then we could discuss later like {disfmarker} we can put all ideas together. Project Manager: Together indeed uh, Marketing: Mm. User Interface: It should be easier with that. Project Manager: because you ma might have some some information on the the easy to use, Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah I agree. Marketing: Mm-hmm, yeah. Project Manager: what you were already mentioning. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: So {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: And your part is very related to mine User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: because when you suggest something then it has to be integrated inside. User Interface: Yeah so {vocalsound} I'll I'll go with that actually Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: so um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Okay so m so {vocalsound} then the the idea of uh having a remote is generally you have uh different keys and uh different structures, different forms, and uh they could be like buttons and um they could be of uh a varying sizes if you want to to uh basically emphasize a particular key more than the other, and uh maybe like you can have different colours for example having the r red for the on off switching on and off the button. So this this is the general trend to ha the method they do. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: So what I have found was that uh currently uh the {gap} they are mostly that the T_V_, V_C_R_, music system operated ones actually, and they are very specific to each other, but there are some common keys for example if you want to follow the V_C_R_ and if you want to follow the uh g uh s some uh soundtrack on the w w see they have the common thing actually you can have Marketing: Mm. User Interface: and uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} There is also um a speech recognition to store channel information, names, like {disfmarker} You can basically {disfmarker} if you have a multiple functionality, say T_V_, V_C_R_ or something I say it to the T_V_ and the {gap} T_V_, and you can programme the keys if you want to, certain keys are even the channel information {vocalsound}. Marketing: Mm. Mm. I like the idea though of having speech recognition for like the n the name of a channel like B_B_C_, rather than having to remember the the number of it on the keypad. That's a good idea. User Interface: Yeah yeah so you you you can just uh because uh as more and more channels come then you have more and more problems to remember the v v exact channel numbers ex exactly, Industrial Designer: {gap}. Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: even if you arrange it by {disfmarker} however you arrange it, you still have the problem to remember exactly which channel you want to {disfmarker} Marketing: Hmm. Mm. Yeah I really like that idea. Industrial Designer: So what functionalities do you suggest for that? For facing this problem? User Interface: So it it it's like it {gap} limited one. In the present market I saw it that says something like they are looking for {vocalsound} eighty word thing, eighty word, Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: which shouldn't be th that difficult to implement, like eighty to hundred word. Basically you want you don't want to store all the channels in the remote control, Marketing: Mm. User Interface: you want to st store your favourite channel. Marketing: Maybe ten channels, yeah at the most. User Interface: Yeah some ten twelve channel information. You know you don't want to st store all the hundred channel information into that. Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: And uh basically uh it depends like the remote with L_C_D_ display for browsing because you have multiple functionalities for example you are watching a movie, and uh uh you are {vocalsound} having a universal remote control and you want to uh you don't know really which functionality is {gap} now, so I am using the T_V_ so every time I use it, it could be like, for example I can use a simple toggle switch, and a display, so I press it so the display says, okay, I'm in T_V_ or D_V_D_ or whatever it is, instead of having three keys separately for four keys, Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Oh yeah yeah yeah mm. User Interface: to model the functionalities will increase actually, Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: Mm. User Interface: and for you and you might want {vocalsound} Marketing: Mm. User Interface: you don't want separate keys for all of them. You can't. And uh well there can be children friendly where you can programme your remote so that they they are not allowed uh to browse certain channels which you can block them, and you can operate them. So these are the things presently which are seen in the market scenarios at present. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. User Interface: I personally would look at {vocalsound} things like having a u universal remote, is uh um is a good idea, like instead of having {gap} unusual ones for all of them you can think of having, um with multiple functionality possibly with speech recognition. Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: I got a mail from the the coffee machine interface unit that uh they have uh integrated the s speech recognition into a into the coffee machine, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Mm b User Interface: and so if you say hello coffee machine, it say hi Joe, or something like that, you know, and uh {disfmarker} Marketing: But a coffee machine, there's not too many words they'd be using with that it's a it's a small vocabulary. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah you you won't be using it, so it's a limited vocabulary mm thing, and very isolated word Marketing: Mm. Mm. User Interface: and it's uh it is interesting, and basically storing the channel through voice or other ways of programming your keys, on the display for the browsing Marketing: Mm. User Interface: which is again {disfmarker} and maybe having something like a blinking thing, like uh it could indicate you're uh {disfmarker} it it could indicate what is cal like the uh whether uh you you have enough battery in your in your uh remote, the blinking. Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: At the same time, if it's a dark room, it can be used to locate the remote also Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} or {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: And you want okay {disfmarker} for coming back to one point Marketing: Two thirty five supposed to finish. Industrial Designer: y you want to let the user to programming the keys? Some of them? User Interface: Yeah you can let them to do that. Industrial Designer: And uh isn't that too difficult for the {disfmarker} we want w I don't know if we still want the um R_C_ to be easy to use, Marketing: Hmm. Industrial Designer: that's the {gap} compromise. User Interface: N no but the {disfmarker} if you give {disfmarker} it d depends on the easiness like the user how much effort he can put. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: Like for example uh I would like to store in certain way, so if you want to give the full freedom to the user Marketing: Mm. User Interface: or you want to keep some constraints and let the user use it with that constraint. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Mm. I think you can do it both ways. User Interface: So it de Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: You can have it so it's easy {gap} they can pick it up and use it straight away without doing anythi without customizing it, Industrial Designer: A standard. Marketing: or if they want to they have the option of using these extra features. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Um yes but but I do {vocalsound} {disfmarker} User Interface: So {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: maybe you can {vocalsound} give a hand to us because I I'm not sure whether that that we can implement that for twelve Euro and fifty cents. User Interface: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: I'm sorry to have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Every time I have to come down on this price again Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: to {vocalsound} so this might be a little limiting for your creativity, Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: but it's it's it's the real {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We have to consider it. S so {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: do we think these ideas {vocalsound} an and my uh sp speech recognition, I mean maybe it's possible for for twelve Euro but then then it will be at cost of other functionality we might implement like the uh uh the the the furry uh {vocalsound} uh case of the {disfmarker} Marketing: Mm. Hmm. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm yeah like {vocalsound} I would say that for programming uh keys, you said, uh it could be uh easily uh done within the the package of twel twelve Euros, User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Mm. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: but for the A_S_R_ system, uh I'm not sure if it's feasible to have this User Interface: We well we can still look at {disfmarker} we can talk with the coffee unit Industrial Designer: We {vocalsound} User Interface: and you can uh check how much how much they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah i if if it's a low vocabulary it's already implemented, User Interface: yeah yeah Marketing: Mm. User Interface: yeah. Industrial Designer: and w how much it's cost, maybe with a f cheap chip. User Interface: Maybe we can come {vocalsound} we we can talk to them, and we can come with that, Project Manager: Mm mm. User Interface: you know. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: And also well you can think of having uh since you have a {disfmarker} you know something {gap} maybe if you added little bit of {gap} display, you might need the {disfmarker} to che keep checking the battery, so you really need a some {vocalsound} kind of indicator, Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: so it could be a blinking option of L_E_D_ {vocalsound} Project Manager: Hmm. User Interface: it could actually be used to detect also. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: If it's in a dark room you can basically detect it also. Marketing: Mm. Hmm. Project Manager: Hmm. Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound}. Marketing: I like the idea too of being able to use the remote in the dark, Project Manager: Mm. User Interface: So {disfmarker} Marketing: so either having the buttons so you can feel the difference between them or if they if they light up or something. User Interface: No actually {vocalsound} i if i it is like {disfmarker} you know it tells you um, it can be for two purposes, Marketing: Mm. User Interface: like if you have an L_C_D_ display and all those things it's not going to be the standard remote, Marketing: Mm. Hmm. User Interface: which is having uh which need just uh six six volt uh th sorry three volts um of D_C_. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: It may need more actually, so y you you may need to check your battery usage it {disfmarker} and then you need that, some functionality to indicate the battery limit. Industrial Designer: Mm. Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: And then if the battery limit is indicated, if it could be ind indicated through a blinking something Industrial Designer: It's true. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: and it can change the colour depending on your uh {disfmarker} how much is the battery, well that is good enough to even locate even if you want to. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. User Interface: You know. Project Manager:'Kay good. Industrial Designer: {gap}. User Interface: Yeah so {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: I don't know how if if I have time to talk about the {disfmarker} Project Manager: Mm yes um I would {disfmarker} User Interface: You you have time some more? Yep. Project Manager: Yes yes you can you can still. We have time. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Sure you can you know {vocalsound}. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay. So what I'm gonna present here is very uh um yeah basic knowledge about the all the the components that are inside a a R_C_ a remote control, and how is it manufactured h what is the process, just to explain you. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: So the method is {disfmarker} ther there is a a set of components in a in a remote control like {gap}, and uh what cost {disfmarker} the the components in themself do not cost a lot but the the way to assemble everything costs obviously, and I will uh show you my preferences uh uh at the end. So there are two uh different types of uh um {disfmarker} Two different ways of using the the components for making a a remote control. Project Manager: Nice. {vocalsound} User Interface: Hmm. Industrial Designer: Uh the basic way is to use a an integrated circuit and some uh transistors with an {gap} that aims at communicating uh uh the message and to to send the message to the um to the led that will uh transmit to the receiver. And uh yeah the other components and the circuit board {gap} buttons, infrared {vocalsound}, led, etcetera, for the components um. So you {gap} finding, just to say that the chip can detect uh when a key is pressed, and then it translate to the key, to a sequence, something like morse code, as you know, uh with a different sequence for each key, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. User Interface: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and uh uh that's, with the components we will use, we will have different uh messages, different sequences, and the chips sends that signal signal to the transistor that amplify to make it stronger um. So electronic parts are assembled onto uh printed boards uh because it's easier to mass produce and assemble. And uh so I think {vocalsound} for our design we want some b uh programmable uh you know V_ V_L_S_I_ or F_P_G_A_ uh high technology, User Interface: Yeah mm mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and this is important, and also we'll use uh yeah like in any uh high-tech uh devices a chip of fi fibreglass to {gap} them and connect them. User Interface: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: So my personal design {vocalsound} we need to find a solution what um what is the material of the cover we want to use. If it's plastic Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: or you said that yeah you had some ideas uh like fruit, veg or {vocalsound} Project Manager: Well well Industrial Designer: I dunno. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: m m maybe m maybe we can give the uh the uh the case a very uh uh normal a v very normal case but, with the changeable covers to fancy it up. Industrial Designer: Yes. Yes. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: So like a normal cheap plastic case which can be covered up in, for instance, a wooden case. Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yes. Marketing: Mm just have a yeah {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah like they do in with cars I think. Yeah inside the car Marketing: Just the veneer on it, yeah. Industrial Designer: yeah. So they also emailed me that uh they have {vocalsound} available a bunch of different buttons, a scroll wheels, integrated push buttons s such as a {gap} computer mouse. And uh very cheap L_C_D_s, so liquid crystal displays, User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: so I'm wondering, I think we might be able to integrate L_C_D_ into our R_C_. And the final point okay is um we have {disfmarker} yeah there are some uh compromise to to do. Marketing: Hmm. Industrial Designer: So we have to know that the push button requires a simple chip, but the scroll wheel uh and that kind of higher high-tech stuff needs more money um which is a higher price range alright. And the display requires an advanced chip, which in turns is more expensive than the regular chip, but {vocalsound} I think uh with twelve Euros um and if it's uh uh made for mm four million uh items, then I think w we could be able to handle that. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: So to {vocalsound} to sum up um we need {vocalsound} yeah so I I just said that the components uh the list of components uh has to be uh yeah listed and um and um assembly is a an important process that has to be taken into account. And uh for the designing of the cove uh uh cover layout then it's better to to to maybe see that with uh the the U_R_ exp U_R_I_ Expert User Interface: Sorry. Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: so that we can {disfmarker} it's really a team-working uh. So Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: I I cannot design something without your agreement, Project Manager: No of course. User Interface: Yeah so Industrial Designer: right? User Interface: of course for example uh I wanted to know like if you want to have a a fo if you want to have the L_C_D_ display over there, Industrial Designer: Yes. User Interface: or if you want to store a programmes with a keys {disfmarker} What kind of things you'll need inside your thin inside {disfmarker} W wh what {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah it's kind of um simple {gap} pro progra programmable device, and we have to insert. User Interface: W what {disfmarker} Okay. Okay. Industrial Designer: I think we could insert one that could underlie several functions User Interface: Okay so Industrial Designer: of {disfmarker} User Interface: in that case you can even look at the technology what the mobile phone is trying to use with the {gap} card. Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah, for customizing and yeah. User Interface: Yeah where they do all the wi with with them actually. How f cost effective it would be to put that car chip into it and do the programmable things. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah good idea. Project Manager: So I f I think we we should come to some decisions now uh a about this. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Um so I understand uh when we want a display we need a expensive chip, but when we want a scrolling wheel w we also need the expensive chip, so can we use same chip, so with one expensive chip we can uh implement several complicated uh or advanced features. Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah that's a very good idea, Project Manager: Yes. Industrial Designer: we could have uh one main chip uh that could handle, uh it's called F_P_G_A_ chip, that could handle both uh like scrolling wheels as well as uh L_C_D_ Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and Project Manager: So Industrial Designer: yeah. Project Manager: when the more expensive chip you mentioned there is is possible in the in the given budget, uh maybe we should go for for the more expensive chip, so all features uh which you mentioned can be implemented based on the same chip. Industrial Designer: Yes. User Interface: D well {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Do you think that's feasible? User Interface: Well I don't know if it'll fit into our cost of twelve point five Euro you know. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} You th you think it's possible. User Interface: Is it possible to fit in to that? Industrial Designer: Yeah also thinking, I think both uh {disfmarker} if we had a budget of twenty twenty uh Euros, it will be okay, User Interface: Sorry. Project Manager: Hmm. Industrial Designer: but uh {disfmarker} {gap}. Marketing: Well maybe we need specific costings then. Actually do maybe two designs and then cost them out and see which one is gonna fit in our budget better. Project Manager: Mm yes Industrial Designer: Yeah that's an excellent idea. Project Manager: wh when you make a {vocalsound} a design ca you can {vocalsound} {disfmarker} next meeting you can give an quite an exact cost price. Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah. Yeah Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: That w that would be a very good idea. Industrial Designer: because right now I don't have {gap} price in in head Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: but for next meeting I'm sure yeah be able to do that. Project Manager: Good good. User Interface: Yeah that's uh that's something which I wanted to ask you also, like what will be the each individually the cost of it. For example if f if you want to put wood {disfmarker} I wouldn't suggest for wood Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: uh {gap}'cause it's {disfmarker} I think it's m much easier to use a plastic or a rubber {gap} rather than wood. Industrial Designer: Okay. I agree on that. Yeah. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: It will be much ch much expensive th though it's the most natural thing, but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yes but I can I think uh I think we can just use more cheap plastic for a kind of basic edition, and then people can fancy it up with with more expensive materials Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} Yeah Project Manager: which which come with a with another price. User Interface: it's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah we we can give a preference to them, but it is {gap} but with plastic or the rubber or whatever it is {disfmarker} it's much better with that rather than going for {disfmarker} Project Manager: Do do you agree? Marketing: Mm yeah sure. Industrial Designer: Yeah but i it's a detailed uh yeah yeah uh plastic versus uh wood, User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and we need maybe to centre our description on uh the the really the what buttons what uh functionality we want to offer to the user, and maybe with uh {vocalsound} graphs or I don't know uh {disfmarker} {gap} User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: User Interface Designer you could maybe uh help us on that. Project Manager: Ma I I think uh for next meeting we c {vocalsound} you two can present a real design. Uh so drawing it on the board. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: Yea Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: Okay. Industrial Designer: Perfect yeah. Project Manager: And then we now sh only have to t to decide the general function uh. So um {disfmarker} Let let's say next meeting w {vocalsound} you produce two designs, one one one less advanced and one more advanced and with the cost price. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah sure. Yeah we will uh {disfmarker} Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: Uh furthermore we go for the for the uh basic plastic case User Interface: Uh. Project Manager: which can be later uh fancied up with uh with addit uh additional uh, how do you call them, these like like mobile telephones you can put a cover over it. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: But that that that that can be done later. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: We now can concentrate on the on the basic remote control. User Interface: {gap}. Industrial Designer: Yeah customized. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: Um. User Interface: Okay {vocalsound} {gap}. We can give them smooth keys, you know. Smooth keys with bigger s uh {disfmarker} So that you know {disfmarker} The the problem most of the time we've seen, the keys is that it's small, Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: and every time we have to be very {disfmarker} but if i the {disfmarker} if we if we go to a different ways of designing those keys, then you can merge them together Marketing: So is there any of these that you're looking at particularly User Interface: to {disfmarker} Marketing: or is this just ideas? User Interface: Oh you can actually, for example, if you see, they are they are they are quite small over here, Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: and uh {vocalsound} now you can, for example, as I was {gap} if you make them big, it may change the look of the thing also to the people. Marketing: Hmm. Mm. Mm. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. User Interface: At the same time, it is m more uh like it would be more interesting for people who are having this R_S_I_ and all {gap} problem. Marketing: Mm yeah. Project Manager: Yes yes yes bi big keys is is good thing I think. User Interface: Uh big keys may better {gap} for them actually and uh {disfmarker} Marketing: You see? Industrial Designer: I agree yeah, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and not too m too many keys of course yeah. Marketing: Mm well Project Manager: No no. Marketing: one I've had before, a r r remote control we have at home is one that's actually got a cover on the bottom User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: so the bottom bit is just, covers half the keys most of the time, and then you can slide the cover back to get to the the more advanced keys. Project Manager: Mm mm mm. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Mm w but then you have still have uh when you don't {gap} use it you have such a a an extent of your remote control Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: which you don't use. So maybe it's possible uh, I don't know whether you can can indicate this, that you can elsewhere open your remote control and on the inside are uh buttons you don't use that much. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm. Yeah. Um yeah I've seen that before too. Anoth another like b User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: it flips up and then you've got another layer of buttons underneath. Project Manager: Yes. User Interface: Yes. Yeah so it's something like this, the model here Marketing: Mm. User Interface: s {gap} you can put the keys {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Mm. Marketing: But I've seen also with keys and buttons on the top of here as well. Industrial Designer: That's what you mean? Project Manager: Yes I I th that's what I mean User Interface: Yeah. Yeah. Project Manager: so I mean something like like a book. Marketing: I like this one. I like the shape of this one. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. Marketing: Can we have {disfmarker} can we think about maybe having a a non-recta non non-rectangular one, so with not just the straight little box Industrial Designer: Yeah I like also this one. Marketing: that's a {disfmarker} maybe curved or something. User Interface: Yeah, mm. Industrial Designer: Yeah, the point is w maybe we need to also to make a decision on how how how big we want to be and how many buttons like n we should {vocalsound} dec decide numbers or {disfmarker} Marketing: Mm mm'kay. Is this for the next meeting though? User Interface: We should make a {disfmarker} Marketing: I think we might be out of time out of time for this meeting. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm. User Interface: Yeah that {disfmarker} yeah next meeting we should be {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Ju just make two designs, Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: Yeah that would depend upon us actually. Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah. Project Manager: and the we we can decide decide between th those designs. Marketing: Yep. User Interface: Yeah okay. Project Manager: I think that would be a good idea. So Industrial Designer: Perfect. Project Manager: anyone uh any questions for now? User Interface: {vocalsound} No no. I don't have. Marketing: No. So is this {disfmarker} is there anything else I need to do from a marketing point of view for the next meeting? Project Manager: Um yes I come to that uh uh {disfmarker} User Interface: Maybe it would be interesting if you could look um for the cost inventories of other devices, if you're using speech recognition or something like that. Project Manager: Yes well m maybe uh, I don't know whether that's possible, Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: maybe you can start evaluating uh their work somehow. Marketing: Okay well is this {vocalsound} me designing a way to evaluate it so {disfmarker} Thinking about how to set up test groups and things? Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't know whether that's possible uh in the given time Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: but a as far as possible. Marketing: Okay. Yep. Project Manager: So uh you two will be together w working on a o on two prototypes Industrial Designer: Exactly. User Interface: Mm. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: and further instructions will be uh will be sent to you by uh by email. Industrial Designer: Two or three prototypes? User Interface: Two. Project Manager: Two. User Interface: One for like cost and the one with like higher-end Industrial Designer: Two? Project Manager: I {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: Mm {gap} and then {disfmarker} User Interface: so that then we can be easily comparing them Industrial Designer: Yeah Project Manager: Hmm. {vocalsound} User Interface: or you know find a compromise between both of them, Industrial Designer: and find maybe a compromise. Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: Yes okay. User Interface: yeah that's how it is. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Perfect yeah. User Interface: Yep. Project Manager: Okay let's call this to an end. Marketing: Mm'kay. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: Thanks guys. Industrial Designer: Thanks. User Interface: So we are done for now. {gap}.

The marketing recommended bringing some elements of fruit and vegetables, bright colors, some eye-catching and bold design, and a spongy feel into the product. Inspired from cell phones, the marketing also proposed a changeable cover which could be customized by the user. Besides, the marketing disapproved of having LCD screens and speech recognition because he didn't think it would be worth extra expense and effort.

tr-sq-682

tr-sq-682_0

What did the project manager think of having a changeable cover when discussing product requirements? Marketing: Right first time this time. Nu There we go. It's not that complicated, but I get it wrong every time. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay so we are just waiting for Matthew {gap}. Marketing: For Matthew, yep. Project Manager: Mm. Uh {disfmarker} So I suggest we start the meeting uh without Matthew uh Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Mm'kay. Project Manager: he's uh obviously late for some reason. {vocalsound} Good. Um. Today uh we will uh talk about uh conceptual design. I hope uh you both did some uh some work uh concerning a uh conceptual design. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um this will be the uh agenda for the meeting uh {gap}. Uh I will take some minutes uh again. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um we will have the presentations of y of you different team members, Marketing: Yep. Industrial Designer: Yep. Project Manager: and then try to come to decisions uh about the concepts uh you have presented. So and that uh will uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: we have some uh forty minutes uh to complete this uh. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: So um who has the fir do you ha Anna do you have your presentation ready? Marketing: I have a presentation, I'm just making this {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah the {disfmarker} Matthew it is it's important that Matthew yeah is here Project Manager: Okay. Ah Industrial Designer: because it's really a a team uh project with a team Project Manager: there is Matthew. Industrial Designer: and if someone is not here then we cannot {disfmarker} User Interface: Sorry. Industrial Designer: but it's okay {vocalsound} it's good. {vocalsound} Marketing: Okay I'll just email you this file, my presentation. Project Manager: So. Good. Do {gap} presentation ready? Marketing: Mm-hmm I'm just emailing it to you. Project Manager: Oh okay. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: So {disfmarker} Project Manager: So did you manage uh {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah I sent you the slides, you didn't see them? Project Manager: Oh yes I see him, good yes. User Interface: Okay. {gap}. Project Manager: No. User Interface: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound}'Kay. Marketing: Okay it should've gone through to you. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay mm yes I have it. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Mm-hmm. Okay so this is just a presentation on uh the trends that we're gonna use to make the product stand out from the rest of the products out there at the moment. Um can I just put this on? So we have to work out a way {disfmarker} what we can do with our product to make it stand out and make it so people wanna buy it. Um. This is {disfmarker} to do this I will not remove my microphone. {vocalsound} We basically used um some focus group surveys which I went through with you last time, the main results of that, and um some research on the current design um and fashion trends that are out there at the moment um, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: and as part of this {disfmarker} The important aspects that came out were things that we've already discussed really. The most important by far was the look and feel of it. It needs to be something that's very different from everything else out there. It needs to stand out {vocalsound}. It needs to be not functional like the rest of the things out there at the moment. Most people find remote controls boring at the moment, we need to have something that looks interesting, that looks exciting, that will stand out. People will wanna buy it. Um {disfmarker} That was twice as i important as the next item on here which is that it has to be technologically innovative {disfmarker} has to have something else, apart from just the look of it. People have to then think about it and say {gap} got something there that I want. That's a really cool feature, and it has to make them wanna buy it again. Third on the list, and again innovative was twice as important as this last um aspect, it has to be easy to use. So they have to be able to {disfmarker} be able to look at it and have some intuitive idea of how to use it um. Drawing on the fashion trends at the moment, uh fruit and vegetables um. This is basically talking about just the the feel of it, so probably not the smell of it, but the bright colours, um eye-catching, really bold designs, and a spongy feel. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: Um I had a talk to the design people about this, but having a remote that's tactile, that feels different, that would be really cool. That would make it stand out. Um. Project Manager: Hmm. Industrial Designer: So can you repeat and be more precise about what you just said? Project Manager: Spongy feel? Industrial Designer: Uh about the feeling yeah uh yo Marketing: Well User Interface: {vocalsound} You can {disfmarker} Marketing: ma make it not necessar sp spongy is the current thing. Spongy is the current texture, but basically there are no reports no remotes at the moment which are spongy or tactile at all, so if we make it like maybe furry or soft or something, that'll be something that sets it apart, Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: rather than just bare plastic which they all are at the moment. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: So as far as the design goes, the very most important aspect was the design, to the customers. So going with the fruit and vegetable idea, we've got the bright colours, so makes it stand out, the oranges and the the bright yellows and the florescent colours, part of the fruit and vegetables um. Going back to the idea of taking inspiration from mobile phones, they've all got those {disfmarker} a lot of them have the changeable covers, so they can choose what colour the outside is. That's one way of looking at it um. Textured feel we just talked about. Maybe it's another way of doing that. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: So if it's part of the the changeable covers then may maybe they can choose a different texture, a spongy one or a soft one or something like that. So they can choose it li as they want to to maybe {disfmarker} to fit in with their decor in their living room, or just what they like, their sports team or whatever. Industrial Designer: Yeah that's a very good idea, yeah. Yeah. Marketing: Um and yeah, still taking the inspiration from the mobile phone design so functionality, the way the mobile phones work, the way the keypad looks. Also just the way that a lot of industrial design is going into mobile phones at the moment. They're big selling items. People put a lot of thought into that so we can leverage off that, and we can start using some of their ideas. Um back to technological in in innovation, not quite as important, but still a big issue. Um we talked about having a way of finding a remote control if it's been lost, uh that's one thing we could look at. There are other aspects like L_C_D_ screens and speech recognition which weren't {disfmarker} I don't think, in my personal opinion, gonna be worth the extra expense and the extra effort that will go into them. I think we're better doing something basic like this Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Marketing: which is very important and very {disfmarker} will be a really cool feature to put in. And {disfmarker} {gap} use. I had no real specific ideas for this, maybe we just, the basic idea of having your core functions big and at the top maybe, by themselves, Project Manager: Mm. Yes well Marketing: and then {disfmarker} Project Manager: maybe Matthew can can give some more information on the {disfmarker} Marketing: yeah User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: {disfmarker} and then th th the finer details of buttons you don't use as much either hidden away or completely separate. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: Yep {vocalsound} and that's the presentation. User Interface: Voila. Project Manager: Okay good, that's very clear. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah very clear. Project Manager:'Kay. Um. Uh {disfmarker} Marketing: So does anyone have any comments or ideas on that? I think you {disfmarker} Project Manager: Maybe we yes well we maybe {vocalsound} can decide later on um {vocalsound} the l the the look and feel of uh I've {disfmarker} it was a good idea maybe to to {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: To let the people choose, {gap} you mean? Project Manager: Yes the the the there are changeable covers, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: but on the other hand I I don't know whether my superiors would be so glad with it because {vocalsound} you have to introduce a complete uh uh new l line of uh of supplies Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: uh it would be uh very complicated uh organisational {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Well we're selling so many units of this. This is gonna be a mass marketed product, we can afford to have two or three different designs at least. Project Manager: Hmm. Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Yeah a range of uh yeah, a set of three, four different aspects. Marketing: Mm mm. Project Manager: Yes. Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Sure that fits the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yes {gap} and of course it will be a we we get a {disfmarker} if it works we can get uh after-sales Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: I mean that would {gap} would be very good I mean those covers could go for for three, five Euro {vocalsound}. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: That's a very good idea um {disfmarker} And then uh maybe uh we can go a th Matthew's presentation because User Interface: Yeah Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: s Project Manager: the {disfmarker} User Interface: then we could discuss later like {disfmarker} we can put all ideas together. Project Manager: Together indeed uh, Marketing: Mm. User Interface: It should be easier with that. Project Manager: because you ma might have some some information on the the easy to use, Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah I agree. Marketing: Mm-hmm, yeah. Project Manager: what you were already mentioning. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: So {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: And your part is very related to mine User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: because when you suggest something then it has to be integrated inside. User Interface: Yeah so {vocalsound} I'll I'll go with that actually Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: so um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Okay so m so {vocalsound} then the the idea of uh having a remote is generally you have uh different keys and uh different structures, different forms, and uh they could be like buttons and um they could be of uh a varying sizes if you want to to uh basically emphasize a particular key more than the other, and uh maybe like you can have different colours for example having the r red for the on off switching on and off the button. So this this is the general trend to ha the method they do. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: So what I have found was that uh currently uh the {gap} they are mostly that the T_V_, V_C_R_, music system operated ones actually, and they are very specific to each other, but there are some common keys for example if you want to follow the V_C_R_ and if you want to follow the uh g uh s some uh soundtrack on the w w see they have the common thing actually you can have Marketing: Mm. User Interface: and uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} There is also um a speech recognition to store channel information, names, like {disfmarker} You can basically {disfmarker} if you have a multiple functionality, say T_V_, V_C_R_ or something I say it to the T_V_ and the {gap} T_V_, and you can programme the keys if you want to, certain keys are even the channel information {vocalsound}. Marketing: Mm. Mm. I like the idea though of having speech recognition for like the n the name of a channel like B_B_C_, rather than having to remember the the number of it on the keypad. That's a good idea. User Interface: Yeah yeah so you you you can just uh because uh as more and more channels come then you have more and more problems to remember the v v exact channel numbers ex exactly, Industrial Designer: {gap}. Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: even if you arrange it by {disfmarker} however you arrange it, you still have the problem to remember exactly which channel you want to {disfmarker} Marketing: Hmm. Mm. Yeah I really like that idea. Industrial Designer: So what functionalities do you suggest for that? For facing this problem? User Interface: So it it it's like it {gap} limited one. In the present market I saw it that says something like they are looking for {vocalsound} eighty word thing, eighty word, Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: which shouldn't be th that difficult to implement, like eighty to hundred word. Basically you want you don't want to store all the channels in the remote control, Marketing: Mm. User Interface: you want to st store your favourite channel. Marketing: Maybe ten channels, yeah at the most. User Interface: Yeah some ten twelve channel information. You know you don't want to st store all the hundred channel information into that. Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: And uh basically uh it depends like the remote with L_C_D_ display for browsing because you have multiple functionalities for example you are watching a movie, and uh uh you are {vocalsound} having a universal remote control and you want to uh you don't know really which functionality is {gap} now, so I am using the T_V_ so every time I use it, it could be like, for example I can use a simple toggle switch, and a display, so I press it so the display says, okay, I'm in T_V_ or D_V_D_ or whatever it is, instead of having three keys separately for four keys, Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Oh yeah yeah yeah mm. User Interface: to model the functionalities will increase actually, Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: Mm. User Interface: and for you and you might want {vocalsound} Marketing: Mm. User Interface: you don't want separate keys for all of them. You can't. And uh well there can be children friendly where you can programme your remote so that they they are not allowed uh to browse certain channels which you can block them, and you can operate them. So these are the things presently which are seen in the market scenarios at present. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. User Interface: I personally would look at {vocalsound} things like having a u universal remote, is uh um is a good idea, like instead of having {gap} unusual ones for all of them you can think of having, um with multiple functionality possibly with speech recognition. Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: I got a mail from the the coffee machine interface unit that uh they have uh integrated the s speech recognition into a into the coffee machine, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Mm b User Interface: and so if you say hello coffee machine, it say hi Joe, or something like that, you know, and uh {disfmarker} Marketing: But a coffee machine, there's not too many words they'd be using with that it's a it's a small vocabulary. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah you you won't be using it, so it's a limited vocabulary mm thing, and very isolated word Marketing: Mm. Mm. User Interface: and it's uh it is interesting, and basically storing the channel through voice or other ways of programming your keys, on the display for the browsing Marketing: Mm. User Interface: which is again {disfmarker} and maybe having something like a blinking thing, like uh it could indicate you're uh {disfmarker} it it could indicate what is cal like the uh whether uh you you have enough battery in your in your uh remote, the blinking. Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: At the same time, if it's a dark room, it can be used to locate the remote also Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} or {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: And you want okay {disfmarker} for coming back to one point Marketing: Two thirty five supposed to finish. Industrial Designer: y you want to let the user to programming the keys? Some of them? User Interface: Yeah you can let them to do that. Industrial Designer: And uh isn't that too difficult for the {disfmarker} we want w I don't know if we still want the um R_C_ to be easy to use, Marketing: Hmm. Industrial Designer: that's the {gap} compromise. User Interface: N no but the {disfmarker} if you give {disfmarker} it d depends on the easiness like the user how much effort he can put. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: Like for example uh I would like to store in certain way, so if you want to give the full freedom to the user Marketing: Mm. User Interface: or you want to keep some constraints and let the user use it with that constraint. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Mm. I think you can do it both ways. User Interface: So it de Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: You can have it so it's easy {gap} they can pick it up and use it straight away without doing anythi without customizing it, Industrial Designer: A standard. Marketing: or if they want to they have the option of using these extra features. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Um yes but but I do {vocalsound} {disfmarker} User Interface: So {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: maybe you can {vocalsound} give a hand to us because I I'm not sure whether that that we can implement that for twelve Euro and fifty cents. User Interface: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: I'm sorry to have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Every time I have to come down on this price again Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: to {vocalsound} so this might be a little limiting for your creativity, Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: but it's it's it's the real {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We have to consider it. S so {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: do we think these ideas {vocalsound} an and my uh sp speech recognition, I mean maybe it's possible for for twelve Euro but then then it will be at cost of other functionality we might implement like the uh uh the the the furry uh {vocalsound} uh case of the {disfmarker} Marketing: Mm. Hmm. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm yeah like {vocalsound} I would say that for programming uh keys, you said, uh it could be uh easily uh done within the the package of twel twelve Euros, User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Mm. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: but for the A_S_R_ system, uh I'm not sure if it's feasible to have this User Interface: We well we can still look at {disfmarker} we can talk with the coffee unit Industrial Designer: We {vocalsound} User Interface: and you can uh check how much how much they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah i if if it's a low vocabulary it's already implemented, User Interface: yeah yeah Marketing: Mm. User Interface: yeah. Industrial Designer: and w how much it's cost, maybe with a f cheap chip. User Interface: Maybe we can come {vocalsound} we we can talk to them, and we can come with that, Project Manager: Mm mm. User Interface: you know. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: And also well you can think of having uh since you have a {disfmarker} you know something {gap} maybe if you added little bit of {gap} display, you might need the {disfmarker} to che keep checking the battery, so you really need a some {vocalsound} kind of indicator, Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: so it could be a blinking option of L_E_D_ {vocalsound} Project Manager: Hmm. User Interface: it could actually be used to detect also. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: If it's in a dark room you can basically detect it also. Marketing: Mm. Hmm. Project Manager: Hmm. Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound}. Marketing: I like the idea too of being able to use the remote in the dark, Project Manager: Mm. User Interface: So {disfmarker} Marketing: so either having the buttons so you can feel the difference between them or if they if they light up or something. User Interface: No actually {vocalsound} i if i it is like {disfmarker} you know it tells you um, it can be for two purposes, Marketing: Mm. User Interface: like if you have an L_C_D_ display and all those things it's not going to be the standard remote, Marketing: Mm. Hmm. User Interface: which is having uh which need just uh six six volt uh th sorry three volts um of D_C_. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: It may need more actually, so y you you may need to check your battery usage it {disfmarker} and then you need that, some functionality to indicate the battery limit. Industrial Designer: Mm. Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: And then if the battery limit is indicated, if it could be ind indicated through a blinking something Industrial Designer: It's true. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: and it can change the colour depending on your uh {disfmarker} how much is the battery, well that is good enough to even locate even if you want to. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. User Interface: You know. Project Manager:'Kay good. Industrial Designer: {gap}. User Interface: Yeah so {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: I don't know how if if I have time to talk about the {disfmarker} Project Manager: Mm yes um I would {disfmarker} User Interface: You you have time some more? Yep. Project Manager: Yes yes you can you can still. We have time. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Sure you can you know {vocalsound}. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay. So what I'm gonna present here is very uh um yeah basic knowledge about the all the the components that are inside a a R_C_ a remote control, and how is it manufactured h what is the process, just to explain you. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: So the method is {disfmarker} ther there is a a set of components in a in a remote control like {gap}, and uh what cost {disfmarker} the the components in themself do not cost a lot but the the way to assemble everything costs obviously, and I will uh show you my preferences uh uh at the end. So there are two uh different types of uh um {disfmarker} Two different ways of using the the components for making a a remote control. Project Manager: Nice. {vocalsound} User Interface: Hmm. Industrial Designer: Uh the basic way is to use a an integrated circuit and some uh transistors with an {gap} that aims at communicating uh uh the message and to to send the message to the um to the led that will uh transmit to the receiver. And uh yeah the other components and the circuit board {gap} buttons, infrared {vocalsound}, led, etcetera, for the components um. So you {gap} finding, just to say that the chip can detect uh when a key is pressed, and then it translate to the key, to a sequence, something like morse code, as you know, uh with a different sequence for each key, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. User Interface: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and uh uh that's, with the components we will use, we will have different uh messages, different sequences, and the chips sends that signal signal to the transistor that amplify to make it stronger um. So electronic parts are assembled onto uh printed boards uh because it's easier to mass produce and assemble. And uh so I think {vocalsound} for our design we want some b uh programmable uh you know V_ V_L_S_I_ or F_P_G_A_ uh high technology, User Interface: Yeah mm mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and this is important, and also we'll use uh yeah like in any uh high-tech uh devices a chip of fi fibreglass to {gap} them and connect them. User Interface: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: So my personal design {vocalsound} we need to find a solution what um what is the material of the cover we want to use. If it's plastic Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: or you said that yeah you had some ideas uh like fruit, veg or {vocalsound} Project Manager: Well well Industrial Designer: I dunno. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: m m maybe m maybe we can give the uh the uh the case a very uh uh normal a v very normal case but, with the changeable covers to fancy it up. Industrial Designer: Yes. Yes. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: So like a normal cheap plastic case which can be covered up in, for instance, a wooden case. Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yes. Marketing: Mm just have a yeah {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah like they do in with cars I think. Yeah inside the car Marketing: Just the veneer on it, yeah. Industrial Designer: yeah. So they also emailed me that uh they have {vocalsound} available a bunch of different buttons, a scroll wheels, integrated push buttons s such as a {gap} computer mouse. And uh very cheap L_C_D_s, so liquid crystal displays, User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: so I'm wondering, I think we might be able to integrate L_C_D_ into our R_C_. And the final point okay is um we have {disfmarker} yeah there are some uh compromise to to do. Marketing: Hmm. Industrial Designer: So we have to know that the push button requires a simple chip, but the scroll wheel uh and that kind of higher high-tech stuff needs more money um which is a higher price range alright. And the display requires an advanced chip, which in turns is more expensive than the regular chip, but {vocalsound} I think uh with twelve Euros um and if it's uh uh made for mm four million uh items, then I think w we could be able to handle that. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: So to {vocalsound} to sum up um we need {vocalsound} yeah so I I just said that the components uh the list of components uh has to be uh yeah listed and um and um assembly is a an important process that has to be taken into account. And uh for the designing of the cove uh uh cover layout then it's better to to to maybe see that with uh the the U_R_ exp U_R_I_ Expert User Interface: Sorry. Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: so that we can {disfmarker} it's really a team-working uh. So Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: I I cannot design something without your agreement, Project Manager: No of course. User Interface: Yeah so Industrial Designer: right? User Interface: of course for example uh I wanted to know like if you want to have a a fo if you want to have the L_C_D_ display over there, Industrial Designer: Yes. User Interface: or if you want to store a programmes with a keys {disfmarker} What kind of things you'll need inside your thin inside {disfmarker} W wh what {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah it's kind of um simple {gap} pro progra programmable device, and we have to insert. User Interface: W what {disfmarker} Okay. Okay. Industrial Designer: I think we could insert one that could underlie several functions User Interface: Okay so Industrial Designer: of {disfmarker} User Interface: in that case you can even look at the technology what the mobile phone is trying to use with the {gap} card. Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah, for customizing and yeah. User Interface: Yeah where they do all the wi with with them actually. How f cost effective it would be to put that car chip into it and do the programmable things. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah good idea. Project Manager: So I f I think we we should come to some decisions now uh a about this. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Um so I understand uh when we want a display we need a expensive chip, but when we want a scrolling wheel w we also need the expensive chip, so can we use same chip, so with one expensive chip we can uh implement several complicated uh or advanced features. Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah that's a very good idea, Project Manager: Yes. Industrial Designer: we could have uh one main chip uh that could handle, uh it's called F_P_G_A_ chip, that could handle both uh like scrolling wheels as well as uh L_C_D_ Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and Project Manager: So Industrial Designer: yeah. Project Manager: when the more expensive chip you mentioned there is is possible in the in the given budget, uh maybe we should go for for the more expensive chip, so all features uh which you mentioned can be implemented based on the same chip. Industrial Designer: Yes. User Interface: D well {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Do you think that's feasible? User Interface: Well I don't know if it'll fit into our cost of twelve point five Euro you know. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} You th you think it's possible. User Interface: Is it possible to fit in to that? Industrial Designer: Yeah also thinking, I think both uh {disfmarker} if we had a budget of twenty twenty uh Euros, it will be okay, User Interface: Sorry. Project Manager: Hmm. Industrial Designer: but uh {disfmarker} {gap}. Marketing: Well maybe we need specific costings then. Actually do maybe two designs and then cost them out and see which one is gonna fit in our budget better. Project Manager: Mm yes Industrial Designer: Yeah that's an excellent idea. Project Manager: wh when you make a {vocalsound} a design ca you can {vocalsound} {disfmarker} next meeting you can give an quite an exact cost price. Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah. Yeah Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: That w that would be a very good idea. Industrial Designer: because right now I don't have {gap} price in in head Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: but for next meeting I'm sure yeah be able to do that. Project Manager: Good good. User Interface: Yeah that's uh that's something which I wanted to ask you also, like what will be the each individually the cost of it. For example if f if you want to put wood {disfmarker} I wouldn't suggest for wood Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: uh {gap}'cause it's {disfmarker} I think it's m much easier to use a plastic or a rubber {gap} rather than wood. Industrial Designer: Okay. I agree on that. Yeah. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: It will be much ch much expensive th though it's the most natural thing, but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yes but I can I think uh I think we can just use more cheap plastic for a kind of basic edition, and then people can fancy it up with with more expensive materials Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} Yeah Project Manager: which which come with a with another price. User Interface: it's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah we we can give a preference to them, but it is {gap} but with plastic or the rubber or whatever it is {disfmarker} it's much better with that rather than going for {disfmarker} Project Manager: Do do you agree? Marketing: Mm yeah sure. Industrial Designer: Yeah but i it's a detailed uh yeah yeah uh plastic versus uh wood, User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and we need maybe to centre our description on uh the the really the what buttons what uh functionality we want to offer to the user, and maybe with uh {vocalsound} graphs or I don't know uh {disfmarker} {gap} User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: User Interface Designer you could maybe uh help us on that. Project Manager: Ma I I think uh for next meeting we c {vocalsound} you two can present a real design. Uh so drawing it on the board. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: Yea Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: Okay. Industrial Designer: Perfect yeah. Project Manager: And then we now sh only have to t to decide the general function uh. So um {disfmarker} Let let's say next meeting w {vocalsound} you produce two designs, one one one less advanced and one more advanced and with the cost price. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah sure. Yeah we will uh {disfmarker} Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: Uh furthermore we go for the for the uh basic plastic case User Interface: Uh. Project Manager: which can be later uh fancied up with uh with addit uh additional uh, how do you call them, these like like mobile telephones you can put a cover over it. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: But that that that that can be done later. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: We now can concentrate on the on the basic remote control. User Interface: {gap}. Industrial Designer: Yeah customized. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: Um. User Interface: Okay {vocalsound} {gap}. We can give them smooth keys, you know. Smooth keys with bigger s uh {disfmarker} So that you know {disfmarker} The the problem most of the time we've seen, the keys is that it's small, Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: and every time we have to be very {disfmarker} but if i the {disfmarker} if we if we go to a different ways of designing those keys, then you can merge them together Marketing: So is there any of these that you're looking at particularly User Interface: to {disfmarker} Marketing: or is this just ideas? User Interface: Oh you can actually, for example, if you see, they are they are they are quite small over here, Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: and uh {vocalsound} now you can, for example, as I was {gap} if you make them big, it may change the look of the thing also to the people. Marketing: Hmm. Mm. Mm. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. User Interface: At the same time, it is m more uh like it would be more interesting for people who are having this R_S_I_ and all {gap} problem. Marketing: Mm yeah. Project Manager: Yes yes yes bi big keys is is good thing I think. User Interface: Uh big keys may better {gap} for them actually and uh {disfmarker} Marketing: You see? Industrial Designer: I agree yeah, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and not too m too many keys of course yeah. Marketing: Mm well Project Manager: No no. Marketing: one I've had before, a r r remote control we have at home is one that's actually got a cover on the bottom User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: so the bottom bit is just, covers half the keys most of the time, and then you can slide the cover back to get to the the more advanced keys. Project Manager: Mm mm mm. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Mm w but then you have still have uh when you don't {gap} use it you have such a a an extent of your remote control Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: which you don't use. So maybe it's possible uh, I don't know whether you can can indicate this, that you can elsewhere open your remote control and on the inside are uh buttons you don't use that much. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm. Yeah. Um yeah I've seen that before too. Anoth another like b User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: it flips up and then you've got another layer of buttons underneath. Project Manager: Yes. User Interface: Yes. Yeah so it's something like this, the model here Marketing: Mm. User Interface: s {gap} you can put the keys {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Mm. Marketing: But I've seen also with keys and buttons on the top of here as well. Industrial Designer: That's what you mean? Project Manager: Yes I I th that's what I mean User Interface: Yeah. Yeah. Project Manager: so I mean something like like a book. Marketing: I like this one. I like the shape of this one. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. Marketing: Can we have {disfmarker} can we think about maybe having a a non-recta non non-rectangular one, so with not just the straight little box Industrial Designer: Yeah I like also this one. Marketing: that's a {disfmarker} maybe curved or something. User Interface: Yeah, mm. Industrial Designer: Yeah, the point is w maybe we need to also to make a decision on how how how big we want to be and how many buttons like n we should {vocalsound} dec decide numbers or {disfmarker} Marketing: Mm mm'kay. Is this for the next meeting though? User Interface: We should make a {disfmarker} Marketing: I think we might be out of time out of time for this meeting. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm. User Interface: Yeah that {disfmarker} yeah next meeting we should be {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Ju just make two designs, Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: Yeah that would depend upon us actually. Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah. Project Manager: and the we we can decide decide between th those designs. Marketing: Yep. User Interface: Yeah okay. Project Manager: I think that would be a good idea. So Industrial Designer: Perfect. Project Manager: anyone uh any questions for now? User Interface: {vocalsound} No no. I don't have. Marketing: No. So is this {disfmarker} is there anything else I need to do from a marketing point of view for the next meeting? Project Manager: Um yes I come to that uh uh {disfmarker} User Interface: Maybe it would be interesting if you could look um for the cost inventories of other devices, if you're using speech recognition or something like that. Project Manager: Yes well m maybe uh, I don't know whether that's possible, Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: maybe you can start evaluating uh their work somehow. Marketing: Okay well is this {vocalsound} me designing a way to evaluate it so {disfmarker} Thinking about how to set up test groups and things? Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't know whether that's possible uh in the given time Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: but a as far as possible. Marketing: Okay. Yep. Project Manager: So uh you two will be together w working on a o on two prototypes Industrial Designer: Exactly. User Interface: Mm. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: and further instructions will be uh will be sent to you by uh by email. Industrial Designer: Two or three prototypes? User Interface: Two. Project Manager: Two. User Interface: One for like cost and the one with like higher-end Industrial Designer: Two? Project Manager: I {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: Mm {gap} and then {disfmarker} User Interface: so that then we can be easily comparing them Industrial Designer: Yeah Project Manager: Hmm. {vocalsound} User Interface: or you know find a compromise between both of them, Industrial Designer: and find maybe a compromise. Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: Yes okay. User Interface: yeah that's how it is. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Perfect yeah. User Interface: Yep. Project Manager: Okay let's call this to an end. Marketing: Mm'kay. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: Thanks guys. Industrial Designer: Thanks. User Interface: So we are done for now. {gap}.

The project manager thought it was a good idea and the cover could go for three to five Euros. However, he wondered whether the superiors would be glad with it because it would introduce a completely new line of supplies.

tr-sq-683

tr-sq-683_0

Summarize the discussion about industrial and functional design of the product. Marketing: Right first time this time. Nu There we go. It's not that complicated, but I get it wrong every time. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay so we are just waiting for Matthew {gap}. Marketing: For Matthew, yep. Project Manager: Mm. Uh {disfmarker} So I suggest we start the meeting uh without Matthew uh Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Mm'kay. Project Manager: he's uh obviously late for some reason. {vocalsound} Good. Um. Today uh we will uh talk about uh conceptual design. I hope uh you both did some uh some work uh concerning a uh conceptual design. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um this will be the uh agenda for the meeting uh {gap}. Uh I will take some minutes uh again. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um we will have the presentations of y of you different team members, Marketing: Yep. Industrial Designer: Yep. Project Manager: and then try to come to decisions uh about the concepts uh you have presented. So and that uh will uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: we have some uh forty minutes uh to complete this uh. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: So um who has the fir do you ha Anna do you have your presentation ready? Marketing: I have a presentation, I'm just making this {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah the {disfmarker} Matthew it is it's important that Matthew yeah is here Project Manager: Okay. Ah Industrial Designer: because it's really a a team uh project with a team Project Manager: there is Matthew. Industrial Designer: and if someone is not here then we cannot {disfmarker} User Interface: Sorry. Industrial Designer: but it's okay {vocalsound} it's good. {vocalsound} Marketing: Okay I'll just email you this file, my presentation. Project Manager: So. Good. Do {gap} presentation ready? Marketing: Mm-hmm I'm just emailing it to you. Project Manager: Oh okay. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: So {disfmarker} Project Manager: So did you manage uh {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah I sent you the slides, you didn't see them? Project Manager: Oh yes I see him, good yes. User Interface: Okay. {gap}. Project Manager: No. User Interface: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound}'Kay. Marketing: Okay it should've gone through to you. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay mm yes I have it. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Mm-hmm. Okay so this is just a presentation on uh the trends that we're gonna use to make the product stand out from the rest of the products out there at the moment. Um can I just put this on? So we have to work out a way {disfmarker} what we can do with our product to make it stand out and make it so people wanna buy it. Um. This is {disfmarker} to do this I will not remove my microphone. {vocalsound} We basically used um some focus group surveys which I went through with you last time, the main results of that, and um some research on the current design um and fashion trends that are out there at the moment um, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: and as part of this {disfmarker} The important aspects that came out were things that we've already discussed really. The most important by far was the look and feel of it. It needs to be something that's very different from everything else out there. It needs to stand out {vocalsound}. It needs to be not functional like the rest of the things out there at the moment. Most people find remote controls boring at the moment, we need to have something that looks interesting, that looks exciting, that will stand out. People will wanna buy it. Um {disfmarker} That was twice as i important as the next item on here which is that it has to be technologically innovative {disfmarker} has to have something else, apart from just the look of it. People have to then think about it and say {gap} got something there that I want. That's a really cool feature, and it has to make them wanna buy it again. Third on the list, and again innovative was twice as important as this last um aspect, it has to be easy to use. So they have to be able to {disfmarker} be able to look at it and have some intuitive idea of how to use it um. Drawing on the fashion trends at the moment, uh fruit and vegetables um. This is basically talking about just the the feel of it, so probably not the smell of it, but the bright colours, um eye-catching, really bold designs, and a spongy feel. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: Um I had a talk to the design people about this, but having a remote that's tactile, that feels different, that would be really cool. That would make it stand out. Um. Project Manager: Hmm. Industrial Designer: So can you repeat and be more precise about what you just said? Project Manager: Spongy feel? Industrial Designer: Uh about the feeling yeah uh yo Marketing: Well User Interface: {vocalsound} You can {disfmarker} Marketing: ma make it not necessar sp spongy is the current thing. Spongy is the current texture, but basically there are no reports no remotes at the moment which are spongy or tactile at all, so if we make it like maybe furry or soft or something, that'll be something that sets it apart, Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: rather than just bare plastic which they all are at the moment. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: So as far as the design goes, the very most important aspect was the design, to the customers. So going with the fruit and vegetable idea, we've got the bright colours, so makes it stand out, the oranges and the the bright yellows and the florescent colours, part of the fruit and vegetables um. Going back to the idea of taking inspiration from mobile phones, they've all got those {disfmarker} a lot of them have the changeable covers, so they can choose what colour the outside is. That's one way of looking at it um. Textured feel we just talked about. Maybe it's another way of doing that. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: So if it's part of the the changeable covers then may maybe they can choose a different texture, a spongy one or a soft one or something like that. So they can choose it li as they want to to maybe {disfmarker} to fit in with their decor in their living room, or just what they like, their sports team or whatever. Industrial Designer: Yeah that's a very good idea, yeah. Yeah. Marketing: Um and yeah, still taking the inspiration from the mobile phone design so functionality, the way the mobile phones work, the way the keypad looks. Also just the way that a lot of industrial design is going into mobile phones at the moment. They're big selling items. People put a lot of thought into that so we can leverage off that, and we can start using some of their ideas. Um back to technological in in innovation, not quite as important, but still a big issue. Um we talked about having a way of finding a remote control if it's been lost, uh that's one thing we could look at. There are other aspects like L_C_D_ screens and speech recognition which weren't {disfmarker} I don't think, in my personal opinion, gonna be worth the extra expense and the extra effort that will go into them. I think we're better doing something basic like this Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Marketing: which is very important and very {disfmarker} will be a really cool feature to put in. And {disfmarker} {gap} use. I had no real specific ideas for this, maybe we just, the basic idea of having your core functions big and at the top maybe, by themselves, Project Manager: Mm. Yes well Marketing: and then {disfmarker} Project Manager: maybe Matthew can can give some more information on the {disfmarker} Marketing: yeah User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: {disfmarker} and then th th the finer details of buttons you don't use as much either hidden away or completely separate. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: Yep {vocalsound} and that's the presentation. User Interface: Voila. Project Manager: Okay good, that's very clear. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah very clear. Project Manager:'Kay. Um. Uh {disfmarker} Marketing: So does anyone have any comments or ideas on that? I think you {disfmarker} Project Manager: Maybe we yes well we maybe {vocalsound} can decide later on um {vocalsound} the l the the look and feel of uh I've {disfmarker} it was a good idea maybe to to {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: To let the people choose, {gap} you mean? Project Manager: Yes the the the there are changeable covers, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: but on the other hand I I don't know whether my superiors would be so glad with it because {vocalsound} you have to introduce a complete uh uh new l line of uh of supplies Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: uh it would be uh very complicated uh organisational {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Well we're selling so many units of this. This is gonna be a mass marketed product, we can afford to have two or three different designs at least. Project Manager: Hmm. Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Yeah a range of uh yeah, a set of three, four different aspects. Marketing: Mm mm. Project Manager: Yes. Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Sure that fits the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yes {gap} and of course it will be a we we get a {disfmarker} if it works we can get uh after-sales Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: I mean that would {gap} would be very good I mean those covers could go for for three, five Euro {vocalsound}. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: That's a very good idea um {disfmarker} And then uh maybe uh we can go a th Matthew's presentation because User Interface: Yeah Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: s Project Manager: the {disfmarker} User Interface: then we could discuss later like {disfmarker} we can put all ideas together. Project Manager: Together indeed uh, Marketing: Mm. User Interface: It should be easier with that. Project Manager: because you ma might have some some information on the the easy to use, Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah I agree. Marketing: Mm-hmm, yeah. Project Manager: what you were already mentioning. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: So {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: And your part is very related to mine User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: because when you suggest something then it has to be integrated inside. User Interface: Yeah so {vocalsound} I'll I'll go with that actually Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: so um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Okay so m so {vocalsound} then the the idea of uh having a remote is generally you have uh different keys and uh different structures, different forms, and uh they could be like buttons and um they could be of uh a varying sizes if you want to to uh basically emphasize a particular key more than the other, and uh maybe like you can have different colours for example having the r red for the on off switching on and off the button. So this this is the general trend to ha the method they do. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: So what I have found was that uh currently uh the {gap} they are mostly that the T_V_, V_C_R_, music system operated ones actually, and they are very specific to each other, but there are some common keys for example if you want to follow the V_C_R_ and if you want to follow the uh g uh s some uh soundtrack on the w w see they have the common thing actually you can have Marketing: Mm. User Interface: and uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} There is also um a speech recognition to store channel information, names, like {disfmarker} You can basically {disfmarker} if you have a multiple functionality, say T_V_, V_C_R_ or something I say it to the T_V_ and the {gap} T_V_, and you can programme the keys if you want to, certain keys are even the channel information {vocalsound}. Marketing: Mm. Mm. I like the idea though of having speech recognition for like the n the name of a channel like B_B_C_, rather than having to remember the the number of it on the keypad. That's a good idea. User Interface: Yeah yeah so you you you can just uh because uh as more and more channels come then you have more and more problems to remember the v v exact channel numbers ex exactly, Industrial Designer: {gap}. Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: even if you arrange it by {disfmarker} however you arrange it, you still have the problem to remember exactly which channel you want to {disfmarker} Marketing: Hmm. Mm. Yeah I really like that idea. Industrial Designer: So what functionalities do you suggest for that? For facing this problem? User Interface: So it it it's like it {gap} limited one. In the present market I saw it that says something like they are looking for {vocalsound} eighty word thing, eighty word, Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: which shouldn't be th that difficult to implement, like eighty to hundred word. Basically you want you don't want to store all the channels in the remote control, Marketing: Mm. User Interface: you want to st store your favourite channel. Marketing: Maybe ten channels, yeah at the most. User Interface: Yeah some ten twelve channel information. You know you don't want to st store all the hundred channel information into that. Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: And uh basically uh it depends like the remote with L_C_D_ display for browsing because you have multiple functionalities for example you are watching a movie, and uh uh you are {vocalsound} having a universal remote control and you want to uh you don't know really which functionality is {gap} now, so I am using the T_V_ so every time I use it, it could be like, for example I can use a simple toggle switch, and a display, so I press it so the display says, okay, I'm in T_V_ or D_V_D_ or whatever it is, instead of having three keys separately for four keys, Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Oh yeah yeah yeah mm. User Interface: to model the functionalities will increase actually, Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: Mm. User Interface: and for you and you might want {vocalsound} Marketing: Mm. User Interface: you don't want separate keys for all of them. You can't. And uh well there can be children friendly where you can programme your remote so that they they are not allowed uh to browse certain channels which you can block them, and you can operate them. So these are the things presently which are seen in the market scenarios at present. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. User Interface: I personally would look at {vocalsound} things like having a u universal remote, is uh um is a good idea, like instead of having {gap} unusual ones for all of them you can think of having, um with multiple functionality possibly with speech recognition. Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: I got a mail from the the coffee machine interface unit that uh they have uh integrated the s speech recognition into a into the coffee machine, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Mm b User Interface: and so if you say hello coffee machine, it say hi Joe, or something like that, you know, and uh {disfmarker} Marketing: But a coffee machine, there's not too many words they'd be using with that it's a it's a small vocabulary. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah you you won't be using it, so it's a limited vocabulary mm thing, and very isolated word Marketing: Mm. Mm. User Interface: and it's uh it is interesting, and basically storing the channel through voice or other ways of programming your keys, on the display for the browsing Marketing: Mm. User Interface: which is again {disfmarker} and maybe having something like a blinking thing, like uh it could indicate you're uh {disfmarker} it it could indicate what is cal like the uh whether uh you you have enough battery in your in your uh remote, the blinking. Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: At the same time, if it's a dark room, it can be used to locate the remote also Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} or {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: And you want okay {disfmarker} for coming back to one point Marketing: Two thirty five supposed to finish. Industrial Designer: y you want to let the user to programming the keys? Some of them? User Interface: Yeah you can let them to do that. Industrial Designer: And uh isn't that too difficult for the {disfmarker} we want w I don't know if we still want the um R_C_ to be easy to use, Marketing: Hmm. Industrial Designer: that's the {gap} compromise. User Interface: N no but the {disfmarker} if you give {disfmarker} it d depends on the easiness like the user how much effort he can put. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: Like for example uh I would like to store in certain way, so if you want to give the full freedom to the user Marketing: Mm. User Interface: or you want to keep some constraints and let the user use it with that constraint. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Mm. I think you can do it both ways. User Interface: So it de Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: You can have it so it's easy {gap} they can pick it up and use it straight away without doing anythi without customizing it, Industrial Designer: A standard. Marketing: or if they want to they have the option of using these extra features. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Um yes but but I do {vocalsound} {disfmarker} User Interface: So {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: maybe you can {vocalsound} give a hand to us because I I'm not sure whether that that we can implement that for twelve Euro and fifty cents. User Interface: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: I'm sorry to have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Every time I have to come down on this price again Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: to {vocalsound} so this might be a little limiting for your creativity, Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: but it's it's it's the real {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We have to consider it. S so {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: do we think these ideas {vocalsound} an and my uh sp speech recognition, I mean maybe it's possible for for twelve Euro but then then it will be at cost of other functionality we might implement like the uh uh the the the furry uh {vocalsound} uh case of the {disfmarker} Marketing: Mm. Hmm. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm yeah like {vocalsound} I would say that for programming uh keys, you said, uh it could be uh easily uh done within the the package of twel twelve Euros, User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Mm. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: but for the A_S_R_ system, uh I'm not sure if it's feasible to have this User Interface: We well we can still look at {disfmarker} we can talk with the coffee unit Industrial Designer: We {vocalsound} User Interface: and you can uh check how much how much they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah i if if it's a low vocabulary it's already implemented, User Interface: yeah yeah Marketing: Mm. User Interface: yeah. Industrial Designer: and w how much it's cost, maybe with a f cheap chip. User Interface: Maybe we can come {vocalsound} we we can talk to them, and we can come with that, Project Manager: Mm mm. User Interface: you know. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: And also well you can think of having uh since you have a {disfmarker} you know something {gap} maybe if you added little bit of {gap} display, you might need the {disfmarker} to che keep checking the battery, so you really need a some {vocalsound} kind of indicator, Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: so it could be a blinking option of L_E_D_ {vocalsound} Project Manager: Hmm. User Interface: it could actually be used to detect also. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: If it's in a dark room you can basically detect it also. Marketing: Mm. Hmm. Project Manager: Hmm. Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound}. Marketing: I like the idea too of being able to use the remote in the dark, Project Manager: Mm. User Interface: So {disfmarker} Marketing: so either having the buttons so you can feel the difference between them or if they if they light up or something. User Interface: No actually {vocalsound} i if i it is like {disfmarker} you know it tells you um, it can be for two purposes, Marketing: Mm. User Interface: like if you have an L_C_D_ display and all those things it's not going to be the standard remote, Marketing: Mm. Hmm. User Interface: which is having uh which need just uh six six volt uh th sorry three volts um of D_C_. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: It may need more actually, so y you you may need to check your battery usage it {disfmarker} and then you need that, some functionality to indicate the battery limit. Industrial Designer: Mm. Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: And then if the battery limit is indicated, if it could be ind indicated through a blinking something Industrial Designer: It's true. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: and it can change the colour depending on your uh {disfmarker} how much is the battery, well that is good enough to even locate even if you want to. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. User Interface: You know. Project Manager:'Kay good. Industrial Designer: {gap}. User Interface: Yeah so {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: I don't know how if if I have time to talk about the {disfmarker} Project Manager: Mm yes um I would {disfmarker} User Interface: You you have time some more? Yep. Project Manager: Yes yes you can you can still. We have time. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Sure you can you know {vocalsound}. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay. So what I'm gonna present here is very uh um yeah basic knowledge about the all the the components that are inside a a R_C_ a remote control, and how is it manufactured h what is the process, just to explain you. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: So the method is {disfmarker} ther there is a a set of components in a in a remote control like {gap}, and uh what cost {disfmarker} the the components in themself do not cost a lot but the the way to assemble everything costs obviously, and I will uh show you my preferences uh uh at the end. So there are two uh different types of uh um {disfmarker} Two different ways of using the the components for making a a remote control. Project Manager: Nice. {vocalsound} User Interface: Hmm. Industrial Designer: Uh the basic way is to use a an integrated circuit and some uh transistors with an {gap} that aims at communicating uh uh the message and to to send the message to the um to the led that will uh transmit to the receiver. And uh yeah the other components and the circuit board {gap} buttons, infrared {vocalsound}, led, etcetera, for the components um. So you {gap} finding, just to say that the chip can detect uh when a key is pressed, and then it translate to the key, to a sequence, something like morse code, as you know, uh with a different sequence for each key, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. User Interface: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and uh uh that's, with the components we will use, we will have different uh messages, different sequences, and the chips sends that signal signal to the transistor that amplify to make it stronger um. So electronic parts are assembled onto uh printed boards uh because it's easier to mass produce and assemble. And uh so I think {vocalsound} for our design we want some b uh programmable uh you know V_ V_L_S_I_ or F_P_G_A_ uh high technology, User Interface: Yeah mm mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and this is important, and also we'll use uh yeah like in any uh high-tech uh devices a chip of fi fibreglass to {gap} them and connect them. User Interface: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: So my personal design {vocalsound} we need to find a solution what um what is the material of the cover we want to use. If it's plastic Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: or you said that yeah you had some ideas uh like fruit, veg or {vocalsound} Project Manager: Well well Industrial Designer: I dunno. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: m m maybe m maybe we can give the uh the uh the case a very uh uh normal a v very normal case but, with the changeable covers to fancy it up. Industrial Designer: Yes. Yes. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: So like a normal cheap plastic case which can be covered up in, for instance, a wooden case. Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yes. Marketing: Mm just have a yeah {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah like they do in with cars I think. Yeah inside the car Marketing: Just the veneer on it, yeah. Industrial Designer: yeah. So they also emailed me that uh they have {vocalsound} available a bunch of different buttons, a scroll wheels, integrated push buttons s such as a {gap} computer mouse. And uh very cheap L_C_D_s, so liquid crystal displays, User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: so I'm wondering, I think we might be able to integrate L_C_D_ into our R_C_. And the final point okay is um we have {disfmarker} yeah there are some uh compromise to to do. Marketing: Hmm. Industrial Designer: So we have to know that the push button requires a simple chip, but the scroll wheel uh and that kind of higher high-tech stuff needs more money um which is a higher price range alright. And the display requires an advanced chip, which in turns is more expensive than the regular chip, but {vocalsound} I think uh with twelve Euros um and if it's uh uh made for mm four million uh items, then I think w we could be able to handle that. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: So to {vocalsound} to sum up um we need {vocalsound} yeah so I I just said that the components uh the list of components uh has to be uh yeah listed and um and um assembly is a an important process that has to be taken into account. And uh for the designing of the cove uh uh cover layout then it's better to to to maybe see that with uh the the U_R_ exp U_R_I_ Expert User Interface: Sorry. Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: so that we can {disfmarker} it's really a team-working uh. So Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: I I cannot design something without your agreement, Project Manager: No of course. User Interface: Yeah so Industrial Designer: right? User Interface: of course for example uh I wanted to know like if you want to have a a fo if you want to have the L_C_D_ display over there, Industrial Designer: Yes. User Interface: or if you want to store a programmes with a keys {disfmarker} What kind of things you'll need inside your thin inside {disfmarker} W wh what {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah it's kind of um simple {gap} pro progra programmable device, and we have to insert. User Interface: W what {disfmarker} Okay. Okay. Industrial Designer: I think we could insert one that could underlie several functions User Interface: Okay so Industrial Designer: of {disfmarker} User Interface: in that case you can even look at the technology what the mobile phone is trying to use with the {gap} card. Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah, for customizing and yeah. User Interface: Yeah where they do all the wi with with them actually. How f cost effective it would be to put that car chip into it and do the programmable things. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah good idea. Project Manager: So I f I think we we should come to some decisions now uh a about this. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Um so I understand uh when we want a display we need a expensive chip, but when we want a scrolling wheel w we also need the expensive chip, so can we use same chip, so with one expensive chip we can uh implement several complicated uh or advanced features. Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah that's a very good idea, Project Manager: Yes. Industrial Designer: we could have uh one main chip uh that could handle, uh it's called F_P_G_A_ chip, that could handle both uh like scrolling wheels as well as uh L_C_D_ Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and Project Manager: So Industrial Designer: yeah. Project Manager: when the more expensive chip you mentioned there is is possible in the in the given budget, uh maybe we should go for for the more expensive chip, so all features uh which you mentioned can be implemented based on the same chip. Industrial Designer: Yes. User Interface: D well {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Do you think that's feasible? User Interface: Well I don't know if it'll fit into our cost of twelve point five Euro you know. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} You th you think it's possible. User Interface: Is it possible to fit in to that? Industrial Designer: Yeah also thinking, I think both uh {disfmarker} if we had a budget of twenty twenty uh Euros, it will be okay, User Interface: Sorry. Project Manager: Hmm. Industrial Designer: but uh {disfmarker} {gap}. Marketing: Well maybe we need specific costings then. Actually do maybe two designs and then cost them out and see which one is gonna fit in our budget better. Project Manager: Mm yes Industrial Designer: Yeah that's an excellent idea. Project Manager: wh when you make a {vocalsound} a design ca you can {vocalsound} {disfmarker} next meeting you can give an quite an exact cost price. Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah. Yeah Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: That w that would be a very good idea. Industrial Designer: because right now I don't have {gap} price in in head Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: but for next meeting I'm sure yeah be able to do that. Project Manager: Good good. User Interface: Yeah that's uh that's something which I wanted to ask you also, like what will be the each individually the cost of it. For example if f if you want to put wood {disfmarker} I wouldn't suggest for wood Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: uh {gap}'cause it's {disfmarker} I think it's m much easier to use a plastic or a rubber {gap} rather than wood. Industrial Designer: Okay. I agree on that. Yeah. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: It will be much ch much expensive th though it's the most natural thing, but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yes but I can I think uh I think we can just use more cheap plastic for a kind of basic edition, and then people can fancy it up with with more expensive materials Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} Yeah Project Manager: which which come with a with another price. User Interface: it's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah we we can give a preference to them, but it is {gap} but with plastic or the rubber or whatever it is {disfmarker} it's much better with that rather than going for {disfmarker} Project Manager: Do do you agree? Marketing: Mm yeah sure. Industrial Designer: Yeah but i it's a detailed uh yeah yeah uh plastic versus uh wood, User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and we need maybe to centre our description on uh the the really the what buttons what uh functionality we want to offer to the user, and maybe with uh {vocalsound} graphs or I don't know uh {disfmarker} {gap} User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: User Interface Designer you could maybe uh help us on that. Project Manager: Ma I I think uh for next meeting we c {vocalsound} you two can present a real design. Uh so drawing it on the board. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: Yea Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: Okay. Industrial Designer: Perfect yeah. Project Manager: And then we now sh only have to t to decide the general function uh. So um {disfmarker} Let let's say next meeting w {vocalsound} you produce two designs, one one one less advanced and one more advanced and with the cost price. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah sure. Yeah we will uh {disfmarker} Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: Uh furthermore we go for the for the uh basic plastic case User Interface: Uh. Project Manager: which can be later uh fancied up with uh with addit uh additional uh, how do you call them, these like like mobile telephones you can put a cover over it. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: But that that that that can be done later. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: We now can concentrate on the on the basic remote control. User Interface: {gap}. Industrial Designer: Yeah customized. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: Um. User Interface: Okay {vocalsound} {gap}. We can give them smooth keys, you know. Smooth keys with bigger s uh {disfmarker} So that you know {disfmarker} The the problem most of the time we've seen, the keys is that it's small, Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: and every time we have to be very {disfmarker} but if i the {disfmarker} if we if we go to a different ways of designing those keys, then you can merge them together Marketing: So is there any of these that you're looking at particularly User Interface: to {disfmarker} Marketing: or is this just ideas? User Interface: Oh you can actually, for example, if you see, they are they are they are quite small over here, Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: and uh {vocalsound} now you can, for example, as I was {gap} if you make them big, it may change the look of the thing also to the people. Marketing: Hmm. Mm. Mm. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. User Interface: At the same time, it is m more uh like it would be more interesting for people who are having this R_S_I_ and all {gap} problem. Marketing: Mm yeah. Project Manager: Yes yes yes bi big keys is is good thing I think. User Interface: Uh big keys may better {gap} for them actually and uh {disfmarker} Marketing: You see? Industrial Designer: I agree yeah, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and not too m too many keys of course yeah. Marketing: Mm well Project Manager: No no. Marketing: one I've had before, a r r remote control we have at home is one that's actually got a cover on the bottom User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: so the bottom bit is just, covers half the keys most of the time, and then you can slide the cover back to get to the the more advanced keys. Project Manager: Mm mm mm. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Mm w but then you have still have uh when you don't {gap} use it you have such a a an extent of your remote control Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: which you don't use. So maybe it's possible uh, I don't know whether you can can indicate this, that you can elsewhere open your remote control and on the inside are uh buttons you don't use that much. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm. Yeah. Um yeah I've seen that before too. Anoth another like b User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: it flips up and then you've got another layer of buttons underneath. Project Manager: Yes. User Interface: Yes. Yeah so it's something like this, the model here Marketing: Mm. User Interface: s {gap} you can put the keys {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Mm. Marketing: But I've seen also with keys and buttons on the top of here as well. Industrial Designer: That's what you mean? Project Manager: Yes I I th that's what I mean User Interface: Yeah. Yeah. Project Manager: so I mean something like like a book. Marketing: I like this one. I like the shape of this one. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. Marketing: Can we have {disfmarker} can we think about maybe having a a non-recta non non-rectangular one, so with not just the straight little box Industrial Designer: Yeah I like also this one. Marketing: that's a {disfmarker} maybe curved or something. User Interface: Yeah, mm. Industrial Designer: Yeah, the point is w maybe we need to also to make a decision on how how how big we want to be and how many buttons like n we should {vocalsound} dec decide numbers or {disfmarker} Marketing: Mm mm'kay. Is this for the next meeting though? User Interface: We should make a {disfmarker} Marketing: I think we might be out of time out of time for this meeting. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm. User Interface: Yeah that {disfmarker} yeah next meeting we should be {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Ju just make two designs, Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: Yeah that would depend upon us actually. Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah. Project Manager: and the we we can decide decide between th those designs. Marketing: Yep. User Interface: Yeah okay. Project Manager: I think that would be a good idea. So Industrial Designer: Perfect. Project Manager: anyone uh any questions for now? User Interface: {vocalsound} No no. I don't have. Marketing: No. So is this {disfmarker} is there anything else I need to do from a marketing point of view for the next meeting? Project Manager: Um yes I come to that uh uh {disfmarker} User Interface: Maybe it would be interesting if you could look um for the cost inventories of other devices, if you're using speech recognition or something like that. Project Manager: Yes well m maybe uh, I don't know whether that's possible, Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: maybe you can start evaluating uh their work somehow. Marketing: Okay well is this {vocalsound} me designing a way to evaluate it so {disfmarker} Thinking about how to set up test groups and things? Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't know whether that's possible uh in the given time Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: but a as far as possible. Marketing: Okay. Yep. Project Manager: So uh you two will be together w working on a o on two prototypes Industrial Designer: Exactly. User Interface: Mm. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: and further instructions will be uh will be sent to you by uh by email. Industrial Designer: Two or three prototypes? User Interface: Two. Project Manager: Two. User Interface: One for like cost and the one with like higher-end Industrial Designer: Two? Project Manager: I {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: Mm {gap} and then {disfmarker} User Interface: so that then we can be easily comparing them Industrial Designer: Yeah Project Manager: Hmm. {vocalsound} User Interface: or you know find a compromise between both of them, Industrial Designer: and find maybe a compromise. Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: Yes okay. User Interface: yeah that's how it is. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Perfect yeah. User Interface: Yep. Project Manager: Okay let's call this to an end. Marketing: Mm'kay. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: Thanks guys. Industrial Designer: Thanks. User Interface: So we are done for now. {gap}.

The user interface designer wanted a universal controller with speech recognition to store channel information so that the users could just say out the name of a channel like BBC instead of remembering the exact number of it. Also, a blinking thing which could serve as the battery alarm and the indicator of the location of the controller was taken into account by the group. The user interface designer wanted the product to be children-friendly, which meant users could program it to prevent children from browsing certain channels. In terms of the product components, there would be an integrated circuit, some transistors, buttons, scroll wheels, infrared, LED, LCD, and an advanced chip.

tr-sq-684

tr-sq-684_0

What was the decision of the discussion about the feasibility of letting the user program the keys? Marketing: Right first time this time. Nu There we go. It's not that complicated, but I get it wrong every time. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay so we are just waiting for Matthew {gap}. Marketing: For Matthew, yep. Project Manager: Mm. Uh {disfmarker} So I suggest we start the meeting uh without Matthew uh Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Mm'kay. Project Manager: he's uh obviously late for some reason. {vocalsound} Good. Um. Today uh we will uh talk about uh conceptual design. I hope uh you both did some uh some work uh concerning a uh conceptual design. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um this will be the uh agenda for the meeting uh {gap}. Uh I will take some minutes uh again. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um we will have the presentations of y of you different team members, Marketing: Yep. Industrial Designer: Yep. Project Manager: and then try to come to decisions uh about the concepts uh you have presented. So and that uh will uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: we have some uh forty minutes uh to complete this uh. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: So um who has the fir do you ha Anna do you have your presentation ready? Marketing: I have a presentation, I'm just making this {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah the {disfmarker} Matthew it is it's important that Matthew yeah is here Project Manager: Okay. Ah Industrial Designer: because it's really a a team uh project with a team Project Manager: there is Matthew. Industrial Designer: and if someone is not here then we cannot {disfmarker} User Interface: Sorry. Industrial Designer: but it's okay {vocalsound} it's good. {vocalsound} Marketing: Okay I'll just email you this file, my presentation. Project Manager: So. Good. Do {gap} presentation ready? Marketing: Mm-hmm I'm just emailing it to you. Project Manager: Oh okay. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: So {disfmarker} Project Manager: So did you manage uh {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah I sent you the slides, you didn't see them? Project Manager: Oh yes I see him, good yes. User Interface: Okay. {gap}. Project Manager: No. User Interface: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound}'Kay. Marketing: Okay it should've gone through to you. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay mm yes I have it. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Mm-hmm. Okay so this is just a presentation on uh the trends that we're gonna use to make the product stand out from the rest of the products out there at the moment. Um can I just put this on? So we have to work out a way {disfmarker} what we can do with our product to make it stand out and make it so people wanna buy it. Um. This is {disfmarker} to do this I will not remove my microphone. {vocalsound} We basically used um some focus group surveys which I went through with you last time, the main results of that, and um some research on the current design um and fashion trends that are out there at the moment um, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: and as part of this {disfmarker} The important aspects that came out were things that we've already discussed really. The most important by far was the look and feel of it. It needs to be something that's very different from everything else out there. It needs to stand out {vocalsound}. It needs to be not functional like the rest of the things out there at the moment. Most people find remote controls boring at the moment, we need to have something that looks interesting, that looks exciting, that will stand out. People will wanna buy it. Um {disfmarker} That was twice as i important as the next item on here which is that it has to be technologically innovative {disfmarker} has to have something else, apart from just the look of it. People have to then think about it and say {gap} got something there that I want. That's a really cool feature, and it has to make them wanna buy it again. Third on the list, and again innovative was twice as important as this last um aspect, it has to be easy to use. So they have to be able to {disfmarker} be able to look at it and have some intuitive idea of how to use it um. Drawing on the fashion trends at the moment, uh fruit and vegetables um. This is basically talking about just the the feel of it, so probably not the smell of it, but the bright colours, um eye-catching, really bold designs, and a spongy feel. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: Um I had a talk to the design people about this, but having a remote that's tactile, that feels different, that would be really cool. That would make it stand out. Um. Project Manager: Hmm. Industrial Designer: So can you repeat and be more precise about what you just said? Project Manager: Spongy feel? Industrial Designer: Uh about the feeling yeah uh yo Marketing: Well User Interface: {vocalsound} You can {disfmarker} Marketing: ma make it not necessar sp spongy is the current thing. Spongy is the current texture, but basically there are no reports no remotes at the moment which are spongy or tactile at all, so if we make it like maybe furry or soft or something, that'll be something that sets it apart, Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: rather than just bare plastic which they all are at the moment. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: So as far as the design goes, the very most important aspect was the design, to the customers. So going with the fruit and vegetable idea, we've got the bright colours, so makes it stand out, the oranges and the the bright yellows and the florescent colours, part of the fruit and vegetables um. Going back to the idea of taking inspiration from mobile phones, they've all got those {disfmarker} a lot of them have the changeable covers, so they can choose what colour the outside is. That's one way of looking at it um. Textured feel we just talked about. Maybe it's another way of doing that. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: So if it's part of the the changeable covers then may maybe they can choose a different texture, a spongy one or a soft one or something like that. So they can choose it li as they want to to maybe {disfmarker} to fit in with their decor in their living room, or just what they like, their sports team or whatever. Industrial Designer: Yeah that's a very good idea, yeah. Yeah. Marketing: Um and yeah, still taking the inspiration from the mobile phone design so functionality, the way the mobile phones work, the way the keypad looks. Also just the way that a lot of industrial design is going into mobile phones at the moment. They're big selling items. People put a lot of thought into that so we can leverage off that, and we can start using some of their ideas. Um back to technological in in innovation, not quite as important, but still a big issue. Um we talked about having a way of finding a remote control if it's been lost, uh that's one thing we could look at. There are other aspects like L_C_D_ screens and speech recognition which weren't {disfmarker} I don't think, in my personal opinion, gonna be worth the extra expense and the extra effort that will go into them. I think we're better doing something basic like this Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Marketing: which is very important and very {disfmarker} will be a really cool feature to put in. And {disfmarker} {gap} use. I had no real specific ideas for this, maybe we just, the basic idea of having your core functions big and at the top maybe, by themselves, Project Manager: Mm. Yes well Marketing: and then {disfmarker} Project Manager: maybe Matthew can can give some more information on the {disfmarker} Marketing: yeah User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: {disfmarker} and then th th the finer details of buttons you don't use as much either hidden away or completely separate. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: Yep {vocalsound} and that's the presentation. User Interface: Voila. Project Manager: Okay good, that's very clear. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah very clear. Project Manager:'Kay. Um. Uh {disfmarker} Marketing: So does anyone have any comments or ideas on that? I think you {disfmarker} Project Manager: Maybe we yes well we maybe {vocalsound} can decide later on um {vocalsound} the l the the look and feel of uh I've {disfmarker} it was a good idea maybe to to {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: To let the people choose, {gap} you mean? Project Manager: Yes the the the there are changeable covers, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: but on the other hand I I don't know whether my superiors would be so glad with it because {vocalsound} you have to introduce a complete uh uh new l line of uh of supplies Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: uh it would be uh very complicated uh organisational {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Well we're selling so many units of this. This is gonna be a mass marketed product, we can afford to have two or three different designs at least. Project Manager: Hmm. Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Yeah a range of uh yeah, a set of three, four different aspects. Marketing: Mm mm. Project Manager: Yes. Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Sure that fits the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yes {gap} and of course it will be a we we get a {disfmarker} if it works we can get uh after-sales Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: I mean that would {gap} would be very good I mean those covers could go for for three, five Euro {vocalsound}. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: That's a very good idea um {disfmarker} And then uh maybe uh we can go a th Matthew's presentation because User Interface: Yeah Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: s Project Manager: the {disfmarker} User Interface: then we could discuss later like {disfmarker} we can put all ideas together. Project Manager: Together indeed uh, Marketing: Mm. User Interface: It should be easier with that. Project Manager: because you ma might have some some information on the the easy to use, Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah I agree. Marketing: Mm-hmm, yeah. Project Manager: what you were already mentioning. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: So {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: And your part is very related to mine User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: because when you suggest something then it has to be integrated inside. User Interface: Yeah so {vocalsound} I'll I'll go with that actually Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: so um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Okay so m so {vocalsound} then the the idea of uh having a remote is generally you have uh different keys and uh different structures, different forms, and uh they could be like buttons and um they could be of uh a varying sizes if you want to to uh basically emphasize a particular key more than the other, and uh maybe like you can have different colours for example having the r red for the on off switching on and off the button. So this this is the general trend to ha the method they do. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: So what I have found was that uh currently uh the {gap} they are mostly that the T_V_, V_C_R_, music system operated ones actually, and they are very specific to each other, but there are some common keys for example if you want to follow the V_C_R_ and if you want to follow the uh g uh s some uh soundtrack on the w w see they have the common thing actually you can have Marketing: Mm. User Interface: and uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} There is also um a speech recognition to store channel information, names, like {disfmarker} You can basically {disfmarker} if you have a multiple functionality, say T_V_, V_C_R_ or something I say it to the T_V_ and the {gap} T_V_, and you can programme the keys if you want to, certain keys are even the channel information {vocalsound}. Marketing: Mm. Mm. I like the idea though of having speech recognition for like the n the name of a channel like B_B_C_, rather than having to remember the the number of it on the keypad. That's a good idea. User Interface: Yeah yeah so you you you can just uh because uh as more and more channels come then you have more and more problems to remember the v v exact channel numbers ex exactly, Industrial Designer: {gap}. Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: even if you arrange it by {disfmarker} however you arrange it, you still have the problem to remember exactly which channel you want to {disfmarker} Marketing: Hmm. Mm. Yeah I really like that idea. Industrial Designer: So what functionalities do you suggest for that? For facing this problem? User Interface: So it it it's like it {gap} limited one. In the present market I saw it that says something like they are looking for {vocalsound} eighty word thing, eighty word, Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: which shouldn't be th that difficult to implement, like eighty to hundred word. Basically you want you don't want to store all the channels in the remote control, Marketing: Mm. User Interface: you want to st store your favourite channel. Marketing: Maybe ten channels, yeah at the most. User Interface: Yeah some ten twelve channel information. You know you don't want to st store all the hundred channel information into that. Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: And uh basically uh it depends like the remote with L_C_D_ display for browsing because you have multiple functionalities for example you are watching a movie, and uh uh you are {vocalsound} having a universal remote control and you want to uh you don't know really which functionality is {gap} now, so I am using the T_V_ so every time I use it, it could be like, for example I can use a simple toggle switch, and a display, so I press it so the display says, okay, I'm in T_V_ or D_V_D_ or whatever it is, instead of having three keys separately for four keys, Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Oh yeah yeah yeah mm. User Interface: to model the functionalities will increase actually, Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: Mm. User Interface: and for you and you might want {vocalsound} Marketing: Mm. User Interface: you don't want separate keys for all of them. You can't. And uh well there can be children friendly where you can programme your remote so that they they are not allowed uh to browse certain channels which you can block them, and you can operate them. So these are the things presently which are seen in the market scenarios at present. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. User Interface: I personally would look at {vocalsound} things like having a u universal remote, is uh um is a good idea, like instead of having {gap} unusual ones for all of them you can think of having, um with multiple functionality possibly with speech recognition. Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: I got a mail from the the coffee machine interface unit that uh they have uh integrated the s speech recognition into a into the coffee machine, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Mm b User Interface: and so if you say hello coffee machine, it say hi Joe, or something like that, you know, and uh {disfmarker} Marketing: But a coffee machine, there's not too many words they'd be using with that it's a it's a small vocabulary. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah you you won't be using it, so it's a limited vocabulary mm thing, and very isolated word Marketing: Mm. Mm. User Interface: and it's uh it is interesting, and basically storing the channel through voice or other ways of programming your keys, on the display for the browsing Marketing: Mm. User Interface: which is again {disfmarker} and maybe having something like a blinking thing, like uh it could indicate you're uh {disfmarker} it it could indicate what is cal like the uh whether uh you you have enough battery in your in your uh remote, the blinking. Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: At the same time, if it's a dark room, it can be used to locate the remote also Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} or {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: And you want okay {disfmarker} for coming back to one point Marketing: Two thirty five supposed to finish. Industrial Designer: y you want to let the user to programming the keys? Some of them? User Interface: Yeah you can let them to do that. Industrial Designer: And uh isn't that too difficult for the {disfmarker} we want w I don't know if we still want the um R_C_ to be easy to use, Marketing: Hmm. Industrial Designer: that's the {gap} compromise. User Interface: N no but the {disfmarker} if you give {disfmarker} it d depends on the easiness like the user how much effort he can put. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: Like for example uh I would like to store in certain way, so if you want to give the full freedom to the user Marketing: Mm. User Interface: or you want to keep some constraints and let the user use it with that constraint. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Mm. I think you can do it both ways. User Interface: So it de Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: You can have it so it's easy {gap} they can pick it up and use it straight away without doing anythi without customizing it, Industrial Designer: A standard. Marketing: or if they want to they have the option of using these extra features. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Um yes but but I do {vocalsound} {disfmarker} User Interface: So {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: maybe you can {vocalsound} give a hand to us because I I'm not sure whether that that we can implement that for twelve Euro and fifty cents. User Interface: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: I'm sorry to have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Every time I have to come down on this price again Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: to {vocalsound} so this might be a little limiting for your creativity, Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: but it's it's it's the real {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We have to consider it. S so {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: do we think these ideas {vocalsound} an and my uh sp speech recognition, I mean maybe it's possible for for twelve Euro but then then it will be at cost of other functionality we might implement like the uh uh the the the furry uh {vocalsound} uh case of the {disfmarker} Marketing: Mm. Hmm. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm yeah like {vocalsound} I would say that for programming uh keys, you said, uh it could be uh easily uh done within the the package of twel twelve Euros, User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Mm. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: but for the A_S_R_ system, uh I'm not sure if it's feasible to have this User Interface: We well we can still look at {disfmarker} we can talk with the coffee unit Industrial Designer: We {vocalsound} User Interface: and you can uh check how much how much they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah i if if it's a low vocabulary it's already implemented, User Interface: yeah yeah Marketing: Mm. User Interface: yeah. Industrial Designer: and w how much it's cost, maybe with a f cheap chip. User Interface: Maybe we can come {vocalsound} we we can talk to them, and we can come with that, Project Manager: Mm mm. User Interface: you know. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: And also well you can think of having uh since you have a {disfmarker} you know something {gap} maybe if you added little bit of {gap} display, you might need the {disfmarker} to che keep checking the battery, so you really need a some {vocalsound} kind of indicator, Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: so it could be a blinking option of L_E_D_ {vocalsound} Project Manager: Hmm. User Interface: it could actually be used to detect also. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: If it's in a dark room you can basically detect it also. Marketing: Mm. Hmm. Project Manager: Hmm. Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound}. Marketing: I like the idea too of being able to use the remote in the dark, Project Manager: Mm. User Interface: So {disfmarker} Marketing: so either having the buttons so you can feel the difference between them or if they if they light up or something. User Interface: No actually {vocalsound} i if i it is like {disfmarker} you know it tells you um, it can be for two purposes, Marketing: Mm. User Interface: like if you have an L_C_D_ display and all those things it's not going to be the standard remote, Marketing: Mm. Hmm. User Interface: which is having uh which need just uh six six volt uh th sorry three volts um of D_C_. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: It may need more actually, so y you you may need to check your battery usage it {disfmarker} and then you need that, some functionality to indicate the battery limit. Industrial Designer: Mm. Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: And then if the battery limit is indicated, if it could be ind indicated through a blinking something Industrial Designer: It's true. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: and it can change the colour depending on your uh {disfmarker} how much is the battery, well that is good enough to even locate even if you want to. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. User Interface: You know. Project Manager:'Kay good. Industrial Designer: {gap}. User Interface: Yeah so {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: I don't know how if if I have time to talk about the {disfmarker} Project Manager: Mm yes um I would {disfmarker} User Interface: You you have time some more? Yep. Project Manager: Yes yes you can you can still. We have time. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Sure you can you know {vocalsound}. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay. So what I'm gonna present here is very uh um yeah basic knowledge about the all the the components that are inside a a R_C_ a remote control, and how is it manufactured h what is the process, just to explain you. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: So the method is {disfmarker} ther there is a a set of components in a in a remote control like {gap}, and uh what cost {disfmarker} the the components in themself do not cost a lot but the the way to assemble everything costs obviously, and I will uh show you my preferences uh uh at the end. So there are two uh different types of uh um {disfmarker} Two different ways of using the the components for making a a remote control. Project Manager: Nice. {vocalsound} User Interface: Hmm. Industrial Designer: Uh the basic way is to use a an integrated circuit and some uh transistors with an {gap} that aims at communicating uh uh the message and to to send the message to the um to the led that will uh transmit to the receiver. And uh yeah the other components and the circuit board {gap} buttons, infrared {vocalsound}, led, etcetera, for the components um. So you {gap} finding, just to say that the chip can detect uh when a key is pressed, and then it translate to the key, to a sequence, something like morse code, as you know, uh with a different sequence for each key, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. User Interface: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and uh uh that's, with the components we will use, we will have different uh messages, different sequences, and the chips sends that signal signal to the transistor that amplify to make it stronger um. So electronic parts are assembled onto uh printed boards uh because it's easier to mass produce and assemble. And uh so I think {vocalsound} for our design we want some b uh programmable uh you know V_ V_L_S_I_ or F_P_G_A_ uh high technology, User Interface: Yeah mm mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and this is important, and also we'll use uh yeah like in any uh high-tech uh devices a chip of fi fibreglass to {gap} them and connect them. User Interface: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: So my personal design {vocalsound} we need to find a solution what um what is the material of the cover we want to use. If it's plastic Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: or you said that yeah you had some ideas uh like fruit, veg or {vocalsound} Project Manager: Well well Industrial Designer: I dunno. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: m m maybe m maybe we can give the uh the uh the case a very uh uh normal a v very normal case but, with the changeable covers to fancy it up. Industrial Designer: Yes. Yes. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: So like a normal cheap plastic case which can be covered up in, for instance, a wooden case. Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yes. Marketing: Mm just have a yeah {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah like they do in with cars I think. Yeah inside the car Marketing: Just the veneer on it, yeah. Industrial Designer: yeah. So they also emailed me that uh they have {vocalsound} available a bunch of different buttons, a scroll wheels, integrated push buttons s such as a {gap} computer mouse. And uh very cheap L_C_D_s, so liquid crystal displays, User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: so I'm wondering, I think we might be able to integrate L_C_D_ into our R_C_. And the final point okay is um we have {disfmarker} yeah there are some uh compromise to to do. Marketing: Hmm. Industrial Designer: So we have to know that the push button requires a simple chip, but the scroll wheel uh and that kind of higher high-tech stuff needs more money um which is a higher price range alright. And the display requires an advanced chip, which in turns is more expensive than the regular chip, but {vocalsound} I think uh with twelve Euros um and if it's uh uh made for mm four million uh items, then I think w we could be able to handle that. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: So to {vocalsound} to sum up um we need {vocalsound} yeah so I I just said that the components uh the list of components uh has to be uh yeah listed and um and um assembly is a an important process that has to be taken into account. And uh for the designing of the cove uh uh cover layout then it's better to to to maybe see that with uh the the U_R_ exp U_R_I_ Expert User Interface: Sorry. Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: so that we can {disfmarker} it's really a team-working uh. So Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: I I cannot design something without your agreement, Project Manager: No of course. User Interface: Yeah so Industrial Designer: right? User Interface: of course for example uh I wanted to know like if you want to have a a fo if you want to have the L_C_D_ display over there, Industrial Designer: Yes. User Interface: or if you want to store a programmes with a keys {disfmarker} What kind of things you'll need inside your thin inside {disfmarker} W wh what {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah it's kind of um simple {gap} pro progra programmable device, and we have to insert. User Interface: W what {disfmarker} Okay. Okay. Industrial Designer: I think we could insert one that could underlie several functions User Interface: Okay so Industrial Designer: of {disfmarker} User Interface: in that case you can even look at the technology what the mobile phone is trying to use with the {gap} card. Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah, for customizing and yeah. User Interface: Yeah where they do all the wi with with them actually. How f cost effective it would be to put that car chip into it and do the programmable things. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah good idea. Project Manager: So I f I think we we should come to some decisions now uh a about this. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Um so I understand uh when we want a display we need a expensive chip, but when we want a scrolling wheel w we also need the expensive chip, so can we use same chip, so with one expensive chip we can uh implement several complicated uh or advanced features. Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah that's a very good idea, Project Manager: Yes. Industrial Designer: we could have uh one main chip uh that could handle, uh it's called F_P_G_A_ chip, that could handle both uh like scrolling wheels as well as uh L_C_D_ Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and Project Manager: So Industrial Designer: yeah. Project Manager: when the more expensive chip you mentioned there is is possible in the in the given budget, uh maybe we should go for for the more expensive chip, so all features uh which you mentioned can be implemented based on the same chip. Industrial Designer: Yes. User Interface: D well {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Do you think that's feasible? User Interface: Well I don't know if it'll fit into our cost of twelve point five Euro you know. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} You th you think it's possible. User Interface: Is it possible to fit in to that? Industrial Designer: Yeah also thinking, I think both uh {disfmarker} if we had a budget of twenty twenty uh Euros, it will be okay, User Interface: Sorry. Project Manager: Hmm. Industrial Designer: but uh {disfmarker} {gap}. Marketing: Well maybe we need specific costings then. Actually do maybe two designs and then cost them out and see which one is gonna fit in our budget better. Project Manager: Mm yes Industrial Designer: Yeah that's an excellent idea. Project Manager: wh when you make a {vocalsound} a design ca you can {vocalsound} {disfmarker} next meeting you can give an quite an exact cost price. Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah. Yeah Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: That w that would be a very good idea. Industrial Designer: because right now I don't have {gap} price in in head Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: but for next meeting I'm sure yeah be able to do that. Project Manager: Good good. User Interface: Yeah that's uh that's something which I wanted to ask you also, like what will be the each individually the cost of it. For example if f if you want to put wood {disfmarker} I wouldn't suggest for wood Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: uh {gap}'cause it's {disfmarker} I think it's m much easier to use a plastic or a rubber {gap} rather than wood. Industrial Designer: Okay. I agree on that. Yeah. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: It will be much ch much expensive th though it's the most natural thing, but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yes but I can I think uh I think we can just use more cheap plastic for a kind of basic edition, and then people can fancy it up with with more expensive materials Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} Yeah Project Manager: which which come with a with another price. User Interface: it's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah we we can give a preference to them, but it is {gap} but with plastic or the rubber or whatever it is {disfmarker} it's much better with that rather than going for {disfmarker} Project Manager: Do do you agree? Marketing: Mm yeah sure. Industrial Designer: Yeah but i it's a detailed uh yeah yeah uh plastic versus uh wood, User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and we need maybe to centre our description on uh the the really the what buttons what uh functionality we want to offer to the user, and maybe with uh {vocalsound} graphs or I don't know uh {disfmarker} {gap} User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: User Interface Designer you could maybe uh help us on that. Project Manager: Ma I I think uh for next meeting we c {vocalsound} you two can present a real design. Uh so drawing it on the board. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: Yea Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: Okay. Industrial Designer: Perfect yeah. Project Manager: And then we now sh only have to t to decide the general function uh. So um {disfmarker} Let let's say next meeting w {vocalsound} you produce two designs, one one one less advanced and one more advanced and with the cost price. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah sure. Yeah we will uh {disfmarker} Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: Uh furthermore we go for the for the uh basic plastic case User Interface: Uh. Project Manager: which can be later uh fancied up with uh with addit uh additional uh, how do you call them, these like like mobile telephones you can put a cover over it. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: But that that that that can be done later. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: We now can concentrate on the on the basic remote control. User Interface: {gap}. Industrial Designer: Yeah customized. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: Um. User Interface: Okay {vocalsound} {gap}. We can give them smooth keys, you know. Smooth keys with bigger s uh {disfmarker} So that you know {disfmarker} The the problem most of the time we've seen, the keys is that it's small, Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: and every time we have to be very {disfmarker} but if i the {disfmarker} if we if we go to a different ways of designing those keys, then you can merge them together Marketing: So is there any of these that you're looking at particularly User Interface: to {disfmarker} Marketing: or is this just ideas? User Interface: Oh you can actually, for example, if you see, they are they are they are quite small over here, Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: and uh {vocalsound} now you can, for example, as I was {gap} if you make them big, it may change the look of the thing also to the people. Marketing: Hmm. Mm. Mm. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. User Interface: At the same time, it is m more uh like it would be more interesting for people who are having this R_S_I_ and all {gap} problem. Marketing: Mm yeah. Project Manager: Yes yes yes bi big keys is is good thing I think. User Interface: Uh big keys may better {gap} for them actually and uh {disfmarker} Marketing: You see? Industrial Designer: I agree yeah, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and not too m too many keys of course yeah. Marketing: Mm well Project Manager: No no. Marketing: one I've had before, a r r remote control we have at home is one that's actually got a cover on the bottom User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: so the bottom bit is just, covers half the keys most of the time, and then you can slide the cover back to get to the the more advanced keys. Project Manager: Mm mm mm. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Mm w but then you have still have uh when you don't {gap} use it you have such a a an extent of your remote control Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: which you don't use. So maybe it's possible uh, I don't know whether you can can indicate this, that you can elsewhere open your remote control and on the inside are uh buttons you don't use that much. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm. Yeah. Um yeah I've seen that before too. Anoth another like b User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: it flips up and then you've got another layer of buttons underneath. Project Manager: Yes. User Interface: Yes. Yeah so it's something like this, the model here Marketing: Mm. User Interface: s {gap} you can put the keys {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Mm. Marketing: But I've seen also with keys and buttons on the top of here as well. Industrial Designer: That's what you mean? Project Manager: Yes I I th that's what I mean User Interface: Yeah. Yeah. Project Manager: so I mean something like like a book. Marketing: I like this one. I like the shape of this one. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. Marketing: Can we have {disfmarker} can we think about maybe having a a non-recta non non-rectangular one, so with not just the straight little box Industrial Designer: Yeah I like also this one. Marketing: that's a {disfmarker} maybe curved or something. User Interface: Yeah, mm. Industrial Designer: Yeah, the point is w maybe we need to also to make a decision on how how how big we want to be and how many buttons like n we should {vocalsound} dec decide numbers or {disfmarker} Marketing: Mm mm'kay. Is this for the next meeting though? User Interface: We should make a {disfmarker} Marketing: I think we might be out of time out of time for this meeting. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm. User Interface: Yeah that {disfmarker} yeah next meeting we should be {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Ju just make two designs, Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: Yeah that would depend upon us actually. Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah. Project Manager: and the we we can decide decide between th those designs. Marketing: Yep. User Interface: Yeah okay. Project Manager: I think that would be a good idea. So Industrial Designer: Perfect. Project Manager: anyone uh any questions for now? User Interface: {vocalsound} No no. I don't have. Marketing: No. So is this {disfmarker} is there anything else I need to do from a marketing point of view for the next meeting? Project Manager: Um yes I come to that uh uh {disfmarker} User Interface: Maybe it would be interesting if you could look um for the cost inventories of other devices, if you're using speech recognition or something like that. Project Manager: Yes well m maybe uh, I don't know whether that's possible, Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: maybe you can start evaluating uh their work somehow. Marketing: Okay well is this {vocalsound} me designing a way to evaluate it so {disfmarker} Thinking about how to set up test groups and things? Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't know whether that's possible uh in the given time Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: but a as far as possible. Marketing: Okay. Yep. Project Manager: So uh you two will be together w working on a o on two prototypes Industrial Designer: Exactly. User Interface: Mm. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: and further instructions will be uh will be sent to you by uh by email. Industrial Designer: Two or three prototypes? User Interface: Two. Project Manager: Two. User Interface: One for like cost and the one with like higher-end Industrial Designer: Two? Project Manager: I {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: Mm {gap} and then {disfmarker} User Interface: so that then we can be easily comparing them Industrial Designer: Yeah Project Manager: Hmm. {vocalsound} User Interface: or you know find a compromise between both of them, Industrial Designer: and find maybe a compromise. Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: Yes okay. User Interface: yeah that's how it is. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Perfect yeah. User Interface: Yep. Project Manager: Okay let's call this to an end. Marketing: Mm'kay. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: Thanks guys. Industrial Designer: Thanks. User Interface: So we are done for now. {gap}.

The industrial designer worried that the function would make the product difficult to use, which was against the product requirement. Then the user interface designer thought it would depend on how much effort the user could put. Thus, the group decided to produce two versions - one giving the full freedom to the user, the other keeping some constraints.

tr-sq-685

tr-sq-685_0

What did the group talk about the cost control of the product? Marketing: Right first time this time. Nu There we go. It's not that complicated, but I get it wrong every time. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay so we are just waiting for Matthew {gap}. Marketing: For Matthew, yep. Project Manager: Mm. Uh {disfmarker} So I suggest we start the meeting uh without Matthew uh Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Mm'kay. Project Manager: he's uh obviously late for some reason. {vocalsound} Good. Um. Today uh we will uh talk about uh conceptual design. I hope uh you both did some uh some work uh concerning a uh conceptual design. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um this will be the uh agenda for the meeting uh {gap}. Uh I will take some minutes uh again. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um we will have the presentations of y of you different team members, Marketing: Yep. Industrial Designer: Yep. Project Manager: and then try to come to decisions uh about the concepts uh you have presented. So and that uh will uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: we have some uh forty minutes uh to complete this uh. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: So um who has the fir do you ha Anna do you have your presentation ready? Marketing: I have a presentation, I'm just making this {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah the {disfmarker} Matthew it is it's important that Matthew yeah is here Project Manager: Okay. Ah Industrial Designer: because it's really a a team uh project with a team Project Manager: there is Matthew. Industrial Designer: and if someone is not here then we cannot {disfmarker} User Interface: Sorry. Industrial Designer: but it's okay {vocalsound} it's good. {vocalsound} Marketing: Okay I'll just email you this file, my presentation. Project Manager: So. Good. Do {gap} presentation ready? Marketing: Mm-hmm I'm just emailing it to you. Project Manager: Oh okay. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: So {disfmarker} Project Manager: So did you manage uh {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah I sent you the slides, you didn't see them? Project Manager: Oh yes I see him, good yes. User Interface: Okay. {gap}. Project Manager: No. User Interface: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound}'Kay. Marketing: Okay it should've gone through to you. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay mm yes I have it. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Mm-hmm. Okay so this is just a presentation on uh the trends that we're gonna use to make the product stand out from the rest of the products out there at the moment. Um can I just put this on? So we have to work out a way {disfmarker} what we can do with our product to make it stand out and make it so people wanna buy it. Um. This is {disfmarker} to do this I will not remove my microphone. {vocalsound} We basically used um some focus group surveys which I went through with you last time, the main results of that, and um some research on the current design um and fashion trends that are out there at the moment um, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: and as part of this {disfmarker} The important aspects that came out were things that we've already discussed really. The most important by far was the look and feel of it. It needs to be something that's very different from everything else out there. It needs to stand out {vocalsound}. It needs to be not functional like the rest of the things out there at the moment. Most people find remote controls boring at the moment, we need to have something that looks interesting, that looks exciting, that will stand out. People will wanna buy it. Um {disfmarker} That was twice as i important as the next item on here which is that it has to be technologically innovative {disfmarker} has to have something else, apart from just the look of it. People have to then think about it and say {gap} got something there that I want. That's a really cool feature, and it has to make them wanna buy it again. Third on the list, and again innovative was twice as important as this last um aspect, it has to be easy to use. So they have to be able to {disfmarker} be able to look at it and have some intuitive idea of how to use it um. Drawing on the fashion trends at the moment, uh fruit and vegetables um. This is basically talking about just the the feel of it, so probably not the smell of it, but the bright colours, um eye-catching, really bold designs, and a spongy feel. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: Um I had a talk to the design people about this, but having a remote that's tactile, that feels different, that would be really cool. That would make it stand out. Um. Project Manager: Hmm. Industrial Designer: So can you repeat and be more precise about what you just said? Project Manager: Spongy feel? Industrial Designer: Uh about the feeling yeah uh yo Marketing: Well User Interface: {vocalsound} You can {disfmarker} Marketing: ma make it not necessar sp spongy is the current thing. Spongy is the current texture, but basically there are no reports no remotes at the moment which are spongy or tactile at all, so if we make it like maybe furry or soft or something, that'll be something that sets it apart, Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: rather than just bare plastic which they all are at the moment. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: So as far as the design goes, the very most important aspect was the design, to the customers. So going with the fruit and vegetable idea, we've got the bright colours, so makes it stand out, the oranges and the the bright yellows and the florescent colours, part of the fruit and vegetables um. Going back to the idea of taking inspiration from mobile phones, they've all got those {disfmarker} a lot of them have the changeable covers, so they can choose what colour the outside is. That's one way of looking at it um. Textured feel we just talked about. Maybe it's another way of doing that. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: So if it's part of the the changeable covers then may maybe they can choose a different texture, a spongy one or a soft one or something like that. So they can choose it li as they want to to maybe {disfmarker} to fit in with their decor in their living room, or just what they like, their sports team or whatever. Industrial Designer: Yeah that's a very good idea, yeah. Yeah. Marketing: Um and yeah, still taking the inspiration from the mobile phone design so functionality, the way the mobile phones work, the way the keypad looks. Also just the way that a lot of industrial design is going into mobile phones at the moment. They're big selling items. People put a lot of thought into that so we can leverage off that, and we can start using some of their ideas. Um back to technological in in innovation, not quite as important, but still a big issue. Um we talked about having a way of finding a remote control if it's been lost, uh that's one thing we could look at. There are other aspects like L_C_D_ screens and speech recognition which weren't {disfmarker} I don't think, in my personal opinion, gonna be worth the extra expense and the extra effort that will go into them. I think we're better doing something basic like this Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Marketing: which is very important and very {disfmarker} will be a really cool feature to put in. And {disfmarker} {gap} use. I had no real specific ideas for this, maybe we just, the basic idea of having your core functions big and at the top maybe, by themselves, Project Manager: Mm. Yes well Marketing: and then {disfmarker} Project Manager: maybe Matthew can can give some more information on the {disfmarker} Marketing: yeah User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: {disfmarker} and then th th the finer details of buttons you don't use as much either hidden away or completely separate. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: Yep {vocalsound} and that's the presentation. User Interface: Voila. Project Manager: Okay good, that's very clear. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah very clear. Project Manager:'Kay. Um. Uh {disfmarker} Marketing: So does anyone have any comments or ideas on that? I think you {disfmarker} Project Manager: Maybe we yes well we maybe {vocalsound} can decide later on um {vocalsound} the l the the look and feel of uh I've {disfmarker} it was a good idea maybe to to {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: To let the people choose, {gap} you mean? Project Manager: Yes the the the there are changeable covers, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: but on the other hand I I don't know whether my superiors would be so glad with it because {vocalsound} you have to introduce a complete uh uh new l line of uh of supplies Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: uh it would be uh very complicated uh organisational {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Well we're selling so many units of this. This is gonna be a mass marketed product, we can afford to have two or three different designs at least. Project Manager: Hmm. Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Yeah a range of uh yeah, a set of three, four different aspects. Marketing: Mm mm. Project Manager: Yes. Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Sure that fits the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yes {gap} and of course it will be a we we get a {disfmarker} if it works we can get uh after-sales Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: I mean that would {gap} would be very good I mean those covers could go for for three, five Euro {vocalsound}. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: That's a very good idea um {disfmarker} And then uh maybe uh we can go a th Matthew's presentation because User Interface: Yeah Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: s Project Manager: the {disfmarker} User Interface: then we could discuss later like {disfmarker} we can put all ideas together. Project Manager: Together indeed uh, Marketing: Mm. User Interface: It should be easier with that. Project Manager: because you ma might have some some information on the the easy to use, Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah I agree. Marketing: Mm-hmm, yeah. Project Manager: what you were already mentioning. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: So {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: And your part is very related to mine User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: because when you suggest something then it has to be integrated inside. User Interface: Yeah so {vocalsound} I'll I'll go with that actually Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: so um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Okay so m so {vocalsound} then the the idea of uh having a remote is generally you have uh different keys and uh different structures, different forms, and uh they could be like buttons and um they could be of uh a varying sizes if you want to to uh basically emphasize a particular key more than the other, and uh maybe like you can have different colours for example having the r red for the on off switching on and off the button. So this this is the general trend to ha the method they do. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: So what I have found was that uh currently uh the {gap} they are mostly that the T_V_, V_C_R_, music system operated ones actually, and they are very specific to each other, but there are some common keys for example if you want to follow the V_C_R_ and if you want to follow the uh g uh s some uh soundtrack on the w w see they have the common thing actually you can have Marketing: Mm. User Interface: and uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} There is also um a speech recognition to store channel information, names, like {disfmarker} You can basically {disfmarker} if you have a multiple functionality, say T_V_, V_C_R_ or something I say it to the T_V_ and the {gap} T_V_, and you can programme the keys if you want to, certain keys are even the channel information {vocalsound}. Marketing: Mm. Mm. I like the idea though of having speech recognition for like the n the name of a channel like B_B_C_, rather than having to remember the the number of it on the keypad. That's a good idea. User Interface: Yeah yeah so you you you can just uh because uh as more and more channels come then you have more and more problems to remember the v v exact channel numbers ex exactly, Industrial Designer: {gap}. Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: even if you arrange it by {disfmarker} however you arrange it, you still have the problem to remember exactly which channel you want to {disfmarker} Marketing: Hmm. Mm. Yeah I really like that idea. Industrial Designer: So what functionalities do you suggest for that? For facing this problem? User Interface: So it it it's like it {gap} limited one. In the present market I saw it that says something like they are looking for {vocalsound} eighty word thing, eighty word, Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: which shouldn't be th that difficult to implement, like eighty to hundred word. Basically you want you don't want to store all the channels in the remote control, Marketing: Mm. User Interface: you want to st store your favourite channel. Marketing: Maybe ten channels, yeah at the most. User Interface: Yeah some ten twelve channel information. You know you don't want to st store all the hundred channel information into that. Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: And uh basically uh it depends like the remote with L_C_D_ display for browsing because you have multiple functionalities for example you are watching a movie, and uh uh you are {vocalsound} having a universal remote control and you want to uh you don't know really which functionality is {gap} now, so I am using the T_V_ so every time I use it, it could be like, for example I can use a simple toggle switch, and a display, so I press it so the display says, okay, I'm in T_V_ or D_V_D_ or whatever it is, instead of having three keys separately for four keys, Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Oh yeah yeah yeah mm. User Interface: to model the functionalities will increase actually, Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: Mm. User Interface: and for you and you might want {vocalsound} Marketing: Mm. User Interface: you don't want separate keys for all of them. You can't. And uh well there can be children friendly where you can programme your remote so that they they are not allowed uh to browse certain channels which you can block them, and you can operate them. So these are the things presently which are seen in the market scenarios at present. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. User Interface: I personally would look at {vocalsound} things like having a u universal remote, is uh um is a good idea, like instead of having {gap} unusual ones for all of them you can think of having, um with multiple functionality possibly with speech recognition. Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: I got a mail from the the coffee machine interface unit that uh they have uh integrated the s speech recognition into a into the coffee machine, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Mm b User Interface: and so if you say hello coffee machine, it say hi Joe, or something like that, you know, and uh {disfmarker} Marketing: But a coffee machine, there's not too many words they'd be using with that it's a it's a small vocabulary. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah you you won't be using it, so it's a limited vocabulary mm thing, and very isolated word Marketing: Mm. Mm. User Interface: and it's uh it is interesting, and basically storing the channel through voice or other ways of programming your keys, on the display for the browsing Marketing: Mm. User Interface: which is again {disfmarker} and maybe having something like a blinking thing, like uh it could indicate you're uh {disfmarker} it it could indicate what is cal like the uh whether uh you you have enough battery in your in your uh remote, the blinking. Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: At the same time, if it's a dark room, it can be used to locate the remote also Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} or {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: And you want okay {disfmarker} for coming back to one point Marketing: Two thirty five supposed to finish. Industrial Designer: y you want to let the user to programming the keys? Some of them? User Interface: Yeah you can let them to do that. Industrial Designer: And uh isn't that too difficult for the {disfmarker} we want w I don't know if we still want the um R_C_ to be easy to use, Marketing: Hmm. Industrial Designer: that's the {gap} compromise. User Interface: N no but the {disfmarker} if you give {disfmarker} it d depends on the easiness like the user how much effort he can put. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: Like for example uh I would like to store in certain way, so if you want to give the full freedom to the user Marketing: Mm. User Interface: or you want to keep some constraints and let the user use it with that constraint. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Mm. I think you can do it both ways. User Interface: So it de Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: You can have it so it's easy {gap} they can pick it up and use it straight away without doing anythi without customizing it, Industrial Designer: A standard. Marketing: or if they want to they have the option of using these extra features. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Um yes but but I do {vocalsound} {disfmarker} User Interface: So {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: maybe you can {vocalsound} give a hand to us because I I'm not sure whether that that we can implement that for twelve Euro and fifty cents. User Interface: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: I'm sorry to have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Every time I have to come down on this price again Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: to {vocalsound} so this might be a little limiting for your creativity, Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: but it's it's it's the real {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We have to consider it. S so {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: do we think these ideas {vocalsound} an and my uh sp speech recognition, I mean maybe it's possible for for twelve Euro but then then it will be at cost of other functionality we might implement like the uh uh the the the furry uh {vocalsound} uh case of the {disfmarker} Marketing: Mm. Hmm. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm yeah like {vocalsound} I would say that for programming uh keys, you said, uh it could be uh easily uh done within the the package of twel twelve Euros, User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Mm. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: but for the A_S_R_ system, uh I'm not sure if it's feasible to have this User Interface: We well we can still look at {disfmarker} we can talk with the coffee unit Industrial Designer: We {vocalsound} User Interface: and you can uh check how much how much they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah i if if it's a low vocabulary it's already implemented, User Interface: yeah yeah Marketing: Mm. User Interface: yeah. Industrial Designer: and w how much it's cost, maybe with a f cheap chip. User Interface: Maybe we can come {vocalsound} we we can talk to them, and we can come with that, Project Manager: Mm mm. User Interface: you know. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: And also well you can think of having uh since you have a {disfmarker} you know something {gap} maybe if you added little bit of {gap} display, you might need the {disfmarker} to che keep checking the battery, so you really need a some {vocalsound} kind of indicator, Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: so it could be a blinking option of L_E_D_ {vocalsound} Project Manager: Hmm. User Interface: it could actually be used to detect also. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: If it's in a dark room you can basically detect it also. Marketing: Mm. Hmm. Project Manager: Hmm. Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound}. Marketing: I like the idea too of being able to use the remote in the dark, Project Manager: Mm. User Interface: So {disfmarker} Marketing: so either having the buttons so you can feel the difference between them or if they if they light up or something. User Interface: No actually {vocalsound} i if i it is like {disfmarker} you know it tells you um, it can be for two purposes, Marketing: Mm. User Interface: like if you have an L_C_D_ display and all those things it's not going to be the standard remote, Marketing: Mm. Hmm. User Interface: which is having uh which need just uh six six volt uh th sorry three volts um of D_C_. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: It may need more actually, so y you you may need to check your battery usage it {disfmarker} and then you need that, some functionality to indicate the battery limit. Industrial Designer: Mm. Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: And then if the battery limit is indicated, if it could be ind indicated through a blinking something Industrial Designer: It's true. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: and it can change the colour depending on your uh {disfmarker} how much is the battery, well that is good enough to even locate even if you want to. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. User Interface: You know. Project Manager:'Kay good. Industrial Designer: {gap}. User Interface: Yeah so {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: I don't know how if if I have time to talk about the {disfmarker} Project Manager: Mm yes um I would {disfmarker} User Interface: You you have time some more? Yep. Project Manager: Yes yes you can you can still. We have time. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Sure you can you know {vocalsound}. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay. So what I'm gonna present here is very uh um yeah basic knowledge about the all the the components that are inside a a R_C_ a remote control, and how is it manufactured h what is the process, just to explain you. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: So the method is {disfmarker} ther there is a a set of components in a in a remote control like {gap}, and uh what cost {disfmarker} the the components in themself do not cost a lot but the the way to assemble everything costs obviously, and I will uh show you my preferences uh uh at the end. So there are two uh different types of uh um {disfmarker} Two different ways of using the the components for making a a remote control. Project Manager: Nice. {vocalsound} User Interface: Hmm. Industrial Designer: Uh the basic way is to use a an integrated circuit and some uh transistors with an {gap} that aims at communicating uh uh the message and to to send the message to the um to the led that will uh transmit to the receiver. And uh yeah the other components and the circuit board {gap} buttons, infrared {vocalsound}, led, etcetera, for the components um. So you {gap} finding, just to say that the chip can detect uh when a key is pressed, and then it translate to the key, to a sequence, something like morse code, as you know, uh with a different sequence for each key, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. User Interface: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and uh uh that's, with the components we will use, we will have different uh messages, different sequences, and the chips sends that signal signal to the transistor that amplify to make it stronger um. So electronic parts are assembled onto uh printed boards uh because it's easier to mass produce and assemble. And uh so I think {vocalsound} for our design we want some b uh programmable uh you know V_ V_L_S_I_ or F_P_G_A_ uh high technology, User Interface: Yeah mm mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and this is important, and also we'll use uh yeah like in any uh high-tech uh devices a chip of fi fibreglass to {gap} them and connect them. User Interface: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: So my personal design {vocalsound} we need to find a solution what um what is the material of the cover we want to use. If it's plastic Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: or you said that yeah you had some ideas uh like fruit, veg or {vocalsound} Project Manager: Well well Industrial Designer: I dunno. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: m m maybe m maybe we can give the uh the uh the case a very uh uh normal a v very normal case but, with the changeable covers to fancy it up. Industrial Designer: Yes. Yes. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: So like a normal cheap plastic case which can be covered up in, for instance, a wooden case. Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yes. Marketing: Mm just have a yeah {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah like they do in with cars I think. Yeah inside the car Marketing: Just the veneer on it, yeah. Industrial Designer: yeah. So they also emailed me that uh they have {vocalsound} available a bunch of different buttons, a scroll wheels, integrated push buttons s such as a {gap} computer mouse. And uh very cheap L_C_D_s, so liquid crystal displays, User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: so I'm wondering, I think we might be able to integrate L_C_D_ into our R_C_. And the final point okay is um we have {disfmarker} yeah there are some uh compromise to to do. Marketing: Hmm. Industrial Designer: So we have to know that the push button requires a simple chip, but the scroll wheel uh and that kind of higher high-tech stuff needs more money um which is a higher price range alright. And the display requires an advanced chip, which in turns is more expensive than the regular chip, but {vocalsound} I think uh with twelve Euros um and if it's uh uh made for mm four million uh items, then I think w we could be able to handle that. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: So to {vocalsound} to sum up um we need {vocalsound} yeah so I I just said that the components uh the list of components uh has to be uh yeah listed and um and um assembly is a an important process that has to be taken into account. And uh for the designing of the cove uh uh cover layout then it's better to to to maybe see that with uh the the U_R_ exp U_R_I_ Expert User Interface: Sorry. Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: so that we can {disfmarker} it's really a team-working uh. So Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: I I cannot design something without your agreement, Project Manager: No of course. User Interface: Yeah so Industrial Designer: right? User Interface: of course for example uh I wanted to know like if you want to have a a fo if you want to have the L_C_D_ display over there, Industrial Designer: Yes. User Interface: or if you want to store a programmes with a keys {disfmarker} What kind of things you'll need inside your thin inside {disfmarker} W wh what {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah it's kind of um simple {gap} pro progra programmable device, and we have to insert. User Interface: W what {disfmarker} Okay. Okay. Industrial Designer: I think we could insert one that could underlie several functions User Interface: Okay so Industrial Designer: of {disfmarker} User Interface: in that case you can even look at the technology what the mobile phone is trying to use with the {gap} card. Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah, for customizing and yeah. User Interface: Yeah where they do all the wi with with them actually. How f cost effective it would be to put that car chip into it and do the programmable things. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah good idea. Project Manager: So I f I think we we should come to some decisions now uh a about this. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Um so I understand uh when we want a display we need a expensive chip, but when we want a scrolling wheel w we also need the expensive chip, so can we use same chip, so with one expensive chip we can uh implement several complicated uh or advanced features. Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah that's a very good idea, Project Manager: Yes. Industrial Designer: we could have uh one main chip uh that could handle, uh it's called F_P_G_A_ chip, that could handle both uh like scrolling wheels as well as uh L_C_D_ Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and Project Manager: So Industrial Designer: yeah. Project Manager: when the more expensive chip you mentioned there is is possible in the in the given budget, uh maybe we should go for for the more expensive chip, so all features uh which you mentioned can be implemented based on the same chip. Industrial Designer: Yes. User Interface: D well {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Do you think that's feasible? User Interface: Well I don't know if it'll fit into our cost of twelve point five Euro you know. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} You th you think it's possible. User Interface: Is it possible to fit in to that? Industrial Designer: Yeah also thinking, I think both uh {disfmarker} if we had a budget of twenty twenty uh Euros, it will be okay, User Interface: Sorry. Project Manager: Hmm. Industrial Designer: but uh {disfmarker} {gap}. Marketing: Well maybe we need specific costings then. Actually do maybe two designs and then cost them out and see which one is gonna fit in our budget better. Project Manager: Mm yes Industrial Designer: Yeah that's an excellent idea. Project Manager: wh when you make a {vocalsound} a design ca you can {vocalsound} {disfmarker} next meeting you can give an quite an exact cost price. Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah. Yeah Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: That w that would be a very good idea. Industrial Designer: because right now I don't have {gap} price in in head Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: but for next meeting I'm sure yeah be able to do that. Project Manager: Good good. User Interface: Yeah that's uh that's something which I wanted to ask you also, like what will be the each individually the cost of it. For example if f if you want to put wood {disfmarker} I wouldn't suggest for wood Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: uh {gap}'cause it's {disfmarker} I think it's m much easier to use a plastic or a rubber {gap} rather than wood. Industrial Designer: Okay. I agree on that. Yeah. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: It will be much ch much expensive th though it's the most natural thing, but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yes but I can I think uh I think we can just use more cheap plastic for a kind of basic edition, and then people can fancy it up with with more expensive materials Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} Yeah Project Manager: which which come with a with another price. User Interface: it's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah we we can give a preference to them, but it is {gap} but with plastic or the rubber or whatever it is {disfmarker} it's much better with that rather than going for {disfmarker} Project Manager: Do do you agree? Marketing: Mm yeah sure. Industrial Designer: Yeah but i it's a detailed uh yeah yeah uh plastic versus uh wood, User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and we need maybe to centre our description on uh the the really the what buttons what uh functionality we want to offer to the user, and maybe with uh {vocalsound} graphs or I don't know uh {disfmarker} {gap} User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: User Interface Designer you could maybe uh help us on that. Project Manager: Ma I I think uh for next meeting we c {vocalsound} you two can present a real design. Uh so drawing it on the board. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: Yea Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: Okay. Industrial Designer: Perfect yeah. Project Manager: And then we now sh only have to t to decide the general function uh. So um {disfmarker} Let let's say next meeting w {vocalsound} you produce two designs, one one one less advanced and one more advanced and with the cost price. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah sure. Yeah we will uh {disfmarker} Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: Uh furthermore we go for the for the uh basic plastic case User Interface: Uh. Project Manager: which can be later uh fancied up with uh with addit uh additional uh, how do you call them, these like like mobile telephones you can put a cover over it. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: But that that that that can be done later. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: We now can concentrate on the on the basic remote control. User Interface: {gap}. Industrial Designer: Yeah customized. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: Um. User Interface: Okay {vocalsound} {gap}. We can give them smooth keys, you know. Smooth keys with bigger s uh {disfmarker} So that you know {disfmarker} The the problem most of the time we've seen, the keys is that it's small, Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: and every time we have to be very {disfmarker} but if i the {disfmarker} if we if we go to a different ways of designing those keys, then you can merge them together Marketing: So is there any of these that you're looking at particularly User Interface: to {disfmarker} Marketing: or is this just ideas? User Interface: Oh you can actually, for example, if you see, they are they are they are quite small over here, Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: and uh {vocalsound} now you can, for example, as I was {gap} if you make them big, it may change the look of the thing also to the people. Marketing: Hmm. Mm. Mm. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. User Interface: At the same time, it is m more uh like it would be more interesting for people who are having this R_S_I_ and all {gap} problem. Marketing: Mm yeah. Project Manager: Yes yes yes bi big keys is is good thing I think. User Interface: Uh big keys may better {gap} for them actually and uh {disfmarker} Marketing: You see? Industrial Designer: I agree yeah, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and not too m too many keys of course yeah. Marketing: Mm well Project Manager: No no. Marketing: one I've had before, a r r remote control we have at home is one that's actually got a cover on the bottom User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: so the bottom bit is just, covers half the keys most of the time, and then you can slide the cover back to get to the the more advanced keys. Project Manager: Mm mm mm. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Mm w but then you have still have uh when you don't {gap} use it you have such a a an extent of your remote control Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: which you don't use. So maybe it's possible uh, I don't know whether you can can indicate this, that you can elsewhere open your remote control and on the inside are uh buttons you don't use that much. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm. Yeah. Um yeah I've seen that before too. Anoth another like b User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: it flips up and then you've got another layer of buttons underneath. Project Manager: Yes. User Interface: Yes. Yeah so it's something like this, the model here Marketing: Mm. User Interface: s {gap} you can put the keys {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Mm. Marketing: But I've seen also with keys and buttons on the top of here as well. Industrial Designer: That's what you mean? Project Manager: Yes I I th that's what I mean User Interface: Yeah. Yeah. Project Manager: so I mean something like like a book. Marketing: I like this one. I like the shape of this one. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. Marketing: Can we have {disfmarker} can we think about maybe having a a non-recta non non-rectangular one, so with not just the straight little box Industrial Designer: Yeah I like also this one. Marketing: that's a {disfmarker} maybe curved or something. User Interface: Yeah, mm. Industrial Designer: Yeah, the point is w maybe we need to also to make a decision on how how how big we want to be and how many buttons like n we should {vocalsound} dec decide numbers or {disfmarker} Marketing: Mm mm'kay. Is this for the next meeting though? User Interface: We should make a {disfmarker} Marketing: I think we might be out of time out of time for this meeting. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm. User Interface: Yeah that {disfmarker} yeah next meeting we should be {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Ju just make two designs, Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: Yeah that would depend upon us actually. Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah. Project Manager: and the we we can decide decide between th those designs. Marketing: Yep. User Interface: Yeah okay. Project Manager: I think that would be a good idea. So Industrial Designer: Perfect. Project Manager: anyone uh any questions for now? User Interface: {vocalsound} No no. I don't have. Marketing: No. So is this {disfmarker} is there anything else I need to do from a marketing point of view for the next meeting? Project Manager: Um yes I come to that uh uh {disfmarker} User Interface: Maybe it would be interesting if you could look um for the cost inventories of other devices, if you're using speech recognition or something like that. Project Manager: Yes well m maybe uh, I don't know whether that's possible, Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: maybe you can start evaluating uh their work somehow. Marketing: Okay well is this {vocalsound} me designing a way to evaluate it so {disfmarker} Thinking about how to set up test groups and things? Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't know whether that's possible uh in the given time Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: but a as far as possible. Marketing: Okay. Yep. Project Manager: So uh you two will be together w working on a o on two prototypes Industrial Designer: Exactly. User Interface: Mm. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: and further instructions will be uh will be sent to you by uh by email. Industrial Designer: Two or three prototypes? User Interface: Two. Project Manager: Two. User Interface: One for like cost and the one with like higher-end Industrial Designer: Two? Project Manager: I {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: Mm {gap} and then {disfmarker} User Interface: so that then we can be easily comparing them Industrial Designer: Yeah Project Manager: Hmm. {vocalsound} User Interface: or you know find a compromise between both of them, Industrial Designer: and find maybe a compromise. Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: Yes okay. User Interface: yeah that's how it is. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Perfect yeah. User Interface: Yep. Project Manager: Okay let's call this to an end. Marketing: Mm'kay. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: Thanks guys. Industrial Designer: Thanks. User Interface: So we are done for now. {gap}.

The project manager wondered whether they could implement the design for twelve Euro and fifty cents. Then the industrial designer replied that the function of programming the keys was affordable while the feasibility of the ASR system was uncertain. Therefore, maybe they should make some compromise. Finally, the industrial designer and the user interface designer were required to provide two designs with the exact cost price at the next meeting so that they could see which one fit their budget better.

tr-gq-686

tr-gq-686_0

Summarize the whole meeting. Marketing: Right first time this time. Nu There we go. It's not that complicated, but I get it wrong every time. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay so we are just waiting for Matthew {gap}. Marketing: For Matthew, yep. Project Manager: Mm. Uh {disfmarker} So I suggest we start the meeting uh without Matthew uh Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Mm'kay. Project Manager: he's uh obviously late for some reason. {vocalsound} Good. Um. Today uh we will uh talk about uh conceptual design. I hope uh you both did some uh some work uh concerning a uh conceptual design. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um this will be the uh agenda for the meeting uh {gap}. Uh I will take some minutes uh again. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um we will have the presentations of y of you different team members, Marketing: Yep. Industrial Designer: Yep. Project Manager: and then try to come to decisions uh about the concepts uh you have presented. So and that uh will uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: we have some uh forty minutes uh to complete this uh. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: So um who has the fir do you ha Anna do you have your presentation ready? Marketing: I have a presentation, I'm just making this {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah the {disfmarker} Matthew it is it's important that Matthew yeah is here Project Manager: Okay. Ah Industrial Designer: because it's really a a team uh project with a team Project Manager: there is Matthew. Industrial Designer: and if someone is not here then we cannot {disfmarker} User Interface: Sorry. Industrial Designer: but it's okay {vocalsound} it's good. {vocalsound} Marketing: Okay I'll just email you this file, my presentation. Project Manager: So. Good. Do {gap} presentation ready? Marketing: Mm-hmm I'm just emailing it to you. Project Manager: Oh okay. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: So {disfmarker} Project Manager: So did you manage uh {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah I sent you the slides, you didn't see them? Project Manager: Oh yes I see him, good yes. User Interface: Okay. {gap}. Project Manager: No. User Interface: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound}'Kay. Marketing: Okay it should've gone through to you. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay mm yes I have it. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Mm-hmm. Okay so this is just a presentation on uh the trends that we're gonna use to make the product stand out from the rest of the products out there at the moment. Um can I just put this on? So we have to work out a way {disfmarker} what we can do with our product to make it stand out and make it so people wanna buy it. Um. This is {disfmarker} to do this I will not remove my microphone. {vocalsound} We basically used um some focus group surveys which I went through with you last time, the main results of that, and um some research on the current design um and fashion trends that are out there at the moment um, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: and as part of this {disfmarker} The important aspects that came out were things that we've already discussed really. The most important by far was the look and feel of it. It needs to be something that's very different from everything else out there. It needs to stand out {vocalsound}. It needs to be not functional like the rest of the things out there at the moment. Most people find remote controls boring at the moment, we need to have something that looks interesting, that looks exciting, that will stand out. People will wanna buy it. Um {disfmarker} That was twice as i important as the next item on here which is that it has to be technologically innovative {disfmarker} has to have something else, apart from just the look of it. People have to then think about it and say {gap} got something there that I want. That's a really cool feature, and it has to make them wanna buy it again. Third on the list, and again innovative was twice as important as this last um aspect, it has to be easy to use. So they have to be able to {disfmarker} be able to look at it and have some intuitive idea of how to use it um. Drawing on the fashion trends at the moment, uh fruit and vegetables um. This is basically talking about just the the feel of it, so probably not the smell of it, but the bright colours, um eye-catching, really bold designs, and a spongy feel. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: Um I had a talk to the design people about this, but having a remote that's tactile, that feels different, that would be really cool. That would make it stand out. Um. Project Manager: Hmm. Industrial Designer: So can you repeat and be more precise about what you just said? Project Manager: Spongy feel? Industrial Designer: Uh about the feeling yeah uh yo Marketing: Well User Interface: {vocalsound} You can {disfmarker} Marketing: ma make it not necessar sp spongy is the current thing. Spongy is the current texture, but basically there are no reports no remotes at the moment which are spongy or tactile at all, so if we make it like maybe furry or soft or something, that'll be something that sets it apart, Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: rather than just bare plastic which they all are at the moment. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: So as far as the design goes, the very most important aspect was the design, to the customers. So going with the fruit and vegetable idea, we've got the bright colours, so makes it stand out, the oranges and the the bright yellows and the florescent colours, part of the fruit and vegetables um. Going back to the idea of taking inspiration from mobile phones, they've all got those {disfmarker} a lot of them have the changeable covers, so they can choose what colour the outside is. That's one way of looking at it um. Textured feel we just talked about. Maybe it's another way of doing that. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: So if it's part of the the changeable covers then may maybe they can choose a different texture, a spongy one or a soft one or something like that. So they can choose it li as they want to to maybe {disfmarker} to fit in with their decor in their living room, or just what they like, their sports team or whatever. Industrial Designer: Yeah that's a very good idea, yeah. Yeah. Marketing: Um and yeah, still taking the inspiration from the mobile phone design so functionality, the way the mobile phones work, the way the keypad looks. Also just the way that a lot of industrial design is going into mobile phones at the moment. They're big selling items. People put a lot of thought into that so we can leverage off that, and we can start using some of their ideas. Um back to technological in in innovation, not quite as important, but still a big issue. Um we talked about having a way of finding a remote control if it's been lost, uh that's one thing we could look at. There are other aspects like L_C_D_ screens and speech recognition which weren't {disfmarker} I don't think, in my personal opinion, gonna be worth the extra expense and the extra effort that will go into them. I think we're better doing something basic like this Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Marketing: which is very important and very {disfmarker} will be a really cool feature to put in. And {disfmarker} {gap} use. I had no real specific ideas for this, maybe we just, the basic idea of having your core functions big and at the top maybe, by themselves, Project Manager: Mm. Yes well Marketing: and then {disfmarker} Project Manager: maybe Matthew can can give some more information on the {disfmarker} Marketing: yeah User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: {disfmarker} and then th th the finer details of buttons you don't use as much either hidden away or completely separate. Project Manager: Mm. Marketing: Yep {vocalsound} and that's the presentation. User Interface: Voila. Project Manager: Okay good, that's very clear. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah very clear. Project Manager:'Kay. Um. Uh {disfmarker} Marketing: So does anyone have any comments or ideas on that? I think you {disfmarker} Project Manager: Maybe we yes well we maybe {vocalsound} can decide later on um {vocalsound} the l the the look and feel of uh I've {disfmarker} it was a good idea maybe to to {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: To let the people choose, {gap} you mean? Project Manager: Yes the the the there are changeable covers, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: but on the other hand I I don't know whether my superiors would be so glad with it because {vocalsound} you have to introduce a complete uh uh new l line of uh of supplies Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: uh it would be uh very complicated uh organisational {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Well we're selling so many units of this. This is gonna be a mass marketed product, we can afford to have two or three different designs at least. Project Manager: Hmm. Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Yeah a range of uh yeah, a set of three, four different aspects. Marketing: Mm mm. Project Manager: Yes. Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Sure that fits the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yes {gap} and of course it will be a we we get a {disfmarker} if it works we can get uh after-sales Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: I mean that would {gap} would be very good I mean those covers could go for for three, five Euro {vocalsound}. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: That's a very good idea um {disfmarker} And then uh maybe uh we can go a th Matthew's presentation because User Interface: Yeah Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: s Project Manager: the {disfmarker} User Interface: then we could discuss later like {disfmarker} we can put all ideas together. Project Manager: Together indeed uh, Marketing: Mm. User Interface: It should be easier with that. Project Manager: because you ma might have some some information on the the easy to use, Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah I agree. Marketing: Mm-hmm, yeah. Project Manager: what you were already mentioning. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: So {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: And your part is very related to mine User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: because when you suggest something then it has to be integrated inside. User Interface: Yeah so {vocalsound} I'll I'll go with that actually Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: so um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Okay so m so {vocalsound} then the the idea of uh having a remote is generally you have uh different keys and uh different structures, different forms, and uh they could be like buttons and um they could be of uh a varying sizes if you want to to uh basically emphasize a particular key more than the other, and uh maybe like you can have different colours for example having the r red for the on off switching on and off the button. So this this is the general trend to ha the method they do. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: So what I have found was that uh currently uh the {gap} they are mostly that the T_V_, V_C_R_, music system operated ones actually, and they are very specific to each other, but there are some common keys for example if you want to follow the V_C_R_ and if you want to follow the uh g uh s some uh soundtrack on the w w see they have the common thing actually you can have Marketing: Mm. User Interface: and uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} There is also um a speech recognition to store channel information, names, like {disfmarker} You can basically {disfmarker} if you have a multiple functionality, say T_V_, V_C_R_ or something I say it to the T_V_ and the {gap} T_V_, and you can programme the keys if you want to, certain keys are even the channel information {vocalsound}. Marketing: Mm. Mm. I like the idea though of having speech recognition for like the n the name of a channel like B_B_C_, rather than having to remember the the number of it on the keypad. That's a good idea. User Interface: Yeah yeah so you you you can just uh because uh as more and more channels come then you have more and more problems to remember the v v exact channel numbers ex exactly, Industrial Designer: {gap}. Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: even if you arrange it by {disfmarker} however you arrange it, you still have the problem to remember exactly which channel you want to {disfmarker} Marketing: Hmm. Mm. Yeah I really like that idea. Industrial Designer: So what functionalities do you suggest for that? For facing this problem? User Interface: So it it it's like it {gap} limited one. In the present market I saw it that says something like they are looking for {vocalsound} eighty word thing, eighty word, Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: which shouldn't be th that difficult to implement, like eighty to hundred word. Basically you want you don't want to store all the channels in the remote control, Marketing: Mm. User Interface: you want to st store your favourite channel. Marketing: Maybe ten channels, yeah at the most. User Interface: Yeah some ten twelve channel information. You know you don't want to st store all the hundred channel information into that. Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: And uh basically uh it depends like the remote with L_C_D_ display for browsing because you have multiple functionalities for example you are watching a movie, and uh uh you are {vocalsound} having a universal remote control and you want to uh you don't know really which functionality is {gap} now, so I am using the T_V_ so every time I use it, it could be like, for example I can use a simple toggle switch, and a display, so I press it so the display says, okay, I'm in T_V_ or D_V_D_ or whatever it is, instead of having three keys separately for four keys, Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Oh yeah yeah yeah mm. User Interface: to model the functionalities will increase actually, Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: Mm. User Interface: and for you and you might want {vocalsound} Marketing: Mm. User Interface: you don't want separate keys for all of them. You can't. And uh well there can be children friendly where you can programme your remote so that they they are not allowed uh to browse certain channels which you can block them, and you can operate them. So these are the things presently which are seen in the market scenarios at present. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. User Interface: I personally would look at {vocalsound} things like having a u universal remote, is uh um is a good idea, like instead of having {gap} unusual ones for all of them you can think of having, um with multiple functionality possibly with speech recognition. Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: I got a mail from the the coffee machine interface unit that uh they have uh integrated the s speech recognition into a into the coffee machine, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Mm b User Interface: and so if you say hello coffee machine, it say hi Joe, or something like that, you know, and uh {disfmarker} Marketing: But a coffee machine, there's not too many words they'd be using with that it's a it's a small vocabulary. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah you you won't be using it, so it's a limited vocabulary mm thing, and very isolated word Marketing: Mm. Mm. User Interface: and it's uh it is interesting, and basically storing the channel through voice or other ways of programming your keys, on the display for the browsing Marketing: Mm. User Interface: which is again {disfmarker} and maybe having something like a blinking thing, like uh it could indicate you're uh {disfmarker} it it could indicate what is cal like the uh whether uh you you have enough battery in your in your uh remote, the blinking. Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: At the same time, if it's a dark room, it can be used to locate the remote also Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} or {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: And you want okay {disfmarker} for coming back to one point Marketing: Two thirty five supposed to finish. Industrial Designer: y you want to let the user to programming the keys? Some of them? User Interface: Yeah you can let them to do that. Industrial Designer: And uh isn't that too difficult for the {disfmarker} we want w I don't know if we still want the um R_C_ to be easy to use, Marketing: Hmm. Industrial Designer: that's the {gap} compromise. User Interface: N no but the {disfmarker} if you give {disfmarker} it d depends on the easiness like the user how much effort he can put. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: Like for example uh I would like to store in certain way, so if you want to give the full freedom to the user Marketing: Mm. User Interface: or you want to keep some constraints and let the user use it with that constraint. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Mm. I think you can do it both ways. User Interface: So it de Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: You can have it so it's easy {gap} they can pick it up and use it straight away without doing anythi without customizing it, Industrial Designer: A standard. Marketing: or if they want to they have the option of using these extra features. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Um yes but but I do {vocalsound} {disfmarker} User Interface: So {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: maybe you can {vocalsound} give a hand to us because I I'm not sure whether that that we can implement that for twelve Euro and fifty cents. User Interface: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: I'm sorry to have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Every time I have to come down on this price again Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: to {vocalsound} so this might be a little limiting for your creativity, Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: but it's it's it's the real {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We have to consider it. S so {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: do we think these ideas {vocalsound} an and my uh sp speech recognition, I mean maybe it's possible for for twelve Euro but then then it will be at cost of other functionality we might implement like the uh uh the the the furry uh {vocalsound} uh case of the {disfmarker} Marketing: Mm. Hmm. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm yeah like {vocalsound} I would say that for programming uh keys, you said, uh it could be uh easily uh done within the the package of twel twelve Euros, User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Mm. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: but for the A_S_R_ system, uh I'm not sure if it's feasible to have this User Interface: We well we can still look at {disfmarker} we can talk with the coffee unit Industrial Designer: We {vocalsound} User Interface: and you can uh check how much how much they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah i if if it's a low vocabulary it's already implemented, User Interface: yeah yeah Marketing: Mm. User Interface: yeah. Industrial Designer: and w how much it's cost, maybe with a f cheap chip. User Interface: Maybe we can come {vocalsound} we we can talk to them, and we can come with that, Project Manager: Mm mm. User Interface: you know. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: And also well you can think of having uh since you have a {disfmarker} you know something {gap} maybe if you added little bit of {gap} display, you might need the {disfmarker} to che keep checking the battery, so you really need a some {vocalsound} kind of indicator, Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: so it could be a blinking option of L_E_D_ {vocalsound} Project Manager: Hmm. User Interface: it could actually be used to detect also. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: If it's in a dark room you can basically detect it also. Marketing: Mm. Hmm. Project Manager: Hmm. Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound}. Marketing: I like the idea too of being able to use the remote in the dark, Project Manager: Mm. User Interface: So {disfmarker} Marketing: so either having the buttons so you can feel the difference between them or if they if they light up or something. User Interface: No actually {vocalsound} i if i it is like {disfmarker} you know it tells you um, it can be for two purposes, Marketing: Mm. User Interface: like if you have an L_C_D_ display and all those things it's not going to be the standard remote, Marketing: Mm. Hmm. User Interface: which is having uh which need just uh six six volt uh th sorry three volts um of D_C_. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: It may need more actually, so y you you may need to check your battery usage it {disfmarker} and then you need that, some functionality to indicate the battery limit. Industrial Designer: Mm. Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: And then if the battery limit is indicated, if it could be ind indicated through a blinking something Industrial Designer: It's true. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: and it can change the colour depending on your uh {disfmarker} how much is the battery, well that is good enough to even locate even if you want to. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. User Interface: You know. Project Manager:'Kay good. Industrial Designer: {gap}. User Interface: Yeah so {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: I don't know how if if I have time to talk about the {disfmarker} Project Manager: Mm yes um I would {disfmarker} User Interface: You you have time some more? Yep. Project Manager: Yes yes you can you can still. We have time. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Sure you can you know {vocalsound}. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay. So what I'm gonna present here is very uh um yeah basic knowledge about the all the the components that are inside a a R_C_ a remote control, and how is it manufactured h what is the process, just to explain you. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: So the method is {disfmarker} ther there is a a set of components in a in a remote control like {gap}, and uh what cost {disfmarker} the the components in themself do not cost a lot but the the way to assemble everything costs obviously, and I will uh show you my preferences uh uh at the end. So there are two uh different types of uh um {disfmarker} Two different ways of using the the components for making a a remote control. Project Manager: Nice. {vocalsound} User Interface: Hmm. Industrial Designer: Uh the basic way is to use a an integrated circuit and some uh transistors with an {gap} that aims at communicating uh uh the message and to to send the message to the um to the led that will uh transmit to the receiver. And uh yeah the other components and the circuit board {gap} buttons, infrared {vocalsound}, led, etcetera, for the components um. So you {gap} finding, just to say that the chip can detect uh when a key is pressed, and then it translate to the key, to a sequence, something like morse code, as you know, uh with a different sequence for each key, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. User Interface: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and uh uh that's, with the components we will use, we will have different uh messages, different sequences, and the chips sends that signal signal to the transistor that amplify to make it stronger um. So electronic parts are assembled onto uh printed boards uh because it's easier to mass produce and assemble. And uh so I think {vocalsound} for our design we want some b uh programmable uh you know V_ V_L_S_I_ or F_P_G_A_ uh high technology, User Interface: Yeah mm mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and this is important, and also we'll use uh yeah like in any uh high-tech uh devices a chip of fi fibreglass to {gap} them and connect them. User Interface: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: So my personal design {vocalsound} we need to find a solution what um what is the material of the cover we want to use. If it's plastic Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: or you said that yeah you had some ideas uh like fruit, veg or {vocalsound} Project Manager: Well well Industrial Designer: I dunno. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: m m maybe m maybe we can give the uh the uh the case a very uh uh normal a v very normal case but, with the changeable covers to fancy it up. Industrial Designer: Yes. Yes. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: So like a normal cheap plastic case which can be covered up in, for instance, a wooden case. Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yes. Marketing: Mm just have a yeah {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah like they do in with cars I think. Yeah inside the car Marketing: Just the veneer on it, yeah. Industrial Designer: yeah. So they also emailed me that uh they have {vocalsound} available a bunch of different buttons, a scroll wheels, integrated push buttons s such as a {gap} computer mouse. And uh very cheap L_C_D_s, so liquid crystal displays, User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: so I'm wondering, I think we might be able to integrate L_C_D_ into our R_C_. And the final point okay is um we have {disfmarker} yeah there are some uh compromise to to do. Marketing: Hmm. Industrial Designer: So we have to know that the push button requires a simple chip, but the scroll wheel uh and that kind of higher high-tech stuff needs more money um which is a higher price range alright. And the display requires an advanced chip, which in turns is more expensive than the regular chip, but {vocalsound} I think uh with twelve Euros um and if it's uh uh made for mm four million uh items, then I think w we could be able to handle that. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: So to {vocalsound} to sum up um we need {vocalsound} yeah so I I just said that the components uh the list of components uh has to be uh yeah listed and um and um assembly is a an important process that has to be taken into account. And uh for the designing of the cove uh uh cover layout then it's better to to to maybe see that with uh the the U_R_ exp U_R_I_ Expert User Interface: Sorry. Marketing: Mm. Industrial Designer: so that we can {disfmarker} it's really a team-working uh. So Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: I I cannot design something without your agreement, Project Manager: No of course. User Interface: Yeah so Industrial Designer: right? User Interface: of course for example uh I wanted to know like if you want to have a a fo if you want to have the L_C_D_ display over there, Industrial Designer: Yes. User Interface: or if you want to store a programmes with a keys {disfmarker} What kind of things you'll need inside your thin inside {disfmarker} W wh what {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah it's kind of um simple {gap} pro progra programmable device, and we have to insert. User Interface: W what {disfmarker} Okay. Okay. Industrial Designer: I think we could insert one that could underlie several functions User Interface: Okay so Industrial Designer: of {disfmarker} User Interface: in that case you can even look at the technology what the mobile phone is trying to use with the {gap} card. Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah, for customizing and yeah. User Interface: Yeah where they do all the wi with with them actually. How f cost effective it would be to put that car chip into it and do the programmable things. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah good idea. Project Manager: So I f I think we we should come to some decisions now uh a about this. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Um so I understand uh when we want a display we need a expensive chip, but when we want a scrolling wheel w we also need the expensive chip, so can we use same chip, so with one expensive chip we can uh implement several complicated uh or advanced features. Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah that's a very good idea, Project Manager: Yes. Industrial Designer: we could have uh one main chip uh that could handle, uh it's called F_P_G_A_ chip, that could handle both uh like scrolling wheels as well as uh L_C_D_ Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and Project Manager: So Industrial Designer: yeah. Project Manager: when the more expensive chip you mentioned there is is possible in the in the given budget, uh maybe we should go for for the more expensive chip, so all features uh which you mentioned can be implemented based on the same chip. Industrial Designer: Yes. User Interface: D well {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Do you think that's feasible? User Interface: Well I don't know if it'll fit into our cost of twelve point five Euro you know. Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} You th you think it's possible. User Interface: Is it possible to fit in to that? Industrial Designer: Yeah also thinking, I think both uh {disfmarker} if we had a budget of twenty twenty uh Euros, it will be okay, User Interface: Sorry. Project Manager: Hmm. Industrial Designer: but uh {disfmarker} {gap}. Marketing: Well maybe we need specific costings then. Actually do maybe two designs and then cost them out and see which one is gonna fit in our budget better. Project Manager: Mm yes Industrial Designer: Yeah that's an excellent idea. Project Manager: wh when you make a {vocalsound} a design ca you can {vocalsound} {disfmarker} next meeting you can give an quite an exact cost price. Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah. Yeah Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: That w that would be a very good idea. Industrial Designer: because right now I don't have {gap} price in in head Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: but for next meeting I'm sure yeah be able to do that. Project Manager: Good good. User Interface: Yeah that's uh that's something which I wanted to ask you also, like what will be the each individually the cost of it. For example if f if you want to put wood {disfmarker} I wouldn't suggest for wood Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: uh {gap}'cause it's {disfmarker} I think it's m much easier to use a plastic or a rubber {gap} rather than wood. Industrial Designer: Okay. I agree on that. Yeah. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: It will be much ch much expensive th though it's the most natural thing, but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yes but I can I think uh I think we can just use more cheap plastic for a kind of basic edition, and then people can fancy it up with with more expensive materials Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} Yeah Project Manager: which which come with a with another price. User Interface: it's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah we we can give a preference to them, but it is {gap} but with plastic or the rubber or whatever it is {disfmarker} it's much better with that rather than going for {disfmarker} Project Manager: Do do you agree? Marketing: Mm yeah sure. Industrial Designer: Yeah but i it's a detailed uh yeah yeah uh plastic versus uh wood, User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and we need maybe to centre our description on uh the the really the what buttons what uh functionality we want to offer to the user, and maybe with uh {vocalsound} graphs or I don't know uh {disfmarker} {gap} User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: User Interface Designer you could maybe uh help us on that. Project Manager: Ma I I think uh for next meeting we c {vocalsound} you two can present a real design. Uh so drawing it on the board. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: Yea Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: Okay. Industrial Designer: Perfect yeah. Project Manager: And then we now sh only have to t to decide the general function uh. So um {disfmarker} Let let's say next meeting w {vocalsound} you produce two designs, one one one less advanced and one more advanced and with the cost price. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah sure. Yeah we will uh {disfmarker} Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: Uh furthermore we go for the for the uh basic plastic case User Interface: Uh. Project Manager: which can be later uh fancied up with uh with addit uh additional uh, how do you call them, these like like mobile telephones you can put a cover over it. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: But that that that that can be done later. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: We now can concentrate on the on the basic remote control. User Interface: {gap}. Industrial Designer: Yeah customized. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: Um. User Interface: Okay {vocalsound} {gap}. We can give them smooth keys, you know. Smooth keys with bigger s uh {disfmarker} So that you know {disfmarker} The the problem most of the time we've seen, the keys is that it's small, Project Manager: Mm. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: and every time we have to be very {disfmarker} but if i the {disfmarker} if we if we go to a different ways of designing those keys, then you can merge them together Marketing: So is there any of these that you're looking at particularly User Interface: to {disfmarker} Marketing: or is this just ideas? User Interface: Oh you can actually, for example, if you see, they are they are they are quite small over here, Marketing: Mm-hmm. User Interface: and uh {vocalsound} now you can, for example, as I was {gap} if you make them big, it may change the look of the thing also to the people. Marketing: Hmm. Mm. Mm. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. User Interface: At the same time, it is m more uh like it would be more interesting for people who are having this R_S_I_ and all {gap} problem. Marketing: Mm yeah. Project Manager: Yes yes yes bi big keys is is good thing I think. User Interface: Uh big keys may better {gap} for them actually and uh {disfmarker} Marketing: You see? Industrial Designer: I agree yeah, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and not too m too many keys of course yeah. Marketing: Mm well Project Manager: No no. Marketing: one I've had before, a r r remote control we have at home is one that's actually got a cover on the bottom User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: so the bottom bit is just, covers half the keys most of the time, and then you can slide the cover back to get to the the more advanced keys. Project Manager: Mm mm mm. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Mm w but then you have still have uh when you don't {gap} use it you have such a a an extent of your remote control Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: which you don't use. So maybe it's possible uh, I don't know whether you can can indicate this, that you can elsewhere open your remote control and on the inside are uh buttons you don't use that much. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm. Yeah. Um yeah I've seen that before too. Anoth another like b User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: it flips up and then you've got another layer of buttons underneath. Project Manager: Yes. User Interface: Yes. Yeah so it's something like this, the model here Marketing: Mm. User Interface: s {gap} you can put the keys {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Mm. Marketing: But I've seen also with keys and buttons on the top of here as well. Industrial Designer: That's what you mean? Project Manager: Yes I I th that's what I mean User Interface: Yeah. Yeah. Project Manager: so I mean something like like a book. Marketing: I like this one. I like the shape of this one. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. Marketing: Can we have {disfmarker} can we think about maybe having a a non-recta non non-rectangular one, so with not just the straight little box Industrial Designer: Yeah I like also this one. Marketing: that's a {disfmarker} maybe curved or something. User Interface: Yeah, mm. Industrial Designer: Yeah, the point is w maybe we need to also to make a decision on how how how big we want to be and how many buttons like n we should {vocalsound} dec decide numbers or {disfmarker} Marketing: Mm mm'kay. Is this for the next meeting though? User Interface: We should make a {disfmarker} Marketing: I think we might be out of time out of time for this meeting. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm. User Interface: Yeah that {disfmarker} yeah next meeting we should be {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Project Manager: Ju just make two designs, Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: Yeah that would depend upon us actually. Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah. Project Manager: and the we we can decide decide between th those designs. Marketing: Yep. User Interface: Yeah okay. Project Manager: I think that would be a good idea. So Industrial Designer: Perfect. Project Manager: anyone uh any questions for now? User Interface: {vocalsound} No no. I don't have. Marketing: No. So is this {disfmarker} is there anything else I need to do from a marketing point of view for the next meeting? Project Manager: Um yes I come to that uh uh {disfmarker} User Interface: Maybe it would be interesting if you could look um for the cost inventories of other devices, if you're using speech recognition or something like that. Project Manager: Yes well m maybe uh, I don't know whether that's possible, Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: maybe you can start evaluating uh their work somehow. Marketing: Okay well is this {vocalsound} me designing a way to evaluate it so {disfmarker} Thinking about how to set up test groups and things? Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't know whether that's possible uh in the given time Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: but a as far as possible. Marketing: Okay. Yep. Project Manager: So uh you two will be together w working on a o on two prototypes Industrial Designer: Exactly. User Interface: Mm. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: and further instructions will be uh will be sent to you by uh by email. Industrial Designer: Two or three prototypes? User Interface: Two. Project Manager: Two. User Interface: One for like cost and the one with like higher-end Industrial Designer: Two? Project Manager: I {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: Mm. Project Manager: Mm {gap} and then {disfmarker} User Interface: so that then we can be easily comparing them Industrial Designer: Yeah Project Manager: Hmm. {vocalsound} User Interface: or you know find a compromise between both of them, Industrial Designer: and find maybe a compromise. Marketing: Hmm. Project Manager: Yes okay. User Interface: yeah that's how it is. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Perfect yeah. User Interface: Yep. Project Manager: Okay let's call this to an end. Marketing: Mm'kay. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: Thanks guys. Industrial Designer: Thanks. User Interface: So we are done for now. {gap}.

The meeting was mainly about conceptual design. First, the marketing gave some opinions about product requirements based on market surveys and the group discussed some specific ways to fulfill them. After that, the user interface designer proposed to make a universal controller with speech recognition and a blinking thing. A list of basic components were also given. When it came to the cost control, the group believed that they should do some compromise to keep the cost under 12. 5 Euros and the specific design scheme would be decided at the next meeting.

tr-sq-687

tr-sq-687_0

What did Project Manager mention when giving general arrangements at the very beginning of the meeting? Project Manager: Hello. Marketing: Hey guys. User Interface: Hi. Industrial Designer: Hi. Project Manager: Hi. Industrial Designer: I see my bunny is still standing. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: No one drawing it. Project Manager: It's too beautiful. User Interface: Yeah, true. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh I figured uh that much. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: Too wicked. User Interface: Mm. Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: A minute please, my uh laptop is uh {disfmarker} oh, there it is, thank you. So welcome back. {vocalsound} At the functional design meeting um the plan is uh that uh each one of you, so not me but only you uh will uh present uh the the things you worked on uh the last uh half hour. I will uh take minutes and will put uh the minutes that I have uh at the end of the session in the shared folder. {vocalsound} Also the minutes of the previous session are also in the shared folder now, so you can read that uh now or afterwards. Um {vocalsound} uh I had an email from the from the management board Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: uh, I don't know if you a al also uh received it, but there were four points uh which uh I think are very important. First one is uh they think that uh teletext teletext becomes outdated uh and internet will be the the main uh focus. {vocalsound} Uh second one is also important uh, because it's one of the discussion points of the previous session. Uh the remote control shou should onl only be used for the television, so it uh not gonna it's not gonna be a multi-purpose remote control, so uh that's one thing to keep in mind. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh second, and I think that's important for the Marketing uh Expert, uh the current uh customers uh are in the age group group of uh forty years and older, but with this uh new remote uh they uh will uh {disfmarker} would like to reach uh a group uh younger than uh forty. Uh and uh I think to keep in mind, but not really uh for now is that they uh want the the the slogan and the and the logo uh to uh to be recognised more in the remote. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: So, we have uh forty minutes, so I think uh not more than ten minutes uh uh per presentation uh each, and please uh use uh all the the the facilities so that you have either SMARTboards, the the Word files, what you uh {disfmarker} whatever you want. So uh Tim, can you start? Yeah? Marketing: Okay. {vocalsound}'Kay, welcome. I have some uh new findings on uh Marketing Expert level, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Marketing: which I will show you. {vocalsound} The method I used was um giving orders to our usability lab uh to do a questionnaire. Um {vocalsound} one hundred respondents were involved and my marketing uh department generated a report with a lot of results. Um, these were a couple of findings, first page of three. Um, we have three audiences of {disfmarker} two audiences, {vocalsound} I'm sorry. Uh the first one, this scale, from sixteen to forty five {gap} age. Uh the second one is from sixty four {disfmarker} uh forty six to sixty five. Um, as you can see here, the market share for the first audience is about sixty percent {disfmarker} um sixty five. Uh second audience audience is uh thirty five percent. Mm {vocalsound} and some interests from the from the age groups, uh it seems like the young users of remote controls really like the fancy uh new technology stuff, like uh an L_C_D_ screen on the remote control, um speech recognition. I don't think that's uh really appropriate. Um, {vocalsound} and when you see uh the audience, the age is going up uh {disfmarker} Yeah, they don't really want it anymore, at least the new technologies. Second findings {vocalsound} out of the questionnaire um are the opinion {vocalsound} the opinions uh of the audience about current remote controls. First point is, seventy five percent of the users find the most repo remote controls very ugly, uh and eighty percent of the users would spend more money when a remote control would look fancy. So that's maybe something for the User Interface uh Designer. Okay, third findings. According to the frequency of use versus importance investigation, um {vocalsound} following buttons are most important. Um, I will tell something about the way this uh this test was, yeah, done. Um, {vocalsound} persons were asked uh what the buttons were uh they use most, how much an hour, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: and uh in the second table the importance of those buttons. Um, when you multiply them, you get the {disfmarker} these three points. Switching channels, um yeah, that's pretty uh pretty normal, that's what you do with a remote control. Um the second, teletext, uh and the third, uh volume controls. Um, I think it's good uh that we know what the user want {disfmarker} wants, uh at least the these three points have to be uh very clear. Project Manager: But it's strange that the the manage board {disfmarker} the management board said that the teletext will be uh outdated by the internet. So that that's strange. Marketing: Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay, but uh at the moment uh teletext is {disfmarker} Yeah, th the best thing you can get uh on T_V_, like getting information. Project Manager: Yeah, okay. Yeah. Marketing: So uh, when you ask people, what do they use, {vocalsound} they use teletext and not the internet on a remote control. Project Manager: Okay. Yeah, okay. Marketing: That's ridiculous. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: That's a ne i it {disfmarker} It's a new technology, Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: but it's not incorporated right now. Okay, my personal preferences. Um, I think we should aim at the uh audience from sixteen to forty five. {vocalsound} Mm, first of all um it's the biggest share, the biggest audience, sixty five percent. Uh second, I think you will get the most revenue from i from it. Um, yeah, people from sixteen to forty five watch a lot of T_V_, more than uh people who are el uh elder. Um {vocalsound} second point, {vocalsound} we have to impro improve the most used functions, as I said here, switching channels, teletext and volume controls. Third point um that came out of the uh {disfmarker} of the questionnaire, uh people used to uh get lost off the remote controller, so maybe it's an idea for us uh to design ex kind of placeholder uh on side of the, yeah, of the T_V_ Project Manager: Yeah, that's a cool idea. Marketing: where you can put the the remote control in. {vocalsound} Um, that's about it, I think. Yeah. Industrial Designer: When you mentioned uh improving functions, what uh what do you mean by that what what are you think about? Marketing: Uh not not the r not the functions, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh, the funtionability. Marketing: but uh it came out that a lot of buttons weren't even used uh on a remote control. So you can have a remote control full of buttons, a hundreds hundreds of buttons, but if you don't use them, yeah it's {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Ah okay, so focusing more on the used buttons. Marketing: Yeah, they have to be on it Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: j just to t to get it done if necessary, User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: but um the most used buttons uh have to be bigger or {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Could you use perhaps uh one button for multiple functions, like example pressing it in longer makes it switch to an different function for example. Marketing: Yeah, perhaps. Industrial Designer: Thank you. Marketing: Just for the minor functions perhaps. Industrial Designer: Yeah, ma perhaps, just just an idea. Marketing: Just to get less buttons on the remote control, to make it easier and quicker to learn. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah?'Kay, that's it. Project Manager: Thank you, Tim. {vocalsound} Janus, can you uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Uh yeah yeah, I'll go, sure. Right uh, I'll be uh explaining a bit about uh working design about uh the project. Well uh what I did was I dissected uh uh current remote controls and um I viewed how how they w looked, how they worked, uh what kind of components are involved, and how they are connected together. And uh after that I put up a scheme about how uh these things are organised and I'll show it to you in in a in a few seconds. And I'll explain a bit about uh how it works and how we could uh build one and why I think several possibilities uh that we discussed in the earlier meeting falls off. Um right. Uh well what I did was uh I I checked uh remote controls and the uh remote controls of today are all infrared, not like all probably know. And the thing about that is um the remote controls uh have to act as a T_V_ or uh a stereo or something, and those uh have a transmitter that's also focused on infrared, so if we want to uh build uh mm a remote control uh with Bluetooth for instance then uh the T_V_ should have Bluetooth too in order to communicate, so that would mean extra cost for the user and thus uh that's that wouldn't mean a a cheap uh remote control for us. So that's probably why most controls are still infrared. Furthermore they all have uh a a very simple structure, so that would probably uh mean lower costs and uh i that could mean for us a good thing uh'cause uh well we we should be able to build a relatively cheap uh {gap} a cheap uh remote. Well uh as I mentioned ready, we have some Bluetooth {disfmarker} Well it may be possible, but uh I figured it wouldn't be possible in {disfmarker} within our budget, but that's not for me to decide, but that's maybe something for marketing to look into. F because uh {disfmarker} well my personal opinion is uh is not to do uh Bluetooth {gap} or or radio waves, {vocalsound} although {disfmarker} Marketing: What do you think about uh incorporating Bluetooth or a radio uh receiver uh in the place-holder next to the T_V_, connected to the T_V_? Industrial Designer: Yeah, actually I have t Marketing: So it's in the wrong product. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah, I actually {disfmarker} I figured that would be that would be rather nice, but then you'd still have the uh {disfmarker} the infrared function. So in in theory you'd actually just move the problem, Marketing: Yeah. Yeah. Industrial Designer: but uh what I did uh think about was when you mentioned about the uh the cup-holder, is why not uh introduce a speech function like where is the remote. If somebody says, where is the remote, then it goes uh beep uh beep beep beep or something, User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Industrial Designer: I dunno, maybe uh maybe something to look into, I dunno uh what the cost {gap} that something like that would be. But it may be uh may be something to explore. Uh I'll I'll just explain a bit of the components. Uh first you have the energy source. The energy source would be a battery, simple uh battery uh that you can find anywhere. I figured that would be best,'cause when the battery uh stops functioning uh we could just uh use {disfmarker} you could just go out and buy a new one. So we didn't {disfmarker} and we don't have to do all uh {disfmarker} to be too complicated about that. Uh the energy source is connected to the infrared button, but uh the infrared button uh works only via the chip and the subcomponent to uh the switch {disfmarker} there is a switch uh between these. When the switch is pressed in a w on this this case it switches a button, when a button is prush pushed in, uh a electric current goes through here, and in uh {disfmarker} immediately, a l a bulb lights up uh displaying to the user that something has happened. That's uh that's so the h user won't be um thinking, well uh did the button be pressed, w what happened uh. Or I press button but nothing's happening on the T_V_, so is is something wrong or something. So that's just to uh to to explain the {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} to to uh make it clearer to the user. Uh w well the signal goes via chip that's translated into uh electric sig uh electronic signals and then it's processed and then it's sent to the infrared bulb where it will be uh uh received on the receiving end. And those uh interpreted by the device, well in this case the television. Uh well my personal preferences here, well we have to keep it simple. Not too many uh gadgets and functions, just like you said uh {disfmarker} well the most users n uh you have a lot of buttons and you u u use {disfmarker} you don't use them, so why why should we invent uh {disfmarker} w spend more time on those. Uh I I think we should stick by {disfmarker} with infrared transmitting and uh no receiving. So uh no input from the television. So I think we shouldn't be uh spending time on um teletext and st things like that, because when you uh want teletext on uh infrared you'd have to build in a receiver too, and so in order to receive the signals from uh what's on T_V_ and such. So I figure that would be uh spending too much money and time and {disfmarker} Marketing: Um, yeah, maybe another problem uh, I think current T_V_s can even send infrared. Industrial Designer: Yes, but what should we uh s I I I f I agree with you, but should we spend money or {disfmarker} and time on building a receiver into the uh remote control? Marketing: Huh. Industrial Designer:'Cause that would be {disfmarker} I mean extra components, extra designs, um larger g uh remote control. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Industrial Designer: These all uh all stuff that we have to take in account. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: So I I {disfmarker} my personal opinion is no no no receiver at all. Um, well Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: we should uh look into the design and the functionability. Like I said, uh use one button for instance for m multiple functions, or well uh just hide the few buttons o of switching it open or something, the usual uh {gap} stuff. And uh don't overbuild, we shouldn't make a big uh remote control for simple functions, but we we should stick to the basics. So that was my uh my personal opinion. And that was my uh my presentation uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Okay, thank you Janus. User Interface: Okay. Yes, Project Manager: You do? User Interface: I can go ahead. Project Manager: The last presentation. You have plenty of time, User Interface: Last presentation. Okay. Project Manager: Tim and uh Janus don't uh talk to ten minutes, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: so uh take your time. User Interface: {gap} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: If you take your time too long I will uh eventually uh Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: warn you. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: Well, I'm going to give a presentation abut some of the technical functions of these design and uh usability functions. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: Um what's my opinion about what's most important to combine the design, technical possibilities and the user friendliness in one, so if you um going to design a remote that looks good, that shouldn't weigh over the uh {disfmarker} if it's possible to make, of course, but also the user friendliness, so tha that's that's some of the main points. And another one is um the use um of many functions will will make it more difficult, so use as as little functions as possible or at least don't display them all at once on the same remote. If you have fifty functions you don't want fifty buttons uh t uh to be shown at the same time, Marketing: Hmm. User Interface:'cause when you visit an internet uh site you don't want fifty links uh to see, but maybe use a hierarch hierarchy uh structure. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: And uh well one of the ideas was maybe uh use touch screen, but s I don't know in how far that is possible, Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: since we are sticking to uh um infrared and and the remote cannot receive anything, but uh we might uh consider that. Um well, of course I I hope this is all clear to you. If you {disfmarker} you can use remote like this with all the functions, {gap} many functions, but {disfmarker} Well, your thumb is a little bigger than th it than this. You have to be very careful what you push, Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} User Interface: and um if you're looking for teletext you'll be uh searching for half an hour from uh um {disfmarker} yeah well, where is it? Where the hell {disfmarker} he here I guess and, yeah, when you have to uh use something else. So just keep it simple, make clear buttons, easy to use. For example if you want to use a play and back and stop, that's very important. Um well this was because of our last discussion, if multiple machines are used, create easy switch between the machines, but um it's no longer uh applying. {vocalsound} Well yeah, I prefer to use it only for T_V_ and um n uh not to give too many options and and if possible, uh the buttons should give {vocalsound} a dr direct action, not first select {disfmarker} Project Manager: Uh you you just said um uh you wanted to to combine more functions in one, so uh User Interface: Yeah, Project Manager: you you want to keep it simple, User Interface: and so that's where the difficulties lie. Industrial Designer: Yeah, but {disfmarker} Project Manager: but I think that if you want to do that, then you can't escape the the fact that there will be buttons uh which give s uh more options than one. User Interface: Yeah, this {disfmarker} so that's the thing you have to weigh against each other. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah, but {disfmarker} User Interface: Do we want to use a few options and might not be so or original, or uh multi-purpose as we thought, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Okay. User Interface: or do we want to use um many buttons. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: So um weighing those factors. Marketing: Hmm {gap} it's maybe an option uh if you use an L_C_D_ {vocalsound} or a touch screen um, that in the middle are the the main keys, like displayed on the {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Uh yeah. User Interface: The {gap} doesn't {gap}. Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap}. Yeah, this? No? Yeah. {vocalsound} Something like that. Okay, just uh in the middle the general functions, like play, uh channel switching, User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: and then uh at the top or at the bottom, some menus like uh settings or {disfmarker} that you can drop down. User Interface: Yeah, but when all the questions I had {disfmarker} Do we want to use uh a menu display on the T_V_? Or um does have to f everything uh be in remotes?'Cause if you use a memory display on the T_V_, you can simply push uh a more menu and then select the options you want to have and press okay. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: Uh so that's my recommendation, if you use many options in one buttle {disfmarker} button, um display the menu on the T_V_ Marketing: Nah. Mm-hmm. User Interface: and don't um use combination of t of two buttons at the same time or pressing buttons three times for five seconds, Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: is too complicated for most users. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah, but {disfmarker} Marketing: I think so too, but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and that's partly because um uh a lot of T_V_s have different menus, and when you have a particular menu uh at your device, uh it could be that don't correspond to the menu what's actually on T_V_. User Interface: Yeah, that will be a problem. Industrial Designer: Well Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: you d you have to {gap} keep in mind that uh several T_V_s uh don't even have a menu structure, or they have a very simple menu structure, so you have to keep in mind that not all uh d not {disfmarker} our remote won't be able to work on all televisions. User Interface: Yes. Industrial Designer: And that would be uh a considerable problem. User Interface: So if we have to stick with current technologies and uh um well yeah, the restrictions of what's uh is on the market today, um you should keep it s at this. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: Use big clear buttons. Not too many. So maybe we'll loose a few option uh options, but I think i this is more important. Um {vocalsound} especially the important buttons, um if you want to switch channel, change your volume, uh use teletext, it uh it has to work at once and more advanced options may be put it s somewhere away on the remote, behind uh a little uh little thing or a touch screen. Industrial Designer: Not embed Yeah, but then with something like a touch screen could {disfmarker} could make more menu up {disfmarker} pop up or something. User Interface: And yeah, if you want to uh uh s put {gap} on stand-by or change the channel, that should always be possible to do. Not first change menu options or switch something. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: Um, well yeah, as you already told, give some feedback. If the user is pushing a button he should know if the television or n at least remote is reacting and not just that the batteries may be low. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: And um, well, my conclusion is uh is uh less is more, keep it simple. So uh maybe we should just ease down on the functionality to uh to keep it accessible on t because you all know, if there are a lot of function {gap} on the the television, some you you'll never know uh and never use, and therefore it's uh important Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: if you want to change the volume or channel that is always accessible and easy and other functions um that are not so important {disfmarker} um well you {disfmarker} we should consider just not using them or at least putting them somewhere on the remote where they're not in the way for the for the most important functions. Marketing: Yeah. Uh, I think the idea uh about uh touch screen um is very good. Um, because recently uh I saw news item on T_V_ um about uh new telephones uh for elder people. Um, they have like a touch screen with uh really big pictures on it like uh uh call uh hang-up, um and that's a big ad advantage I think, because one the one hand uh you make the remote control compatible for elder users just by uh scaling up the pictures or something. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: It's uh very visual intended. {vocalsound} What was I to say more? User Interface: Maybe that's an option. Um keep the primary buttons visible. Uh make a remote that fits easily in the hands Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and for some design issues uh well, put a logo on it and maybe use it uh in some aesthetic uh aesthetic form. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: But uh th the important buttons m make them always accessible and pushable and clear Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: and maybe use a touch screen, or if that's uh will become too difficult just uh like televi some o older telephones use a l uh maybe it's possible to to flip them open and uh just expand the number of options that are normally visible. Um {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah okay, but but if you pick the the idea, the left idea User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: then what's gonna be displayed on the touch screen? Industrial Designer: The extra functions. User Interface: The extra functions, you uh you just see a menu from system functions or teletext functions, and you just choose one, Marketing: Yeah, but l like menu functions or {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: and then all all the options will become available Marketing: Ah okay. User Interface: and you just c s yeah t scroll through them. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wouldn't it be better to make just one big touch screen, uh one one small uh touch screen uh applet Marketing: Yeah, I think so. Industrial Designer: and uh I'll just make um {disfmarker} uh let's say fifteen buttons on it, and uh we have three of those, uh actually just uh menus with sub-menus, with {disfmarker} or sub-items, sub-functions. User Interface: Well um Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: then I'd like to make a proposal. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: If you make one big touch screen, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes. User Interface: use the same concept as here, keep the buttons always available Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and use the lower part of the touch screen for the rest. Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: like like the iPod idea that that we just saw. User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: You just have a f a few selected buttons and uh a few menus, and with this idea you could actually make uh several {disfmarker} you can also improve uh later on. User Interface: Yes. Industrial Designer: Uh uh I think that will be great. User Interface: Okay. Project Manager: So you think it's will be better to have a t kinda total touch screen. Marketing: Yeah, I think so. Industrial Designer: Yeah, I wou I would actually go for the {disfmarker} Project Manager: Jirun? User Interface: Okay, I agree, but I think it's very important that they always um make the same buttons accessible, so use just for special options a part of the touch screen. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah, of course. User Interface: And so um an elder designer picks up th the {disfmarker} of Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: an elder parents or grandparent picks up the remote from the little child and who's all in the systems functions, you'll have to have the possibility to turn off the T_V_ or to switch the channel without um well using all the menu structures to get back to the primary functions. Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah, I had another uh idea about maybe parental control. Um, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Marketing: like building in uh some kind of PIN code uh which allows uh parents to switch to all channels, uh User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: but children uh {disfmarker} if children don't don't know the PIN code, they can't switch to uh violent uh channels or {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah wh Is that possible to use or no? Industrial Designer: That is possible, that {disfmarker} well that actually depends on the television, Marketing: Th there's just {disfmarker} User Interface: Well, yeah well, Industrial Designer: but I think {disfmarker} I figure that would be {disfmarker} User Interface: does it have to depend on the television? Marketing: Ju just a simple log-in, something like that. Industrial Designer: Well, Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: y you s you see the fi uh thing is when you buy a remote, you you set the uh channels, the the channels are different on each te television, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: they aren't set in a preset order, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: so uh if you uh lock on a remote, uh let's say channel fifteen, well channel fifteen on this television is different than channel fifteen on the other television, Marketing: Mm-hmm. Yeah, okay. Industrial Designer: so that would be uh that would be actually the main concern. Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah. User Interface: Well, I think that he means that um maybe by some option uh {disfmarker} make sure that um remote control and the T_V_ match, and then after that you can um use some s insert some passwords as being apparent that the children cannot use this uh {disfmarker} change the settings of the T_V_, like colour and then volume Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, th that kind of stuff, but maybe um if you log in first as a parent um, you address the the channels User Interface: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Yes. Marketing: and like uh oh, that's channel fifteen, that's uh vi violent channel, User Interface: Oh, something like that. Industrial Designer: Yes. Marketing: uh m my ki my kids uh {disfmarker} I don't want my kids to watch that, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: then you set the priority to only parents, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay, yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: Well b but make it a separate option in the menu, Industrial Designer: Yeah, that would b Marketing: for example. But {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah, that. User Interface: so that it's it's dif dis displayed from uh {disfmarker} displayed here, Marketing: Yeah okay, but but {disfmarker} yeah, that's just User Interface: so uh parents uh {disfmarker} Marketing: that's an a an added feature. Project Manager: Yeah. Okay. But let's not uh go too wide about the {disfmarker} those things, that's that why we're here. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah, {vocalsound} th th those things are nice. {vocalsound} Project Manager: It's it's a nice idea, but I think that's we wel {vocalsound} later in the stage. I've one little question about um a total touch screen or uh um a p Marketing: Partial. Project Manager: yeah, a partial, uh because I think uh elderly people may be uh not used to uh a touch screen, so they want the the the normal functions like teletext, volume changing, um uh to be uh, yeah, kinda traditionals Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: uh and uh {vocalsound} the the the the other functions, the more difficult functions uh to be uh maybe on the touch screen, Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: but to keep this as uh normal as possible, to keep it accessible. Marketing: Yeah, but but if you display it on L_C_D_ screen with r r really big numbers User Interface: Yeah, you can de display it on the on the old style. Marketing: that's just as e just as easy. Industrial Designer: Uh. I I do {disfmarker} User Interface: You can display actual buttons on the touch screens. Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah, that's true, that's true. Industrial Designer: Uh I do agree, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: because well, it's just not the same when you touch a touch screen User Interface: Yeah, okay. Industrial Designer: or when you touch a button, but well we have to look at what's our target uh audience. Marketing: Yeah, it's different. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: W we are aiming for younger people Project Manager: Yeah, that's true, yeah. Industrial Designer: and they they chose {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, age b below forty. Project Manager: Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Yep. Industrial Designer: So that's that's probably uh a {disfmarker} Marketing: And th those young people, yeah. Y you saw it in my marketing report, they like the new fancy stuff, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. They like the fancy stuff, yeah. That's true. Marketing: so {disfmarker} A touch screen, like Microsoft al already developed something like that for uh uh multi-media applications. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: I th I think we can do that too. Project Manager: Mm {disfmarker} Yeah. Okay, as you can see uh the minutes from the second meeting, this one, are uh {vocalsound} are done. Marketing: {vocalsound} Done. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh I've uh added the {disfmarker} this uh four things from the management board just to keep in mind. User Interface: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um each time I uh I had a sort of uh summary on what you told and uh what you personal think. Uh so that can be uh can be read out. Uh a f a few things I uh I noticed uh were um {disfmarker} Moment. Ooh. Uh th the the main points in uh this uh uh in this uh meeting is I think uh how uh it's going to look uh with uh {disfmarker} we must keep it simple, but have the opportunity to uh have more options and have them uh hidden or something, so they don't {disfmarker} uh you don't have a big uh thing full of uh buttons or uh {disfmarker} um and uh the point that uh you uh wanna use one uh controller uh for uh uh hypothetically {vocalsound} each television, so you must uh the the the the functions, know, like the menus or the the parental control must be all uh by the {disfmarker} done by the remote control and not by the television. I think that's the point what uh User Interface: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: we discussed. User Interface: Yes. Marketing: Yeah, yeah, some of them. The menus uh are not identical for all th for all T_V_s, so you have to display it on one uh T_V_. User Interface: Well you can use um {disfmarker} when you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh how do you call it, s um synchronized, the um remote and the T_V_, Marketing: Yeah, but that's not possible. User Interface: then there's always, there are always uh possibilities to change the colour and the brightness and the volume Marketing: Mm-hmm, mm yeah. User Interface: and um well maybe we can look out if there's options that the remote um in its memory can see what kinda T_V_ it is, from {disfmarker} ah, it's a Philips, this and this and that, and then give the options that are capable {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} capable from the t Project Manager: Yeah, but you have uh uh an {disfmarker} Marketing: Add th that that's an opportunity {gap}. Project Manager: yeah, but you have an international market range, so you have I think a big range of {disfmarker} User Interface: Well there are universal d um um remotes Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: and they all have a functionality for all the T_V_s, uh so this wouldn't be a extra feature to incorporate the men menus of these. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: But they {disfmarker} Marketing: But {disfmarker} Project Manager: And it's not too complex to do it. User Interface: {gap} Industrial Designer: Well they uh they all have to be programmed to fit your T_V_ Marketing: No. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and that that is bit of a tricky job. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: I actually use one of those when {disfmarker} They are they are kinda kinda troublesome, but but the thing is whe when you uh start uh building something like this you have to build a receiver into the uh t into the remotes, because uh in order for the remote to process something from the T_V_, like uh to synchronise and you have to send and receive, User Interface: Yeah. Well {disfmarker} Yeah. Mm-hmm. Oh um mo Industrial Designer: and that's well {disfmarker} Marketing: No no no. User Interface: no, you can just say uh the c Marketing: {vocalsound} He he he he me he means just just one other thing. Project Manager: Just build it in. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Uh, with the current remote controls, the universal ones, um you have to press {disfmarker} yeah, you have to press a code for T_V_. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yes. User Interface: In codes, y you you get a b a book with codes. You look up, I have a Philips H_ fifty five Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: and it says press code four five five Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Oh, okay, yeah, sure, uh {disfmarker} User Interface: and you press code four five five on the {disfmarker} uh in the remote Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah. User Interface: and it displays all your uh menu options. Industrial Designer: Oh, yeah yeah, sure, that would be possible, yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Now we uh just connect uh the T_V_ type uh to a set of options, in {disfmarker} just just in the memory, User Interface: Memory in the in the remote. Project Manager: Yep. Industrial Designer: Profiles. Marketing: so that if you {disfmarker} yeah, like profile, so that if you uh touch in like uh one four one zero kind of T_V_ uh Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: the memory uh pops up the options. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah, that would be possible. Yeah, sure. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: I th don't think that's uh {disfmarker} that takes a lot of storage space or some just varia variables. Industrial Designer: No, that wouldn't be uh {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah, well um Industrial Designer: Yeah, a few variables. User Interface: if you look at the um manuals from universal uh remotes, there are maybe um three four hundreds T_V_s at maximum. If you have all of them, all the old and new T_V_s summed up, Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: so uh I think uh it is possible {gap}. Industrial Designer: Ah it is. It is definitely po Marketing: But, on the other hand on the other hand, uh if you have a remote and buy a new T_V_ that isn't incorporated in the remote {disfmarker} Project Manager: We have five minutes to go. User Interface: Yeah. Well then you have to buy a new one, it's very good for marketing Marketing: New remote? User Interface: Maybe, or an update, software update. Marketing: A firmware upgrade or something, User Interface: Firmware update, you say. Industrial Designer: Yeah, firmware upgrade. Marketing: but from where? Ah. Maybe w Industrial Designer: That's maybe the cup holder. Marketing: No m may no, User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: maybe we can incorporate some kind of uh U_S_B_ or a firewire connection, so that you can uh connect it to the P_C_ and download the newest firmware from uh from the internet. Industrial Designer: Well, not everybody has uh has uh a P_C_ at home. Well the most most people have, User Interface: Well, at {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: but not not everybody User Interface: uh you can go back to the shop Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} User Interface: and uh they {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: like a s kind of service centre. User Interface: Yeah, ser o Industrial Designer: Yeah, maybe something like service cen Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and they can download it for you. Industrial Designer: Or you could {disfmarker} well you could s actually look at the place-holder you talked about earlier, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and you could probably uh make a connection to uh an telephone line or a internet connection. User Interface: Yeah. Well already digital information is sent t to the the standards, T_V_ uh connections, Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: you can see what's uh programme is on on the new uh channels, so maybe j they {disfmarker} we can send that information along with standard T_V_ uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Well then then it's be uh back to the building a receiving uh {disfmarker} well uh if it's actually worth it to build it in, User Interface: Receiving. Oh yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: we could actually look at {disfmarker} into it, User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} I dunno, it it would be uh bringing more costs {gap} uh with with it User Interface: Difficult. Yeah. Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Marketing: I I think it's uh most cheap or cheapest to just do the updates uh at the service centre or at the shop. User Interface: Yeah yeah, uh s I think some {disfmarker} I think it's good idea, yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that would be probably best, yeah. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Like when you when you buy a T_V_ you just ask {disfmarker} well I'll {disfmarker} Marketing: It's it's it's not a lot of work, just one uh docking station where you put it in, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: press start, bling bling, updated. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that would be best, yeah. User Interface: Yeah. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} You don't buy a T_V_ every week, new teev so. User Interface: Okay, let's uh save this in the meanwhile uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: No no. Exactly, so {disfmarker} User Interface: Um m for which one are we going? {gap} My mistake. Marketing: Let's vote. User Interface: That one or uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah, my vote goes out to the right {gap}. User Interface: Your vote and your {disfmarker} Marketing: My vote too. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: Okay. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: And your vote? User Interface: Well, I was uh doubting about which one to take, but uh you've convinced me that uh if you di display buttons about the same as they would look on a normal um remote all elderly people will know what to do. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: And also like a clapping uh li like device that uh pops open. User Interface: Opens up is too difficult Industrial Designer: Flips open. User Interface: or uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Uh too difficult, um maybe uh it's easier to break it. Project Manager: N yeah. User Interface: Break it, I don't get {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, th th th that i uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah. Project Manager: It's very sensitive. User Interface: Oh so {disfmarker} Yeah. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: Like my telephone, it's uh it's sensitive too. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay well uh it's almost at the end. So we have now a lunch break, finally, Marketing: Ah. Project Manager: yeah. {vocalsound} Uh after the lunch break uh it's back to uh individual work, once again uh thirty minutes. Uh I will put my minutes {disfmarker} uh I have updated them so uh s they're updated in the shared folder too. Marketing: Thirty minutes? Project Manager: Thirty minutes, the {disfmarker} Marketing: How minutes? {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Failure. Uh {vocalsound} uh the specifi uh specific instructions for the next uh meeting you will {disfmarker} all will receive uh at the uh the the email. I don't think I can uh say much about it, so uh uh wait for your email and uh hopefully you get it done uh in the in the thirty minutes, and I w will see you after the lunch break and the thirty minutes. Marketing: One question, Project Manager: Yeah? Marketing: uh how late do we have to get back {disfmarker} be back here? Project Manager: Uh well uh thirty minutes. User Interface: A quarter to one maybe? Project Manager: Uh, yeah. Marketing: Thirty minutes lunch break? Project Manager: Thirty minutes lunch break, yeah. Oh. Forty five? User Interface: Okay. Marketing: I thought forty five. Project Manager: Uh then would it be uh one o'clock. Marketing: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Project Manager: Or we we ask our personal coach. Okay. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Thank you. Thank you, uh that was a very uh good session I think, User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {gap} Project Manager: we uh we {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah, is it possible to store this on the share documents or what {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, me too. Project Manager: Uh ye well {disfmarker} Marketing: Save as. Project Manager: Yeah, because uh all uh things are uh stored in smart board dot uh X_D_K_ Marketing: Yeah, v Project Manager: and that's in {disfmarker} Marketing: But but you can open a {disfmarker} from your pr from your laptop. User Interface:'Kay, save it as an image on the res Marketing: Yeah, maybe. Save as. Project Manager: No. Industrial Designer: Export. Maybe not export function. Marketing: No. Export. Project Manager: Well I can I can uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Export H_T_M_L_. User Interface: No, and use an image if possible. Marketing: Huh, image? User Interface: J_ PEG. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} G_ {disfmarker} yeah, J_ PEG. User Interface: J_ PEG. Yeah, it's better Marketing: Paper size A_ four. Uh screen size. In this directory. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: N oh. User Interface: Oh yeah, it's not connected to the Project Manager: You all uh have the the questionnaire again about uh the after work. User Interface: to our P_C_s. Marketing: No? Yeah, it is connected. User Interface: It's connected? Marketing: Yeah, I think so. Project Manager: Deskt Huh. No. Industrial Designer: To room. I'll just uh saved in my documents. Marketing: Oh. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} in my own uh {disfmarker} in my own messenger. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Project documents, yeah. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: It gives the na Oh. Yes. Project Manager: Okay, Industrial Designer: Okay, nice. Project Manager: thank you. User Interface: The questionnaire, fill in {disfmarker} uh we fill out d after lunch or uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Uh well, it's it's simply filling {disfmarker} oh no, it's uh it's also filling out {disfmarker} no, I'd do it after lunch I think. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Aye, cheers. Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'm hungry, so do it after lunch. User Interface: Yes. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thank you all. Marketing: Thank you. Project Manager: You're welcome. User Interface: We can leave the P_C_ on I think, yeah and return to the {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, of course. Project Manager: Yeah. Well I bring it to my uh personal room. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah, bring to {disfmarker} I gotta bring it home. Industrial Designer: {gap} Marketing: To my exave executive {disfmarker} Project Manager: My executive uh big room with the with the panting. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} A big office. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: Yes. Marketing: Aye. Yeah. Okay. Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} {gap} Marketing: {gap} Project Manager: {vocalsound}

Project Manager mentioned four points. Firstly, Project Manager pointed out that teletext was outdated and internet would be the main focus. Then it was proposed that the remote control would only be used for TV, rather than a multi-purpose one. What's more, the project should target a new customer group, which was younger than 40. Logo and slogan of the remote control were required to attract more attention, but it was not for now.

tr-sq-688

tr-sq-688_0

What did Marketing discuss about improving new remote control features based on the questionnaire? Project Manager: Hello. Marketing: Hey guys. User Interface: Hi. Industrial Designer: Hi. Project Manager: Hi. Industrial Designer: I see my bunny is still standing. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: No one drawing it. Project Manager: It's too beautiful. User Interface: Yeah, true. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh I figured uh that much. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: Too wicked. User Interface: Mm. Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: A minute please, my uh laptop is uh {disfmarker} oh, there it is, thank you. So welcome back. {vocalsound} At the functional design meeting um the plan is uh that uh each one of you, so not me but only you uh will uh present uh the the things you worked on uh the last uh half hour. I will uh take minutes and will put uh the minutes that I have uh at the end of the session in the shared folder. {vocalsound} Also the minutes of the previous session are also in the shared folder now, so you can read that uh now or afterwards. Um {vocalsound} uh I had an email from the from the management board Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: uh, I don't know if you a al also uh received it, but there were four points uh which uh I think are very important. First one is uh they think that uh teletext teletext becomes outdated uh and internet will be the the main uh focus. {vocalsound} Uh second one is also important uh, because it's one of the discussion points of the previous session. Uh the remote control shou should onl only be used for the television, so it uh not gonna it's not gonna be a multi-purpose remote control, so uh that's one thing to keep in mind. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh second, and I think that's important for the Marketing uh Expert, uh the current uh customers uh are in the age group group of uh forty years and older, but with this uh new remote uh they uh will uh {disfmarker} would like to reach uh a group uh younger than uh forty. Uh and uh I think to keep in mind, but not really uh for now is that they uh want the the the slogan and the and the logo uh to uh to be recognised more in the remote. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: So, we have uh forty minutes, so I think uh not more than ten minutes uh uh per presentation uh each, and please uh use uh all the the the facilities so that you have either SMARTboards, the the Word files, what you uh {disfmarker} whatever you want. So uh Tim, can you start? Yeah? Marketing: Okay. {vocalsound}'Kay, welcome. I have some uh new findings on uh Marketing Expert level, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Marketing: which I will show you. {vocalsound} The method I used was um giving orders to our usability lab uh to do a questionnaire. Um {vocalsound} one hundred respondents were involved and my marketing uh department generated a report with a lot of results. Um, these were a couple of findings, first page of three. Um, we have three audiences of {disfmarker} two audiences, {vocalsound} I'm sorry. Uh the first one, this scale, from sixteen to forty five {gap} age. Uh the second one is from sixty four {disfmarker} uh forty six to sixty five. Um, as you can see here, the market share for the first audience is about sixty percent {disfmarker} um sixty five. Uh second audience audience is uh thirty five percent. Mm {vocalsound} and some interests from the from the age groups, uh it seems like the young users of remote controls really like the fancy uh new technology stuff, like uh an L_C_D_ screen on the remote control, um speech recognition. I don't think that's uh really appropriate. Um, {vocalsound} and when you see uh the audience, the age is going up uh {disfmarker} Yeah, they don't really want it anymore, at least the new technologies. Second findings {vocalsound} out of the questionnaire um are the opinion {vocalsound} the opinions uh of the audience about current remote controls. First point is, seventy five percent of the users find the most repo remote controls very ugly, uh and eighty percent of the users would spend more money when a remote control would look fancy. So that's maybe something for the User Interface uh Designer. Okay, third findings. According to the frequency of use versus importance investigation, um {vocalsound} following buttons are most important. Um, I will tell something about the way this uh this test was, yeah, done. Um, {vocalsound} persons were asked uh what the buttons were uh they use most, how much an hour, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: and uh in the second table the importance of those buttons. Um, when you multiply them, you get the {disfmarker} these three points. Switching channels, um yeah, that's pretty uh pretty normal, that's what you do with a remote control. Um the second, teletext, uh and the third, uh volume controls. Um, I think it's good uh that we know what the user want {disfmarker} wants, uh at least the these three points have to be uh very clear. Project Manager: But it's strange that the the manage board {disfmarker} the management board said that the teletext will be uh outdated by the internet. So that that's strange. Marketing: Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay, but uh at the moment uh teletext is {disfmarker} Yeah, th the best thing you can get uh on T_V_, like getting information. Project Manager: Yeah, okay. Yeah. Marketing: So uh, when you ask people, what do they use, {vocalsound} they use teletext and not the internet on a remote control. Project Manager: Okay. Yeah, okay. Marketing: That's ridiculous. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: That's a ne i it {disfmarker} It's a new technology, Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: but it's not incorporated right now. Okay, my personal preferences. Um, I think we should aim at the uh audience from sixteen to forty five. {vocalsound} Mm, first of all um it's the biggest share, the biggest audience, sixty five percent. Uh second, I think you will get the most revenue from i from it. Um, yeah, people from sixteen to forty five watch a lot of T_V_, more than uh people who are el uh elder. Um {vocalsound} second point, {vocalsound} we have to impro improve the most used functions, as I said here, switching channels, teletext and volume controls. Third point um that came out of the uh {disfmarker} of the questionnaire, uh people used to uh get lost off the remote controller, so maybe it's an idea for us uh to design ex kind of placeholder uh on side of the, yeah, of the T_V_ Project Manager: Yeah, that's a cool idea. Marketing: where you can put the the remote control in. {vocalsound} Um, that's about it, I think. Yeah. Industrial Designer: When you mentioned uh improving functions, what uh what do you mean by that what what are you think about? Marketing: Uh not not the r not the functions, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh, the funtionability. Marketing: but uh it came out that a lot of buttons weren't even used uh on a remote control. So you can have a remote control full of buttons, a hundreds hundreds of buttons, but if you don't use them, yeah it's {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Ah okay, so focusing more on the used buttons. Marketing: Yeah, they have to be on it Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: j just to t to get it done if necessary, User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: but um the most used buttons uh have to be bigger or {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Could you use perhaps uh one button for multiple functions, like example pressing it in longer makes it switch to an different function for example. Marketing: Yeah, perhaps. Industrial Designer: Thank you. Marketing: Just for the minor functions perhaps. Industrial Designer: Yeah, ma perhaps, just just an idea. Marketing: Just to get less buttons on the remote control, to make it easier and quicker to learn. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah?'Kay, that's it. Project Manager: Thank you, Tim. {vocalsound} Janus, can you uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Uh yeah yeah, I'll go, sure. Right uh, I'll be uh explaining a bit about uh working design about uh the project. Well uh what I did was I dissected uh uh current remote controls and um I viewed how how they w looked, how they worked, uh what kind of components are involved, and how they are connected together. And uh after that I put up a scheme about how uh these things are organised and I'll show it to you in in a in a few seconds. And I'll explain a bit about uh how it works and how we could uh build one and why I think several possibilities uh that we discussed in the earlier meeting falls off. Um right. Uh well what I did was uh I I checked uh remote controls and the uh remote controls of today are all infrared, not like all probably know. And the thing about that is um the remote controls uh have to act as a T_V_ or uh a stereo or something, and those uh have a transmitter that's also focused on infrared, so if we want to uh build uh mm a remote control uh with Bluetooth for instance then uh the T_V_ should have Bluetooth too in order to communicate, so that would mean extra cost for the user and thus uh that's that wouldn't mean a a cheap uh remote control for us. So that's probably why most controls are still infrared. Furthermore they all have uh a a very simple structure, so that would probably uh mean lower costs and uh i that could mean for us a good thing uh'cause uh well we we should be able to build a relatively cheap uh {gap} a cheap uh remote. Well uh as I mentioned ready, we have some Bluetooth {disfmarker} Well it may be possible, but uh I figured it wouldn't be possible in {disfmarker} within our budget, but that's not for me to decide, but that's maybe something for marketing to look into. F because uh {disfmarker} well my personal opinion is uh is not to do uh Bluetooth {gap} or or radio waves, {vocalsound} although {disfmarker} Marketing: What do you think about uh incorporating Bluetooth or a radio uh receiver uh in the place-holder next to the T_V_, connected to the T_V_? Industrial Designer: Yeah, actually I have t Marketing: So it's in the wrong product. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah, I actually {disfmarker} I figured that would be that would be rather nice, but then you'd still have the uh {disfmarker} the infrared function. So in in theory you'd actually just move the problem, Marketing: Yeah. Yeah. Industrial Designer: but uh what I did uh think about was when you mentioned about the uh the cup-holder, is why not uh introduce a speech function like where is the remote. If somebody says, where is the remote, then it goes uh beep uh beep beep beep or something, User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Industrial Designer: I dunno, maybe uh maybe something to look into, I dunno uh what the cost {gap} that something like that would be. But it may be uh may be something to explore. Uh I'll I'll just explain a bit of the components. Uh first you have the energy source. The energy source would be a battery, simple uh battery uh that you can find anywhere. I figured that would be best,'cause when the battery uh stops functioning uh we could just uh use {disfmarker} you could just go out and buy a new one. So we didn't {disfmarker} and we don't have to do all uh {disfmarker} to be too complicated about that. Uh the energy source is connected to the infrared button, but uh the infrared button uh works only via the chip and the subcomponent to uh the switch {disfmarker} there is a switch uh between these. When the switch is pressed in a w on this this case it switches a button, when a button is prush pushed in, uh a electric current goes through here, and in uh {disfmarker} immediately, a l a bulb lights up uh displaying to the user that something has happened. That's uh that's so the h user won't be um thinking, well uh did the button be pressed, w what happened uh. Or I press button but nothing's happening on the T_V_, so is is something wrong or something. So that's just to uh to to explain the {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} to to uh make it clearer to the user. Uh w well the signal goes via chip that's translated into uh electric sig uh electronic signals and then it's processed and then it's sent to the infrared bulb where it will be uh uh received on the receiving end. And those uh interpreted by the device, well in this case the television. Uh well my personal preferences here, well we have to keep it simple. Not too many uh gadgets and functions, just like you said uh {disfmarker} well the most users n uh you have a lot of buttons and you u u use {disfmarker} you don't use them, so why why should we invent uh {disfmarker} w spend more time on those. Uh I I think we should stick by {disfmarker} with infrared transmitting and uh no receiving. So uh no input from the television. So I think we shouldn't be uh spending time on um teletext and st things like that, because when you uh want teletext on uh infrared you'd have to build in a receiver too, and so in order to receive the signals from uh what's on T_V_ and such. So I figure that would be uh spending too much money and time and {disfmarker} Marketing: Um, yeah, maybe another problem uh, I think current T_V_s can even send infrared. Industrial Designer: Yes, but what should we uh s I I I f I agree with you, but should we spend money or {disfmarker} and time on building a receiver into the uh remote control? Marketing: Huh. Industrial Designer:'Cause that would be {disfmarker} I mean extra components, extra designs, um larger g uh remote control. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Industrial Designer: These all uh all stuff that we have to take in account. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: So I I {disfmarker} my personal opinion is no no no receiver at all. Um, well Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: we should uh look into the design and the functionability. Like I said, uh use one button for instance for m multiple functions, or well uh just hide the few buttons o of switching it open or something, the usual uh {gap} stuff. And uh don't overbuild, we shouldn't make a big uh remote control for simple functions, but we we should stick to the basics. So that was my uh my personal opinion. And that was my uh my presentation uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Okay, thank you Janus. User Interface: Okay. Yes, Project Manager: You do? User Interface: I can go ahead. Project Manager: The last presentation. You have plenty of time, User Interface: Last presentation. Okay. Project Manager: Tim and uh Janus don't uh talk to ten minutes, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: so uh take your time. User Interface: {gap} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: If you take your time too long I will uh eventually uh Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: warn you. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: Well, I'm going to give a presentation abut some of the technical functions of these design and uh usability functions. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: Um what's my opinion about what's most important to combine the design, technical possibilities and the user friendliness in one, so if you um going to design a remote that looks good, that shouldn't weigh over the uh {disfmarker} if it's possible to make, of course, but also the user friendliness, so tha that's that's some of the main points. And another one is um the use um of many functions will will make it more difficult, so use as as little functions as possible or at least don't display them all at once on the same remote. If you have fifty functions you don't want fifty buttons uh t uh to be shown at the same time, Marketing: Hmm. User Interface:'cause when you visit an internet uh site you don't want fifty links uh to see, but maybe use a hierarch hierarchy uh structure. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: And uh well one of the ideas was maybe uh use touch screen, but s I don't know in how far that is possible, Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: since we are sticking to uh um infrared and and the remote cannot receive anything, but uh we might uh consider that. Um well, of course I I hope this is all clear to you. If you {disfmarker} you can use remote like this with all the functions, {gap} many functions, but {disfmarker} Well, your thumb is a little bigger than th it than this. You have to be very careful what you push, Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} User Interface: and um if you're looking for teletext you'll be uh searching for half an hour from uh um {disfmarker} yeah well, where is it? Where the hell {disfmarker} he here I guess and, yeah, when you have to uh use something else. So just keep it simple, make clear buttons, easy to use. For example if you want to use a play and back and stop, that's very important. Um well this was because of our last discussion, if multiple machines are used, create easy switch between the machines, but um it's no longer uh applying. {vocalsound} Well yeah, I prefer to use it only for T_V_ and um n uh not to give too many options and and if possible, uh the buttons should give {vocalsound} a dr direct action, not first select {disfmarker} Project Manager: Uh you you just said um uh you wanted to to combine more functions in one, so uh User Interface: Yeah, Project Manager: you you want to keep it simple, User Interface: and so that's where the difficulties lie. Industrial Designer: Yeah, but {disfmarker} Project Manager: but I think that if you want to do that, then you can't escape the the fact that there will be buttons uh which give s uh more options than one. User Interface: Yeah, this {disfmarker} so that's the thing you have to weigh against each other. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah, but {disfmarker} User Interface: Do we want to use a few options and might not be so or original, or uh multi-purpose as we thought, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Okay. User Interface: or do we want to use um many buttons. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: So um weighing those factors. Marketing: Hmm {gap} it's maybe an option uh if you use an L_C_D_ {vocalsound} or a touch screen um, that in the middle are the the main keys, like displayed on the {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Uh yeah. User Interface: The {gap} doesn't {gap}. Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap}. Yeah, this? No? Yeah. {vocalsound} Something like that. Okay, just uh in the middle the general functions, like play, uh channel switching, User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: and then uh at the top or at the bottom, some menus like uh settings or {disfmarker} that you can drop down. User Interface: Yeah, but when all the questions I had {disfmarker} Do we want to use uh a menu display on the T_V_? Or um does have to f everything uh be in remotes?'Cause if you use a memory display on the T_V_, you can simply push uh a more menu and then select the options you want to have and press okay. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: Uh so that's my recommendation, if you use many options in one buttle {disfmarker} button, um display the menu on the T_V_ Marketing: Nah. Mm-hmm. User Interface: and don't um use combination of t of two buttons at the same time or pressing buttons three times for five seconds, Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: is too complicated for most users. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah, but {disfmarker} Marketing: I think so too, but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and that's partly because um uh a lot of T_V_s have different menus, and when you have a particular menu uh at your device, uh it could be that don't correspond to the menu what's actually on T_V_. User Interface: Yeah, that will be a problem. Industrial Designer: Well Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: you d you have to {gap} keep in mind that uh several T_V_s uh don't even have a menu structure, or they have a very simple menu structure, so you have to keep in mind that not all uh d not {disfmarker} our remote won't be able to work on all televisions. User Interface: Yes. Industrial Designer: And that would be uh a considerable problem. User Interface: So if we have to stick with current technologies and uh um well yeah, the restrictions of what's uh is on the market today, um you should keep it s at this. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: Use big clear buttons. Not too many. So maybe we'll loose a few option uh options, but I think i this is more important. Um {vocalsound} especially the important buttons, um if you want to switch channel, change your volume, uh use teletext, it uh it has to work at once and more advanced options may be put it s somewhere away on the remote, behind uh a little uh little thing or a touch screen. Industrial Designer: Not embed Yeah, but then with something like a touch screen could {disfmarker} could make more menu up {disfmarker} pop up or something. User Interface: And yeah, if you want to uh uh s put {gap} on stand-by or change the channel, that should always be possible to do. Not first change menu options or switch something. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: Um, well yeah, as you already told, give some feedback. If the user is pushing a button he should know if the television or n at least remote is reacting and not just that the batteries may be low. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: And um, well, my conclusion is uh is uh less is more, keep it simple. So uh maybe we should just ease down on the functionality to uh to keep it accessible on t because you all know, if there are a lot of function {gap} on the the television, some you you'll never know uh and never use, and therefore it's uh important Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: if you want to change the volume or channel that is always accessible and easy and other functions um that are not so important {disfmarker} um well you {disfmarker} we should consider just not using them or at least putting them somewhere on the remote where they're not in the way for the for the most important functions. Marketing: Yeah. Uh, I think the idea uh about uh touch screen um is very good. Um, because recently uh I saw news item on T_V_ um about uh new telephones uh for elder people. Um, they have like a touch screen with uh really big pictures on it like uh uh call uh hang-up, um and that's a big ad advantage I think, because one the one hand uh you make the remote control compatible for elder users just by uh scaling up the pictures or something. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: It's uh very visual intended. {vocalsound} What was I to say more? User Interface: Maybe that's an option. Um keep the primary buttons visible. Uh make a remote that fits easily in the hands Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and for some design issues uh well, put a logo on it and maybe use it uh in some aesthetic uh aesthetic form. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: But uh th the important buttons m make them always accessible and pushable and clear Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: and maybe use a touch screen, or if that's uh will become too difficult just uh like televi some o older telephones use a l uh maybe it's possible to to flip them open and uh just expand the number of options that are normally visible. Um {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah okay, but but if you pick the the idea, the left idea User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: then what's gonna be displayed on the touch screen? Industrial Designer: The extra functions. User Interface: The extra functions, you uh you just see a menu from system functions or teletext functions, and you just choose one, Marketing: Yeah, but l like menu functions or {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: and then all all the options will become available Marketing: Ah okay. User Interface: and you just c s yeah t scroll through them. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wouldn't it be better to make just one big touch screen, uh one one small uh touch screen uh applet Marketing: Yeah, I think so. Industrial Designer: and uh I'll just make um {disfmarker} uh let's say fifteen buttons on it, and uh we have three of those, uh actually just uh menus with sub-menus, with {disfmarker} or sub-items, sub-functions. User Interface: Well um Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: then I'd like to make a proposal. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: If you make one big touch screen, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes. User Interface: use the same concept as here, keep the buttons always available Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and use the lower part of the touch screen for the rest. Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: like like the iPod idea that that we just saw. User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: You just have a f a few selected buttons and uh a few menus, and with this idea you could actually make uh several {disfmarker} you can also improve uh later on. User Interface: Yes. Industrial Designer: Uh uh I think that will be great. User Interface: Okay. Project Manager: So you think it's will be better to have a t kinda total touch screen. Marketing: Yeah, I think so. Industrial Designer: Yeah, I wou I would actually go for the {disfmarker} Project Manager: Jirun? User Interface: Okay, I agree, but I think it's very important that they always um make the same buttons accessible, so use just for special options a part of the touch screen. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah, of course. User Interface: And so um an elder designer picks up th the {disfmarker} of Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: an elder parents or grandparent picks up the remote from the little child and who's all in the systems functions, you'll have to have the possibility to turn off the T_V_ or to switch the channel without um well using all the menu structures to get back to the primary functions. Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah, I had another uh idea about maybe parental control. Um, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Marketing: like building in uh some kind of PIN code uh which allows uh parents to switch to all channels, uh User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: but children uh {disfmarker} if children don't don't know the PIN code, they can't switch to uh violent uh channels or {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah wh Is that possible to use or no? Industrial Designer: That is possible, that {disfmarker} well that actually depends on the television, Marketing: Th there's just {disfmarker} User Interface: Well, yeah well, Industrial Designer: but I think {disfmarker} I figure that would be {disfmarker} User Interface: does it have to depend on the television? Marketing: Ju just a simple log-in, something like that. Industrial Designer: Well, Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: y you s you see the fi uh thing is when you buy a remote, you you set the uh channels, the the channels are different on each te television, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: they aren't set in a preset order, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: so uh if you uh lock on a remote, uh let's say channel fifteen, well channel fifteen on this television is different than channel fifteen on the other television, Marketing: Mm-hmm. Yeah, okay. Industrial Designer: so that would be uh that would be actually the main concern. Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah. User Interface: Well, I think that he means that um maybe by some option uh {disfmarker} make sure that um remote control and the T_V_ match, and then after that you can um use some s insert some passwords as being apparent that the children cannot use this uh {disfmarker} change the settings of the T_V_, like colour and then volume Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, th that kind of stuff, but maybe um if you log in first as a parent um, you address the the channels User Interface: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Yes. Marketing: and like uh oh, that's channel fifteen, that's uh vi violent channel, User Interface: Oh, something like that. Industrial Designer: Yes. Marketing: uh m my ki my kids uh {disfmarker} I don't want my kids to watch that, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: then you set the priority to only parents, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay, yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: Well b but make it a separate option in the menu, Industrial Designer: Yeah, that would b Marketing: for example. But {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah, that. User Interface: so that it's it's dif dis displayed from uh {disfmarker} displayed here, Marketing: Yeah okay, but but {disfmarker} yeah, that's just User Interface: so uh parents uh {disfmarker} Marketing: that's an a an added feature. Project Manager: Yeah. Okay. But let's not uh go too wide about the {disfmarker} those things, that's that why we're here. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah, {vocalsound} th th those things are nice. {vocalsound} Project Manager: It's it's a nice idea, but I think that's we wel {vocalsound} later in the stage. I've one little question about um a total touch screen or uh um a p Marketing: Partial. Project Manager: yeah, a partial, uh because I think uh elderly people may be uh not used to uh a touch screen, so they want the the the normal functions like teletext, volume changing, um uh to be uh, yeah, kinda traditionals Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: uh and uh {vocalsound} the the the the other functions, the more difficult functions uh to be uh maybe on the touch screen, Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: but to keep this as uh normal as possible, to keep it accessible. Marketing: Yeah, but but if you display it on L_C_D_ screen with r r really big numbers User Interface: Yeah, you can de display it on the on the old style. Marketing: that's just as e just as easy. Industrial Designer: Uh. I I do {disfmarker} User Interface: You can display actual buttons on the touch screens. Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah, that's true, that's true. Industrial Designer: Uh I do agree, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: because well, it's just not the same when you touch a touch screen User Interface: Yeah, okay. Industrial Designer: or when you touch a button, but well we have to look at what's our target uh audience. Marketing: Yeah, it's different. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: W we are aiming for younger people Project Manager: Yeah, that's true, yeah. Industrial Designer: and they they chose {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, age b below forty. Project Manager: Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Yep. Industrial Designer: So that's that's probably uh a {disfmarker} Marketing: And th those young people, yeah. Y you saw it in my marketing report, they like the new fancy stuff, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. They like the fancy stuff, yeah. That's true. Marketing: so {disfmarker} A touch screen, like Microsoft al already developed something like that for uh uh multi-media applications. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: I th I think we can do that too. Project Manager: Mm {disfmarker} Yeah. Okay, as you can see uh the minutes from the second meeting, this one, are uh {vocalsound} are done. Marketing: {vocalsound} Done. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh I've uh added the {disfmarker} this uh four things from the management board just to keep in mind. User Interface: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um each time I uh I had a sort of uh summary on what you told and uh what you personal think. Uh so that can be uh can be read out. Uh a f a few things I uh I noticed uh were um {disfmarker} Moment. Ooh. Uh th the the main points in uh this uh uh in this uh meeting is I think uh how uh it's going to look uh with uh {disfmarker} we must keep it simple, but have the opportunity to uh have more options and have them uh hidden or something, so they don't {disfmarker} uh you don't have a big uh thing full of uh buttons or uh {disfmarker} um and uh the point that uh you uh wanna use one uh controller uh for uh uh hypothetically {vocalsound} each television, so you must uh the the the the functions, know, like the menus or the the parental control must be all uh by the {disfmarker} done by the remote control and not by the television. I think that's the point what uh User Interface: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: we discussed. User Interface: Yes. Marketing: Yeah, yeah, some of them. The menus uh are not identical for all th for all T_V_s, so you have to display it on one uh T_V_. User Interface: Well you can use um {disfmarker} when you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh how do you call it, s um synchronized, the um remote and the T_V_, Marketing: Yeah, but that's not possible. User Interface: then there's always, there are always uh possibilities to change the colour and the brightness and the volume Marketing: Mm-hmm, mm yeah. User Interface: and um well maybe we can look out if there's options that the remote um in its memory can see what kinda T_V_ it is, from {disfmarker} ah, it's a Philips, this and this and that, and then give the options that are capable {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} capable from the t Project Manager: Yeah, but you have uh uh an {disfmarker} Marketing: Add th that that's an opportunity {gap}. Project Manager: yeah, but you have an international market range, so you have I think a big range of {disfmarker} User Interface: Well there are universal d um um remotes Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: and they all have a functionality for all the T_V_s, uh so this wouldn't be a extra feature to incorporate the men menus of these. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: But they {disfmarker} Marketing: But {disfmarker} Project Manager: And it's not too complex to do it. User Interface: {gap} Industrial Designer: Well they uh they all have to be programmed to fit your T_V_ Marketing: No. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and that that is bit of a tricky job. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: I actually use one of those when {disfmarker} They are they are kinda kinda troublesome, but but the thing is whe when you uh start uh building something like this you have to build a receiver into the uh t into the remotes, because uh in order for the remote to process something from the T_V_, like uh to synchronise and you have to send and receive, User Interface: Yeah. Well {disfmarker} Yeah. Mm-hmm. Oh um mo Industrial Designer: and that's well {disfmarker} Marketing: No no no. User Interface: no, you can just say uh the c Marketing: {vocalsound} He he he he me he means just just one other thing. Project Manager: Just build it in. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Uh, with the current remote controls, the universal ones, um you have to press {disfmarker} yeah, you have to press a code for T_V_. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yes. User Interface: In codes, y you you get a b a book with codes. You look up, I have a Philips H_ fifty five Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: and it says press code four five five Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Oh, okay, yeah, sure, uh {disfmarker} User Interface: and you press code four five five on the {disfmarker} uh in the remote Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah. User Interface: and it displays all your uh menu options. Industrial Designer: Oh, yeah yeah, sure, that would be possible, yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Now we uh just connect uh the T_V_ type uh to a set of options, in {disfmarker} just just in the memory, User Interface: Memory in the in the remote. Project Manager: Yep. Industrial Designer: Profiles. Marketing: so that if you {disfmarker} yeah, like profile, so that if you uh touch in like uh one four one zero kind of T_V_ uh Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: the memory uh pops up the options. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah, that would be possible. Yeah, sure. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: I th don't think that's uh {disfmarker} that takes a lot of storage space or some just varia variables. Industrial Designer: No, that wouldn't be uh {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah, well um Industrial Designer: Yeah, a few variables. User Interface: if you look at the um manuals from universal uh remotes, there are maybe um three four hundreds T_V_s at maximum. If you have all of them, all the old and new T_V_s summed up, Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: so uh I think uh it is possible {gap}. Industrial Designer: Ah it is. It is definitely po Marketing: But, on the other hand on the other hand, uh if you have a remote and buy a new T_V_ that isn't incorporated in the remote {disfmarker} Project Manager: We have five minutes to go. User Interface: Yeah. Well then you have to buy a new one, it's very good for marketing Marketing: New remote? User Interface: Maybe, or an update, software update. Marketing: A firmware upgrade or something, User Interface: Firmware update, you say. Industrial Designer: Yeah, firmware upgrade. Marketing: but from where? Ah. Maybe w Industrial Designer: That's maybe the cup holder. Marketing: No m may no, User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: maybe we can incorporate some kind of uh U_S_B_ or a firewire connection, so that you can uh connect it to the P_C_ and download the newest firmware from uh from the internet. Industrial Designer: Well, not everybody has uh has uh a P_C_ at home. Well the most most people have, User Interface: Well, at {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: but not not everybody User Interface: uh you can go back to the shop Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} User Interface: and uh they {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: like a s kind of service centre. User Interface: Yeah, ser o Industrial Designer: Yeah, maybe something like service cen Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and they can download it for you. Industrial Designer: Or you could {disfmarker} well you could s actually look at the place-holder you talked about earlier, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and you could probably uh make a connection to uh an telephone line or a internet connection. User Interface: Yeah. Well already digital information is sent t to the the standards, T_V_ uh connections, Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: you can see what's uh programme is on on the new uh channels, so maybe j they {disfmarker} we can send that information along with standard T_V_ uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Well then then it's be uh back to the building a receiving uh {disfmarker} well uh if it's actually worth it to build it in, User Interface: Receiving. Oh yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: we could actually look at {disfmarker} into it, User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} I dunno, it it would be uh bringing more costs {gap} uh with with it User Interface: Difficult. Yeah. Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Marketing: I I think it's uh most cheap or cheapest to just do the updates uh at the service centre or at the shop. User Interface: Yeah yeah, uh s I think some {disfmarker} I think it's good idea, yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that would be probably best, yeah. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Like when you when you buy a T_V_ you just ask {disfmarker} well I'll {disfmarker} Marketing: It's it's it's not a lot of work, just one uh docking station where you put it in, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: press start, bling bling, updated. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that would be best, yeah. User Interface: Yeah. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} You don't buy a T_V_ every week, new teev so. User Interface: Okay, let's uh save this in the meanwhile uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: No no. Exactly, so {disfmarker} User Interface: Um m for which one are we going? {gap} My mistake. Marketing: Let's vote. User Interface: That one or uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah, my vote goes out to the right {gap}. User Interface: Your vote and your {disfmarker} Marketing: My vote too. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: Okay. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: And your vote? User Interface: Well, I was uh doubting about which one to take, but uh you've convinced me that uh if you di display buttons about the same as they would look on a normal um remote all elderly people will know what to do. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: And also like a clapping uh li like device that uh pops open. User Interface: Opens up is too difficult Industrial Designer: Flips open. User Interface: or uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Uh too difficult, um maybe uh it's easier to break it. Project Manager: N yeah. User Interface: Break it, I don't get {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, th th th that i uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah. Project Manager: It's very sensitive. User Interface: Oh so {disfmarker} Yeah. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: Like my telephone, it's uh it's sensitive too. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay well uh it's almost at the end. So we have now a lunch break, finally, Marketing: Ah. Project Manager: yeah. {vocalsound} Uh after the lunch break uh it's back to uh individual work, once again uh thirty minutes. Uh I will put my minutes {disfmarker} uh I have updated them so uh s they're updated in the shared folder too. Marketing: Thirty minutes? Project Manager: Thirty minutes, the {disfmarker} Marketing: How minutes? {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Failure. Uh {vocalsound} uh the specifi uh specific instructions for the next uh meeting you will {disfmarker} all will receive uh at the uh the the email. I don't think I can uh say much about it, so uh uh wait for your email and uh hopefully you get it done uh in the in the thirty minutes, and I w will see you after the lunch break and the thirty minutes. Marketing: One question, Project Manager: Yeah? Marketing: uh how late do we have to get back {disfmarker} be back here? Project Manager: Uh well uh thirty minutes. User Interface: A quarter to one maybe? Project Manager: Uh, yeah. Marketing: Thirty minutes lunch break? Project Manager: Thirty minutes lunch break, yeah. Oh. Forty five? User Interface: Okay. Marketing: I thought forty five. Project Manager: Uh then would it be uh one o'clock. Marketing: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Project Manager: Or we we ask our personal coach. Okay. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Thank you. Thank you, uh that was a very uh good session I think, User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {gap} Project Manager: we uh we {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah, is it possible to store this on the share documents or what {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, me too. Project Manager: Uh ye well {disfmarker} Marketing: Save as. Project Manager: Yeah, because uh all uh things are uh stored in smart board dot uh X_D_K_ Marketing: Yeah, v Project Manager: and that's in {disfmarker} Marketing: But but you can open a {disfmarker} from your pr from your laptop. User Interface:'Kay, save it as an image on the res Marketing: Yeah, maybe. Save as. Project Manager: No. Industrial Designer: Export. Maybe not export function. Marketing: No. Export. Project Manager: Well I can I can uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Export H_T_M_L_. User Interface: No, and use an image if possible. Marketing: Huh, image? User Interface: J_ PEG. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} G_ {disfmarker} yeah, J_ PEG. User Interface: J_ PEG. Yeah, it's better Marketing: Paper size A_ four. Uh screen size. In this directory. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: N oh. User Interface: Oh yeah, it's not connected to the Project Manager: You all uh have the the questionnaire again about uh the after work. User Interface: to our P_C_s. Marketing: No? Yeah, it is connected. User Interface: It's connected? Marketing: Yeah, I think so. Project Manager: Deskt Huh. No. Industrial Designer: To room. I'll just uh saved in my documents. Marketing: Oh. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} in my own uh {disfmarker} in my own messenger. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Project documents, yeah. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: It gives the na Oh. Yes. Project Manager: Okay, Industrial Designer: Okay, nice. Project Manager: thank you. User Interface: The questionnaire, fill in {disfmarker} uh we fill out d after lunch or uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Uh well, it's it's simply filling {disfmarker} oh no, it's uh it's also filling out {disfmarker} no, I'd do it after lunch I think. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Aye, cheers. Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'm hungry, so do it after lunch. User Interface: Yes. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thank you all. Marketing: Thank you. Project Manager: You're welcome. User Interface: We can leave the P_C_ on I think, yeah and return to the {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, of course. Project Manager: Yeah. Well I bring it to my uh personal room. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah, bring to {disfmarker} I gotta bring it home. Industrial Designer: {gap} Marketing: To my exave executive {disfmarker} Project Manager: My executive uh big room with the with the panting. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} A big office. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: Yes. Marketing: Aye. Yeah. Okay. Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} {gap} Marketing: {gap} Project Manager: {vocalsound}

Based on those findings, Marketing thought the main focus should be put on the audience from 16 to 45 because they were the biggest share, which could bring more profit. Also, Marketing thought there was a need to improve the most used functions, and therefore, the buttons needed to be bigger and for minor functions. Less buttons and minor functions would make it easier and quicker for users to learn. What's more, a placeholder would help users to keep remote controls.

tr-sq-689

tr-sq-689_0

What did Industrial Designer think of the remote control with Bluetooth and other new technology when discussing the possibility of applying different technologies? Project Manager: Hello. Marketing: Hey guys. User Interface: Hi. Industrial Designer: Hi. Project Manager: Hi. Industrial Designer: I see my bunny is still standing. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: No one drawing it. Project Manager: It's too beautiful. User Interface: Yeah, true. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh I figured uh that much. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: Too wicked. User Interface: Mm. Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: A minute please, my uh laptop is uh {disfmarker} oh, there it is, thank you. So welcome back. {vocalsound} At the functional design meeting um the plan is uh that uh each one of you, so not me but only you uh will uh present uh the the things you worked on uh the last uh half hour. I will uh take minutes and will put uh the minutes that I have uh at the end of the session in the shared folder. {vocalsound} Also the minutes of the previous session are also in the shared folder now, so you can read that uh now or afterwards. Um {vocalsound} uh I had an email from the from the management board Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: uh, I don't know if you a al also uh received it, but there were four points uh which uh I think are very important. First one is uh they think that uh teletext teletext becomes outdated uh and internet will be the the main uh focus. {vocalsound} Uh second one is also important uh, because it's one of the discussion points of the previous session. Uh the remote control shou should onl only be used for the television, so it uh not gonna it's not gonna be a multi-purpose remote control, so uh that's one thing to keep in mind. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh second, and I think that's important for the Marketing uh Expert, uh the current uh customers uh are in the age group group of uh forty years and older, but with this uh new remote uh they uh will uh {disfmarker} would like to reach uh a group uh younger than uh forty. Uh and uh I think to keep in mind, but not really uh for now is that they uh want the the the slogan and the and the logo uh to uh to be recognised more in the remote. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: So, we have uh forty minutes, so I think uh not more than ten minutes uh uh per presentation uh each, and please uh use uh all the the the facilities so that you have either SMARTboards, the the Word files, what you uh {disfmarker} whatever you want. So uh Tim, can you start? Yeah? Marketing: Okay. {vocalsound}'Kay, welcome. I have some uh new findings on uh Marketing Expert level, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Marketing: which I will show you. {vocalsound} The method I used was um giving orders to our usability lab uh to do a questionnaire. Um {vocalsound} one hundred respondents were involved and my marketing uh department generated a report with a lot of results. Um, these were a couple of findings, first page of three. Um, we have three audiences of {disfmarker} two audiences, {vocalsound} I'm sorry. Uh the first one, this scale, from sixteen to forty five {gap} age. Uh the second one is from sixty four {disfmarker} uh forty six to sixty five. Um, as you can see here, the market share for the first audience is about sixty percent {disfmarker} um sixty five. Uh second audience audience is uh thirty five percent. Mm {vocalsound} and some interests from the from the age groups, uh it seems like the young users of remote controls really like the fancy uh new technology stuff, like uh an L_C_D_ screen on the remote control, um speech recognition. I don't think that's uh really appropriate. Um, {vocalsound} and when you see uh the audience, the age is going up uh {disfmarker} Yeah, they don't really want it anymore, at least the new technologies. Second findings {vocalsound} out of the questionnaire um are the opinion {vocalsound} the opinions uh of the audience about current remote controls. First point is, seventy five percent of the users find the most repo remote controls very ugly, uh and eighty percent of the users would spend more money when a remote control would look fancy. So that's maybe something for the User Interface uh Designer. Okay, third findings. According to the frequency of use versus importance investigation, um {vocalsound} following buttons are most important. Um, I will tell something about the way this uh this test was, yeah, done. Um, {vocalsound} persons were asked uh what the buttons were uh they use most, how much an hour, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: and uh in the second table the importance of those buttons. Um, when you multiply them, you get the {disfmarker} these three points. Switching channels, um yeah, that's pretty uh pretty normal, that's what you do with a remote control. Um the second, teletext, uh and the third, uh volume controls. Um, I think it's good uh that we know what the user want {disfmarker} wants, uh at least the these three points have to be uh very clear. Project Manager: But it's strange that the the manage board {disfmarker} the management board said that the teletext will be uh outdated by the internet. So that that's strange. Marketing: Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay, but uh at the moment uh teletext is {disfmarker} Yeah, th the best thing you can get uh on T_V_, like getting information. Project Manager: Yeah, okay. Yeah. Marketing: So uh, when you ask people, what do they use, {vocalsound} they use teletext and not the internet on a remote control. Project Manager: Okay. Yeah, okay. Marketing: That's ridiculous. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: That's a ne i it {disfmarker} It's a new technology, Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: but it's not incorporated right now. Okay, my personal preferences. Um, I think we should aim at the uh audience from sixteen to forty five. {vocalsound} Mm, first of all um it's the biggest share, the biggest audience, sixty five percent. Uh second, I think you will get the most revenue from i from it. Um, yeah, people from sixteen to forty five watch a lot of T_V_, more than uh people who are el uh elder. Um {vocalsound} second point, {vocalsound} we have to impro improve the most used functions, as I said here, switching channels, teletext and volume controls. Third point um that came out of the uh {disfmarker} of the questionnaire, uh people used to uh get lost off the remote controller, so maybe it's an idea for us uh to design ex kind of placeholder uh on side of the, yeah, of the T_V_ Project Manager: Yeah, that's a cool idea. Marketing: where you can put the the remote control in. {vocalsound} Um, that's about it, I think. Yeah. Industrial Designer: When you mentioned uh improving functions, what uh what do you mean by that what what are you think about? Marketing: Uh not not the r not the functions, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh, the funtionability. Marketing: but uh it came out that a lot of buttons weren't even used uh on a remote control. So you can have a remote control full of buttons, a hundreds hundreds of buttons, but if you don't use them, yeah it's {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Ah okay, so focusing more on the used buttons. Marketing: Yeah, they have to be on it Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: j just to t to get it done if necessary, User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: but um the most used buttons uh have to be bigger or {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Could you use perhaps uh one button for multiple functions, like example pressing it in longer makes it switch to an different function for example. Marketing: Yeah, perhaps. Industrial Designer: Thank you. Marketing: Just for the minor functions perhaps. Industrial Designer: Yeah, ma perhaps, just just an idea. Marketing: Just to get less buttons on the remote control, to make it easier and quicker to learn. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah?'Kay, that's it. Project Manager: Thank you, Tim. {vocalsound} Janus, can you uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Uh yeah yeah, I'll go, sure. Right uh, I'll be uh explaining a bit about uh working design about uh the project. Well uh what I did was I dissected uh uh current remote controls and um I viewed how how they w looked, how they worked, uh what kind of components are involved, and how they are connected together. And uh after that I put up a scheme about how uh these things are organised and I'll show it to you in in a in a few seconds. And I'll explain a bit about uh how it works and how we could uh build one and why I think several possibilities uh that we discussed in the earlier meeting falls off. Um right. Uh well what I did was uh I I checked uh remote controls and the uh remote controls of today are all infrared, not like all probably know. And the thing about that is um the remote controls uh have to act as a T_V_ or uh a stereo or something, and those uh have a transmitter that's also focused on infrared, so if we want to uh build uh mm a remote control uh with Bluetooth for instance then uh the T_V_ should have Bluetooth too in order to communicate, so that would mean extra cost for the user and thus uh that's that wouldn't mean a a cheap uh remote control for us. So that's probably why most controls are still infrared. Furthermore they all have uh a a very simple structure, so that would probably uh mean lower costs and uh i that could mean for us a good thing uh'cause uh well we we should be able to build a relatively cheap uh {gap} a cheap uh remote. Well uh as I mentioned ready, we have some Bluetooth {disfmarker} Well it may be possible, but uh I figured it wouldn't be possible in {disfmarker} within our budget, but that's not for me to decide, but that's maybe something for marketing to look into. F because uh {disfmarker} well my personal opinion is uh is not to do uh Bluetooth {gap} or or radio waves, {vocalsound} although {disfmarker} Marketing: What do you think about uh incorporating Bluetooth or a radio uh receiver uh in the place-holder next to the T_V_, connected to the T_V_? Industrial Designer: Yeah, actually I have t Marketing: So it's in the wrong product. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah, I actually {disfmarker} I figured that would be that would be rather nice, but then you'd still have the uh {disfmarker} the infrared function. So in in theory you'd actually just move the problem, Marketing: Yeah. Yeah. Industrial Designer: but uh what I did uh think about was when you mentioned about the uh the cup-holder, is why not uh introduce a speech function like where is the remote. If somebody says, where is the remote, then it goes uh beep uh beep beep beep or something, User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Industrial Designer: I dunno, maybe uh maybe something to look into, I dunno uh what the cost {gap} that something like that would be. But it may be uh may be something to explore. Uh I'll I'll just explain a bit of the components. Uh first you have the energy source. The energy source would be a battery, simple uh battery uh that you can find anywhere. I figured that would be best,'cause when the battery uh stops functioning uh we could just uh use {disfmarker} you could just go out and buy a new one. So we didn't {disfmarker} and we don't have to do all uh {disfmarker} to be too complicated about that. Uh the energy source is connected to the infrared button, but uh the infrared button uh works only via the chip and the subcomponent to uh the switch {disfmarker} there is a switch uh between these. When the switch is pressed in a w on this this case it switches a button, when a button is prush pushed in, uh a electric current goes through here, and in uh {disfmarker} immediately, a l a bulb lights up uh displaying to the user that something has happened. That's uh that's so the h user won't be um thinking, well uh did the button be pressed, w what happened uh. Or I press button but nothing's happening on the T_V_, so is is something wrong or something. So that's just to uh to to explain the {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} to to uh make it clearer to the user. Uh w well the signal goes via chip that's translated into uh electric sig uh electronic signals and then it's processed and then it's sent to the infrared bulb where it will be uh uh received on the receiving end. And those uh interpreted by the device, well in this case the television. Uh well my personal preferences here, well we have to keep it simple. Not too many uh gadgets and functions, just like you said uh {disfmarker} well the most users n uh you have a lot of buttons and you u u use {disfmarker} you don't use them, so why why should we invent uh {disfmarker} w spend more time on those. Uh I I think we should stick by {disfmarker} with infrared transmitting and uh no receiving. So uh no input from the television. So I think we shouldn't be uh spending time on um teletext and st things like that, because when you uh want teletext on uh infrared you'd have to build in a receiver too, and so in order to receive the signals from uh what's on T_V_ and such. So I figure that would be uh spending too much money and time and {disfmarker} Marketing: Um, yeah, maybe another problem uh, I think current T_V_s can even send infrared. Industrial Designer: Yes, but what should we uh s I I I f I agree with you, but should we spend money or {disfmarker} and time on building a receiver into the uh remote control? Marketing: Huh. Industrial Designer:'Cause that would be {disfmarker} I mean extra components, extra designs, um larger g uh remote control. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Industrial Designer: These all uh all stuff that we have to take in account. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: So I I {disfmarker} my personal opinion is no no no receiver at all. Um, well Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: we should uh look into the design and the functionability. Like I said, uh use one button for instance for m multiple functions, or well uh just hide the few buttons o of switching it open or something, the usual uh {gap} stuff. And uh don't overbuild, we shouldn't make a big uh remote control for simple functions, but we we should stick to the basics. So that was my uh my personal opinion. And that was my uh my presentation uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Okay, thank you Janus. User Interface: Okay. Yes, Project Manager: You do? User Interface: I can go ahead. Project Manager: The last presentation. You have plenty of time, User Interface: Last presentation. Okay. Project Manager: Tim and uh Janus don't uh talk to ten minutes, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: so uh take your time. User Interface: {gap} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: If you take your time too long I will uh eventually uh Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: warn you. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: Well, I'm going to give a presentation abut some of the technical functions of these design and uh usability functions. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: Um what's my opinion about what's most important to combine the design, technical possibilities and the user friendliness in one, so if you um going to design a remote that looks good, that shouldn't weigh over the uh {disfmarker} if it's possible to make, of course, but also the user friendliness, so tha that's that's some of the main points. And another one is um the use um of many functions will will make it more difficult, so use as as little functions as possible or at least don't display them all at once on the same remote. If you have fifty functions you don't want fifty buttons uh t uh to be shown at the same time, Marketing: Hmm. User Interface:'cause when you visit an internet uh site you don't want fifty links uh to see, but maybe use a hierarch hierarchy uh structure. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: And uh well one of the ideas was maybe uh use touch screen, but s I don't know in how far that is possible, Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: since we are sticking to uh um infrared and and the remote cannot receive anything, but uh we might uh consider that. Um well, of course I I hope this is all clear to you. If you {disfmarker} you can use remote like this with all the functions, {gap} many functions, but {disfmarker} Well, your thumb is a little bigger than th it than this. You have to be very careful what you push, Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} User Interface: and um if you're looking for teletext you'll be uh searching for half an hour from uh um {disfmarker} yeah well, where is it? Where the hell {disfmarker} he here I guess and, yeah, when you have to uh use something else. So just keep it simple, make clear buttons, easy to use. For example if you want to use a play and back and stop, that's very important. Um well this was because of our last discussion, if multiple machines are used, create easy switch between the machines, but um it's no longer uh applying. {vocalsound} Well yeah, I prefer to use it only for T_V_ and um n uh not to give too many options and and if possible, uh the buttons should give {vocalsound} a dr direct action, not first select {disfmarker} Project Manager: Uh you you just said um uh you wanted to to combine more functions in one, so uh User Interface: Yeah, Project Manager: you you want to keep it simple, User Interface: and so that's where the difficulties lie. Industrial Designer: Yeah, but {disfmarker} Project Manager: but I think that if you want to do that, then you can't escape the the fact that there will be buttons uh which give s uh more options than one. User Interface: Yeah, this {disfmarker} so that's the thing you have to weigh against each other. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah, but {disfmarker} User Interface: Do we want to use a few options and might not be so or original, or uh multi-purpose as we thought, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Okay. User Interface: or do we want to use um many buttons. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: So um weighing those factors. Marketing: Hmm {gap} it's maybe an option uh if you use an L_C_D_ {vocalsound} or a touch screen um, that in the middle are the the main keys, like displayed on the {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Uh yeah. User Interface: The {gap} doesn't {gap}. Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap}. Yeah, this? No? Yeah. {vocalsound} Something like that. Okay, just uh in the middle the general functions, like play, uh channel switching, User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: and then uh at the top or at the bottom, some menus like uh settings or {disfmarker} that you can drop down. User Interface: Yeah, but when all the questions I had {disfmarker} Do we want to use uh a menu display on the T_V_? Or um does have to f everything uh be in remotes?'Cause if you use a memory display on the T_V_, you can simply push uh a more menu and then select the options you want to have and press okay. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: Uh so that's my recommendation, if you use many options in one buttle {disfmarker} button, um display the menu on the T_V_ Marketing: Nah. Mm-hmm. User Interface: and don't um use combination of t of two buttons at the same time or pressing buttons three times for five seconds, Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: is too complicated for most users. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah, but {disfmarker} Marketing: I think so too, but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and that's partly because um uh a lot of T_V_s have different menus, and when you have a particular menu uh at your device, uh it could be that don't correspond to the menu what's actually on T_V_. User Interface: Yeah, that will be a problem. Industrial Designer: Well Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: you d you have to {gap} keep in mind that uh several T_V_s uh don't even have a menu structure, or they have a very simple menu structure, so you have to keep in mind that not all uh d not {disfmarker} our remote won't be able to work on all televisions. User Interface: Yes. Industrial Designer: And that would be uh a considerable problem. User Interface: So if we have to stick with current technologies and uh um well yeah, the restrictions of what's uh is on the market today, um you should keep it s at this. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: Use big clear buttons. Not too many. So maybe we'll loose a few option uh options, but I think i this is more important. Um {vocalsound} especially the important buttons, um if you want to switch channel, change your volume, uh use teletext, it uh it has to work at once and more advanced options may be put it s somewhere away on the remote, behind uh a little uh little thing or a touch screen. Industrial Designer: Not embed Yeah, but then with something like a touch screen could {disfmarker} could make more menu up {disfmarker} pop up or something. User Interface: And yeah, if you want to uh uh s put {gap} on stand-by or change the channel, that should always be possible to do. Not first change menu options or switch something. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: Um, well yeah, as you already told, give some feedback. If the user is pushing a button he should know if the television or n at least remote is reacting and not just that the batteries may be low. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: And um, well, my conclusion is uh is uh less is more, keep it simple. So uh maybe we should just ease down on the functionality to uh to keep it accessible on t because you all know, if there are a lot of function {gap} on the the television, some you you'll never know uh and never use, and therefore it's uh important Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: if you want to change the volume or channel that is always accessible and easy and other functions um that are not so important {disfmarker} um well you {disfmarker} we should consider just not using them or at least putting them somewhere on the remote where they're not in the way for the for the most important functions. Marketing: Yeah. Uh, I think the idea uh about uh touch screen um is very good. Um, because recently uh I saw news item on T_V_ um about uh new telephones uh for elder people. Um, they have like a touch screen with uh really big pictures on it like uh uh call uh hang-up, um and that's a big ad advantage I think, because one the one hand uh you make the remote control compatible for elder users just by uh scaling up the pictures or something. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: It's uh very visual intended. {vocalsound} What was I to say more? User Interface: Maybe that's an option. Um keep the primary buttons visible. Uh make a remote that fits easily in the hands Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and for some design issues uh well, put a logo on it and maybe use it uh in some aesthetic uh aesthetic form. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: But uh th the important buttons m make them always accessible and pushable and clear Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: and maybe use a touch screen, or if that's uh will become too difficult just uh like televi some o older telephones use a l uh maybe it's possible to to flip them open and uh just expand the number of options that are normally visible. Um {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah okay, but but if you pick the the idea, the left idea User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: then what's gonna be displayed on the touch screen? Industrial Designer: The extra functions. User Interface: The extra functions, you uh you just see a menu from system functions or teletext functions, and you just choose one, Marketing: Yeah, but l like menu functions or {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: and then all all the options will become available Marketing: Ah okay. User Interface: and you just c s yeah t scroll through them. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wouldn't it be better to make just one big touch screen, uh one one small uh touch screen uh applet Marketing: Yeah, I think so. Industrial Designer: and uh I'll just make um {disfmarker} uh let's say fifteen buttons on it, and uh we have three of those, uh actually just uh menus with sub-menus, with {disfmarker} or sub-items, sub-functions. User Interface: Well um Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: then I'd like to make a proposal. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: If you make one big touch screen, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes. User Interface: use the same concept as here, keep the buttons always available Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and use the lower part of the touch screen for the rest. Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: like like the iPod idea that that we just saw. User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: You just have a f a few selected buttons and uh a few menus, and with this idea you could actually make uh several {disfmarker} you can also improve uh later on. User Interface: Yes. Industrial Designer: Uh uh I think that will be great. User Interface: Okay. Project Manager: So you think it's will be better to have a t kinda total touch screen. Marketing: Yeah, I think so. Industrial Designer: Yeah, I wou I would actually go for the {disfmarker} Project Manager: Jirun? User Interface: Okay, I agree, but I think it's very important that they always um make the same buttons accessible, so use just for special options a part of the touch screen. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah, of course. User Interface: And so um an elder designer picks up th the {disfmarker} of Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: an elder parents or grandparent picks up the remote from the little child and who's all in the systems functions, you'll have to have the possibility to turn off the T_V_ or to switch the channel without um well using all the menu structures to get back to the primary functions. Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah, I had another uh idea about maybe parental control. Um, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Marketing: like building in uh some kind of PIN code uh which allows uh parents to switch to all channels, uh User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: but children uh {disfmarker} if children don't don't know the PIN code, they can't switch to uh violent uh channels or {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah wh Is that possible to use or no? Industrial Designer: That is possible, that {disfmarker} well that actually depends on the television, Marketing: Th there's just {disfmarker} User Interface: Well, yeah well, Industrial Designer: but I think {disfmarker} I figure that would be {disfmarker} User Interface: does it have to depend on the television? Marketing: Ju just a simple log-in, something like that. Industrial Designer: Well, Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: y you s you see the fi uh thing is when you buy a remote, you you set the uh channels, the the channels are different on each te television, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: they aren't set in a preset order, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: so uh if you uh lock on a remote, uh let's say channel fifteen, well channel fifteen on this television is different than channel fifteen on the other television, Marketing: Mm-hmm. Yeah, okay. Industrial Designer: so that would be uh that would be actually the main concern. Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah. User Interface: Well, I think that he means that um maybe by some option uh {disfmarker} make sure that um remote control and the T_V_ match, and then after that you can um use some s insert some passwords as being apparent that the children cannot use this uh {disfmarker} change the settings of the T_V_, like colour and then volume Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, th that kind of stuff, but maybe um if you log in first as a parent um, you address the the channels User Interface: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Yes. Marketing: and like uh oh, that's channel fifteen, that's uh vi violent channel, User Interface: Oh, something like that. Industrial Designer: Yes. Marketing: uh m my ki my kids uh {disfmarker} I don't want my kids to watch that, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: then you set the priority to only parents, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay, yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: Well b but make it a separate option in the menu, Industrial Designer: Yeah, that would b Marketing: for example. But {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah, that. User Interface: so that it's it's dif dis displayed from uh {disfmarker} displayed here, Marketing: Yeah okay, but but {disfmarker} yeah, that's just User Interface: so uh parents uh {disfmarker} Marketing: that's an a an added feature. Project Manager: Yeah. Okay. But let's not uh go too wide about the {disfmarker} those things, that's that why we're here. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah, {vocalsound} th th those things are nice. {vocalsound} Project Manager: It's it's a nice idea, but I think that's we wel {vocalsound} later in the stage. I've one little question about um a total touch screen or uh um a p Marketing: Partial. Project Manager: yeah, a partial, uh because I think uh elderly people may be uh not used to uh a touch screen, so they want the the the normal functions like teletext, volume changing, um uh to be uh, yeah, kinda traditionals Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: uh and uh {vocalsound} the the the the other functions, the more difficult functions uh to be uh maybe on the touch screen, Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: but to keep this as uh normal as possible, to keep it accessible. Marketing: Yeah, but but if you display it on L_C_D_ screen with r r really big numbers User Interface: Yeah, you can de display it on the on the old style. Marketing: that's just as e just as easy. Industrial Designer: Uh. I I do {disfmarker} User Interface: You can display actual buttons on the touch screens. Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah, that's true, that's true. Industrial Designer: Uh I do agree, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: because well, it's just not the same when you touch a touch screen User Interface: Yeah, okay. Industrial Designer: or when you touch a button, but well we have to look at what's our target uh audience. Marketing: Yeah, it's different. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: W we are aiming for younger people Project Manager: Yeah, that's true, yeah. Industrial Designer: and they they chose {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, age b below forty. Project Manager: Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Yep. Industrial Designer: So that's that's probably uh a {disfmarker} Marketing: And th those young people, yeah. Y you saw it in my marketing report, they like the new fancy stuff, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. They like the fancy stuff, yeah. That's true. Marketing: so {disfmarker} A touch screen, like Microsoft al already developed something like that for uh uh multi-media applications. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: I th I think we can do that too. Project Manager: Mm {disfmarker} Yeah. Okay, as you can see uh the minutes from the second meeting, this one, are uh {vocalsound} are done. Marketing: {vocalsound} Done. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh I've uh added the {disfmarker} this uh four things from the management board just to keep in mind. User Interface: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um each time I uh I had a sort of uh summary on what you told and uh what you personal think. Uh so that can be uh can be read out. Uh a f a few things I uh I noticed uh were um {disfmarker} Moment. Ooh. Uh th the the main points in uh this uh uh in this uh meeting is I think uh how uh it's going to look uh with uh {disfmarker} we must keep it simple, but have the opportunity to uh have more options and have them uh hidden or something, so they don't {disfmarker} uh you don't have a big uh thing full of uh buttons or uh {disfmarker} um and uh the point that uh you uh wanna use one uh controller uh for uh uh hypothetically {vocalsound} each television, so you must uh the the the the functions, know, like the menus or the the parental control must be all uh by the {disfmarker} done by the remote control and not by the television. I think that's the point what uh User Interface: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: we discussed. User Interface: Yes. Marketing: Yeah, yeah, some of them. The menus uh are not identical for all th for all T_V_s, so you have to display it on one uh T_V_. User Interface: Well you can use um {disfmarker} when you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh how do you call it, s um synchronized, the um remote and the T_V_, Marketing: Yeah, but that's not possible. User Interface: then there's always, there are always uh possibilities to change the colour and the brightness and the volume Marketing: Mm-hmm, mm yeah. User Interface: and um well maybe we can look out if there's options that the remote um in its memory can see what kinda T_V_ it is, from {disfmarker} ah, it's a Philips, this and this and that, and then give the options that are capable {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} capable from the t Project Manager: Yeah, but you have uh uh an {disfmarker} Marketing: Add th that that's an opportunity {gap}. Project Manager: yeah, but you have an international market range, so you have I think a big range of {disfmarker} User Interface: Well there are universal d um um remotes Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: and they all have a functionality for all the T_V_s, uh so this wouldn't be a extra feature to incorporate the men menus of these. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: But they {disfmarker} Marketing: But {disfmarker} Project Manager: And it's not too complex to do it. User Interface: {gap} Industrial Designer: Well they uh they all have to be programmed to fit your T_V_ Marketing: No. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and that that is bit of a tricky job. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: I actually use one of those when {disfmarker} They are they are kinda kinda troublesome, but but the thing is whe when you uh start uh building something like this you have to build a receiver into the uh t into the remotes, because uh in order for the remote to process something from the T_V_, like uh to synchronise and you have to send and receive, User Interface: Yeah. Well {disfmarker} Yeah. Mm-hmm. Oh um mo Industrial Designer: and that's well {disfmarker} Marketing: No no no. User Interface: no, you can just say uh the c Marketing: {vocalsound} He he he he me he means just just one other thing. Project Manager: Just build it in. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Uh, with the current remote controls, the universal ones, um you have to press {disfmarker} yeah, you have to press a code for T_V_. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yes. User Interface: In codes, y you you get a b a book with codes. You look up, I have a Philips H_ fifty five Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: and it says press code four five five Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Oh, okay, yeah, sure, uh {disfmarker} User Interface: and you press code four five five on the {disfmarker} uh in the remote Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah. User Interface: and it displays all your uh menu options. Industrial Designer: Oh, yeah yeah, sure, that would be possible, yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Now we uh just connect uh the T_V_ type uh to a set of options, in {disfmarker} just just in the memory, User Interface: Memory in the in the remote. Project Manager: Yep. Industrial Designer: Profiles. Marketing: so that if you {disfmarker} yeah, like profile, so that if you uh touch in like uh one four one zero kind of T_V_ uh Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: the memory uh pops up the options. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah, that would be possible. Yeah, sure. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: I th don't think that's uh {disfmarker} that takes a lot of storage space or some just varia variables. Industrial Designer: No, that wouldn't be uh {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah, well um Industrial Designer: Yeah, a few variables. User Interface: if you look at the um manuals from universal uh remotes, there are maybe um three four hundreds T_V_s at maximum. If you have all of them, all the old and new T_V_s summed up, Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: so uh I think uh it is possible {gap}. Industrial Designer: Ah it is. It is definitely po Marketing: But, on the other hand on the other hand, uh if you have a remote and buy a new T_V_ that isn't incorporated in the remote {disfmarker} Project Manager: We have five minutes to go. User Interface: Yeah. Well then you have to buy a new one, it's very good for marketing Marketing: New remote? User Interface: Maybe, or an update, software update. Marketing: A firmware upgrade or something, User Interface: Firmware update, you say. Industrial Designer: Yeah, firmware upgrade. Marketing: but from where? Ah. Maybe w Industrial Designer: That's maybe the cup holder. Marketing: No m may no, User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: maybe we can incorporate some kind of uh U_S_B_ or a firewire connection, so that you can uh connect it to the P_C_ and download the newest firmware from uh from the internet. Industrial Designer: Well, not everybody has uh has uh a P_C_ at home. Well the most most people have, User Interface: Well, at {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: but not not everybody User Interface: uh you can go back to the shop Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} User Interface: and uh they {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: like a s kind of service centre. User Interface: Yeah, ser o Industrial Designer: Yeah, maybe something like service cen Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and they can download it for you. Industrial Designer: Or you could {disfmarker} well you could s actually look at the place-holder you talked about earlier, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and you could probably uh make a connection to uh an telephone line or a internet connection. User Interface: Yeah. Well already digital information is sent t to the the standards, T_V_ uh connections, Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: you can see what's uh programme is on on the new uh channels, so maybe j they {disfmarker} we can send that information along with standard T_V_ uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Well then then it's be uh back to the building a receiving uh {disfmarker} well uh if it's actually worth it to build it in, User Interface: Receiving. Oh yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: we could actually look at {disfmarker} into it, User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} I dunno, it it would be uh bringing more costs {gap} uh with with it User Interface: Difficult. Yeah. Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Marketing: I I think it's uh most cheap or cheapest to just do the updates uh at the service centre or at the shop. User Interface: Yeah yeah, uh s I think some {disfmarker} I think it's good idea, yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that would be probably best, yeah. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Like when you when you buy a T_V_ you just ask {disfmarker} well I'll {disfmarker} Marketing: It's it's it's not a lot of work, just one uh docking station where you put it in, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: press start, bling bling, updated. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that would be best, yeah. User Interface: Yeah. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} You don't buy a T_V_ every week, new teev so. User Interface: Okay, let's uh save this in the meanwhile uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: No no. Exactly, so {disfmarker} User Interface: Um m for which one are we going? {gap} My mistake. Marketing: Let's vote. User Interface: That one or uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah, my vote goes out to the right {gap}. User Interface: Your vote and your {disfmarker} Marketing: My vote too. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: Okay. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: And your vote? User Interface: Well, I was uh doubting about which one to take, but uh you've convinced me that uh if you di display buttons about the same as they would look on a normal um remote all elderly people will know what to do. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: And also like a clapping uh li like device that uh pops open. User Interface: Opens up is too difficult Industrial Designer: Flips open. User Interface: or uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Uh too difficult, um maybe uh it's easier to break it. Project Manager: N yeah. User Interface: Break it, I don't get {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, th th th that i uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah. Project Manager: It's very sensitive. User Interface: Oh so {disfmarker} Yeah. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: Like my telephone, it's uh it's sensitive too. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay well uh it's almost at the end. So we have now a lunch break, finally, Marketing: Ah. Project Manager: yeah. {vocalsound} Uh after the lunch break uh it's back to uh individual work, once again uh thirty minutes. Uh I will put my minutes {disfmarker} uh I have updated them so uh s they're updated in the shared folder too. Marketing: Thirty minutes? Project Manager: Thirty minutes, the {disfmarker} Marketing: How minutes? {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Failure. Uh {vocalsound} uh the specifi uh specific instructions for the next uh meeting you will {disfmarker} all will receive uh at the uh the the email. I don't think I can uh say much about it, so uh uh wait for your email and uh hopefully you get it done uh in the in the thirty minutes, and I w will see you after the lunch break and the thirty minutes. Marketing: One question, Project Manager: Yeah? Marketing: uh how late do we have to get back {disfmarker} be back here? Project Manager: Uh well uh thirty minutes. User Interface: A quarter to one maybe? Project Manager: Uh, yeah. Marketing: Thirty minutes lunch break? Project Manager: Thirty minutes lunch break, yeah. Oh. Forty five? User Interface: Okay. Marketing: I thought forty five. Project Manager: Uh then would it be uh one o'clock. Marketing: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Project Manager: Or we we ask our personal coach. Okay. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Thank you. Thank you, uh that was a very uh good session I think, User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {gap} Project Manager: we uh we {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah, is it possible to store this on the share documents or what {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, me too. Project Manager: Uh ye well {disfmarker} Marketing: Save as. Project Manager: Yeah, because uh all uh things are uh stored in smart board dot uh X_D_K_ Marketing: Yeah, v Project Manager: and that's in {disfmarker} Marketing: But but you can open a {disfmarker} from your pr from your laptop. User Interface:'Kay, save it as an image on the res Marketing: Yeah, maybe. Save as. Project Manager: No. Industrial Designer: Export. Maybe not export function. Marketing: No. Export. Project Manager: Well I can I can uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Export H_T_M_L_. User Interface: No, and use an image if possible. Marketing: Huh, image? User Interface: J_ PEG. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} G_ {disfmarker} yeah, J_ PEG. User Interface: J_ PEG. Yeah, it's better Marketing: Paper size A_ four. Uh screen size. In this directory. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: N oh. User Interface: Oh yeah, it's not connected to the Project Manager: You all uh have the the questionnaire again about uh the after work. User Interface: to our P_C_s. Marketing: No? Yeah, it is connected. User Interface: It's connected? Marketing: Yeah, I think so. Project Manager: Deskt Huh. No. Industrial Designer: To room. I'll just uh saved in my documents. Marketing: Oh. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} in my own uh {disfmarker} in my own messenger. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Project documents, yeah. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: It gives the na Oh. Yes. Project Manager: Okay, Industrial Designer: Okay, nice. Project Manager: thank you. User Interface: The questionnaire, fill in {disfmarker} uh we fill out d after lunch or uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Uh well, it's it's simply filling {disfmarker} oh no, it's uh it's also filling out {disfmarker} no, I'd do it after lunch I think. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Aye, cheers. Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'm hungry, so do it after lunch. User Interface: Yes. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thank you all. Marketing: Thank you. Project Manager: You're welcome. User Interface: We can leave the P_C_ on I think, yeah and return to the {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, of course. Project Manager: Yeah. Well I bring it to my uh personal room. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah, bring to {disfmarker} I gotta bring it home. Industrial Designer: {gap} Marketing: To my exave executive {disfmarker} Project Manager: My executive uh big room with the with the panting. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} A big office. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: Yes. Marketing: Aye. Yeah. Okay. Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} {gap} Marketing: {gap} Project Manager: {vocalsound}

Industrial Designer compared infrared technology with Bluetooth technology, and pointed out that the latter cost more. To build a remote control with Bluetooth was impossible within the budget. He suggested using infrared technology. When it came to the speech function, Industrial Designer didn't give a clear answer for not being sure about the cost, and he/she just left it as something to explore.

tr-sq-690

tr-sq-690_0

What did Industrial Designer propose to build a new remote control when discussing the Bluetooth technology and the functions of remote control? Project Manager: Hello. Marketing: Hey guys. User Interface: Hi. Industrial Designer: Hi. Project Manager: Hi. Industrial Designer: I see my bunny is still standing. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: No one drawing it. Project Manager: It's too beautiful. User Interface: Yeah, true. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh I figured uh that much. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: Too wicked. User Interface: Mm. Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: A minute please, my uh laptop is uh {disfmarker} oh, there it is, thank you. So welcome back. {vocalsound} At the functional design meeting um the plan is uh that uh each one of you, so not me but only you uh will uh present uh the the things you worked on uh the last uh half hour. I will uh take minutes and will put uh the minutes that I have uh at the end of the session in the shared folder. {vocalsound} Also the minutes of the previous session are also in the shared folder now, so you can read that uh now or afterwards. Um {vocalsound} uh I had an email from the from the management board Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: uh, I don't know if you a al also uh received it, but there were four points uh which uh I think are very important. First one is uh they think that uh teletext teletext becomes outdated uh and internet will be the the main uh focus. {vocalsound} Uh second one is also important uh, because it's one of the discussion points of the previous session. Uh the remote control shou should onl only be used for the television, so it uh not gonna it's not gonna be a multi-purpose remote control, so uh that's one thing to keep in mind. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh second, and I think that's important for the Marketing uh Expert, uh the current uh customers uh are in the age group group of uh forty years and older, but with this uh new remote uh they uh will uh {disfmarker} would like to reach uh a group uh younger than uh forty. Uh and uh I think to keep in mind, but not really uh for now is that they uh want the the the slogan and the and the logo uh to uh to be recognised more in the remote. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: So, we have uh forty minutes, so I think uh not more than ten minutes uh uh per presentation uh each, and please uh use uh all the the the facilities so that you have either SMARTboards, the the Word files, what you uh {disfmarker} whatever you want. So uh Tim, can you start? Yeah? Marketing: Okay. {vocalsound}'Kay, welcome. I have some uh new findings on uh Marketing Expert level, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Marketing: which I will show you. {vocalsound} The method I used was um giving orders to our usability lab uh to do a questionnaire. Um {vocalsound} one hundred respondents were involved and my marketing uh department generated a report with a lot of results. Um, these were a couple of findings, first page of three. Um, we have three audiences of {disfmarker} two audiences, {vocalsound} I'm sorry. Uh the first one, this scale, from sixteen to forty five {gap} age. Uh the second one is from sixty four {disfmarker} uh forty six to sixty five. Um, as you can see here, the market share for the first audience is about sixty percent {disfmarker} um sixty five. Uh second audience audience is uh thirty five percent. Mm {vocalsound} and some interests from the from the age groups, uh it seems like the young users of remote controls really like the fancy uh new technology stuff, like uh an L_C_D_ screen on the remote control, um speech recognition. I don't think that's uh really appropriate. Um, {vocalsound} and when you see uh the audience, the age is going up uh {disfmarker} Yeah, they don't really want it anymore, at least the new technologies. Second findings {vocalsound} out of the questionnaire um are the opinion {vocalsound} the opinions uh of the audience about current remote controls. First point is, seventy five percent of the users find the most repo remote controls very ugly, uh and eighty percent of the users would spend more money when a remote control would look fancy. So that's maybe something for the User Interface uh Designer. Okay, third findings. According to the frequency of use versus importance investigation, um {vocalsound} following buttons are most important. Um, I will tell something about the way this uh this test was, yeah, done. Um, {vocalsound} persons were asked uh what the buttons were uh they use most, how much an hour, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: and uh in the second table the importance of those buttons. Um, when you multiply them, you get the {disfmarker} these three points. Switching channels, um yeah, that's pretty uh pretty normal, that's what you do with a remote control. Um the second, teletext, uh and the third, uh volume controls. Um, I think it's good uh that we know what the user want {disfmarker} wants, uh at least the these three points have to be uh very clear. Project Manager: But it's strange that the the manage board {disfmarker} the management board said that the teletext will be uh outdated by the internet. So that that's strange. Marketing: Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay, but uh at the moment uh teletext is {disfmarker} Yeah, th the best thing you can get uh on T_V_, like getting information. Project Manager: Yeah, okay. Yeah. Marketing: So uh, when you ask people, what do they use, {vocalsound} they use teletext and not the internet on a remote control. Project Manager: Okay. Yeah, okay. Marketing: That's ridiculous. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: That's a ne i it {disfmarker} It's a new technology, Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: but it's not incorporated right now. Okay, my personal preferences. Um, I think we should aim at the uh audience from sixteen to forty five. {vocalsound} Mm, first of all um it's the biggest share, the biggest audience, sixty five percent. Uh second, I think you will get the most revenue from i from it. Um, yeah, people from sixteen to forty five watch a lot of T_V_, more than uh people who are el uh elder. Um {vocalsound} second point, {vocalsound} we have to impro improve the most used functions, as I said here, switching channels, teletext and volume controls. Third point um that came out of the uh {disfmarker} of the questionnaire, uh people used to uh get lost off the remote controller, so maybe it's an idea for us uh to design ex kind of placeholder uh on side of the, yeah, of the T_V_ Project Manager: Yeah, that's a cool idea. Marketing: where you can put the the remote control in. {vocalsound} Um, that's about it, I think. Yeah. Industrial Designer: When you mentioned uh improving functions, what uh what do you mean by that what what are you think about? Marketing: Uh not not the r not the functions, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh, the funtionability. Marketing: but uh it came out that a lot of buttons weren't even used uh on a remote control. So you can have a remote control full of buttons, a hundreds hundreds of buttons, but if you don't use them, yeah it's {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Ah okay, so focusing more on the used buttons. Marketing: Yeah, they have to be on it Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: j just to t to get it done if necessary, User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: but um the most used buttons uh have to be bigger or {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Could you use perhaps uh one button for multiple functions, like example pressing it in longer makes it switch to an different function for example. Marketing: Yeah, perhaps. Industrial Designer: Thank you. Marketing: Just for the minor functions perhaps. Industrial Designer: Yeah, ma perhaps, just just an idea. Marketing: Just to get less buttons on the remote control, to make it easier and quicker to learn. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah?'Kay, that's it. Project Manager: Thank you, Tim. {vocalsound} Janus, can you uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Uh yeah yeah, I'll go, sure. Right uh, I'll be uh explaining a bit about uh working design about uh the project. Well uh what I did was I dissected uh uh current remote controls and um I viewed how how they w looked, how they worked, uh what kind of components are involved, and how they are connected together. And uh after that I put up a scheme about how uh these things are organised and I'll show it to you in in a in a few seconds. And I'll explain a bit about uh how it works and how we could uh build one and why I think several possibilities uh that we discussed in the earlier meeting falls off. Um right. Uh well what I did was uh I I checked uh remote controls and the uh remote controls of today are all infrared, not like all probably know. And the thing about that is um the remote controls uh have to act as a T_V_ or uh a stereo or something, and those uh have a transmitter that's also focused on infrared, so if we want to uh build uh mm a remote control uh with Bluetooth for instance then uh the T_V_ should have Bluetooth too in order to communicate, so that would mean extra cost for the user and thus uh that's that wouldn't mean a a cheap uh remote control for us. So that's probably why most controls are still infrared. Furthermore they all have uh a a very simple structure, so that would probably uh mean lower costs and uh i that could mean for us a good thing uh'cause uh well we we should be able to build a relatively cheap uh {gap} a cheap uh remote. Well uh as I mentioned ready, we have some Bluetooth {disfmarker} Well it may be possible, but uh I figured it wouldn't be possible in {disfmarker} within our budget, but that's not for me to decide, but that's maybe something for marketing to look into. F because uh {disfmarker} well my personal opinion is uh is not to do uh Bluetooth {gap} or or radio waves, {vocalsound} although {disfmarker} Marketing: What do you think about uh incorporating Bluetooth or a radio uh receiver uh in the place-holder next to the T_V_, connected to the T_V_? Industrial Designer: Yeah, actually I have t Marketing: So it's in the wrong product. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah, I actually {disfmarker} I figured that would be that would be rather nice, but then you'd still have the uh {disfmarker} the infrared function. So in in theory you'd actually just move the problem, Marketing: Yeah. Yeah. Industrial Designer: but uh what I did uh think about was when you mentioned about the uh the cup-holder, is why not uh introduce a speech function like where is the remote. If somebody says, where is the remote, then it goes uh beep uh beep beep beep or something, User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Industrial Designer: I dunno, maybe uh maybe something to look into, I dunno uh what the cost {gap} that something like that would be. But it may be uh may be something to explore. Uh I'll I'll just explain a bit of the components. Uh first you have the energy source. The energy source would be a battery, simple uh battery uh that you can find anywhere. I figured that would be best,'cause when the battery uh stops functioning uh we could just uh use {disfmarker} you could just go out and buy a new one. So we didn't {disfmarker} and we don't have to do all uh {disfmarker} to be too complicated about that. Uh the energy source is connected to the infrared button, but uh the infrared button uh works only via the chip and the subcomponent to uh the switch {disfmarker} there is a switch uh between these. When the switch is pressed in a w on this this case it switches a button, when a button is prush pushed in, uh a electric current goes through here, and in uh {disfmarker} immediately, a l a bulb lights up uh displaying to the user that something has happened. That's uh that's so the h user won't be um thinking, well uh did the button be pressed, w what happened uh. Or I press button but nothing's happening on the T_V_, so is is something wrong or something. So that's just to uh to to explain the {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} to to uh make it clearer to the user. Uh w well the signal goes via chip that's translated into uh electric sig uh electronic signals and then it's processed and then it's sent to the infrared bulb where it will be uh uh received on the receiving end. And those uh interpreted by the device, well in this case the television. Uh well my personal preferences here, well we have to keep it simple. Not too many uh gadgets and functions, just like you said uh {disfmarker} well the most users n uh you have a lot of buttons and you u u use {disfmarker} you don't use them, so why why should we invent uh {disfmarker} w spend more time on those. Uh I I think we should stick by {disfmarker} with infrared transmitting and uh no receiving. So uh no input from the television. So I think we shouldn't be uh spending time on um teletext and st things like that, because when you uh want teletext on uh infrared you'd have to build in a receiver too, and so in order to receive the signals from uh what's on T_V_ and such. So I figure that would be uh spending too much money and time and {disfmarker} Marketing: Um, yeah, maybe another problem uh, I think current T_V_s can even send infrared. Industrial Designer: Yes, but what should we uh s I I I f I agree with you, but should we spend money or {disfmarker} and time on building a receiver into the uh remote control? Marketing: Huh. Industrial Designer:'Cause that would be {disfmarker} I mean extra components, extra designs, um larger g uh remote control. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Industrial Designer: These all uh all stuff that we have to take in account. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: So I I {disfmarker} my personal opinion is no no no receiver at all. Um, well Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: we should uh look into the design and the functionability. Like I said, uh use one button for instance for m multiple functions, or well uh just hide the few buttons o of switching it open or something, the usual uh {gap} stuff. And uh don't overbuild, we shouldn't make a big uh remote control for simple functions, but we we should stick to the basics. So that was my uh my personal opinion. And that was my uh my presentation uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Okay, thank you Janus. User Interface: Okay. Yes, Project Manager: You do? User Interface: I can go ahead. Project Manager: The last presentation. You have plenty of time, User Interface: Last presentation. Okay. Project Manager: Tim and uh Janus don't uh talk to ten minutes, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: so uh take your time. User Interface: {gap} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: If you take your time too long I will uh eventually uh Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: warn you. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: Well, I'm going to give a presentation abut some of the technical functions of these design and uh usability functions. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: Um what's my opinion about what's most important to combine the design, technical possibilities and the user friendliness in one, so if you um going to design a remote that looks good, that shouldn't weigh over the uh {disfmarker} if it's possible to make, of course, but also the user friendliness, so tha that's that's some of the main points. And another one is um the use um of many functions will will make it more difficult, so use as as little functions as possible or at least don't display them all at once on the same remote. If you have fifty functions you don't want fifty buttons uh t uh to be shown at the same time, Marketing: Hmm. User Interface:'cause when you visit an internet uh site you don't want fifty links uh to see, but maybe use a hierarch hierarchy uh structure. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: And uh well one of the ideas was maybe uh use touch screen, but s I don't know in how far that is possible, Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: since we are sticking to uh um infrared and and the remote cannot receive anything, but uh we might uh consider that. Um well, of course I I hope this is all clear to you. If you {disfmarker} you can use remote like this with all the functions, {gap} many functions, but {disfmarker} Well, your thumb is a little bigger than th it than this. You have to be very careful what you push, Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} User Interface: and um if you're looking for teletext you'll be uh searching for half an hour from uh um {disfmarker} yeah well, where is it? Where the hell {disfmarker} he here I guess and, yeah, when you have to uh use something else. So just keep it simple, make clear buttons, easy to use. For example if you want to use a play and back and stop, that's very important. Um well this was because of our last discussion, if multiple machines are used, create easy switch between the machines, but um it's no longer uh applying. {vocalsound} Well yeah, I prefer to use it only for T_V_ and um n uh not to give too many options and and if possible, uh the buttons should give {vocalsound} a dr direct action, not first select {disfmarker} Project Manager: Uh you you just said um uh you wanted to to combine more functions in one, so uh User Interface: Yeah, Project Manager: you you want to keep it simple, User Interface: and so that's where the difficulties lie. Industrial Designer: Yeah, but {disfmarker} Project Manager: but I think that if you want to do that, then you can't escape the the fact that there will be buttons uh which give s uh more options than one. User Interface: Yeah, this {disfmarker} so that's the thing you have to weigh against each other. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah, but {disfmarker} User Interface: Do we want to use a few options and might not be so or original, or uh multi-purpose as we thought, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Okay. User Interface: or do we want to use um many buttons. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: So um weighing those factors. Marketing: Hmm {gap} it's maybe an option uh if you use an L_C_D_ {vocalsound} or a touch screen um, that in the middle are the the main keys, like displayed on the {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Uh yeah. User Interface: The {gap} doesn't {gap}. Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap}. Yeah, this? No? Yeah. {vocalsound} Something like that. Okay, just uh in the middle the general functions, like play, uh channel switching, User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: and then uh at the top or at the bottom, some menus like uh settings or {disfmarker} that you can drop down. User Interface: Yeah, but when all the questions I had {disfmarker} Do we want to use uh a menu display on the T_V_? Or um does have to f everything uh be in remotes?'Cause if you use a memory display on the T_V_, you can simply push uh a more menu and then select the options you want to have and press okay. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: Uh so that's my recommendation, if you use many options in one buttle {disfmarker} button, um display the menu on the T_V_ Marketing: Nah. Mm-hmm. User Interface: and don't um use combination of t of two buttons at the same time or pressing buttons three times for five seconds, Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: is too complicated for most users. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah, but {disfmarker} Marketing: I think so too, but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and that's partly because um uh a lot of T_V_s have different menus, and when you have a particular menu uh at your device, uh it could be that don't correspond to the menu what's actually on T_V_. User Interface: Yeah, that will be a problem. Industrial Designer: Well Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: you d you have to {gap} keep in mind that uh several T_V_s uh don't even have a menu structure, or they have a very simple menu structure, so you have to keep in mind that not all uh d not {disfmarker} our remote won't be able to work on all televisions. User Interface: Yes. Industrial Designer: And that would be uh a considerable problem. User Interface: So if we have to stick with current technologies and uh um well yeah, the restrictions of what's uh is on the market today, um you should keep it s at this. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: Use big clear buttons. Not too many. So maybe we'll loose a few option uh options, but I think i this is more important. Um {vocalsound} especially the important buttons, um if you want to switch channel, change your volume, uh use teletext, it uh it has to work at once and more advanced options may be put it s somewhere away on the remote, behind uh a little uh little thing or a touch screen. Industrial Designer: Not embed Yeah, but then with something like a touch screen could {disfmarker} could make more menu up {disfmarker} pop up or something. User Interface: And yeah, if you want to uh uh s put {gap} on stand-by or change the channel, that should always be possible to do. Not first change menu options or switch something. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: Um, well yeah, as you already told, give some feedback. If the user is pushing a button he should know if the television or n at least remote is reacting and not just that the batteries may be low. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: And um, well, my conclusion is uh is uh less is more, keep it simple. So uh maybe we should just ease down on the functionality to uh to keep it accessible on t because you all know, if there are a lot of function {gap} on the the television, some you you'll never know uh and never use, and therefore it's uh important Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: if you want to change the volume or channel that is always accessible and easy and other functions um that are not so important {disfmarker} um well you {disfmarker} we should consider just not using them or at least putting them somewhere on the remote where they're not in the way for the for the most important functions. Marketing: Yeah. Uh, I think the idea uh about uh touch screen um is very good. Um, because recently uh I saw news item on T_V_ um about uh new telephones uh for elder people. Um, they have like a touch screen with uh really big pictures on it like uh uh call uh hang-up, um and that's a big ad advantage I think, because one the one hand uh you make the remote control compatible for elder users just by uh scaling up the pictures or something. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: It's uh very visual intended. {vocalsound} What was I to say more? User Interface: Maybe that's an option. Um keep the primary buttons visible. Uh make a remote that fits easily in the hands Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and for some design issues uh well, put a logo on it and maybe use it uh in some aesthetic uh aesthetic form. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: But uh th the important buttons m make them always accessible and pushable and clear Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: and maybe use a touch screen, or if that's uh will become too difficult just uh like televi some o older telephones use a l uh maybe it's possible to to flip them open and uh just expand the number of options that are normally visible. Um {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah okay, but but if you pick the the idea, the left idea User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: then what's gonna be displayed on the touch screen? Industrial Designer: The extra functions. User Interface: The extra functions, you uh you just see a menu from system functions or teletext functions, and you just choose one, Marketing: Yeah, but l like menu functions or {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: and then all all the options will become available Marketing: Ah okay. User Interface: and you just c s yeah t scroll through them. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wouldn't it be better to make just one big touch screen, uh one one small uh touch screen uh applet Marketing: Yeah, I think so. Industrial Designer: and uh I'll just make um {disfmarker} uh let's say fifteen buttons on it, and uh we have three of those, uh actually just uh menus with sub-menus, with {disfmarker} or sub-items, sub-functions. User Interface: Well um Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: then I'd like to make a proposal. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: If you make one big touch screen, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes. User Interface: use the same concept as here, keep the buttons always available Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and use the lower part of the touch screen for the rest. Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: like like the iPod idea that that we just saw. User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: You just have a f a few selected buttons and uh a few menus, and with this idea you could actually make uh several {disfmarker} you can also improve uh later on. User Interface: Yes. Industrial Designer: Uh uh I think that will be great. User Interface: Okay. Project Manager: So you think it's will be better to have a t kinda total touch screen. Marketing: Yeah, I think so. Industrial Designer: Yeah, I wou I would actually go for the {disfmarker} Project Manager: Jirun? User Interface: Okay, I agree, but I think it's very important that they always um make the same buttons accessible, so use just for special options a part of the touch screen. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah, of course. User Interface: And so um an elder designer picks up th the {disfmarker} of Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: an elder parents or grandparent picks up the remote from the little child and who's all in the systems functions, you'll have to have the possibility to turn off the T_V_ or to switch the channel without um well using all the menu structures to get back to the primary functions. Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah, I had another uh idea about maybe parental control. Um, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Marketing: like building in uh some kind of PIN code uh which allows uh parents to switch to all channels, uh User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: but children uh {disfmarker} if children don't don't know the PIN code, they can't switch to uh violent uh channels or {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah wh Is that possible to use or no? Industrial Designer: That is possible, that {disfmarker} well that actually depends on the television, Marketing: Th there's just {disfmarker} User Interface: Well, yeah well, Industrial Designer: but I think {disfmarker} I figure that would be {disfmarker} User Interface: does it have to depend on the television? Marketing: Ju just a simple log-in, something like that. Industrial Designer: Well, Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: y you s you see the fi uh thing is when you buy a remote, you you set the uh channels, the the channels are different on each te television, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: they aren't set in a preset order, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: so uh if you uh lock on a remote, uh let's say channel fifteen, well channel fifteen on this television is different than channel fifteen on the other television, Marketing: Mm-hmm. Yeah, okay. Industrial Designer: so that would be uh that would be actually the main concern. Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah. User Interface: Well, I think that he means that um maybe by some option uh {disfmarker} make sure that um remote control and the T_V_ match, and then after that you can um use some s insert some passwords as being apparent that the children cannot use this uh {disfmarker} change the settings of the T_V_, like colour and then volume Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, th that kind of stuff, but maybe um if you log in first as a parent um, you address the the channels User Interface: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Yes. Marketing: and like uh oh, that's channel fifteen, that's uh vi violent channel, User Interface: Oh, something like that. Industrial Designer: Yes. Marketing: uh m my ki my kids uh {disfmarker} I don't want my kids to watch that, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: then you set the priority to only parents, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay, yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: Well b but make it a separate option in the menu, Industrial Designer: Yeah, that would b Marketing: for example. But {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah, that. User Interface: so that it's it's dif dis displayed from uh {disfmarker} displayed here, Marketing: Yeah okay, but but {disfmarker} yeah, that's just User Interface: so uh parents uh {disfmarker} Marketing: that's an a an added feature. Project Manager: Yeah. Okay. But let's not uh go too wide about the {disfmarker} those things, that's that why we're here. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah, {vocalsound} th th those things are nice. {vocalsound} Project Manager: It's it's a nice idea, but I think that's we wel {vocalsound} later in the stage. I've one little question about um a total touch screen or uh um a p Marketing: Partial. Project Manager: yeah, a partial, uh because I think uh elderly people may be uh not used to uh a touch screen, so they want the the the normal functions like teletext, volume changing, um uh to be uh, yeah, kinda traditionals Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: uh and uh {vocalsound} the the the the other functions, the more difficult functions uh to be uh maybe on the touch screen, Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: but to keep this as uh normal as possible, to keep it accessible. Marketing: Yeah, but but if you display it on L_C_D_ screen with r r really big numbers User Interface: Yeah, you can de display it on the on the old style. Marketing: that's just as e just as easy. Industrial Designer: Uh. I I do {disfmarker} User Interface: You can display actual buttons on the touch screens. Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah, that's true, that's true. Industrial Designer: Uh I do agree, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: because well, it's just not the same when you touch a touch screen User Interface: Yeah, okay. Industrial Designer: or when you touch a button, but well we have to look at what's our target uh audience. Marketing: Yeah, it's different. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: W we are aiming for younger people Project Manager: Yeah, that's true, yeah. Industrial Designer: and they they chose {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, age b below forty. Project Manager: Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Yep. Industrial Designer: So that's that's probably uh a {disfmarker} Marketing: And th those young people, yeah. Y you saw it in my marketing report, they like the new fancy stuff, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. They like the fancy stuff, yeah. That's true. Marketing: so {disfmarker} A touch screen, like Microsoft al already developed something like that for uh uh multi-media applications. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: I th I think we can do that too. Project Manager: Mm {disfmarker} Yeah. Okay, as you can see uh the minutes from the second meeting, this one, are uh {vocalsound} are done. Marketing: {vocalsound} Done. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh I've uh added the {disfmarker} this uh four things from the management board just to keep in mind. User Interface: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um each time I uh I had a sort of uh summary on what you told and uh what you personal think. Uh so that can be uh can be read out. Uh a f a few things I uh I noticed uh were um {disfmarker} Moment. Ooh. Uh th the the main points in uh this uh uh in this uh meeting is I think uh how uh it's going to look uh with uh {disfmarker} we must keep it simple, but have the opportunity to uh have more options and have them uh hidden or something, so they don't {disfmarker} uh you don't have a big uh thing full of uh buttons or uh {disfmarker} um and uh the point that uh you uh wanna use one uh controller uh for uh uh hypothetically {vocalsound} each television, so you must uh the the the the functions, know, like the menus or the the parental control must be all uh by the {disfmarker} done by the remote control and not by the television. I think that's the point what uh User Interface: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: we discussed. User Interface: Yes. Marketing: Yeah, yeah, some of them. The menus uh are not identical for all th for all T_V_s, so you have to display it on one uh T_V_. User Interface: Well you can use um {disfmarker} when you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh how do you call it, s um synchronized, the um remote and the T_V_, Marketing: Yeah, but that's not possible. User Interface: then there's always, there are always uh possibilities to change the colour and the brightness and the volume Marketing: Mm-hmm, mm yeah. User Interface: and um well maybe we can look out if there's options that the remote um in its memory can see what kinda T_V_ it is, from {disfmarker} ah, it's a Philips, this and this and that, and then give the options that are capable {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} capable from the t Project Manager: Yeah, but you have uh uh an {disfmarker} Marketing: Add th that that's an opportunity {gap}. Project Manager: yeah, but you have an international market range, so you have I think a big range of {disfmarker} User Interface: Well there are universal d um um remotes Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: and they all have a functionality for all the T_V_s, uh so this wouldn't be a extra feature to incorporate the men menus of these. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: But they {disfmarker} Marketing: But {disfmarker} Project Manager: And it's not too complex to do it. User Interface: {gap} Industrial Designer: Well they uh they all have to be programmed to fit your T_V_ Marketing: No. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and that that is bit of a tricky job. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: I actually use one of those when {disfmarker} They are they are kinda kinda troublesome, but but the thing is whe when you uh start uh building something like this you have to build a receiver into the uh t into the remotes, because uh in order for the remote to process something from the T_V_, like uh to synchronise and you have to send and receive, User Interface: Yeah. Well {disfmarker} Yeah. Mm-hmm. Oh um mo Industrial Designer: and that's well {disfmarker} Marketing: No no no. User Interface: no, you can just say uh the c Marketing: {vocalsound} He he he he me he means just just one other thing. Project Manager: Just build it in. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Uh, with the current remote controls, the universal ones, um you have to press {disfmarker} yeah, you have to press a code for T_V_. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yes. User Interface: In codes, y you you get a b a book with codes. You look up, I have a Philips H_ fifty five Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: and it says press code four five five Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Oh, okay, yeah, sure, uh {disfmarker} User Interface: and you press code four five five on the {disfmarker} uh in the remote Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah. User Interface: and it displays all your uh menu options. Industrial Designer: Oh, yeah yeah, sure, that would be possible, yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Now we uh just connect uh the T_V_ type uh to a set of options, in {disfmarker} just just in the memory, User Interface: Memory in the in the remote. Project Manager: Yep. Industrial Designer: Profiles. Marketing: so that if you {disfmarker} yeah, like profile, so that if you uh touch in like uh one four one zero kind of T_V_ uh Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: the memory uh pops up the options. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah, that would be possible. Yeah, sure. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: I th don't think that's uh {disfmarker} that takes a lot of storage space or some just varia variables. Industrial Designer: No, that wouldn't be uh {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah, well um Industrial Designer: Yeah, a few variables. User Interface: if you look at the um manuals from universal uh remotes, there are maybe um three four hundreds T_V_s at maximum. If you have all of them, all the old and new T_V_s summed up, Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: so uh I think uh it is possible {gap}. Industrial Designer: Ah it is. It is definitely po Marketing: But, on the other hand on the other hand, uh if you have a remote and buy a new T_V_ that isn't incorporated in the remote {disfmarker} Project Manager: We have five minutes to go. User Interface: Yeah. Well then you have to buy a new one, it's very good for marketing Marketing: New remote? User Interface: Maybe, or an update, software update. Marketing: A firmware upgrade or something, User Interface: Firmware update, you say. Industrial Designer: Yeah, firmware upgrade. Marketing: but from where? Ah. Maybe w Industrial Designer: That's maybe the cup holder. Marketing: No m may no, User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: maybe we can incorporate some kind of uh U_S_B_ or a firewire connection, so that you can uh connect it to the P_C_ and download the newest firmware from uh from the internet. Industrial Designer: Well, not everybody has uh has uh a P_C_ at home. Well the most most people have, User Interface: Well, at {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: but not not everybody User Interface: uh you can go back to the shop Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} User Interface: and uh they {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: like a s kind of service centre. User Interface: Yeah, ser o Industrial Designer: Yeah, maybe something like service cen Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and they can download it for you. Industrial Designer: Or you could {disfmarker} well you could s actually look at the place-holder you talked about earlier, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and you could probably uh make a connection to uh an telephone line or a internet connection. User Interface: Yeah. Well already digital information is sent t to the the standards, T_V_ uh connections, Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: you can see what's uh programme is on on the new uh channels, so maybe j they {disfmarker} we can send that information along with standard T_V_ uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Well then then it's be uh back to the building a receiving uh {disfmarker} well uh if it's actually worth it to build it in, User Interface: Receiving. Oh yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: we could actually look at {disfmarker} into it, User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} I dunno, it it would be uh bringing more costs {gap} uh with with it User Interface: Difficult. Yeah. Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Marketing: I I think it's uh most cheap or cheapest to just do the updates uh at the service centre or at the shop. User Interface: Yeah yeah, uh s I think some {disfmarker} I think it's good idea, yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that would be probably best, yeah. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Like when you when you buy a T_V_ you just ask {disfmarker} well I'll {disfmarker} Marketing: It's it's it's not a lot of work, just one uh docking station where you put it in, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: press start, bling bling, updated. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that would be best, yeah. User Interface: Yeah. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} You don't buy a T_V_ every week, new teev so. User Interface: Okay, let's uh save this in the meanwhile uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: No no. Exactly, so {disfmarker} User Interface: Um m for which one are we going? {gap} My mistake. Marketing: Let's vote. User Interface: That one or uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah, my vote goes out to the right {gap}. User Interface: Your vote and your {disfmarker} Marketing: My vote too. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: Okay. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: And your vote? User Interface: Well, I was uh doubting about which one to take, but uh you've convinced me that uh if you di display buttons about the same as they would look on a normal um remote all elderly people will know what to do. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: And also like a clapping uh li like device that uh pops open. User Interface: Opens up is too difficult Industrial Designer: Flips open. User Interface: or uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Uh too difficult, um maybe uh it's easier to break it. Project Manager: N yeah. User Interface: Break it, I don't get {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, th th th that i uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah. Project Manager: It's very sensitive. User Interface: Oh so {disfmarker} Yeah. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: Like my telephone, it's uh it's sensitive too. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay well uh it's almost at the end. So we have now a lunch break, finally, Marketing: Ah. Project Manager: yeah. {vocalsound} Uh after the lunch break uh it's back to uh individual work, once again uh thirty minutes. Uh I will put my minutes {disfmarker} uh I have updated them so uh s they're updated in the shared folder too. Marketing: Thirty minutes? Project Manager: Thirty minutes, the {disfmarker} Marketing: How minutes? {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Failure. Uh {vocalsound} uh the specifi uh specific instructions for the next uh meeting you will {disfmarker} all will receive uh at the uh the the email. I don't think I can uh say much about it, so uh uh wait for your email and uh hopefully you get it done uh in the in the thirty minutes, and I w will see you after the lunch break and the thirty minutes. Marketing: One question, Project Manager: Yeah? Marketing: uh how late do we have to get back {disfmarker} be back here? Project Manager: Uh well uh thirty minutes. User Interface: A quarter to one maybe? Project Manager: Uh, yeah. Marketing: Thirty minutes lunch break? Project Manager: Thirty minutes lunch break, yeah. Oh. Forty five? User Interface: Okay. Marketing: I thought forty five. Project Manager: Uh then would it be uh one o'clock. Marketing: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Project Manager: Or we we ask our personal coach. Okay. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Thank you. Thank you, uh that was a very uh good session I think, User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {gap} Project Manager: we uh we {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah, is it possible to store this on the share documents or what {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, me too. Project Manager: Uh ye well {disfmarker} Marketing: Save as. Project Manager: Yeah, because uh all uh things are uh stored in smart board dot uh X_D_K_ Marketing: Yeah, v Project Manager: and that's in {disfmarker} Marketing: But but you can open a {disfmarker} from your pr from your laptop. User Interface:'Kay, save it as an image on the res Marketing: Yeah, maybe. Save as. Project Manager: No. Industrial Designer: Export. Maybe not export function. Marketing: No. Export. Project Manager: Well I can I can uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Export H_T_M_L_. User Interface: No, and use an image if possible. Marketing: Huh, image? User Interface: J_ PEG. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} G_ {disfmarker} yeah, J_ PEG. User Interface: J_ PEG. Yeah, it's better Marketing: Paper size A_ four. Uh screen size. In this directory. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: N oh. User Interface: Oh yeah, it's not connected to the Project Manager: You all uh have the the questionnaire again about uh the after work. User Interface: to our P_C_s. Marketing: No? Yeah, it is connected. User Interface: It's connected? Marketing: Yeah, I think so. Project Manager: Deskt Huh. No. Industrial Designer: To room. I'll just uh saved in my documents. Marketing: Oh. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} in my own uh {disfmarker} in my own messenger. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Project documents, yeah. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: It gives the na Oh. Yes. Project Manager: Okay, Industrial Designer: Okay, nice. Project Manager: thank you. User Interface: The questionnaire, fill in {disfmarker} uh we fill out d after lunch or uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Uh well, it's it's simply filling {disfmarker} oh no, it's uh it's also filling out {disfmarker} no, I'd do it after lunch I think. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Aye, cheers. Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'm hungry, so do it after lunch. User Interface: Yes. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thank you all. Marketing: Thank you. Project Manager: You're welcome. User Interface: We can leave the P_C_ on I think, yeah and return to the {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, of course. Project Manager: Yeah. Well I bring it to my uh personal room. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah, bring to {disfmarker} I gotta bring it home. Industrial Designer: {gap} Marketing: To my exave executive {disfmarker} Project Manager: My executive uh big room with the with the panting. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} A big office. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: Yes. Marketing: Aye. Yeah. Okay. Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} {gap} Marketing: {gap} Project Manager: {vocalsound}

Industrial Designer first explained how the remote control worked and how people could build one. Based on this, he rejected the idea of using Bluetooth, which was proposed during the last meeting, by pointing out that the cost would be over the budget. From the aspect of Industrial Designer, he/she recommended to keep the remote control simple and still use infrared technology. When it came to the design and functionality, Industrial Designer thought that they should stick to the basic things.

tr-sq-691

tr-sq-691_0

What did User Interface think about the features of the new remote control when discussing the technical functions of the design and usability functions? Project Manager: Hello. Marketing: Hey guys. User Interface: Hi. Industrial Designer: Hi. Project Manager: Hi. Industrial Designer: I see my bunny is still standing. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: No one drawing it. Project Manager: It's too beautiful. User Interface: Yeah, true. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh I figured uh that much. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: Too wicked. User Interface: Mm. Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: A minute please, my uh laptop is uh {disfmarker} oh, there it is, thank you. So welcome back. {vocalsound} At the functional design meeting um the plan is uh that uh each one of you, so not me but only you uh will uh present uh the the things you worked on uh the last uh half hour. I will uh take minutes and will put uh the minutes that I have uh at the end of the session in the shared folder. {vocalsound} Also the minutes of the previous session are also in the shared folder now, so you can read that uh now or afterwards. Um {vocalsound} uh I had an email from the from the management board Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: uh, I don't know if you a al also uh received it, but there were four points uh which uh I think are very important. First one is uh they think that uh teletext teletext becomes outdated uh and internet will be the the main uh focus. {vocalsound} Uh second one is also important uh, because it's one of the discussion points of the previous session. Uh the remote control shou should onl only be used for the television, so it uh not gonna it's not gonna be a multi-purpose remote control, so uh that's one thing to keep in mind. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh second, and I think that's important for the Marketing uh Expert, uh the current uh customers uh are in the age group group of uh forty years and older, but with this uh new remote uh they uh will uh {disfmarker} would like to reach uh a group uh younger than uh forty. Uh and uh I think to keep in mind, but not really uh for now is that they uh want the the the slogan and the and the logo uh to uh to be recognised more in the remote. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: So, we have uh forty minutes, so I think uh not more than ten minutes uh uh per presentation uh each, and please uh use uh all the the the facilities so that you have either SMARTboards, the the Word files, what you uh {disfmarker} whatever you want. So uh Tim, can you start? Yeah? Marketing: Okay. {vocalsound}'Kay, welcome. I have some uh new findings on uh Marketing Expert level, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Marketing: which I will show you. {vocalsound} The method I used was um giving orders to our usability lab uh to do a questionnaire. Um {vocalsound} one hundred respondents were involved and my marketing uh department generated a report with a lot of results. Um, these were a couple of findings, first page of three. Um, we have three audiences of {disfmarker} two audiences, {vocalsound} I'm sorry. Uh the first one, this scale, from sixteen to forty five {gap} age. Uh the second one is from sixty four {disfmarker} uh forty six to sixty five. Um, as you can see here, the market share for the first audience is about sixty percent {disfmarker} um sixty five. Uh second audience audience is uh thirty five percent. Mm {vocalsound} and some interests from the from the age groups, uh it seems like the young users of remote controls really like the fancy uh new technology stuff, like uh an L_C_D_ screen on the remote control, um speech recognition. I don't think that's uh really appropriate. Um, {vocalsound} and when you see uh the audience, the age is going up uh {disfmarker} Yeah, they don't really want it anymore, at least the new technologies. Second findings {vocalsound} out of the questionnaire um are the opinion {vocalsound} the opinions uh of the audience about current remote controls. First point is, seventy five percent of the users find the most repo remote controls very ugly, uh and eighty percent of the users would spend more money when a remote control would look fancy. So that's maybe something for the User Interface uh Designer. Okay, third findings. According to the frequency of use versus importance investigation, um {vocalsound} following buttons are most important. Um, I will tell something about the way this uh this test was, yeah, done. Um, {vocalsound} persons were asked uh what the buttons were uh they use most, how much an hour, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: and uh in the second table the importance of those buttons. Um, when you multiply them, you get the {disfmarker} these three points. Switching channels, um yeah, that's pretty uh pretty normal, that's what you do with a remote control. Um the second, teletext, uh and the third, uh volume controls. Um, I think it's good uh that we know what the user want {disfmarker} wants, uh at least the these three points have to be uh very clear. Project Manager: But it's strange that the the manage board {disfmarker} the management board said that the teletext will be uh outdated by the internet. So that that's strange. Marketing: Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay, but uh at the moment uh teletext is {disfmarker} Yeah, th the best thing you can get uh on T_V_, like getting information. Project Manager: Yeah, okay. Yeah. Marketing: So uh, when you ask people, what do they use, {vocalsound} they use teletext and not the internet on a remote control. Project Manager: Okay. Yeah, okay. Marketing: That's ridiculous. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: That's a ne i it {disfmarker} It's a new technology, Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: but it's not incorporated right now. Okay, my personal preferences. Um, I think we should aim at the uh audience from sixteen to forty five. {vocalsound} Mm, first of all um it's the biggest share, the biggest audience, sixty five percent. Uh second, I think you will get the most revenue from i from it. Um, yeah, people from sixteen to forty five watch a lot of T_V_, more than uh people who are el uh elder. Um {vocalsound} second point, {vocalsound} we have to impro improve the most used functions, as I said here, switching channels, teletext and volume controls. Third point um that came out of the uh {disfmarker} of the questionnaire, uh people used to uh get lost off the remote controller, so maybe it's an idea for us uh to design ex kind of placeholder uh on side of the, yeah, of the T_V_ Project Manager: Yeah, that's a cool idea. Marketing: where you can put the the remote control in. {vocalsound} Um, that's about it, I think. Yeah. Industrial Designer: When you mentioned uh improving functions, what uh what do you mean by that what what are you think about? Marketing: Uh not not the r not the functions, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh, the funtionability. Marketing: but uh it came out that a lot of buttons weren't even used uh on a remote control. So you can have a remote control full of buttons, a hundreds hundreds of buttons, but if you don't use them, yeah it's {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Ah okay, so focusing more on the used buttons. Marketing: Yeah, they have to be on it Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: j just to t to get it done if necessary, User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: but um the most used buttons uh have to be bigger or {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Could you use perhaps uh one button for multiple functions, like example pressing it in longer makes it switch to an different function for example. Marketing: Yeah, perhaps. Industrial Designer: Thank you. Marketing: Just for the minor functions perhaps. Industrial Designer: Yeah, ma perhaps, just just an idea. Marketing: Just to get less buttons on the remote control, to make it easier and quicker to learn. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah?'Kay, that's it. Project Manager: Thank you, Tim. {vocalsound} Janus, can you uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Uh yeah yeah, I'll go, sure. Right uh, I'll be uh explaining a bit about uh working design about uh the project. Well uh what I did was I dissected uh uh current remote controls and um I viewed how how they w looked, how they worked, uh what kind of components are involved, and how they are connected together. And uh after that I put up a scheme about how uh these things are organised and I'll show it to you in in a in a few seconds. And I'll explain a bit about uh how it works and how we could uh build one and why I think several possibilities uh that we discussed in the earlier meeting falls off. Um right. Uh well what I did was uh I I checked uh remote controls and the uh remote controls of today are all infrared, not like all probably know. And the thing about that is um the remote controls uh have to act as a T_V_ or uh a stereo or something, and those uh have a transmitter that's also focused on infrared, so if we want to uh build uh mm a remote control uh with Bluetooth for instance then uh the T_V_ should have Bluetooth too in order to communicate, so that would mean extra cost for the user and thus uh that's that wouldn't mean a a cheap uh remote control for us. So that's probably why most controls are still infrared. Furthermore they all have uh a a very simple structure, so that would probably uh mean lower costs and uh i that could mean for us a good thing uh'cause uh well we we should be able to build a relatively cheap uh {gap} a cheap uh remote. Well uh as I mentioned ready, we have some Bluetooth {disfmarker} Well it may be possible, but uh I figured it wouldn't be possible in {disfmarker} within our budget, but that's not for me to decide, but that's maybe something for marketing to look into. F because uh {disfmarker} well my personal opinion is uh is not to do uh Bluetooth {gap} or or radio waves, {vocalsound} although {disfmarker} Marketing: What do you think about uh incorporating Bluetooth or a radio uh receiver uh in the place-holder next to the T_V_, connected to the T_V_? Industrial Designer: Yeah, actually I have t Marketing: So it's in the wrong product. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah, I actually {disfmarker} I figured that would be that would be rather nice, but then you'd still have the uh {disfmarker} the infrared function. So in in theory you'd actually just move the problem, Marketing: Yeah. Yeah. Industrial Designer: but uh what I did uh think about was when you mentioned about the uh the cup-holder, is why not uh introduce a speech function like where is the remote. If somebody says, where is the remote, then it goes uh beep uh beep beep beep or something, User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Industrial Designer: I dunno, maybe uh maybe something to look into, I dunno uh what the cost {gap} that something like that would be. But it may be uh may be something to explore. Uh I'll I'll just explain a bit of the components. Uh first you have the energy source. The energy source would be a battery, simple uh battery uh that you can find anywhere. I figured that would be best,'cause when the battery uh stops functioning uh we could just uh use {disfmarker} you could just go out and buy a new one. So we didn't {disfmarker} and we don't have to do all uh {disfmarker} to be too complicated about that. Uh the energy source is connected to the infrared button, but uh the infrared button uh works only via the chip and the subcomponent to uh the switch {disfmarker} there is a switch uh between these. When the switch is pressed in a w on this this case it switches a button, when a button is prush pushed in, uh a electric current goes through here, and in uh {disfmarker} immediately, a l a bulb lights up uh displaying to the user that something has happened. That's uh that's so the h user won't be um thinking, well uh did the button be pressed, w what happened uh. Or I press button but nothing's happening on the T_V_, so is is something wrong or something. So that's just to uh to to explain the {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} to to uh make it clearer to the user. Uh w well the signal goes via chip that's translated into uh electric sig uh electronic signals and then it's processed and then it's sent to the infrared bulb where it will be uh uh received on the receiving end. And those uh interpreted by the device, well in this case the television. Uh well my personal preferences here, well we have to keep it simple. Not too many uh gadgets and functions, just like you said uh {disfmarker} well the most users n uh you have a lot of buttons and you u u use {disfmarker} you don't use them, so why why should we invent uh {disfmarker} w spend more time on those. Uh I I think we should stick by {disfmarker} with infrared transmitting and uh no receiving. So uh no input from the television. So I think we shouldn't be uh spending time on um teletext and st things like that, because when you uh want teletext on uh infrared you'd have to build in a receiver too, and so in order to receive the signals from uh what's on T_V_ and such. So I figure that would be uh spending too much money and time and {disfmarker} Marketing: Um, yeah, maybe another problem uh, I think current T_V_s can even send infrared. Industrial Designer: Yes, but what should we uh s I I I f I agree with you, but should we spend money or {disfmarker} and time on building a receiver into the uh remote control? Marketing: Huh. Industrial Designer:'Cause that would be {disfmarker} I mean extra components, extra designs, um larger g uh remote control. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Industrial Designer: These all uh all stuff that we have to take in account. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: So I I {disfmarker} my personal opinion is no no no receiver at all. Um, well Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: we should uh look into the design and the functionability. Like I said, uh use one button for instance for m multiple functions, or well uh just hide the few buttons o of switching it open or something, the usual uh {gap} stuff. And uh don't overbuild, we shouldn't make a big uh remote control for simple functions, but we we should stick to the basics. So that was my uh my personal opinion. And that was my uh my presentation uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Okay, thank you Janus. User Interface: Okay. Yes, Project Manager: You do? User Interface: I can go ahead. Project Manager: The last presentation. You have plenty of time, User Interface: Last presentation. Okay. Project Manager: Tim and uh Janus don't uh talk to ten minutes, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: so uh take your time. User Interface: {gap} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: If you take your time too long I will uh eventually uh Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: warn you. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: Well, I'm going to give a presentation abut some of the technical functions of these design and uh usability functions. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: Um what's my opinion about what's most important to combine the design, technical possibilities and the user friendliness in one, so if you um going to design a remote that looks good, that shouldn't weigh over the uh {disfmarker} if it's possible to make, of course, but also the user friendliness, so tha that's that's some of the main points. And another one is um the use um of many functions will will make it more difficult, so use as as little functions as possible or at least don't display them all at once on the same remote. If you have fifty functions you don't want fifty buttons uh t uh to be shown at the same time, Marketing: Hmm. User Interface:'cause when you visit an internet uh site you don't want fifty links uh to see, but maybe use a hierarch hierarchy uh structure. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: And uh well one of the ideas was maybe uh use touch screen, but s I don't know in how far that is possible, Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: since we are sticking to uh um infrared and and the remote cannot receive anything, but uh we might uh consider that. Um well, of course I I hope this is all clear to you. If you {disfmarker} you can use remote like this with all the functions, {gap} many functions, but {disfmarker} Well, your thumb is a little bigger than th it than this. You have to be very careful what you push, Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} User Interface: and um if you're looking for teletext you'll be uh searching for half an hour from uh um {disfmarker} yeah well, where is it? Where the hell {disfmarker} he here I guess and, yeah, when you have to uh use something else. So just keep it simple, make clear buttons, easy to use. For example if you want to use a play and back and stop, that's very important. Um well this was because of our last discussion, if multiple machines are used, create easy switch between the machines, but um it's no longer uh applying. {vocalsound} Well yeah, I prefer to use it only for T_V_ and um n uh not to give too many options and and if possible, uh the buttons should give {vocalsound} a dr direct action, not first select {disfmarker} Project Manager: Uh you you just said um uh you wanted to to combine more functions in one, so uh User Interface: Yeah, Project Manager: you you want to keep it simple, User Interface: and so that's where the difficulties lie. Industrial Designer: Yeah, but {disfmarker} Project Manager: but I think that if you want to do that, then you can't escape the the fact that there will be buttons uh which give s uh more options than one. User Interface: Yeah, this {disfmarker} so that's the thing you have to weigh against each other. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah, but {disfmarker} User Interface: Do we want to use a few options and might not be so or original, or uh multi-purpose as we thought, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Okay. User Interface: or do we want to use um many buttons. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: So um weighing those factors. Marketing: Hmm {gap} it's maybe an option uh if you use an L_C_D_ {vocalsound} or a touch screen um, that in the middle are the the main keys, like displayed on the {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Uh yeah. User Interface: The {gap} doesn't {gap}. Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap}. Yeah, this? No? Yeah. {vocalsound} Something like that. Okay, just uh in the middle the general functions, like play, uh channel switching, User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: and then uh at the top or at the bottom, some menus like uh settings or {disfmarker} that you can drop down. User Interface: Yeah, but when all the questions I had {disfmarker} Do we want to use uh a menu display on the T_V_? Or um does have to f everything uh be in remotes?'Cause if you use a memory display on the T_V_, you can simply push uh a more menu and then select the options you want to have and press okay. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: Uh so that's my recommendation, if you use many options in one buttle {disfmarker} button, um display the menu on the T_V_ Marketing: Nah. Mm-hmm. User Interface: and don't um use combination of t of two buttons at the same time or pressing buttons three times for five seconds, Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: is too complicated for most users. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah, but {disfmarker} Marketing: I think so too, but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and that's partly because um uh a lot of T_V_s have different menus, and when you have a particular menu uh at your device, uh it could be that don't correspond to the menu what's actually on T_V_. User Interface: Yeah, that will be a problem. Industrial Designer: Well Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: you d you have to {gap} keep in mind that uh several T_V_s uh don't even have a menu structure, or they have a very simple menu structure, so you have to keep in mind that not all uh d not {disfmarker} our remote won't be able to work on all televisions. User Interface: Yes. Industrial Designer: And that would be uh a considerable problem. User Interface: So if we have to stick with current technologies and uh um well yeah, the restrictions of what's uh is on the market today, um you should keep it s at this. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: Use big clear buttons. Not too many. So maybe we'll loose a few option uh options, but I think i this is more important. Um {vocalsound} especially the important buttons, um if you want to switch channel, change your volume, uh use teletext, it uh it has to work at once and more advanced options may be put it s somewhere away on the remote, behind uh a little uh little thing or a touch screen. Industrial Designer: Not embed Yeah, but then with something like a touch screen could {disfmarker} could make more menu up {disfmarker} pop up or something. User Interface: And yeah, if you want to uh uh s put {gap} on stand-by or change the channel, that should always be possible to do. Not first change menu options or switch something. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: Um, well yeah, as you already told, give some feedback. If the user is pushing a button he should know if the television or n at least remote is reacting and not just that the batteries may be low. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: And um, well, my conclusion is uh is uh less is more, keep it simple. So uh maybe we should just ease down on the functionality to uh to keep it accessible on t because you all know, if there are a lot of function {gap} on the the television, some you you'll never know uh and never use, and therefore it's uh important Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: if you want to change the volume or channel that is always accessible and easy and other functions um that are not so important {disfmarker} um well you {disfmarker} we should consider just not using them or at least putting them somewhere on the remote where they're not in the way for the for the most important functions. Marketing: Yeah. Uh, I think the idea uh about uh touch screen um is very good. Um, because recently uh I saw news item on T_V_ um about uh new telephones uh for elder people. Um, they have like a touch screen with uh really big pictures on it like uh uh call uh hang-up, um and that's a big ad advantage I think, because one the one hand uh you make the remote control compatible for elder users just by uh scaling up the pictures or something. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: It's uh very visual intended. {vocalsound} What was I to say more? User Interface: Maybe that's an option. Um keep the primary buttons visible. Uh make a remote that fits easily in the hands Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and for some design issues uh well, put a logo on it and maybe use it uh in some aesthetic uh aesthetic form. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: But uh th the important buttons m make them always accessible and pushable and clear Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: and maybe use a touch screen, or if that's uh will become too difficult just uh like televi some o older telephones use a l uh maybe it's possible to to flip them open and uh just expand the number of options that are normally visible. Um {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah okay, but but if you pick the the idea, the left idea User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: then what's gonna be displayed on the touch screen? Industrial Designer: The extra functions. User Interface: The extra functions, you uh you just see a menu from system functions or teletext functions, and you just choose one, Marketing: Yeah, but l like menu functions or {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: and then all all the options will become available Marketing: Ah okay. User Interface: and you just c s yeah t scroll through them. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wouldn't it be better to make just one big touch screen, uh one one small uh touch screen uh applet Marketing: Yeah, I think so. Industrial Designer: and uh I'll just make um {disfmarker} uh let's say fifteen buttons on it, and uh we have three of those, uh actually just uh menus with sub-menus, with {disfmarker} or sub-items, sub-functions. User Interface: Well um Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: then I'd like to make a proposal. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: If you make one big touch screen, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes. User Interface: use the same concept as here, keep the buttons always available Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and use the lower part of the touch screen for the rest. Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: like like the iPod idea that that we just saw. User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: You just have a f a few selected buttons and uh a few menus, and with this idea you could actually make uh several {disfmarker} you can also improve uh later on. User Interface: Yes. Industrial Designer: Uh uh I think that will be great. User Interface: Okay. Project Manager: So you think it's will be better to have a t kinda total touch screen. Marketing: Yeah, I think so. Industrial Designer: Yeah, I wou I would actually go for the {disfmarker} Project Manager: Jirun? User Interface: Okay, I agree, but I think it's very important that they always um make the same buttons accessible, so use just for special options a part of the touch screen. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah, of course. User Interface: And so um an elder designer picks up th the {disfmarker} of Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: an elder parents or grandparent picks up the remote from the little child and who's all in the systems functions, you'll have to have the possibility to turn off the T_V_ or to switch the channel without um well using all the menu structures to get back to the primary functions. Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah, I had another uh idea about maybe parental control. Um, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Marketing: like building in uh some kind of PIN code uh which allows uh parents to switch to all channels, uh User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: but children uh {disfmarker} if children don't don't know the PIN code, they can't switch to uh violent uh channels or {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah wh Is that possible to use or no? Industrial Designer: That is possible, that {disfmarker} well that actually depends on the television, Marketing: Th there's just {disfmarker} User Interface: Well, yeah well, Industrial Designer: but I think {disfmarker} I figure that would be {disfmarker} User Interface: does it have to depend on the television? Marketing: Ju just a simple log-in, something like that. Industrial Designer: Well, Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: y you s you see the fi uh thing is when you buy a remote, you you set the uh channels, the the channels are different on each te television, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: they aren't set in a preset order, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: so uh if you uh lock on a remote, uh let's say channel fifteen, well channel fifteen on this television is different than channel fifteen on the other television, Marketing: Mm-hmm. Yeah, okay. Industrial Designer: so that would be uh that would be actually the main concern. Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah. User Interface: Well, I think that he means that um maybe by some option uh {disfmarker} make sure that um remote control and the T_V_ match, and then after that you can um use some s insert some passwords as being apparent that the children cannot use this uh {disfmarker} change the settings of the T_V_, like colour and then volume Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, th that kind of stuff, but maybe um if you log in first as a parent um, you address the the channels User Interface: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Yes. Marketing: and like uh oh, that's channel fifteen, that's uh vi violent channel, User Interface: Oh, something like that. Industrial Designer: Yes. Marketing: uh m my ki my kids uh {disfmarker} I don't want my kids to watch that, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: then you set the priority to only parents, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay, yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: Well b but make it a separate option in the menu, Industrial Designer: Yeah, that would b Marketing: for example. But {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah, that. User Interface: so that it's it's dif dis displayed from uh {disfmarker} displayed here, Marketing: Yeah okay, but but {disfmarker} yeah, that's just User Interface: so uh parents uh {disfmarker} Marketing: that's an a an added feature. Project Manager: Yeah. Okay. But let's not uh go too wide about the {disfmarker} those things, that's that why we're here. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah, {vocalsound} th th those things are nice. {vocalsound} Project Manager: It's it's a nice idea, but I think that's we wel {vocalsound} later in the stage. I've one little question about um a total touch screen or uh um a p Marketing: Partial. Project Manager: yeah, a partial, uh because I think uh elderly people may be uh not used to uh a touch screen, so they want the the the normal functions like teletext, volume changing, um uh to be uh, yeah, kinda traditionals Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: uh and uh {vocalsound} the the the the other functions, the more difficult functions uh to be uh maybe on the touch screen, Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: but to keep this as uh normal as possible, to keep it accessible. Marketing: Yeah, but but if you display it on L_C_D_ screen with r r really big numbers User Interface: Yeah, you can de display it on the on the old style. Marketing: that's just as e just as easy. Industrial Designer: Uh. I I do {disfmarker} User Interface: You can display actual buttons on the touch screens. Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah, that's true, that's true. Industrial Designer: Uh I do agree, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: because well, it's just not the same when you touch a touch screen User Interface: Yeah, okay. Industrial Designer: or when you touch a button, but well we have to look at what's our target uh audience. Marketing: Yeah, it's different. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: W we are aiming for younger people Project Manager: Yeah, that's true, yeah. Industrial Designer: and they they chose {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, age b below forty. Project Manager: Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Yep. Industrial Designer: So that's that's probably uh a {disfmarker} Marketing: And th those young people, yeah. Y you saw it in my marketing report, they like the new fancy stuff, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. They like the fancy stuff, yeah. That's true. Marketing: so {disfmarker} A touch screen, like Microsoft al already developed something like that for uh uh multi-media applications. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: I th I think we can do that too. Project Manager: Mm {disfmarker} Yeah. Okay, as you can see uh the minutes from the second meeting, this one, are uh {vocalsound} are done. Marketing: {vocalsound} Done. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh I've uh added the {disfmarker} this uh four things from the management board just to keep in mind. User Interface: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um each time I uh I had a sort of uh summary on what you told and uh what you personal think. Uh so that can be uh can be read out. Uh a f a few things I uh I noticed uh were um {disfmarker} Moment. Ooh. Uh th the the main points in uh this uh uh in this uh meeting is I think uh how uh it's going to look uh with uh {disfmarker} we must keep it simple, but have the opportunity to uh have more options and have them uh hidden or something, so they don't {disfmarker} uh you don't have a big uh thing full of uh buttons or uh {disfmarker} um and uh the point that uh you uh wanna use one uh controller uh for uh uh hypothetically {vocalsound} each television, so you must uh the the the the functions, know, like the menus or the the parental control must be all uh by the {disfmarker} done by the remote control and not by the television. I think that's the point what uh User Interface: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: we discussed. User Interface: Yes. Marketing: Yeah, yeah, some of them. The menus uh are not identical for all th for all T_V_s, so you have to display it on one uh T_V_. User Interface: Well you can use um {disfmarker} when you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh how do you call it, s um synchronized, the um remote and the T_V_, Marketing: Yeah, but that's not possible. User Interface: then there's always, there are always uh possibilities to change the colour and the brightness and the volume Marketing: Mm-hmm, mm yeah. User Interface: and um well maybe we can look out if there's options that the remote um in its memory can see what kinda T_V_ it is, from {disfmarker} ah, it's a Philips, this and this and that, and then give the options that are capable {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} capable from the t Project Manager: Yeah, but you have uh uh an {disfmarker} Marketing: Add th that that's an opportunity {gap}. Project Manager: yeah, but you have an international market range, so you have I think a big range of {disfmarker} User Interface: Well there are universal d um um remotes Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: and they all have a functionality for all the T_V_s, uh so this wouldn't be a extra feature to incorporate the men menus of these. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: But they {disfmarker} Marketing: But {disfmarker} Project Manager: And it's not too complex to do it. User Interface: {gap} Industrial Designer: Well they uh they all have to be programmed to fit your T_V_ Marketing: No. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and that that is bit of a tricky job. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: I actually use one of those when {disfmarker} They are they are kinda kinda troublesome, but but the thing is whe when you uh start uh building something like this you have to build a receiver into the uh t into the remotes, because uh in order for the remote to process something from the T_V_, like uh to synchronise and you have to send and receive, User Interface: Yeah. Well {disfmarker} Yeah. Mm-hmm. Oh um mo Industrial Designer: and that's well {disfmarker} Marketing: No no no. User Interface: no, you can just say uh the c Marketing: {vocalsound} He he he he me he means just just one other thing. Project Manager: Just build it in. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Uh, with the current remote controls, the universal ones, um you have to press {disfmarker} yeah, you have to press a code for T_V_. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yes. User Interface: In codes, y you you get a b a book with codes. You look up, I have a Philips H_ fifty five Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: and it says press code four five five Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Oh, okay, yeah, sure, uh {disfmarker} User Interface: and you press code four five five on the {disfmarker} uh in the remote Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah. User Interface: and it displays all your uh menu options. Industrial Designer: Oh, yeah yeah, sure, that would be possible, yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Now we uh just connect uh the T_V_ type uh to a set of options, in {disfmarker} just just in the memory, User Interface: Memory in the in the remote. Project Manager: Yep. Industrial Designer: Profiles. Marketing: so that if you {disfmarker} yeah, like profile, so that if you uh touch in like uh one four one zero kind of T_V_ uh Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: the memory uh pops up the options. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah, that would be possible. Yeah, sure. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: I th don't think that's uh {disfmarker} that takes a lot of storage space or some just varia variables. Industrial Designer: No, that wouldn't be uh {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah, well um Industrial Designer: Yeah, a few variables. User Interface: if you look at the um manuals from universal uh remotes, there are maybe um three four hundreds T_V_s at maximum. If you have all of them, all the old and new T_V_s summed up, Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: so uh I think uh it is possible {gap}. Industrial Designer: Ah it is. It is definitely po Marketing: But, on the other hand on the other hand, uh if you have a remote and buy a new T_V_ that isn't incorporated in the remote {disfmarker} Project Manager: We have five minutes to go. User Interface: Yeah. Well then you have to buy a new one, it's very good for marketing Marketing: New remote? User Interface: Maybe, or an update, software update. Marketing: A firmware upgrade or something, User Interface: Firmware update, you say. Industrial Designer: Yeah, firmware upgrade. Marketing: but from where? Ah. Maybe w Industrial Designer: That's maybe the cup holder. Marketing: No m may no, User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: maybe we can incorporate some kind of uh U_S_B_ or a firewire connection, so that you can uh connect it to the P_C_ and download the newest firmware from uh from the internet. Industrial Designer: Well, not everybody has uh has uh a P_C_ at home. Well the most most people have, User Interface: Well, at {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: but not not everybody User Interface: uh you can go back to the shop Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} User Interface: and uh they {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: like a s kind of service centre. User Interface: Yeah, ser o Industrial Designer: Yeah, maybe something like service cen Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and they can download it for you. Industrial Designer: Or you could {disfmarker} well you could s actually look at the place-holder you talked about earlier, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and you could probably uh make a connection to uh an telephone line or a internet connection. User Interface: Yeah. Well already digital information is sent t to the the standards, T_V_ uh connections, Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: you can see what's uh programme is on on the new uh channels, so maybe j they {disfmarker} we can send that information along with standard T_V_ uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Well then then it's be uh back to the building a receiving uh {disfmarker} well uh if it's actually worth it to build it in, User Interface: Receiving. Oh yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: we could actually look at {disfmarker} into it, User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} I dunno, it it would be uh bringing more costs {gap} uh with with it User Interface: Difficult. Yeah. Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Marketing: I I think it's uh most cheap or cheapest to just do the updates uh at the service centre or at the shop. User Interface: Yeah yeah, uh s I think some {disfmarker} I think it's good idea, yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that would be probably best, yeah. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Like when you when you buy a T_V_ you just ask {disfmarker} well I'll {disfmarker} Marketing: It's it's it's not a lot of work, just one uh docking station where you put it in, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: press start, bling bling, updated. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that would be best, yeah. User Interface: Yeah. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} You don't buy a T_V_ every week, new teev so. User Interface: Okay, let's uh save this in the meanwhile uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: No no. Exactly, so {disfmarker} User Interface: Um m for which one are we going? {gap} My mistake. Marketing: Let's vote. User Interface: That one or uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah, my vote goes out to the right {gap}. User Interface: Your vote and your {disfmarker} Marketing: My vote too. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: Okay. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: And your vote? User Interface: Well, I was uh doubting about which one to take, but uh you've convinced me that uh if you di display buttons about the same as they would look on a normal um remote all elderly people will know what to do. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: And also like a clapping uh li like device that uh pops open. User Interface: Opens up is too difficult Industrial Designer: Flips open. User Interface: or uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Uh too difficult, um maybe uh it's easier to break it. Project Manager: N yeah. User Interface: Break it, I don't get {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, th th th that i uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah. Project Manager: It's very sensitive. User Interface: Oh so {disfmarker} Yeah. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: Like my telephone, it's uh it's sensitive too. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay well uh it's almost at the end. So we have now a lunch break, finally, Marketing: Ah. Project Manager: yeah. {vocalsound} Uh after the lunch break uh it's back to uh individual work, once again uh thirty minutes. Uh I will put my minutes {disfmarker} uh I have updated them so uh s they're updated in the shared folder too. Marketing: Thirty minutes? Project Manager: Thirty minutes, the {disfmarker} Marketing: How minutes? {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Failure. Uh {vocalsound} uh the specifi uh specific instructions for the next uh meeting you will {disfmarker} all will receive uh at the uh the the email. I don't think I can uh say much about it, so uh uh wait for your email and uh hopefully you get it done uh in the in the thirty minutes, and I w will see you after the lunch break and the thirty minutes. Marketing: One question, Project Manager: Yeah? Marketing: uh how late do we have to get back {disfmarker} be back here? Project Manager: Uh well uh thirty minutes. User Interface: A quarter to one maybe? Project Manager: Uh, yeah. Marketing: Thirty minutes lunch break? Project Manager: Thirty minutes lunch break, yeah. Oh. Forty five? User Interface: Okay. Marketing: I thought forty five. Project Manager: Uh then would it be uh one o'clock. Marketing: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Project Manager: Or we we ask our personal coach. Okay. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Thank you. Thank you, uh that was a very uh good session I think, User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {gap} Project Manager: we uh we {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah, is it possible to store this on the share documents or what {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, me too. Project Manager: Uh ye well {disfmarker} Marketing: Save as. Project Manager: Yeah, because uh all uh things are uh stored in smart board dot uh X_D_K_ Marketing: Yeah, v Project Manager: and that's in {disfmarker} Marketing: But but you can open a {disfmarker} from your pr from your laptop. User Interface:'Kay, save it as an image on the res Marketing: Yeah, maybe. Save as. Project Manager: No. Industrial Designer: Export. Maybe not export function. Marketing: No. Export. Project Manager: Well I can I can uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Export H_T_M_L_. User Interface: No, and use an image if possible. Marketing: Huh, image? User Interface: J_ PEG. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} G_ {disfmarker} yeah, J_ PEG. User Interface: J_ PEG. Yeah, it's better Marketing: Paper size A_ four. Uh screen size. In this directory. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: N oh. User Interface: Oh yeah, it's not connected to the Project Manager: You all uh have the the questionnaire again about uh the after work. User Interface: to our P_C_s. Marketing: No? Yeah, it is connected. User Interface: It's connected? Marketing: Yeah, I think so. Project Manager: Deskt Huh. No. Industrial Designer: To room. I'll just uh saved in my documents. Marketing: Oh. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} in my own uh {disfmarker} in my own messenger. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Project documents, yeah. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: It gives the na Oh. Yes. Project Manager: Okay, Industrial Designer: Okay, nice. Project Manager: thank you. User Interface: The questionnaire, fill in {disfmarker} uh we fill out d after lunch or uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Uh well, it's it's simply filling {disfmarker} oh no, it's uh it's also filling out {disfmarker} no, I'd do it after lunch I think. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Aye, cheers. Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'm hungry, so do it after lunch. User Interface: Yes. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thank you all. Marketing: Thank you. Project Manager: You're welcome. User Interface: We can leave the P_C_ on I think, yeah and return to the {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, of course. Project Manager: Yeah. Well I bring it to my uh personal room. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah, bring to {disfmarker} I gotta bring it home. Industrial Designer: {gap} Marketing: To my exave executive {disfmarker} Project Manager: My executive uh big room with the with the panting. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} A big office. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: Yes. Marketing: Aye. Yeah. Okay. Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} {gap} Marketing: {gap} Project Manager: {vocalsound}

User Interface also suggested to keep the remote control simple and ease down on the functionality. Keeping the remote control simple meant that fewer functions were involved, or at least less buttons were made, which could be solved by a hierarchy structure supported by a touch screen. Besides, User Interface mentioned the importance of being user friendly. According to User Interface, the remote control should be only used for TV.

tr-sq-692

tr-sq-692_0

What did the group discuss at the end of the meeting when summarizing the whole meeting? Project Manager: Hello. Marketing: Hey guys. User Interface: Hi. Industrial Designer: Hi. Project Manager: Hi. Industrial Designer: I see my bunny is still standing. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: No one drawing it. Project Manager: It's too beautiful. User Interface: Yeah, true. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh I figured uh that much. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: Too wicked. User Interface: Mm. Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: A minute please, my uh laptop is uh {disfmarker} oh, there it is, thank you. So welcome back. {vocalsound} At the functional design meeting um the plan is uh that uh each one of you, so not me but only you uh will uh present uh the the things you worked on uh the last uh half hour. I will uh take minutes and will put uh the minutes that I have uh at the end of the session in the shared folder. {vocalsound} Also the minutes of the previous session are also in the shared folder now, so you can read that uh now or afterwards. Um {vocalsound} uh I had an email from the from the management board Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: uh, I don't know if you a al also uh received it, but there were four points uh which uh I think are very important. First one is uh they think that uh teletext teletext becomes outdated uh and internet will be the the main uh focus. {vocalsound} Uh second one is also important uh, because it's one of the discussion points of the previous session. Uh the remote control shou should onl only be used for the television, so it uh not gonna it's not gonna be a multi-purpose remote control, so uh that's one thing to keep in mind. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh second, and I think that's important for the Marketing uh Expert, uh the current uh customers uh are in the age group group of uh forty years and older, but with this uh new remote uh they uh will uh {disfmarker} would like to reach uh a group uh younger than uh forty. Uh and uh I think to keep in mind, but not really uh for now is that they uh want the the the slogan and the and the logo uh to uh to be recognised more in the remote. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: So, we have uh forty minutes, so I think uh not more than ten minutes uh uh per presentation uh each, and please uh use uh all the the the facilities so that you have either SMARTboards, the the Word files, what you uh {disfmarker} whatever you want. So uh Tim, can you start? Yeah? Marketing: Okay. {vocalsound}'Kay, welcome. I have some uh new findings on uh Marketing Expert level, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Marketing: which I will show you. {vocalsound} The method I used was um giving orders to our usability lab uh to do a questionnaire. Um {vocalsound} one hundred respondents were involved and my marketing uh department generated a report with a lot of results. Um, these were a couple of findings, first page of three. Um, we have three audiences of {disfmarker} two audiences, {vocalsound} I'm sorry. Uh the first one, this scale, from sixteen to forty five {gap} age. Uh the second one is from sixty four {disfmarker} uh forty six to sixty five. Um, as you can see here, the market share for the first audience is about sixty percent {disfmarker} um sixty five. Uh second audience audience is uh thirty five percent. Mm {vocalsound} and some interests from the from the age groups, uh it seems like the young users of remote controls really like the fancy uh new technology stuff, like uh an L_C_D_ screen on the remote control, um speech recognition. I don't think that's uh really appropriate. Um, {vocalsound} and when you see uh the audience, the age is going up uh {disfmarker} Yeah, they don't really want it anymore, at least the new technologies. Second findings {vocalsound} out of the questionnaire um are the opinion {vocalsound} the opinions uh of the audience about current remote controls. First point is, seventy five percent of the users find the most repo remote controls very ugly, uh and eighty percent of the users would spend more money when a remote control would look fancy. So that's maybe something for the User Interface uh Designer. Okay, third findings. According to the frequency of use versus importance investigation, um {vocalsound} following buttons are most important. Um, I will tell something about the way this uh this test was, yeah, done. Um, {vocalsound} persons were asked uh what the buttons were uh they use most, how much an hour, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: and uh in the second table the importance of those buttons. Um, when you multiply them, you get the {disfmarker} these three points. Switching channels, um yeah, that's pretty uh pretty normal, that's what you do with a remote control. Um the second, teletext, uh and the third, uh volume controls. Um, I think it's good uh that we know what the user want {disfmarker} wants, uh at least the these three points have to be uh very clear. Project Manager: But it's strange that the the manage board {disfmarker} the management board said that the teletext will be uh outdated by the internet. So that that's strange. Marketing: Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay, but uh at the moment uh teletext is {disfmarker} Yeah, th the best thing you can get uh on T_V_, like getting information. Project Manager: Yeah, okay. Yeah. Marketing: So uh, when you ask people, what do they use, {vocalsound} they use teletext and not the internet on a remote control. Project Manager: Okay. Yeah, okay. Marketing: That's ridiculous. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: That's a ne i it {disfmarker} It's a new technology, Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: but it's not incorporated right now. Okay, my personal preferences. Um, I think we should aim at the uh audience from sixteen to forty five. {vocalsound} Mm, first of all um it's the biggest share, the biggest audience, sixty five percent. Uh second, I think you will get the most revenue from i from it. Um, yeah, people from sixteen to forty five watch a lot of T_V_, more than uh people who are el uh elder. Um {vocalsound} second point, {vocalsound} we have to impro improve the most used functions, as I said here, switching channels, teletext and volume controls. Third point um that came out of the uh {disfmarker} of the questionnaire, uh people used to uh get lost off the remote controller, so maybe it's an idea for us uh to design ex kind of placeholder uh on side of the, yeah, of the T_V_ Project Manager: Yeah, that's a cool idea. Marketing: where you can put the the remote control in. {vocalsound} Um, that's about it, I think. Yeah. Industrial Designer: When you mentioned uh improving functions, what uh what do you mean by that what what are you think about? Marketing: Uh not not the r not the functions, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh, the funtionability. Marketing: but uh it came out that a lot of buttons weren't even used uh on a remote control. So you can have a remote control full of buttons, a hundreds hundreds of buttons, but if you don't use them, yeah it's {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Ah okay, so focusing more on the used buttons. Marketing: Yeah, they have to be on it Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: j just to t to get it done if necessary, User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: but um the most used buttons uh have to be bigger or {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Could you use perhaps uh one button for multiple functions, like example pressing it in longer makes it switch to an different function for example. Marketing: Yeah, perhaps. Industrial Designer: Thank you. Marketing: Just for the minor functions perhaps. Industrial Designer: Yeah, ma perhaps, just just an idea. Marketing: Just to get less buttons on the remote control, to make it easier and quicker to learn. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah?'Kay, that's it. Project Manager: Thank you, Tim. {vocalsound} Janus, can you uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Uh yeah yeah, I'll go, sure. Right uh, I'll be uh explaining a bit about uh working design about uh the project. Well uh what I did was I dissected uh uh current remote controls and um I viewed how how they w looked, how they worked, uh what kind of components are involved, and how they are connected together. And uh after that I put up a scheme about how uh these things are organised and I'll show it to you in in a in a few seconds. And I'll explain a bit about uh how it works and how we could uh build one and why I think several possibilities uh that we discussed in the earlier meeting falls off. Um right. Uh well what I did was uh I I checked uh remote controls and the uh remote controls of today are all infrared, not like all probably know. And the thing about that is um the remote controls uh have to act as a T_V_ or uh a stereo or something, and those uh have a transmitter that's also focused on infrared, so if we want to uh build uh mm a remote control uh with Bluetooth for instance then uh the T_V_ should have Bluetooth too in order to communicate, so that would mean extra cost for the user and thus uh that's that wouldn't mean a a cheap uh remote control for us. So that's probably why most controls are still infrared. Furthermore they all have uh a a very simple structure, so that would probably uh mean lower costs and uh i that could mean for us a good thing uh'cause uh well we we should be able to build a relatively cheap uh {gap} a cheap uh remote. Well uh as I mentioned ready, we have some Bluetooth {disfmarker} Well it may be possible, but uh I figured it wouldn't be possible in {disfmarker} within our budget, but that's not for me to decide, but that's maybe something for marketing to look into. F because uh {disfmarker} well my personal opinion is uh is not to do uh Bluetooth {gap} or or radio waves, {vocalsound} although {disfmarker} Marketing: What do you think about uh incorporating Bluetooth or a radio uh receiver uh in the place-holder next to the T_V_, connected to the T_V_? Industrial Designer: Yeah, actually I have t Marketing: So it's in the wrong product. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah, I actually {disfmarker} I figured that would be that would be rather nice, but then you'd still have the uh {disfmarker} the infrared function. So in in theory you'd actually just move the problem, Marketing: Yeah. Yeah. Industrial Designer: but uh what I did uh think about was when you mentioned about the uh the cup-holder, is why not uh introduce a speech function like where is the remote. If somebody says, where is the remote, then it goes uh beep uh beep beep beep or something, User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Industrial Designer: I dunno, maybe uh maybe something to look into, I dunno uh what the cost {gap} that something like that would be. But it may be uh may be something to explore. Uh I'll I'll just explain a bit of the components. Uh first you have the energy source. The energy source would be a battery, simple uh battery uh that you can find anywhere. I figured that would be best,'cause when the battery uh stops functioning uh we could just uh use {disfmarker} you could just go out and buy a new one. So we didn't {disfmarker} and we don't have to do all uh {disfmarker} to be too complicated about that. Uh the energy source is connected to the infrared button, but uh the infrared button uh works only via the chip and the subcomponent to uh the switch {disfmarker} there is a switch uh between these. When the switch is pressed in a w on this this case it switches a button, when a button is prush pushed in, uh a electric current goes through here, and in uh {disfmarker} immediately, a l a bulb lights up uh displaying to the user that something has happened. That's uh that's so the h user won't be um thinking, well uh did the button be pressed, w what happened uh. Or I press button but nothing's happening on the T_V_, so is is something wrong or something. So that's just to uh to to explain the {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} to to uh make it clearer to the user. Uh w well the signal goes via chip that's translated into uh electric sig uh electronic signals and then it's processed and then it's sent to the infrared bulb where it will be uh uh received on the receiving end. And those uh interpreted by the device, well in this case the television. Uh well my personal preferences here, well we have to keep it simple. Not too many uh gadgets and functions, just like you said uh {disfmarker} well the most users n uh you have a lot of buttons and you u u use {disfmarker} you don't use them, so why why should we invent uh {disfmarker} w spend more time on those. Uh I I think we should stick by {disfmarker} with infrared transmitting and uh no receiving. So uh no input from the television. So I think we shouldn't be uh spending time on um teletext and st things like that, because when you uh want teletext on uh infrared you'd have to build in a receiver too, and so in order to receive the signals from uh what's on T_V_ and such. So I figure that would be uh spending too much money and time and {disfmarker} Marketing: Um, yeah, maybe another problem uh, I think current T_V_s can even send infrared. Industrial Designer: Yes, but what should we uh s I I I f I agree with you, but should we spend money or {disfmarker} and time on building a receiver into the uh remote control? Marketing: Huh. Industrial Designer:'Cause that would be {disfmarker} I mean extra components, extra designs, um larger g uh remote control. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Industrial Designer: These all uh all stuff that we have to take in account. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: So I I {disfmarker} my personal opinion is no no no receiver at all. Um, well Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: we should uh look into the design and the functionability. Like I said, uh use one button for instance for m multiple functions, or well uh just hide the few buttons o of switching it open or something, the usual uh {gap} stuff. And uh don't overbuild, we shouldn't make a big uh remote control for simple functions, but we we should stick to the basics. So that was my uh my personal opinion. And that was my uh my presentation uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Okay, thank you Janus. User Interface: Okay. Yes, Project Manager: You do? User Interface: I can go ahead. Project Manager: The last presentation. You have plenty of time, User Interface: Last presentation. Okay. Project Manager: Tim and uh Janus don't uh talk to ten minutes, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: so uh take your time. User Interface: {gap} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: If you take your time too long I will uh eventually uh Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: warn you. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: Well, I'm going to give a presentation abut some of the technical functions of these design and uh usability functions. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: Um what's my opinion about what's most important to combine the design, technical possibilities and the user friendliness in one, so if you um going to design a remote that looks good, that shouldn't weigh over the uh {disfmarker} if it's possible to make, of course, but also the user friendliness, so tha that's that's some of the main points. And another one is um the use um of many functions will will make it more difficult, so use as as little functions as possible or at least don't display them all at once on the same remote. If you have fifty functions you don't want fifty buttons uh t uh to be shown at the same time, Marketing: Hmm. User Interface:'cause when you visit an internet uh site you don't want fifty links uh to see, but maybe use a hierarch hierarchy uh structure. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: And uh well one of the ideas was maybe uh use touch screen, but s I don't know in how far that is possible, Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: since we are sticking to uh um infrared and and the remote cannot receive anything, but uh we might uh consider that. Um well, of course I I hope this is all clear to you. If you {disfmarker} you can use remote like this with all the functions, {gap} many functions, but {disfmarker} Well, your thumb is a little bigger than th it than this. You have to be very careful what you push, Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} User Interface: and um if you're looking for teletext you'll be uh searching for half an hour from uh um {disfmarker} yeah well, where is it? Where the hell {disfmarker} he here I guess and, yeah, when you have to uh use something else. So just keep it simple, make clear buttons, easy to use. For example if you want to use a play and back and stop, that's very important. Um well this was because of our last discussion, if multiple machines are used, create easy switch between the machines, but um it's no longer uh applying. {vocalsound} Well yeah, I prefer to use it only for T_V_ and um n uh not to give too many options and and if possible, uh the buttons should give {vocalsound} a dr direct action, not first select {disfmarker} Project Manager: Uh you you just said um uh you wanted to to combine more functions in one, so uh User Interface: Yeah, Project Manager: you you want to keep it simple, User Interface: and so that's where the difficulties lie. Industrial Designer: Yeah, but {disfmarker} Project Manager: but I think that if you want to do that, then you can't escape the the fact that there will be buttons uh which give s uh more options than one. User Interface: Yeah, this {disfmarker} so that's the thing you have to weigh against each other. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah, but {disfmarker} User Interface: Do we want to use a few options and might not be so or original, or uh multi-purpose as we thought, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Okay. User Interface: or do we want to use um many buttons. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: So um weighing those factors. Marketing: Hmm {gap} it's maybe an option uh if you use an L_C_D_ {vocalsound} or a touch screen um, that in the middle are the the main keys, like displayed on the {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Uh yeah. User Interface: The {gap} doesn't {gap}. Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap}. Yeah, this? No? Yeah. {vocalsound} Something like that. Okay, just uh in the middle the general functions, like play, uh channel switching, User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: and then uh at the top or at the bottom, some menus like uh settings or {disfmarker} that you can drop down. User Interface: Yeah, but when all the questions I had {disfmarker} Do we want to use uh a menu display on the T_V_? Or um does have to f everything uh be in remotes?'Cause if you use a memory display on the T_V_, you can simply push uh a more menu and then select the options you want to have and press okay. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: Uh so that's my recommendation, if you use many options in one buttle {disfmarker} button, um display the menu on the T_V_ Marketing: Nah. Mm-hmm. User Interface: and don't um use combination of t of two buttons at the same time or pressing buttons three times for five seconds, Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: is too complicated for most users. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah, but {disfmarker} Marketing: I think so too, but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and that's partly because um uh a lot of T_V_s have different menus, and when you have a particular menu uh at your device, uh it could be that don't correspond to the menu what's actually on T_V_. User Interface: Yeah, that will be a problem. Industrial Designer: Well Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: you d you have to {gap} keep in mind that uh several T_V_s uh don't even have a menu structure, or they have a very simple menu structure, so you have to keep in mind that not all uh d not {disfmarker} our remote won't be able to work on all televisions. User Interface: Yes. Industrial Designer: And that would be uh a considerable problem. User Interface: So if we have to stick with current technologies and uh um well yeah, the restrictions of what's uh is on the market today, um you should keep it s at this. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: Use big clear buttons. Not too many. So maybe we'll loose a few option uh options, but I think i this is more important. Um {vocalsound} especially the important buttons, um if you want to switch channel, change your volume, uh use teletext, it uh it has to work at once and more advanced options may be put it s somewhere away on the remote, behind uh a little uh little thing or a touch screen. Industrial Designer: Not embed Yeah, but then with something like a touch screen could {disfmarker} could make more menu up {disfmarker} pop up or something. User Interface: And yeah, if you want to uh uh s put {gap} on stand-by or change the channel, that should always be possible to do. Not first change menu options or switch something. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: Um, well yeah, as you already told, give some feedback. If the user is pushing a button he should know if the television or n at least remote is reacting and not just that the batteries may be low. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: And um, well, my conclusion is uh is uh less is more, keep it simple. So uh maybe we should just ease down on the functionality to uh to keep it accessible on t because you all know, if there are a lot of function {gap} on the the television, some you you'll never know uh and never use, and therefore it's uh important Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: if you want to change the volume or channel that is always accessible and easy and other functions um that are not so important {disfmarker} um well you {disfmarker} we should consider just not using them or at least putting them somewhere on the remote where they're not in the way for the for the most important functions. Marketing: Yeah. Uh, I think the idea uh about uh touch screen um is very good. Um, because recently uh I saw news item on T_V_ um about uh new telephones uh for elder people. Um, they have like a touch screen with uh really big pictures on it like uh uh call uh hang-up, um and that's a big ad advantage I think, because one the one hand uh you make the remote control compatible for elder users just by uh scaling up the pictures or something. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: It's uh very visual intended. {vocalsound} What was I to say more? User Interface: Maybe that's an option. Um keep the primary buttons visible. Uh make a remote that fits easily in the hands Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and for some design issues uh well, put a logo on it and maybe use it uh in some aesthetic uh aesthetic form. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: But uh th the important buttons m make them always accessible and pushable and clear Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: and maybe use a touch screen, or if that's uh will become too difficult just uh like televi some o older telephones use a l uh maybe it's possible to to flip them open and uh just expand the number of options that are normally visible. Um {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah okay, but but if you pick the the idea, the left idea User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: then what's gonna be displayed on the touch screen? Industrial Designer: The extra functions. User Interface: The extra functions, you uh you just see a menu from system functions or teletext functions, and you just choose one, Marketing: Yeah, but l like menu functions or {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: and then all all the options will become available Marketing: Ah okay. User Interface: and you just c s yeah t scroll through them. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wouldn't it be better to make just one big touch screen, uh one one small uh touch screen uh applet Marketing: Yeah, I think so. Industrial Designer: and uh I'll just make um {disfmarker} uh let's say fifteen buttons on it, and uh we have three of those, uh actually just uh menus with sub-menus, with {disfmarker} or sub-items, sub-functions. User Interface: Well um Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: then I'd like to make a proposal. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: If you make one big touch screen, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes. User Interface: use the same concept as here, keep the buttons always available Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and use the lower part of the touch screen for the rest. Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: like like the iPod idea that that we just saw. User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: You just have a f a few selected buttons and uh a few menus, and with this idea you could actually make uh several {disfmarker} you can also improve uh later on. User Interface: Yes. Industrial Designer: Uh uh I think that will be great. User Interface: Okay. Project Manager: So you think it's will be better to have a t kinda total touch screen. Marketing: Yeah, I think so. Industrial Designer: Yeah, I wou I would actually go for the {disfmarker} Project Manager: Jirun? User Interface: Okay, I agree, but I think it's very important that they always um make the same buttons accessible, so use just for special options a part of the touch screen. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah, of course. User Interface: And so um an elder designer picks up th the {disfmarker} of Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: an elder parents or grandparent picks up the remote from the little child and who's all in the systems functions, you'll have to have the possibility to turn off the T_V_ or to switch the channel without um well using all the menu structures to get back to the primary functions. Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah, I had another uh idea about maybe parental control. Um, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Marketing: like building in uh some kind of PIN code uh which allows uh parents to switch to all channels, uh User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: but children uh {disfmarker} if children don't don't know the PIN code, they can't switch to uh violent uh channels or {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah wh Is that possible to use or no? Industrial Designer: That is possible, that {disfmarker} well that actually depends on the television, Marketing: Th there's just {disfmarker} User Interface: Well, yeah well, Industrial Designer: but I think {disfmarker} I figure that would be {disfmarker} User Interface: does it have to depend on the television? Marketing: Ju just a simple log-in, something like that. Industrial Designer: Well, Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: y you s you see the fi uh thing is when you buy a remote, you you set the uh channels, the the channels are different on each te television, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: they aren't set in a preset order, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: so uh if you uh lock on a remote, uh let's say channel fifteen, well channel fifteen on this television is different than channel fifteen on the other television, Marketing: Mm-hmm. Yeah, okay. Industrial Designer: so that would be uh that would be actually the main concern. Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah. User Interface: Well, I think that he means that um maybe by some option uh {disfmarker} make sure that um remote control and the T_V_ match, and then after that you can um use some s insert some passwords as being apparent that the children cannot use this uh {disfmarker} change the settings of the T_V_, like colour and then volume Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, th that kind of stuff, but maybe um if you log in first as a parent um, you address the the channels User Interface: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Yes. Marketing: and like uh oh, that's channel fifteen, that's uh vi violent channel, User Interface: Oh, something like that. Industrial Designer: Yes. Marketing: uh m my ki my kids uh {disfmarker} I don't want my kids to watch that, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: then you set the priority to only parents, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay, yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: Well b but make it a separate option in the menu, Industrial Designer: Yeah, that would b Marketing: for example. But {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah, that. User Interface: so that it's it's dif dis displayed from uh {disfmarker} displayed here, Marketing: Yeah okay, but but {disfmarker} yeah, that's just User Interface: so uh parents uh {disfmarker} Marketing: that's an a an added feature. Project Manager: Yeah. Okay. But let's not uh go too wide about the {disfmarker} those things, that's that why we're here. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah, {vocalsound} th th those things are nice. {vocalsound} Project Manager: It's it's a nice idea, but I think that's we wel {vocalsound} later in the stage. I've one little question about um a total touch screen or uh um a p Marketing: Partial. Project Manager: yeah, a partial, uh because I think uh elderly people may be uh not used to uh a touch screen, so they want the the the normal functions like teletext, volume changing, um uh to be uh, yeah, kinda traditionals Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: uh and uh {vocalsound} the the the the other functions, the more difficult functions uh to be uh maybe on the touch screen, Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: but to keep this as uh normal as possible, to keep it accessible. Marketing: Yeah, but but if you display it on L_C_D_ screen with r r really big numbers User Interface: Yeah, you can de display it on the on the old style. Marketing: that's just as e just as easy. Industrial Designer: Uh. I I do {disfmarker} User Interface: You can display actual buttons on the touch screens. Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah, that's true, that's true. Industrial Designer: Uh I do agree, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: because well, it's just not the same when you touch a touch screen User Interface: Yeah, okay. Industrial Designer: or when you touch a button, but well we have to look at what's our target uh audience. Marketing: Yeah, it's different. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: W we are aiming for younger people Project Manager: Yeah, that's true, yeah. Industrial Designer: and they they chose {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, age b below forty. Project Manager: Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Yep. Industrial Designer: So that's that's probably uh a {disfmarker} Marketing: And th those young people, yeah. Y you saw it in my marketing report, they like the new fancy stuff, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. They like the fancy stuff, yeah. That's true. Marketing: so {disfmarker} A touch screen, like Microsoft al already developed something like that for uh uh multi-media applications. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: I th I think we can do that too. Project Manager: Mm {disfmarker} Yeah. Okay, as you can see uh the minutes from the second meeting, this one, are uh {vocalsound} are done. Marketing: {vocalsound} Done. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh I've uh added the {disfmarker} this uh four things from the management board just to keep in mind. User Interface: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um each time I uh I had a sort of uh summary on what you told and uh what you personal think. Uh so that can be uh can be read out. Uh a f a few things I uh I noticed uh were um {disfmarker} Moment. Ooh. Uh th the the main points in uh this uh uh in this uh meeting is I think uh how uh it's going to look uh with uh {disfmarker} we must keep it simple, but have the opportunity to uh have more options and have them uh hidden or something, so they don't {disfmarker} uh you don't have a big uh thing full of uh buttons or uh {disfmarker} um and uh the point that uh you uh wanna use one uh controller uh for uh uh hypothetically {vocalsound} each television, so you must uh the the the the functions, know, like the menus or the the parental control must be all uh by the {disfmarker} done by the remote control and not by the television. I think that's the point what uh User Interface: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: we discussed. User Interface: Yes. Marketing: Yeah, yeah, some of them. The menus uh are not identical for all th for all T_V_s, so you have to display it on one uh T_V_. User Interface: Well you can use um {disfmarker} when you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh how do you call it, s um synchronized, the um remote and the T_V_, Marketing: Yeah, but that's not possible. User Interface: then there's always, there are always uh possibilities to change the colour and the brightness and the volume Marketing: Mm-hmm, mm yeah. User Interface: and um well maybe we can look out if there's options that the remote um in its memory can see what kinda T_V_ it is, from {disfmarker} ah, it's a Philips, this and this and that, and then give the options that are capable {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} capable from the t Project Manager: Yeah, but you have uh uh an {disfmarker} Marketing: Add th that that's an opportunity {gap}. Project Manager: yeah, but you have an international market range, so you have I think a big range of {disfmarker} User Interface: Well there are universal d um um remotes Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: and they all have a functionality for all the T_V_s, uh so this wouldn't be a extra feature to incorporate the men menus of these. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: But they {disfmarker} Marketing: But {disfmarker} Project Manager: And it's not too complex to do it. User Interface: {gap} Industrial Designer: Well they uh they all have to be programmed to fit your T_V_ Marketing: No. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and that that is bit of a tricky job. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: I actually use one of those when {disfmarker} They are they are kinda kinda troublesome, but but the thing is whe when you uh start uh building something like this you have to build a receiver into the uh t into the remotes, because uh in order for the remote to process something from the T_V_, like uh to synchronise and you have to send and receive, User Interface: Yeah. Well {disfmarker} Yeah. Mm-hmm. Oh um mo Industrial Designer: and that's well {disfmarker} Marketing: No no no. User Interface: no, you can just say uh the c Marketing: {vocalsound} He he he he me he means just just one other thing. Project Manager: Just build it in. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Uh, with the current remote controls, the universal ones, um you have to press {disfmarker} yeah, you have to press a code for T_V_. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yes. User Interface: In codes, y you you get a b a book with codes. You look up, I have a Philips H_ fifty five Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: and it says press code four five five Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Oh, okay, yeah, sure, uh {disfmarker} User Interface: and you press code four five five on the {disfmarker} uh in the remote Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah. User Interface: and it displays all your uh menu options. Industrial Designer: Oh, yeah yeah, sure, that would be possible, yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Now we uh just connect uh the T_V_ type uh to a set of options, in {disfmarker} just just in the memory, User Interface: Memory in the in the remote. Project Manager: Yep. Industrial Designer: Profiles. Marketing: so that if you {disfmarker} yeah, like profile, so that if you uh touch in like uh one four one zero kind of T_V_ uh Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: the memory uh pops up the options. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah, that would be possible. Yeah, sure. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: I th don't think that's uh {disfmarker} that takes a lot of storage space or some just varia variables. Industrial Designer: No, that wouldn't be uh {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah, well um Industrial Designer: Yeah, a few variables. User Interface: if you look at the um manuals from universal uh remotes, there are maybe um three four hundreds T_V_s at maximum. If you have all of them, all the old and new T_V_s summed up, Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: so uh I think uh it is possible {gap}. Industrial Designer: Ah it is. It is definitely po Marketing: But, on the other hand on the other hand, uh if you have a remote and buy a new T_V_ that isn't incorporated in the remote {disfmarker} Project Manager: We have five minutes to go. User Interface: Yeah. Well then you have to buy a new one, it's very good for marketing Marketing: New remote? User Interface: Maybe, or an update, software update. Marketing: A firmware upgrade or something, User Interface: Firmware update, you say. Industrial Designer: Yeah, firmware upgrade. Marketing: but from where? Ah. Maybe w Industrial Designer: That's maybe the cup holder. Marketing: No m may no, User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: maybe we can incorporate some kind of uh U_S_B_ or a firewire connection, so that you can uh connect it to the P_C_ and download the newest firmware from uh from the internet. Industrial Designer: Well, not everybody has uh has uh a P_C_ at home. Well the most most people have, User Interface: Well, at {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: but not not everybody User Interface: uh you can go back to the shop Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} User Interface: and uh they {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: like a s kind of service centre. User Interface: Yeah, ser o Industrial Designer: Yeah, maybe something like service cen Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and they can download it for you. Industrial Designer: Or you could {disfmarker} well you could s actually look at the place-holder you talked about earlier, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and you could probably uh make a connection to uh an telephone line or a internet connection. User Interface: Yeah. Well already digital information is sent t to the the standards, T_V_ uh connections, Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: you can see what's uh programme is on on the new uh channels, so maybe j they {disfmarker} we can send that information along with standard T_V_ uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Well then then it's be uh back to the building a receiving uh {disfmarker} well uh if it's actually worth it to build it in, User Interface: Receiving. Oh yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: we could actually look at {disfmarker} into it, User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} I dunno, it it would be uh bringing more costs {gap} uh with with it User Interface: Difficult. Yeah. Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Marketing: I I think it's uh most cheap or cheapest to just do the updates uh at the service centre or at the shop. User Interface: Yeah yeah, uh s I think some {disfmarker} I think it's good idea, yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that would be probably best, yeah. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Like when you when you buy a T_V_ you just ask {disfmarker} well I'll {disfmarker} Marketing: It's it's it's not a lot of work, just one uh docking station where you put it in, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: press start, bling bling, updated. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that would be best, yeah. User Interface: Yeah. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} You don't buy a T_V_ every week, new teev so. User Interface: Okay, let's uh save this in the meanwhile uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: No no. Exactly, so {disfmarker} User Interface: Um m for which one are we going? {gap} My mistake. Marketing: Let's vote. User Interface: That one or uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah, my vote goes out to the right {gap}. User Interface: Your vote and your {disfmarker} Marketing: My vote too. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: Okay. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: And your vote? User Interface: Well, I was uh doubting about which one to take, but uh you've convinced me that uh if you di display buttons about the same as they would look on a normal um remote all elderly people will know what to do. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: And also like a clapping uh li like device that uh pops open. User Interface: Opens up is too difficult Industrial Designer: Flips open. User Interface: or uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Uh too difficult, um maybe uh it's easier to break it. Project Manager: N yeah. User Interface: Break it, I don't get {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, th th th that i uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah. Project Manager: It's very sensitive. User Interface: Oh so {disfmarker} Yeah. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: Like my telephone, it's uh it's sensitive too. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay well uh it's almost at the end. So we have now a lunch break, finally, Marketing: Ah. Project Manager: yeah. {vocalsound} Uh after the lunch break uh it's back to uh individual work, once again uh thirty minutes. Uh I will put my minutes {disfmarker} uh I have updated them so uh s they're updated in the shared folder too. Marketing: Thirty minutes? Project Manager: Thirty minutes, the {disfmarker} Marketing: How minutes? {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Failure. Uh {vocalsound} uh the specifi uh specific instructions for the next uh meeting you will {disfmarker} all will receive uh at the uh the the email. I don't think I can uh say much about it, so uh uh wait for your email and uh hopefully you get it done uh in the in the thirty minutes, and I w will see you after the lunch break and the thirty minutes. Marketing: One question, Project Manager: Yeah? Marketing: uh how late do we have to get back {disfmarker} be back here? Project Manager: Uh well uh thirty minutes. User Interface: A quarter to one maybe? Project Manager: Uh, yeah. Marketing: Thirty minutes lunch break? Project Manager: Thirty minutes lunch break, yeah. Oh. Forty five? User Interface: Okay. Marketing: I thought forty five. Project Manager: Uh then would it be uh one o'clock. Marketing: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Project Manager: Or we we ask our personal coach. Okay. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Thank you. Thank you, uh that was a very uh good session I think, User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {gap} Project Manager: we uh we {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah, is it possible to store this on the share documents or what {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, me too. Project Manager: Uh ye well {disfmarker} Marketing: Save as. Project Manager: Yeah, because uh all uh things are uh stored in smart board dot uh X_D_K_ Marketing: Yeah, v Project Manager: and that's in {disfmarker} Marketing: But but you can open a {disfmarker} from your pr from your laptop. User Interface:'Kay, save it as an image on the res Marketing: Yeah, maybe. Save as. Project Manager: No. Industrial Designer: Export. Maybe not export function. Marketing: No. Export. Project Manager: Well I can I can uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Export H_T_M_L_. User Interface: No, and use an image if possible. Marketing: Huh, image? User Interface: J_ PEG. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} G_ {disfmarker} yeah, J_ PEG. User Interface: J_ PEG. Yeah, it's better Marketing: Paper size A_ four. Uh screen size. In this directory. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: N oh. User Interface: Oh yeah, it's not connected to the Project Manager: You all uh have the the questionnaire again about uh the after work. User Interface: to our P_C_s. Marketing: No? Yeah, it is connected. User Interface: It's connected? Marketing: Yeah, I think so. Project Manager: Deskt Huh. No. Industrial Designer: To room. I'll just uh saved in my documents. Marketing: Oh. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} in my own uh {disfmarker} in my own messenger. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Project documents, yeah. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: It gives the na Oh. Yes. Project Manager: Okay, Industrial Designer: Okay, nice. Project Manager: thank you. User Interface: The questionnaire, fill in {disfmarker} uh we fill out d after lunch or uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Uh well, it's it's simply filling {disfmarker} oh no, it's uh it's also filling out {disfmarker} no, I'd do it after lunch I think. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Aye, cheers. Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'm hungry, so do it after lunch. User Interface: Yes. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thank you all. Marketing: Thank you. Project Manager: You're welcome. User Interface: We can leave the P_C_ on I think, yeah and return to the {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, of course. Project Manager: Yeah. Well I bring it to my uh personal room. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah, bring to {disfmarker} I gotta bring it home. Industrial Designer: {gap} Marketing: To my exave executive {disfmarker} Project Manager: My executive uh big room with the with the panting. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} A big office. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: Yes. Marketing: Aye. Yeah. Okay. Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} {gap} Marketing: {gap} Project Manager: {vocalsound}

Project Manager emphasized that the main point in this meeting was to keep the remote control as simple as possible, but more options and functions, like the menu and the parental control could be added. User Interface suggested making a remote control which had a functionality for all the TVs and users could enter the codes to set their TVs. Marketing proposed that people could go to the service center or the shop for the updates of the remote control.

tr-gq-693

tr-gq-693_0

Summarize the whole meeting. Project Manager: Hello. Marketing: Hey guys. User Interface: Hi. Industrial Designer: Hi. Project Manager: Hi. Industrial Designer: I see my bunny is still standing. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: No one drawing it. Project Manager: It's too beautiful. User Interface: Yeah, true. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh I figured uh that much. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: Too wicked. User Interface: Mm. Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: A minute please, my uh laptop is uh {disfmarker} oh, there it is, thank you. So welcome back. {vocalsound} At the functional design meeting um the plan is uh that uh each one of you, so not me but only you uh will uh present uh the the things you worked on uh the last uh half hour. I will uh take minutes and will put uh the minutes that I have uh at the end of the session in the shared folder. {vocalsound} Also the minutes of the previous session are also in the shared folder now, so you can read that uh now or afterwards. Um {vocalsound} uh I had an email from the from the management board Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: uh, I don't know if you a al also uh received it, but there were four points uh which uh I think are very important. First one is uh they think that uh teletext teletext becomes outdated uh and internet will be the the main uh focus. {vocalsound} Uh second one is also important uh, because it's one of the discussion points of the previous session. Uh the remote control shou should onl only be used for the television, so it uh not gonna it's not gonna be a multi-purpose remote control, so uh that's one thing to keep in mind. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh second, and I think that's important for the Marketing uh Expert, uh the current uh customers uh are in the age group group of uh forty years and older, but with this uh new remote uh they uh will uh {disfmarker} would like to reach uh a group uh younger than uh forty. Uh and uh I think to keep in mind, but not really uh for now is that they uh want the the the slogan and the and the logo uh to uh to be recognised more in the remote. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: So, we have uh forty minutes, so I think uh not more than ten minutes uh uh per presentation uh each, and please uh use uh all the the the facilities so that you have either SMARTboards, the the Word files, what you uh {disfmarker} whatever you want. So uh Tim, can you start? Yeah? Marketing: Okay. {vocalsound}'Kay, welcome. I have some uh new findings on uh Marketing Expert level, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Marketing: which I will show you. {vocalsound} The method I used was um giving orders to our usability lab uh to do a questionnaire. Um {vocalsound} one hundred respondents were involved and my marketing uh department generated a report with a lot of results. Um, these were a couple of findings, first page of three. Um, we have three audiences of {disfmarker} two audiences, {vocalsound} I'm sorry. Uh the first one, this scale, from sixteen to forty five {gap} age. Uh the second one is from sixty four {disfmarker} uh forty six to sixty five. Um, as you can see here, the market share for the first audience is about sixty percent {disfmarker} um sixty five. Uh second audience audience is uh thirty five percent. Mm {vocalsound} and some interests from the from the age groups, uh it seems like the young users of remote controls really like the fancy uh new technology stuff, like uh an L_C_D_ screen on the remote control, um speech recognition. I don't think that's uh really appropriate. Um, {vocalsound} and when you see uh the audience, the age is going up uh {disfmarker} Yeah, they don't really want it anymore, at least the new technologies. Second findings {vocalsound} out of the questionnaire um are the opinion {vocalsound} the opinions uh of the audience about current remote controls. First point is, seventy five percent of the users find the most repo remote controls very ugly, uh and eighty percent of the users would spend more money when a remote control would look fancy. So that's maybe something for the User Interface uh Designer. Okay, third findings. According to the frequency of use versus importance investigation, um {vocalsound} following buttons are most important. Um, I will tell something about the way this uh this test was, yeah, done. Um, {vocalsound} persons were asked uh what the buttons were uh they use most, how much an hour, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: and uh in the second table the importance of those buttons. Um, when you multiply them, you get the {disfmarker} these three points. Switching channels, um yeah, that's pretty uh pretty normal, that's what you do with a remote control. Um the second, teletext, uh and the third, uh volume controls. Um, I think it's good uh that we know what the user want {disfmarker} wants, uh at least the these three points have to be uh very clear. Project Manager: But it's strange that the the manage board {disfmarker} the management board said that the teletext will be uh outdated by the internet. So that that's strange. Marketing: Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay, but uh at the moment uh teletext is {disfmarker} Yeah, th the best thing you can get uh on T_V_, like getting information. Project Manager: Yeah, okay. Yeah. Marketing: So uh, when you ask people, what do they use, {vocalsound} they use teletext and not the internet on a remote control. Project Manager: Okay. Yeah, okay. Marketing: That's ridiculous. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: That's a ne i it {disfmarker} It's a new technology, Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: but it's not incorporated right now. Okay, my personal preferences. Um, I think we should aim at the uh audience from sixteen to forty five. {vocalsound} Mm, first of all um it's the biggest share, the biggest audience, sixty five percent. Uh second, I think you will get the most revenue from i from it. Um, yeah, people from sixteen to forty five watch a lot of T_V_, more than uh people who are el uh elder. Um {vocalsound} second point, {vocalsound} we have to impro improve the most used functions, as I said here, switching channels, teletext and volume controls. Third point um that came out of the uh {disfmarker} of the questionnaire, uh people used to uh get lost off the remote controller, so maybe it's an idea for us uh to design ex kind of placeholder uh on side of the, yeah, of the T_V_ Project Manager: Yeah, that's a cool idea. Marketing: where you can put the the remote control in. {vocalsound} Um, that's about it, I think. Yeah. Industrial Designer: When you mentioned uh improving functions, what uh what do you mean by that what what are you think about? Marketing: Uh not not the r not the functions, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh, the funtionability. Marketing: but uh it came out that a lot of buttons weren't even used uh on a remote control. So you can have a remote control full of buttons, a hundreds hundreds of buttons, but if you don't use them, yeah it's {disfmarker} Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Ah okay, so focusing more on the used buttons. Marketing: Yeah, they have to be on it Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: j just to t to get it done if necessary, User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: but um the most used buttons uh have to be bigger or {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Could you use perhaps uh one button for multiple functions, like example pressing it in longer makes it switch to an different function for example. Marketing: Yeah, perhaps. Industrial Designer: Thank you. Marketing: Just for the minor functions perhaps. Industrial Designer: Yeah, ma perhaps, just just an idea. Marketing: Just to get less buttons on the remote control, to make it easier and quicker to learn. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah?'Kay, that's it. Project Manager: Thank you, Tim. {vocalsound} Janus, can you uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Uh yeah yeah, I'll go, sure. Right uh, I'll be uh explaining a bit about uh working design about uh the project. Well uh what I did was I dissected uh uh current remote controls and um I viewed how how they w looked, how they worked, uh what kind of components are involved, and how they are connected together. And uh after that I put up a scheme about how uh these things are organised and I'll show it to you in in a in a few seconds. And I'll explain a bit about uh how it works and how we could uh build one and why I think several possibilities uh that we discussed in the earlier meeting falls off. Um right. Uh well what I did was uh I I checked uh remote controls and the uh remote controls of today are all infrared, not like all probably know. And the thing about that is um the remote controls uh have to act as a T_V_ or uh a stereo or something, and those uh have a transmitter that's also focused on infrared, so if we want to uh build uh mm a remote control uh with Bluetooth for instance then uh the T_V_ should have Bluetooth too in order to communicate, so that would mean extra cost for the user and thus uh that's that wouldn't mean a a cheap uh remote control for us. So that's probably why most controls are still infrared. Furthermore they all have uh a a very simple structure, so that would probably uh mean lower costs and uh i that could mean for us a good thing uh'cause uh well we we should be able to build a relatively cheap uh {gap} a cheap uh remote. Well uh as I mentioned ready, we have some Bluetooth {disfmarker} Well it may be possible, but uh I figured it wouldn't be possible in {disfmarker} within our budget, but that's not for me to decide, but that's maybe something for marketing to look into. F because uh {disfmarker} well my personal opinion is uh is not to do uh Bluetooth {gap} or or radio waves, {vocalsound} although {disfmarker} Marketing: What do you think about uh incorporating Bluetooth or a radio uh receiver uh in the place-holder next to the T_V_, connected to the T_V_? Industrial Designer: Yeah, actually I have t Marketing: So it's in the wrong product. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah, I actually {disfmarker} I figured that would be that would be rather nice, but then you'd still have the uh {disfmarker} the infrared function. So in in theory you'd actually just move the problem, Marketing: Yeah. Yeah. Industrial Designer: but uh what I did uh think about was when you mentioned about the uh the cup-holder, is why not uh introduce a speech function like where is the remote. If somebody says, where is the remote, then it goes uh beep uh beep beep beep or something, User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Industrial Designer: I dunno, maybe uh maybe something to look into, I dunno uh what the cost {gap} that something like that would be. But it may be uh may be something to explore. Uh I'll I'll just explain a bit of the components. Uh first you have the energy source. The energy source would be a battery, simple uh battery uh that you can find anywhere. I figured that would be best,'cause when the battery uh stops functioning uh we could just uh use {disfmarker} you could just go out and buy a new one. So we didn't {disfmarker} and we don't have to do all uh {disfmarker} to be too complicated about that. Uh the energy source is connected to the infrared button, but uh the infrared button uh works only via the chip and the subcomponent to uh the switch {disfmarker} there is a switch uh between these. When the switch is pressed in a w on this this case it switches a button, when a button is prush pushed in, uh a electric current goes through here, and in uh {disfmarker} immediately, a l a bulb lights up uh displaying to the user that something has happened. That's uh that's so the h user won't be um thinking, well uh did the button be pressed, w what happened uh. Or I press button but nothing's happening on the T_V_, so is is something wrong or something. So that's just to uh to to explain the {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} to to uh make it clearer to the user. Uh w well the signal goes via chip that's translated into uh electric sig uh electronic signals and then it's processed and then it's sent to the infrared bulb where it will be uh uh received on the receiving end. And those uh interpreted by the device, well in this case the television. Uh well my personal preferences here, well we have to keep it simple. Not too many uh gadgets and functions, just like you said uh {disfmarker} well the most users n uh you have a lot of buttons and you u u use {disfmarker} you don't use them, so why why should we invent uh {disfmarker} w spend more time on those. Uh I I think we should stick by {disfmarker} with infrared transmitting and uh no receiving. So uh no input from the television. So I think we shouldn't be uh spending time on um teletext and st things like that, because when you uh want teletext on uh infrared you'd have to build in a receiver too, and so in order to receive the signals from uh what's on T_V_ and such. So I figure that would be uh spending too much money and time and {disfmarker} Marketing: Um, yeah, maybe another problem uh, I think current T_V_s can even send infrared. Industrial Designer: Yes, but what should we uh s I I I f I agree with you, but should we spend money or {disfmarker} and time on building a receiver into the uh remote control? Marketing: Huh. Industrial Designer:'Cause that would be {disfmarker} I mean extra components, extra designs, um larger g uh remote control. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Industrial Designer: These all uh all stuff that we have to take in account. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: So I I {disfmarker} my personal opinion is no no no receiver at all. Um, well Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: we should uh look into the design and the functionability. Like I said, uh use one button for instance for m multiple functions, or well uh just hide the few buttons o of switching it open or something, the usual uh {gap} stuff. And uh don't overbuild, we shouldn't make a big uh remote control for simple functions, but we we should stick to the basics. So that was my uh my personal opinion. And that was my uh my presentation uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Okay, thank you Janus. User Interface: Okay. Yes, Project Manager: You do? User Interface: I can go ahead. Project Manager: The last presentation. You have plenty of time, User Interface: Last presentation. Okay. Project Manager: Tim and uh Janus don't uh talk to ten minutes, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: so uh take your time. User Interface: {gap} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: If you take your time too long I will uh eventually uh Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: warn you. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: Well, I'm going to give a presentation abut some of the technical functions of these design and uh usability functions. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: Um what's my opinion about what's most important to combine the design, technical possibilities and the user friendliness in one, so if you um going to design a remote that looks good, that shouldn't weigh over the uh {disfmarker} if it's possible to make, of course, but also the user friendliness, so tha that's that's some of the main points. And another one is um the use um of many functions will will make it more difficult, so use as as little functions as possible or at least don't display them all at once on the same remote. If you have fifty functions you don't want fifty buttons uh t uh to be shown at the same time, Marketing: Hmm. User Interface:'cause when you visit an internet uh site you don't want fifty links uh to see, but maybe use a hierarch hierarchy uh structure. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: And uh well one of the ideas was maybe uh use touch screen, but s I don't know in how far that is possible, Marketing: Hmm. User Interface: since we are sticking to uh um infrared and and the remote cannot receive anything, but uh we might uh consider that. Um well, of course I I hope this is all clear to you. If you {disfmarker} you can use remote like this with all the functions, {gap} many functions, but {disfmarker} Well, your thumb is a little bigger than th it than this. You have to be very careful what you push, Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} User Interface: and um if you're looking for teletext you'll be uh searching for half an hour from uh um {disfmarker} yeah well, where is it? Where the hell {disfmarker} he here I guess and, yeah, when you have to uh use something else. So just keep it simple, make clear buttons, easy to use. For example if you want to use a play and back and stop, that's very important. Um well this was because of our last discussion, if multiple machines are used, create easy switch between the machines, but um it's no longer uh applying. {vocalsound} Well yeah, I prefer to use it only for T_V_ and um n uh not to give too many options and and if possible, uh the buttons should give {vocalsound} a dr direct action, not first select {disfmarker} Project Manager: Uh you you just said um uh you wanted to to combine more functions in one, so uh User Interface: Yeah, Project Manager: you you want to keep it simple, User Interface: and so that's where the difficulties lie. Industrial Designer: Yeah, but {disfmarker} Project Manager: but I think that if you want to do that, then you can't escape the the fact that there will be buttons uh which give s uh more options than one. User Interface: Yeah, this {disfmarker} so that's the thing you have to weigh against each other. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah, but {disfmarker} User Interface: Do we want to use a few options and might not be so or original, or uh multi-purpose as we thought, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Okay. User Interface: or do we want to use um many buttons. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: So um weighing those factors. Marketing: Hmm {gap} it's maybe an option uh if you use an L_C_D_ {vocalsound} or a touch screen um, that in the middle are the the main keys, like displayed on the {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Uh yeah. User Interface: The {gap} doesn't {gap}. Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap}. Yeah, this? No? Yeah. {vocalsound} Something like that. Okay, just uh in the middle the general functions, like play, uh channel switching, User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: and then uh at the top or at the bottom, some menus like uh settings or {disfmarker} that you can drop down. User Interface: Yeah, but when all the questions I had {disfmarker} Do we want to use uh a menu display on the T_V_? Or um does have to f everything uh be in remotes?'Cause if you use a memory display on the T_V_, you can simply push uh a more menu and then select the options you want to have and press okay. Marketing: Mm. User Interface: Uh so that's my recommendation, if you use many options in one buttle {disfmarker} button, um display the menu on the T_V_ Marketing: Nah. Mm-hmm. User Interface: and don't um use combination of t of two buttons at the same time or pressing buttons three times for five seconds, Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: is too complicated for most users. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah, but {disfmarker} Marketing: I think so too, but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and that's partly because um uh a lot of T_V_s have different menus, and when you have a particular menu uh at your device, uh it could be that don't correspond to the menu what's actually on T_V_. User Interface: Yeah, that will be a problem. Industrial Designer: Well Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: you d you have to {gap} keep in mind that uh several T_V_s uh don't even have a menu structure, or they have a very simple menu structure, so you have to keep in mind that not all uh d not {disfmarker} our remote won't be able to work on all televisions. User Interface: Yes. Industrial Designer: And that would be uh a considerable problem. User Interface: So if we have to stick with current technologies and uh um well yeah, the restrictions of what's uh is on the market today, um you should keep it s at this. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: Use big clear buttons. Not too many. So maybe we'll loose a few option uh options, but I think i this is more important. Um {vocalsound} especially the important buttons, um if you want to switch channel, change your volume, uh use teletext, it uh it has to work at once and more advanced options may be put it s somewhere away on the remote, behind uh a little uh little thing or a touch screen. Industrial Designer: Not embed Yeah, but then with something like a touch screen could {disfmarker} could make more menu up {disfmarker} pop up or something. User Interface: And yeah, if you want to uh uh s put {gap} on stand-by or change the channel, that should always be possible to do. Not first change menu options or switch something. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: Um, well yeah, as you already told, give some feedback. If the user is pushing a button he should know if the television or n at least remote is reacting and not just that the batteries may be low. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: And um, well, my conclusion is uh is uh less is more, keep it simple. So uh maybe we should just ease down on the functionality to uh to keep it accessible on t because you all know, if there are a lot of function {gap} on the the television, some you you'll never know uh and never use, and therefore it's uh important Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: if you want to change the volume or channel that is always accessible and easy and other functions um that are not so important {disfmarker} um well you {disfmarker} we should consider just not using them or at least putting them somewhere on the remote where they're not in the way for the for the most important functions. Marketing: Yeah. Uh, I think the idea uh about uh touch screen um is very good. Um, because recently uh I saw news item on T_V_ um about uh new telephones uh for elder people. Um, they have like a touch screen with uh really big pictures on it like uh uh call uh hang-up, um and that's a big ad advantage I think, because one the one hand uh you make the remote control compatible for elder users just by uh scaling up the pictures or something. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: It's uh very visual intended. {vocalsound} What was I to say more? User Interface: Maybe that's an option. Um keep the primary buttons visible. Uh make a remote that fits easily in the hands Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and for some design issues uh well, put a logo on it and maybe use it uh in some aesthetic uh aesthetic form. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: But uh th the important buttons m make them always accessible and pushable and clear Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: and maybe use a touch screen, or if that's uh will become too difficult just uh like televi some o older telephones use a l uh maybe it's possible to to flip them open and uh just expand the number of options that are normally visible. Um {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah okay, but but if you pick the the idea, the left idea User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: then what's gonna be displayed on the touch screen? Industrial Designer: The extra functions. User Interface: The extra functions, you uh you just see a menu from system functions or teletext functions, and you just choose one, Marketing: Yeah, but l like menu functions or {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: and then all all the options will become available Marketing: Ah okay. User Interface: and you just c s yeah t scroll through them. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wouldn't it be better to make just one big touch screen, uh one one small uh touch screen uh applet Marketing: Yeah, I think so. Industrial Designer: and uh I'll just make um {disfmarker} uh let's say fifteen buttons on it, and uh we have three of those, uh actually just uh menus with sub-menus, with {disfmarker} or sub-items, sub-functions. User Interface: Well um Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: then I'd like to make a proposal. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: If you make one big touch screen, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes. User Interface: use the same concept as here, keep the buttons always available Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and use the lower part of the touch screen for the rest. Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: like like the iPod idea that that we just saw. User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: You just have a f a few selected buttons and uh a few menus, and with this idea you could actually make uh several {disfmarker} you can also improve uh later on. User Interface: Yes. Industrial Designer: Uh uh I think that will be great. User Interface: Okay. Project Manager: So you think it's will be better to have a t kinda total touch screen. Marketing: Yeah, I think so. Industrial Designer: Yeah, I wou I would actually go for the {disfmarker} Project Manager: Jirun? User Interface: Okay, I agree, but I think it's very important that they always um make the same buttons accessible, so use just for special options a part of the touch screen. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah, of course. User Interface: And so um an elder designer picks up th the {disfmarker} of Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: an elder parents or grandparent picks up the remote from the little child and who's all in the systems functions, you'll have to have the possibility to turn off the T_V_ or to switch the channel without um well using all the menu structures to get back to the primary functions. Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah, I had another uh idea about maybe parental control. Um, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Marketing: like building in uh some kind of PIN code uh which allows uh parents to switch to all channels, uh User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: but children uh {disfmarker} if children don't don't know the PIN code, they can't switch to uh violent uh channels or {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah wh Is that possible to use or no? Industrial Designer: That is possible, that {disfmarker} well that actually depends on the television, Marketing: Th there's just {disfmarker} User Interface: Well, yeah well, Industrial Designer: but I think {disfmarker} I figure that would be {disfmarker} User Interface: does it have to depend on the television? Marketing: Ju just a simple log-in, something like that. Industrial Designer: Well, Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: y you s you see the fi uh thing is when you buy a remote, you you set the uh channels, the the channels are different on each te television, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: they aren't set in a preset order, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: so uh if you uh lock on a remote, uh let's say channel fifteen, well channel fifteen on this television is different than channel fifteen on the other television, Marketing: Mm-hmm. Yeah, okay. Industrial Designer: so that would be uh that would be actually the main concern. Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah. User Interface: Well, I think that he means that um maybe by some option uh {disfmarker} make sure that um remote control and the T_V_ match, and then after that you can um use some s insert some passwords as being apparent that the children cannot use this uh {disfmarker} change the settings of the T_V_, like colour and then volume Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, th that kind of stuff, but maybe um if you log in first as a parent um, you address the the channels User Interface: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Yes. Marketing: and like uh oh, that's channel fifteen, that's uh vi violent channel, User Interface: Oh, something like that. Industrial Designer: Yes. Marketing: uh m my ki my kids uh {disfmarker} I don't want my kids to watch that, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: then you set the priority to only parents, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay, yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: Well b but make it a separate option in the menu, Industrial Designer: Yeah, that would b Marketing: for example. But {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah, that. User Interface: so that it's it's dif dis displayed from uh {disfmarker} displayed here, Marketing: Yeah okay, but but {disfmarker} yeah, that's just User Interface: so uh parents uh {disfmarker} Marketing: that's an a an added feature. Project Manager: Yeah. Okay. But let's not uh go too wide about the {disfmarker} those things, that's that why we're here. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah, {vocalsound} th th those things are nice. {vocalsound} Project Manager: It's it's a nice idea, but I think that's we wel {vocalsound} later in the stage. I've one little question about um a total touch screen or uh um a p Marketing: Partial. Project Manager: yeah, a partial, uh because I think uh elderly people may be uh not used to uh a touch screen, so they want the the the normal functions like teletext, volume changing, um uh to be uh, yeah, kinda traditionals Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: uh and uh {vocalsound} the the the the other functions, the more difficult functions uh to be uh maybe on the touch screen, Marketing: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: but to keep this as uh normal as possible, to keep it accessible. Marketing: Yeah, but but if you display it on L_C_D_ screen with r r really big numbers User Interface: Yeah, you can de display it on the on the old style. Marketing: that's just as e just as easy. Industrial Designer: Uh. I I do {disfmarker} User Interface: You can display actual buttons on the touch screens. Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah, that's true, that's true. Industrial Designer: Uh I do agree, Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: because well, it's just not the same when you touch a touch screen User Interface: Yeah, okay. Industrial Designer: or when you touch a button, but well we have to look at what's our target uh audience. Marketing: Yeah, it's different. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: W we are aiming for younger people Project Manager: Yeah, that's true, yeah. Industrial Designer: and they they chose {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, age b below forty. Project Manager: Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Yep. Industrial Designer: So that's that's probably uh a {disfmarker} Marketing: And th those young people, yeah. Y you saw it in my marketing report, they like the new fancy stuff, Project Manager: Mm-hmm. They like the fancy stuff, yeah. That's true. Marketing: so {disfmarker} A touch screen, like Microsoft al already developed something like that for uh uh multi-media applications. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Marketing: I th I think we can do that too. Project Manager: Mm {disfmarker} Yeah. Okay, as you can see uh the minutes from the second meeting, this one, are uh {vocalsound} are done. Marketing: {vocalsound} Done. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Uh I've uh added the {disfmarker} this uh four things from the management board just to keep in mind. User Interface: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um each time I uh I had a sort of uh summary on what you told and uh what you personal think. Uh so that can be uh can be read out. Uh a f a few things I uh I noticed uh were um {disfmarker} Moment. Ooh. Uh th the the main points in uh this uh uh in this uh meeting is I think uh how uh it's going to look uh with uh {disfmarker} we must keep it simple, but have the opportunity to uh have more options and have them uh hidden or something, so they don't {disfmarker} uh you don't have a big uh thing full of uh buttons or uh {disfmarker} um and uh the point that uh you uh wanna use one uh controller uh for uh uh hypothetically {vocalsound} each television, so you must uh the the the the functions, know, like the menus or the the parental control must be all uh by the {disfmarker} done by the remote control and not by the television. I think that's the point what uh User Interface: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: we discussed. User Interface: Yes. Marketing: Yeah, yeah, some of them. The menus uh are not identical for all th for all T_V_s, so you have to display it on one uh T_V_. User Interface: Well you can use um {disfmarker} when you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh how do you call it, s um synchronized, the um remote and the T_V_, Marketing: Yeah, but that's not possible. User Interface: then there's always, there are always uh possibilities to change the colour and the brightness and the volume Marketing: Mm-hmm, mm yeah. User Interface: and um well maybe we can look out if there's options that the remote um in its memory can see what kinda T_V_ it is, from {disfmarker} ah, it's a Philips, this and this and that, and then give the options that are capable {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} capable from the t Project Manager: Yeah, but you have uh uh an {disfmarker} Marketing: Add th that that's an opportunity {gap}. Project Manager: yeah, but you have an international market range, so you have I think a big range of {disfmarker} User Interface: Well there are universal d um um remotes Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: and they all have a functionality for all the T_V_s, uh so this wouldn't be a extra feature to incorporate the men menus of these. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: But they {disfmarker} Marketing: But {disfmarker} Project Manager: And it's not too complex to do it. User Interface: {gap} Industrial Designer: Well they uh they all have to be programmed to fit your T_V_ Marketing: No. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: and that that is bit of a tricky job. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: I actually use one of those when {disfmarker} They are they are kinda kinda troublesome, but but the thing is whe when you uh start uh building something like this you have to build a receiver into the uh t into the remotes, because uh in order for the remote to process something from the T_V_, like uh to synchronise and you have to send and receive, User Interface: Yeah. Well {disfmarker} Yeah. Mm-hmm. Oh um mo Industrial Designer: and that's well {disfmarker} Marketing: No no no. User Interface: no, you can just say uh the c Marketing: {vocalsound} He he he he me he means just just one other thing. Project Manager: Just build it in. User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: Uh, with the current remote controls, the universal ones, um you have to press {disfmarker} yeah, you have to press a code for T_V_. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yes. User Interface: In codes, y you you get a b a book with codes. You look up, I have a Philips H_ fifty five Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: and it says press code four five five Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Oh, okay, yeah, sure, uh {disfmarker} User Interface: and you press code four five five on the {disfmarker} uh in the remote Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah. User Interface: and it displays all your uh menu options. Industrial Designer: Oh, yeah yeah, sure, that would be possible, yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Now we uh just connect uh the T_V_ type uh to a set of options, in {disfmarker} just just in the memory, User Interface: Memory in the in the remote. Project Manager: Yep. Industrial Designer: Profiles. Marketing: so that if you {disfmarker} yeah, like profile, so that if you uh touch in like uh one four one zero kind of T_V_ uh Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: the memory uh pops up the options. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah, that would be possible. Yeah, sure. Project Manager: Okay. Marketing: I th don't think that's uh {disfmarker} that takes a lot of storage space or some just varia variables. Industrial Designer: No, that wouldn't be uh {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah, well um Industrial Designer: Yeah, a few variables. User Interface: if you look at the um manuals from universal uh remotes, there are maybe um three four hundreds T_V_s at maximum. If you have all of them, all the old and new T_V_s summed up, Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: so uh I think uh it is possible {gap}. Industrial Designer: Ah it is. It is definitely po Marketing: But, on the other hand on the other hand, uh if you have a remote and buy a new T_V_ that isn't incorporated in the remote {disfmarker} Project Manager: We have five minutes to go. User Interface: Yeah. Well then you have to buy a new one, it's very good for marketing Marketing: New remote? User Interface: Maybe, or an update, software update. Marketing: A firmware upgrade or something, User Interface: Firmware update, you say. Industrial Designer: Yeah, firmware upgrade. Marketing: but from where? Ah. Maybe w Industrial Designer: That's maybe the cup holder. Marketing: No m may no, User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: maybe we can incorporate some kind of uh U_S_B_ or a firewire connection, so that you can uh connect it to the P_C_ and download the newest firmware from uh from the internet. Industrial Designer: Well, not everybody has uh has uh a P_C_ at home. Well the most most people have, User Interface: Well, at {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: but not not everybody User Interface: uh you can go back to the shop Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} User Interface: and uh they {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: like a s kind of service centre. User Interface: Yeah, ser o Industrial Designer: Yeah, maybe something like service cen Marketing: Yeah. User Interface: and they can download it for you. Industrial Designer: Or you could {disfmarker} well you could s actually look at the place-holder you talked about earlier, User Interface: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: and you could probably uh make a connection to uh an telephone line or a internet connection. User Interface: Yeah. Well already digital information is sent t to the the standards, T_V_ uh connections, Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: you can see what's uh programme is on on the new uh channels, so maybe j they {disfmarker} we can send that information along with standard T_V_ uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Well then then it's be uh back to the building a receiving uh {disfmarker} well uh if it's actually worth it to build it in, User Interface: Receiving. Oh yeah. Marketing: Yeah. Industrial Designer: we could actually look at {disfmarker} into it, User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} I dunno, it it would be uh bringing more costs {gap} uh with with it User Interface: Difficult. Yeah. Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Marketing: I I think it's uh most cheap or cheapest to just do the updates uh at the service centre or at the shop. User Interface: Yeah yeah, uh s I think some {disfmarker} I think it's good idea, yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that would be probably best, yeah. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Like when you when you buy a T_V_ you just ask {disfmarker} well I'll {disfmarker} Marketing: It's it's it's not a lot of work, just one uh docking station where you put it in, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: press start, bling bling, updated. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that would be best, yeah. User Interface: Yeah. Yeah. Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} You don't buy a T_V_ every week, new teev so. User Interface: Okay, let's uh save this in the meanwhile uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: No no. Exactly, so {disfmarker} User Interface: Um m for which one are we going? {gap} My mistake. Marketing: Let's vote. User Interface: That one or uh {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: Yeah, my vote goes out to the right {gap}. User Interface: Your vote and your {disfmarker} Marketing: My vote too. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: Okay. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: And your vote? User Interface: Well, I was uh doubting about which one to take, but uh you've convinced me that uh if you di display buttons about the same as they would look on a normal um remote all elderly people will know what to do. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Yeah. Marketing: And also like a clapping uh li like device that uh pops open. User Interface: Opens up is too difficult Industrial Designer: Flips open. User Interface: or uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Uh too difficult, um maybe uh it's easier to break it. Project Manager: N yeah. User Interface: Break it, I don't get {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, th th th that i uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah. Project Manager: It's very sensitive. User Interface: Oh so {disfmarker} Yeah. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: Like my telephone, it's uh it's sensitive too. Project Manager: Yeah. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Okay well uh it's almost at the end. So we have now a lunch break, finally, Marketing: Ah. Project Manager: yeah. {vocalsound} Uh after the lunch break uh it's back to uh individual work, once again uh thirty minutes. Uh I will put my minutes {disfmarker} uh I have updated them so uh s they're updated in the shared folder too. Marketing: Thirty minutes? Project Manager: Thirty minutes, the {disfmarker} Marketing: How minutes? {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Failure. Uh {vocalsound} uh the specifi uh specific instructions for the next uh meeting you will {disfmarker} all will receive uh at the uh the the email. I don't think I can uh say much about it, so uh uh wait for your email and uh hopefully you get it done uh in the in the thirty minutes, and I w will see you after the lunch break and the thirty minutes. Marketing: One question, Project Manager: Yeah? Marketing: uh how late do we have to get back {disfmarker} be back here? Project Manager: Uh well uh thirty minutes. User Interface: A quarter to one maybe? Project Manager: Uh, yeah. Marketing: Thirty minutes lunch break? Project Manager: Thirty minutes lunch break, yeah. Oh. Forty five? User Interface: Okay. Marketing: I thought forty five. Project Manager: Uh then would it be uh one o'clock. Marketing: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Project Manager: Or we we ask our personal coach. Okay. {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Thank you. Thank you, uh that was a very uh good session I think, User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {gap} Project Manager: we uh we {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah, is it possible to store this on the share documents or what {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, me too. Project Manager: Uh ye well {disfmarker} Marketing: Save as. Project Manager: Yeah, because uh all uh things are uh stored in smart board dot uh X_D_K_ Marketing: Yeah, v Project Manager: and that's in {disfmarker} Marketing: But but you can open a {disfmarker} from your pr from your laptop. User Interface:'Kay, save it as an image on the res Marketing: Yeah, maybe. Save as. Project Manager: No. Industrial Designer: Export. Maybe not export function. Marketing: No. Export. Project Manager: Well I can I can uh {disfmarker} Marketing: Export H_T_M_L_. User Interface: No, and use an image if possible. Marketing: Huh, image? User Interface: J_ PEG. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} G_ {disfmarker} yeah, J_ PEG. User Interface: J_ PEG. Yeah, it's better Marketing: Paper size A_ four. Uh screen size. In this directory. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: N oh. User Interface: Oh yeah, it's not connected to the Project Manager: You all uh have the the questionnaire again about uh the after work. User Interface: to our P_C_s. Marketing: No? Yeah, it is connected. User Interface: It's connected? Marketing: Yeah, I think so. Project Manager: Deskt Huh. No. Industrial Designer: To room. I'll just uh saved in my documents. Marketing: Oh. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} in my own uh {disfmarker} in my own messenger. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: Project documents, yeah. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Yeah. User Interface: It gives the na Oh. Yes. Project Manager: Okay, Industrial Designer: Okay, nice. Project Manager: thank you. User Interface: The questionnaire, fill in {disfmarker} uh we fill out d after lunch or uh {disfmarker} Project Manager: Uh well, it's it's simply filling {disfmarker} oh no, it's uh it's also filling out {disfmarker} no, I'd do it after lunch I think. User Interface: Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Aye, cheers. Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'm hungry, so do it after lunch. User Interface: Yes. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thank you all. Marketing: Thank you. Project Manager: You're welcome. User Interface: We can leave the P_C_ on I think, yeah and return to the {disfmarker} Marketing: Yeah, of course. Project Manager: Yeah. Well I bring it to my uh personal room. User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah, bring to {disfmarker} I gotta bring it home. Industrial Designer: {gap} Marketing: To my exave executive {disfmarker} Project Manager: My executive uh big room with the with the panting. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} A big office. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: Yes. Marketing: Aye. Yeah. Okay. Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} {gap} Marketing: {gap} Project Manager: {vocalsound}

Project Manager firstly gave some main points of the design of remote control. The Internet would be the main focus and the proposal of multi-purpose remote control was clearly rejected. Besides, the customer group expanded to those younger than 40. Then group members respectively gave presentations about the conception of the functions of remote control. Based on a questionnaire, Marketing concluded that the remote control should be simple, the buttons bigger and for minor functions. Industrial Designer rejected the idea of using Bluetooth and indicated that infrared would be better and within the budget. Industrial Designer believed that remote control should be simple and suggested sticking to basic things of remote control. User Interface also agreed to keep it simple and put forward the idea of using a touch screen and being user-friendly. Finally, Project Manager led the team to further discuss detailed questions like menus, parental control, update service.

tr-sq-694

tr-sq-694_0

Summarize the team building process with favourite animals. Project Manager: Alright, that did nothing. Okay. Welcome to the meeting everyone. Just gonna attempt to make this into a slide show. Sorry guys. Marketing: You may have to do the function F_ eight thing. Project Manager: I did. Twice. Marketing: Oh, okay. {vocalsound} Project Manager: This'll just take a moment. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay okay {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Or it won't. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay we'll have to deal with it like this then. Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Alright. Um. This is the first meeting uh for developing our, our new product. {gap} I'm Heather, I'm your Project Manager. Industrial Designer: Hello. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. So um. So that was the opening. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: The first thing we'll do is get acquainted with one another. If everyone could go around and explain their role and um, and their name. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay. My name's Poppy. I'm the Industrial Designer for this project. Um, I'm going to be responsible for the functional design phase. Also the conceptual design and the detailed design for the final product. Project Manager: Nice to meet you Poppy. Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} My name's Tara and I'm the User Interface Designer. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: I will also be responsible for the functional design phase, the conceptual design phase and the detailed design phase of the user interface design. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Alright. Marketing: Hi, I'm Genevieve. I'm the Marketing Expert. I'm an expert at marketing. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: Um, I'll be telling you guys about the user requirement specifications for our new product. Um, I'll be doing some trend-watching in the conceptual design, and product evaluation for the design phase. Project Manager: Alright I'm Heather and I've I said I'm your Project Manager, um Well you can pretty much read what it is that I'm doing. But um um {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. And uh tool training is one thing that we're going to be doing today, um um as well as planning the project, how we're going to, uh, create this product, and, um, discuss, um, our aims and objects of this, Which brings us to our next subject, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: is, um, um, Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: as a team we're going to be designing and creating a new kind of remote control. Um, we want this to be a marketable product that can be trendy, um, a completely new style, so that, um, can really appeal to a, to a generation that doesn't want a simple plain kind of, uh, channel-changer. And, um, it needs to be user-friendly for, um, maybe, for an example, for people that, um, can't see the numbers as well, or, um, perhaps an ergonomic design. Industrial Designer: Okay. So this is a television remote control? Project Manager: Yes, it's a television remote control. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Right. I believe I should be taking minutes on this right now. So, alright. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Um, yeah. Um, the way that we're going to go about this is, um, we'll have a time where we can, um come up with new ideas alone, and, and work on the project and then, um, after we've brainstormed and, and thought about, we can come together in a meeting and, and discuss what, what um, what kind of functional design we want to use. Same with conceptual design and detailed design. So, um, making sure that it, it's usable, that as a, um {disfmarker} and that it's, it's feasible to create, and uh, to come up with a concept of it want, what we want it to look like. Um, tool training. Is, is everyone, um {disfmarker} {gap} Okay. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Got those notes. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Great. Great. Marketing: Thank you. Project Manager: Um One thing that, uh, we're going to do is become more acquainted with the, the tools that we have access to for our project. Um, one of them is our whiteboard. And, um, as a sort of team-building moment, um, I, I'd like us to, um, try out the whiteboard by expressing our favourite animal and the charac characteristics of that animal. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Um, why that, why that should be your favourite animal. So, um, I, I'm assuming that we should do that now. Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager:'Kay. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} With our microphones still attached to our bodies. Okay. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: Gosh. {vocalsound} Project Manager:'Kay, what's my favourite animal? Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Do come up. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Oh, User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {gap} to go first. {vocalsound} Oh, Project Manager: This is a team-building time Industrial Designer: are we all doing it individually? User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: where, um, {vocalsound}, Industrial Designer: Okay, let's stand up and support you {vocalsound} Project Manager: okay cool, um {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: My favourite animal, which changes all the time, okay, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: right now it is an elk. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay. User Interface: An elk? Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: alright, so {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} A vicious {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Project Manager: And it goes like {disfmarker} Yeah it's got like big antlers, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: yeah. Looks kinda like, like it has holly growing out of its head. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Do you have elk where you come from? Project Manager: Yes. Industrial Designer: You do. Project Manager: Yeah Marketing: We have moose too. {vocalsound} Project Manager: we have moose and we have deer. Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Do you have {disfmarker} User Interface: We have sheep. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap}'Kay, um. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sheep. Yeah, Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: cows. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: That's a great elk. Marketing: Uh-oh, we have a good artist. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} User Interface: That is really good. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thanks. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} User Interface: I'm quite {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Project Manager: This is my {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh, very shapely. Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: Brilliant. Project Manager: That's a sketching of my my elk, and it, it is my favourite animal right now,'cause it is a large beautiful majestic creature, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: that um, that um {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: In a way it looks kind of awkward, because it's on spindly legs and it uh {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: But it can really overcome harsh terrain, and although it's gorgeous it's also very dangerous, because it has um strong antlers, and uh it can really combat its enemies, even like it it's a it's an herbivore but, uh, it can really defend itself. Industrial Designer: Mm. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Very nice. Okay. Project Manager: Right. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Right, I'm gonna take minutes while, um, you guys express your favourite animals. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay, I'll go next. I am a big animal lover. like all sorts of animals, but for the moment I'm gonna draw a cat, in memory of my poor cat that died recently. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh. Project Manager: Oh. Industrial Designer: It's gonna be a bit of a strange drawing, but never mind. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Not as artistic as Heather's drawing. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Bit more cartoon style. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: But I like cats because they're so independent, and they always seem to be doing what they want to be doing. Um, but that doesn't mean they're completely not sociable,'cause they enjoy interacting with humans as well, and they seem to enjoy the good things like sunshine and, um, running around outside as well as being inside, and enjoying their food, and generally just, they just seemed so cool and {vocalsound} they just know what they're doing. User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Uh I reckon they're sort of, they got it sorted. They know what they want. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Basically, that's why I like cats. {vocalsound} User Interface: Very good. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Great. Industrial Designer: {gap} I'll rub that out. There you go. {vocalsound} User Interface: Okay. I think my favourite animal would be a dog, but I'm not really sure {vocalsound} how to draw one. Industrial Designer: Ooh. User Interface: I, I've never drawn a dog, I don't think. I'm tempted to draw a snail'cause I draw them sometimes {vocalsound} and they're really easy to draw. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: Um, Project Manager: I forget her name. User Interface: right it's gonna be a really funny dog,'cause I'm not sure how to draw a dog. Marketing: Tara Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: or Tara. Industrial Designer: Well there are loads of different types of dogs, so I'm sure it'll represent one kind of dog. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a cartoon dog I think. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: A s I don't ev Oh, oh well. {vocalsound} It's a scary cartoon dog. That {disfmarker} This, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: that does not look like a dog. Project Manager: {vocalsound} It looks kinda like a person. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We can pretend. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm sorry. Marketing: {vocalsound} That's Pinocchio. User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} How do you draw a dog? I suppose it has a lon Oh my god. Right. Yous know what it's supposed to be. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a dog. {vocalsound}. Um, I like dogs because, um, they're so good to humans, like they can be trained to be police dogs and seeing-eye dogs, and they're just such friendly animals. And, like they're more of a companion than cats. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that's true. User Interface: {vocalsound} I've nothing against cats. Cats don't really like me, so I can't like them. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} But they're just so friendly and warm and nice animals, Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} that don't look like that. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Alrighty. I feel like a robot. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay. Um, well I guess I had the most time to think about it. I'm going to draw a butterfly, because I saw a butterfly yesterday, that seemed to be like the symbol of Spring arriving. And it was actually the prettiest butterfly I've ever seen out in the wild, and I though that was pretty cool in Scotland. It was like, well it was a little pointier than that. At first I thought it was a dead leaf. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: And then it landed on the wall next to me. But this part was all brown and then it has these big blue dots like this. And then it kinda {disfmarker} there was a green, I think it was a green ring, and there was like red going out like this. Project Manager: It's kinda like a peacock. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah, it kinda was actually,'cause it was {disfmarker} This part of the body was really dull, and then it was the most colourful exotic butterfly ever, and I'm like, wow this is the middle of Scotland in like March. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: So I thought that was pretty cool. And it landed by a wall and let me look at it for about two minutes. I wish I'd had my camera. So that's gonna be my favourite animal because after all the snow it seemed to say that like Spring is finally here. Yeah. Industrial Designer: Very nice. {vocalsound} Marketing: There you go. Project Manager: Great. Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh, what do we {disfmarker} Oh. Project Manager: Do you hear the eraser buzzing while you do that? Marketing: Yes I do. {vocalsound} {gap} Project Manager: Yea {vocalsound} Right. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: So, now that we know how to use the whiteboard, Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: um, the next, um, thing we need to address is our financial department, to meet our our budget, um {disfmarker} or not meet our budget but more, um, like what kind of, uh, selling range we'll be looking at, um, wanna make this um {gap} selling price of twenty five Euros. And so we have to, um, come up with a way to, to create a, a uh remote control, where um we can {disfmarker} like the price to create it will be significantly less. Um, we'd like to, um to, uh, make fifty million Euro. I'm assuming that's what the M_ means. Um, and make it for an international market. Um, one thing we'd have to think about internationally is in the design of, um, like different kinds of, uh, V_C_R_s. Things like that, depending on which country you are. Another thing for the design team to think about. Um, we want it to cost, uh, absolute maximum of twelve Euro and fifty cents. Marketing: Okay, so we'll have a hundred percent profit then? Twelve fifty. Project Manager: I'm bad at math. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager:'Kay. {vocalsound} Um, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: so now that, um, that is underway, um Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: it is discussion time. So this is time for us to bring our initial ideas, any um suggestions that you may have so far, a um your personal experiences with remote controls, and um, um, areas you see that, uh, could be improved in your experience with them. Does anyone have any initial thoughts? Marketing: I find that in the dark it's often hard to know what button you're pushing. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. So what's something we could, uh, do to remedy that? Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {gap} Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: Um {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: I always find that in our house the remote control always goes missing. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: It's always, where is the remote control? User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. Industrial Designer: So maybe if you could have some kind of tracking {vocalsound} device for the remote control or some signal that you could find out where it was. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I dunno, some kind of alarm. You can press a button on your wall, {gap} signal, Project Manager: Yeah. It's a great idea. It's a great idea. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer:'cause it always gets lost. User Interface: Do yous not find that, um, {vocalsound} like, there's a lot of, um, buttons on your remote control, and you don't know what half of them do. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that you don't use half of them. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: Yeah, I don't know what they do. {vocalsound} Marketing: Mm-hmm. There's some remote controls where there's kind of a hidden panel, so all those buttons that you don't really use unless you're programming or something. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that's, that's {disfmarker} Marketing: That's useful. Industrial Designer: Yeah, it is. Yeah. Marketing: So you just have like the number buttons, power button, T_V_ video button. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Alright. Anything about, um, the look of the, uh, remote control that you might have ideas about. Maybe it could be, instead of like a standard rectangular shape, it could be, um, something more interesting like {disfmarker} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Any ideas will do that you have at this point. Industrial Designer: Mm. Marketing: Could be shaped like a conch, Project Manager: {vocalsound} Can hold it. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A novelty. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: you know. Be like a shell-shaped remote. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Are we going into kind of novelty factors here. Like, I've seen phones like a {disfmarker} Project Manager: Well if it's a trendy original, um, aspect we're going for. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: I mean, you're the designers, you c, you can um decide what kind of, um, direction you wanna go in, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Mm-hmm. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: but at this point in the, in the first meeting it can be any ideas that we just throw out there. Industrial Designer: Yeah. I suppose, if we're he heading to have it, like make a huge profit out of this, it needs to be quite a universally accepted thing. Like, a novelty thing might only sell a few things rather than, like, a general kind of more acceptable {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: But we don't wanna go towards boring,'cause that wouldn't sell either. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: So, hmm. Project Manager: And the key issue here is, is being trendy and original. Um, that does not necessarily mean it needs to be outrageous. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah. Project Manager: Right. Okay we have five minutes left. So, just to cover {disfmarker} We have one more thing. Um, like you can go over your ideas, of course, in your own personal times. Um, our next meeting will be in half an hour. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: So you have half an hour to, uh, think about what you want to present. Or not present but bring to the meeting. Um, I_D_, whatever that stands for. Industrial Designer: Industrial Designer. Marketing: Interface? Project Manager: Industrial Designer. Industrial Designer: That's me. {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh, industrial. Project Manager: I have to remember these things. Um. You'll be beginning your, your working design. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um, U_I_D_ the technical functions design will, will be worked on the next thirty minutes. Um, {vocalsound} maybe how this can be achieved, and, um, we need the user requirements from the manag Marketing Expert. Marketing: Marketing Expert. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Um, you will get specific instructions, um, of what to do in the next half an hour. And I'll see you in half an hour, okay? Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager:'Kay. Industrial Designer: Thank you. User Interface: {gap}

The team took turns to draw their favourite animals on the whiteboard while discussing what characteristics of that animal they liked. Project Manager's favourite animal at the time was an elk, since she considered it a large beautiful majestic creature that can overcome harsh terrain and defend itself. Industrial Designer followed with a cat, favoured for its independence and always knowing what they were doing. User Interface drew a dog, for dogs were trainable and friendly. Finally, Marketing chose a butterfly, seeing it as the symbol of spring arriving.

tr-sq-695

tr-sq-695_0

Describe the whole discussion concerning Project Manager's favourite animal in the team building process. Project Manager: Alright, that did nothing. Okay. Welcome to the meeting everyone. Just gonna attempt to make this into a slide show. Sorry guys. Marketing: You may have to do the function F_ eight thing. Project Manager: I did. Twice. Marketing: Oh, okay. {vocalsound} Project Manager: This'll just take a moment. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay okay {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Or it won't. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay we'll have to deal with it like this then. Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Alright. Um. This is the first meeting uh for developing our, our new product. {gap} I'm Heather, I'm your Project Manager. Industrial Designer: Hello. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. So um. So that was the opening. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: The first thing we'll do is get acquainted with one another. If everyone could go around and explain their role and um, and their name. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay. My name's Poppy. I'm the Industrial Designer for this project. Um, I'm going to be responsible for the functional design phase. Also the conceptual design and the detailed design for the final product. Project Manager: Nice to meet you Poppy. Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} My name's Tara and I'm the User Interface Designer. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: I will also be responsible for the functional design phase, the conceptual design phase and the detailed design phase of the user interface design. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Alright. Marketing: Hi, I'm Genevieve. I'm the Marketing Expert. I'm an expert at marketing. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: Um, I'll be telling you guys about the user requirement specifications for our new product. Um, I'll be doing some trend-watching in the conceptual design, and product evaluation for the design phase. Project Manager: Alright I'm Heather and I've I said I'm your Project Manager, um Well you can pretty much read what it is that I'm doing. But um um {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. And uh tool training is one thing that we're going to be doing today, um um as well as planning the project, how we're going to, uh, create this product, and, um, discuss, um, our aims and objects of this, Which brings us to our next subject, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: is, um, um, Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: as a team we're going to be designing and creating a new kind of remote control. Um, we want this to be a marketable product that can be trendy, um, a completely new style, so that, um, can really appeal to a, to a generation that doesn't want a simple plain kind of, uh, channel-changer. And, um, it needs to be user-friendly for, um, maybe, for an example, for people that, um, can't see the numbers as well, or, um, perhaps an ergonomic design. Industrial Designer: Okay. So this is a television remote control? Project Manager: Yes, it's a television remote control. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Right. I believe I should be taking minutes on this right now. So, alright. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Um, yeah. Um, the way that we're going to go about this is, um, we'll have a time where we can, um come up with new ideas alone, and, and work on the project and then, um, after we've brainstormed and, and thought about, we can come together in a meeting and, and discuss what, what um, what kind of functional design we want to use. Same with conceptual design and detailed design. So, um, making sure that it, it's usable, that as a, um {disfmarker} and that it's, it's feasible to create, and uh, to come up with a concept of it want, what we want it to look like. Um, tool training. Is, is everyone, um {disfmarker} {gap} Okay. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Got those notes. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Great. Great. Marketing: Thank you. Project Manager: Um One thing that, uh, we're going to do is become more acquainted with the, the tools that we have access to for our project. Um, one of them is our whiteboard. And, um, as a sort of team-building moment, um, I, I'd like us to, um, try out the whiteboard by expressing our favourite animal and the charac characteristics of that animal. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Um, why that, why that should be your favourite animal. So, um, I, I'm assuming that we should do that now. Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager:'Kay. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} With our microphones still attached to our bodies. Okay. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: Gosh. {vocalsound} Project Manager:'Kay, what's my favourite animal? Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Do come up. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Oh, User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {gap} to go first. {vocalsound} Oh, Project Manager: This is a team-building time Industrial Designer: are we all doing it individually? User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: where, um, {vocalsound}, Industrial Designer: Okay, let's stand up and support you {vocalsound} Project Manager: okay cool, um {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: My favourite animal, which changes all the time, okay, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: right now it is an elk. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay. User Interface: An elk? Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: alright, so {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} A vicious {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Project Manager: And it goes like {disfmarker} Yeah it's got like big antlers, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: yeah. Looks kinda like, like it has holly growing out of its head. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Do you have elk where you come from? Project Manager: Yes. Industrial Designer: You do. Project Manager: Yeah Marketing: We have moose too. {vocalsound} Project Manager: we have moose and we have deer. Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Do you have {disfmarker} User Interface: We have sheep. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap}'Kay, um. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sheep. Yeah, Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: cows. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: That's a great elk. Marketing: Uh-oh, we have a good artist. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} User Interface: That is really good. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thanks. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} User Interface: I'm quite {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Project Manager: This is my {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh, very shapely. Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: Brilliant. Project Manager: That's a sketching of my my elk, and it, it is my favourite animal right now,'cause it is a large beautiful majestic creature, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: that um, that um {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: In a way it looks kind of awkward, because it's on spindly legs and it uh {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: But it can really overcome harsh terrain, and although it's gorgeous it's also very dangerous, because it has um strong antlers, and uh it can really combat its enemies, even like it it's a it's an herbivore but, uh, it can really defend itself. Industrial Designer: Mm. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Very nice. Okay. Project Manager: Right. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Right, I'm gonna take minutes while, um, you guys express your favourite animals. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay, I'll go next. I am a big animal lover. like all sorts of animals, but for the moment I'm gonna draw a cat, in memory of my poor cat that died recently. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh. Project Manager: Oh. Industrial Designer: It's gonna be a bit of a strange drawing, but never mind. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Not as artistic as Heather's drawing. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Bit more cartoon style. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: But I like cats because they're so independent, and they always seem to be doing what they want to be doing. Um, but that doesn't mean they're completely not sociable,'cause they enjoy interacting with humans as well, and they seem to enjoy the good things like sunshine and, um, running around outside as well as being inside, and enjoying their food, and generally just, they just seemed so cool and {vocalsound} they just know what they're doing. User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Uh I reckon they're sort of, they got it sorted. They know what they want. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Basically, that's why I like cats. {vocalsound} User Interface: Very good. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Great. Industrial Designer: {gap} I'll rub that out. There you go. {vocalsound} User Interface: Okay. I think my favourite animal would be a dog, but I'm not really sure {vocalsound} how to draw one. Industrial Designer: Ooh. User Interface: I, I've never drawn a dog, I don't think. I'm tempted to draw a snail'cause I draw them sometimes {vocalsound} and they're really easy to draw. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: Um, Project Manager: I forget her name. User Interface: right it's gonna be a really funny dog,'cause I'm not sure how to draw a dog. Marketing: Tara Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: or Tara. Industrial Designer: Well there are loads of different types of dogs, so I'm sure it'll represent one kind of dog. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a cartoon dog I think. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: A s I don't ev Oh, oh well. {vocalsound} It's a scary cartoon dog. That {disfmarker} This, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: that does not look like a dog. Project Manager: {vocalsound} It looks kinda like a person. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We can pretend. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm sorry. Marketing: {vocalsound} That's Pinocchio. User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} How do you draw a dog? I suppose it has a lon Oh my god. Right. Yous know what it's supposed to be. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a dog. {vocalsound}. Um, I like dogs because, um, they're so good to humans, like they can be trained to be police dogs and seeing-eye dogs, and they're just such friendly animals. And, like they're more of a companion than cats. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that's true. User Interface: {vocalsound} I've nothing against cats. Cats don't really like me, so I can't like them. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} But they're just so friendly and warm and nice animals, Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} that don't look like that. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Alrighty. I feel like a robot. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay. Um, well I guess I had the most time to think about it. I'm going to draw a butterfly, because I saw a butterfly yesterday, that seemed to be like the symbol of Spring arriving. And it was actually the prettiest butterfly I've ever seen out in the wild, and I though that was pretty cool in Scotland. It was like, well it was a little pointier than that. At first I thought it was a dead leaf. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: And then it landed on the wall next to me. But this part was all brown and then it has these big blue dots like this. And then it kinda {disfmarker} there was a green, I think it was a green ring, and there was like red going out like this. Project Manager: It's kinda like a peacock. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah, it kinda was actually,'cause it was {disfmarker} This part of the body was really dull, and then it was the most colourful exotic butterfly ever, and I'm like, wow this is the middle of Scotland in like March. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: So I thought that was pretty cool. And it landed by a wall and let me look at it for about two minutes. I wish I'd had my camera. So that's gonna be my favourite animal because after all the snow it seemed to say that like Spring is finally here. Yeah. Industrial Designer: Very nice. {vocalsound} Marketing: There you go. Project Manager: Great. Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh, what do we {disfmarker} Oh. Project Manager: Do you hear the eraser buzzing while you do that? Marketing: Yes I do. {vocalsound} {gap} Project Manager: Yea {vocalsound} Right. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: So, now that we know how to use the whiteboard, Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: um, the next, um, thing we need to address is our financial department, to meet our our budget, um {disfmarker} or not meet our budget but more, um, like what kind of, uh, selling range we'll be looking at, um, wanna make this um {gap} selling price of twenty five Euros. And so we have to, um, come up with a way to, to create a, a uh remote control, where um we can {disfmarker} like the price to create it will be significantly less. Um, we'd like to, um to, uh, make fifty million Euro. I'm assuming that's what the M_ means. Um, and make it for an international market. Um, one thing we'd have to think about internationally is in the design of, um, like different kinds of, uh, V_C_R_s. Things like that, depending on which country you are. Another thing for the design team to think about. Um, we want it to cost, uh, absolute maximum of twelve Euro and fifty cents. Marketing: Okay, so we'll have a hundred percent profit then? Twelve fifty. Project Manager: I'm bad at math. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager:'Kay. {vocalsound} Um, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: so now that, um, that is underway, um Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: it is discussion time. So this is time for us to bring our initial ideas, any um suggestions that you may have so far, a um your personal experiences with remote controls, and um, um, areas you see that, uh, could be improved in your experience with them. Does anyone have any initial thoughts? Marketing: I find that in the dark it's often hard to know what button you're pushing. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. So what's something we could, uh, do to remedy that? Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {gap} Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: Um {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: I always find that in our house the remote control always goes missing. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: It's always, where is the remote control? User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. Industrial Designer: So maybe if you could have some kind of tracking {vocalsound} device for the remote control or some signal that you could find out where it was. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I dunno, some kind of alarm. You can press a button on your wall, {gap} signal, Project Manager: Yeah. It's a great idea. It's a great idea. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer:'cause it always gets lost. User Interface: Do yous not find that, um, {vocalsound} like, there's a lot of, um, buttons on your remote control, and you don't know what half of them do. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that you don't use half of them. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: Yeah, I don't know what they do. {vocalsound} Marketing: Mm-hmm. There's some remote controls where there's kind of a hidden panel, so all those buttons that you don't really use unless you're programming or something. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that's, that's {disfmarker} Marketing: That's useful. Industrial Designer: Yeah, it is. Yeah. Marketing: So you just have like the number buttons, power button, T_V_ video button. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Alright. Anything about, um, the look of the, uh, remote control that you might have ideas about. Maybe it could be, instead of like a standard rectangular shape, it could be, um, something more interesting like {disfmarker} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Any ideas will do that you have at this point. Industrial Designer: Mm. Marketing: Could be shaped like a conch, Project Manager: {vocalsound} Can hold it. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A novelty. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: you know. Be like a shell-shaped remote. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Are we going into kind of novelty factors here. Like, I've seen phones like a {disfmarker} Project Manager: Well if it's a trendy original, um, aspect we're going for. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: I mean, you're the designers, you c, you can um decide what kind of, um, direction you wanna go in, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Mm-hmm. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: but at this point in the, in the first meeting it can be any ideas that we just throw out there. Industrial Designer: Yeah. I suppose, if we're he heading to have it, like make a huge profit out of this, it needs to be quite a universally accepted thing. Like, a novelty thing might only sell a few things rather than, like, a general kind of more acceptable {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: But we don't wanna go towards boring,'cause that wouldn't sell either. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: So, hmm. Project Manager: And the key issue here is, is being trendy and original. Um, that does not necessarily mean it needs to be outrageous. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah. Project Manager: Right. Okay we have five minutes left. So, just to cover {disfmarker} We have one more thing. Um, like you can go over your ideas, of course, in your own personal times. Um, our next meeting will be in half an hour. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: So you have half an hour to, uh, think about what you want to present. Or not present but bring to the meeting. Um, I_D_, whatever that stands for. Industrial Designer: Industrial Designer. Marketing: Interface? Project Manager: Industrial Designer. Industrial Designer: That's me. {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh, industrial. Project Manager: I have to remember these things. Um. You'll be beginning your, your working design. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um, U_I_D_ the technical functions design will, will be worked on the next thirty minutes. Um, {vocalsound} maybe how this can be achieved, and, um, we need the user requirements from the manag Marketing Expert. Marketing: Marketing Expert. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Um, you will get specific instructions, um, of what to do in the next half an hour. And I'll see you in half an hour, okay? Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager:'Kay. Industrial Designer: Thank you. User Interface: {gap}

First, Project Manager announced that her favourite animal at the time was an elk. User Interface immediately joked that it looked vicious, what with the big antlers. Industrial Designer then asked whether everyone had elk where they came from. The team then complimented Project Manager's drawing for the elk. Project Manager consequently gave her reasons for choosing the elk as her favourite, saying it was a large beautiful majestic creature that could overcome harsh terrain and defend itself. She considered that even though elks would appear awkward, they were actually very gorgeous animals.

tr-sq-696

tr-sq-696_0

Summarize Marketing's story and description of the butterfly she drew during the discussion of favourite animals. Project Manager: Alright, that did nothing. Okay. Welcome to the meeting everyone. Just gonna attempt to make this into a slide show. Sorry guys. Marketing: You may have to do the function F_ eight thing. Project Manager: I did. Twice. Marketing: Oh, okay. {vocalsound} Project Manager: This'll just take a moment. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay okay {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Or it won't. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay we'll have to deal with it like this then. Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Alright. Um. This is the first meeting uh for developing our, our new product. {gap} I'm Heather, I'm your Project Manager. Industrial Designer: Hello. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. So um. So that was the opening. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: The first thing we'll do is get acquainted with one another. If everyone could go around and explain their role and um, and their name. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay. My name's Poppy. I'm the Industrial Designer for this project. Um, I'm going to be responsible for the functional design phase. Also the conceptual design and the detailed design for the final product. Project Manager: Nice to meet you Poppy. Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} My name's Tara and I'm the User Interface Designer. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: I will also be responsible for the functional design phase, the conceptual design phase and the detailed design phase of the user interface design. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Alright. Marketing: Hi, I'm Genevieve. I'm the Marketing Expert. I'm an expert at marketing. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: Um, I'll be telling you guys about the user requirement specifications for our new product. Um, I'll be doing some trend-watching in the conceptual design, and product evaluation for the design phase. Project Manager: Alright I'm Heather and I've I said I'm your Project Manager, um Well you can pretty much read what it is that I'm doing. But um um {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. And uh tool training is one thing that we're going to be doing today, um um as well as planning the project, how we're going to, uh, create this product, and, um, discuss, um, our aims and objects of this, Which brings us to our next subject, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: is, um, um, Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: as a team we're going to be designing and creating a new kind of remote control. Um, we want this to be a marketable product that can be trendy, um, a completely new style, so that, um, can really appeal to a, to a generation that doesn't want a simple plain kind of, uh, channel-changer. And, um, it needs to be user-friendly for, um, maybe, for an example, for people that, um, can't see the numbers as well, or, um, perhaps an ergonomic design. Industrial Designer: Okay. So this is a television remote control? Project Manager: Yes, it's a television remote control. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Right. I believe I should be taking minutes on this right now. So, alright. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Um, yeah. Um, the way that we're going to go about this is, um, we'll have a time where we can, um come up with new ideas alone, and, and work on the project and then, um, after we've brainstormed and, and thought about, we can come together in a meeting and, and discuss what, what um, what kind of functional design we want to use. Same with conceptual design and detailed design. So, um, making sure that it, it's usable, that as a, um {disfmarker} and that it's, it's feasible to create, and uh, to come up with a concept of it want, what we want it to look like. Um, tool training. Is, is everyone, um {disfmarker} {gap} Okay. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Got those notes. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Great. Great. Marketing: Thank you. Project Manager: Um One thing that, uh, we're going to do is become more acquainted with the, the tools that we have access to for our project. Um, one of them is our whiteboard. And, um, as a sort of team-building moment, um, I, I'd like us to, um, try out the whiteboard by expressing our favourite animal and the charac characteristics of that animal. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Um, why that, why that should be your favourite animal. So, um, I, I'm assuming that we should do that now. Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager:'Kay. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} With our microphones still attached to our bodies. Okay. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: Gosh. {vocalsound} Project Manager:'Kay, what's my favourite animal? Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Do come up. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Oh, User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {gap} to go first. {vocalsound} Oh, Project Manager: This is a team-building time Industrial Designer: are we all doing it individually? User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: where, um, {vocalsound}, Industrial Designer: Okay, let's stand up and support you {vocalsound} Project Manager: okay cool, um {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: My favourite animal, which changes all the time, okay, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: right now it is an elk. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay. User Interface: An elk? Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: alright, so {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} A vicious {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Project Manager: And it goes like {disfmarker} Yeah it's got like big antlers, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: yeah. Looks kinda like, like it has holly growing out of its head. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Do you have elk where you come from? Project Manager: Yes. Industrial Designer: You do. Project Manager: Yeah Marketing: We have moose too. {vocalsound} Project Manager: we have moose and we have deer. Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Do you have {disfmarker} User Interface: We have sheep. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap}'Kay, um. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sheep. Yeah, Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: cows. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: That's a great elk. Marketing: Uh-oh, we have a good artist. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} User Interface: That is really good. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thanks. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} User Interface: I'm quite {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Project Manager: This is my {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh, very shapely. Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: Brilliant. Project Manager: That's a sketching of my my elk, and it, it is my favourite animal right now,'cause it is a large beautiful majestic creature, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: that um, that um {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: In a way it looks kind of awkward, because it's on spindly legs and it uh {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: But it can really overcome harsh terrain, and although it's gorgeous it's also very dangerous, because it has um strong antlers, and uh it can really combat its enemies, even like it it's a it's an herbivore but, uh, it can really defend itself. Industrial Designer: Mm. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Very nice. Okay. Project Manager: Right. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Right, I'm gonna take minutes while, um, you guys express your favourite animals. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay, I'll go next. I am a big animal lover. like all sorts of animals, but for the moment I'm gonna draw a cat, in memory of my poor cat that died recently. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh. Project Manager: Oh. Industrial Designer: It's gonna be a bit of a strange drawing, but never mind. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Not as artistic as Heather's drawing. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Bit more cartoon style. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: But I like cats because they're so independent, and they always seem to be doing what they want to be doing. Um, but that doesn't mean they're completely not sociable,'cause they enjoy interacting with humans as well, and they seem to enjoy the good things like sunshine and, um, running around outside as well as being inside, and enjoying their food, and generally just, they just seemed so cool and {vocalsound} they just know what they're doing. User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Uh I reckon they're sort of, they got it sorted. They know what they want. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Basically, that's why I like cats. {vocalsound} User Interface: Very good. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Great. Industrial Designer: {gap} I'll rub that out. There you go. {vocalsound} User Interface: Okay. I think my favourite animal would be a dog, but I'm not really sure {vocalsound} how to draw one. Industrial Designer: Ooh. User Interface: I, I've never drawn a dog, I don't think. I'm tempted to draw a snail'cause I draw them sometimes {vocalsound} and they're really easy to draw. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: Um, Project Manager: I forget her name. User Interface: right it's gonna be a really funny dog,'cause I'm not sure how to draw a dog. Marketing: Tara Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: or Tara. Industrial Designer: Well there are loads of different types of dogs, so I'm sure it'll represent one kind of dog. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a cartoon dog I think. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: A s I don't ev Oh, oh well. {vocalsound} It's a scary cartoon dog. That {disfmarker} This, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: that does not look like a dog. Project Manager: {vocalsound} It looks kinda like a person. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We can pretend. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm sorry. Marketing: {vocalsound} That's Pinocchio. User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} How do you draw a dog? I suppose it has a lon Oh my god. Right. Yous know what it's supposed to be. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a dog. {vocalsound}. Um, I like dogs because, um, they're so good to humans, like they can be trained to be police dogs and seeing-eye dogs, and they're just such friendly animals. And, like they're more of a companion than cats. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that's true. User Interface: {vocalsound} I've nothing against cats. Cats don't really like me, so I can't like them. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} But they're just so friendly and warm and nice animals, Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} that don't look like that. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Alrighty. I feel like a robot. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay. Um, well I guess I had the most time to think about it. I'm going to draw a butterfly, because I saw a butterfly yesterday, that seemed to be like the symbol of Spring arriving. And it was actually the prettiest butterfly I've ever seen out in the wild, and I though that was pretty cool in Scotland. It was like, well it was a little pointier than that. At first I thought it was a dead leaf. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: And then it landed on the wall next to me. But this part was all brown and then it has these big blue dots like this. And then it kinda {disfmarker} there was a green, I think it was a green ring, and there was like red going out like this. Project Manager: It's kinda like a peacock. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah, it kinda was actually,'cause it was {disfmarker} This part of the body was really dull, and then it was the most colourful exotic butterfly ever, and I'm like, wow this is the middle of Scotland in like March. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: So I thought that was pretty cool. And it landed by a wall and let me look at it for about two minutes. I wish I'd had my camera. So that's gonna be my favourite animal because after all the snow it seemed to say that like Spring is finally here. Yeah. Industrial Designer: Very nice. {vocalsound} Marketing: There you go. Project Manager: Great. Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh, what do we {disfmarker} Oh. Project Manager: Do you hear the eraser buzzing while you do that? Marketing: Yes I do. {vocalsound} {gap} Project Manager: Yea {vocalsound} Right. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: So, now that we know how to use the whiteboard, Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: um, the next, um, thing we need to address is our financial department, to meet our our budget, um {disfmarker} or not meet our budget but more, um, like what kind of, uh, selling range we'll be looking at, um, wanna make this um {gap} selling price of twenty five Euros. And so we have to, um, come up with a way to, to create a, a uh remote control, where um we can {disfmarker} like the price to create it will be significantly less. Um, we'd like to, um to, uh, make fifty million Euro. I'm assuming that's what the M_ means. Um, and make it for an international market. Um, one thing we'd have to think about internationally is in the design of, um, like different kinds of, uh, V_C_R_s. Things like that, depending on which country you are. Another thing for the design team to think about. Um, we want it to cost, uh, absolute maximum of twelve Euro and fifty cents. Marketing: Okay, so we'll have a hundred percent profit then? Twelve fifty. Project Manager: I'm bad at math. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager:'Kay. {vocalsound} Um, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: so now that, um, that is underway, um Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: it is discussion time. So this is time for us to bring our initial ideas, any um suggestions that you may have so far, a um your personal experiences with remote controls, and um, um, areas you see that, uh, could be improved in your experience with them. Does anyone have any initial thoughts? Marketing: I find that in the dark it's often hard to know what button you're pushing. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. So what's something we could, uh, do to remedy that? Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {gap} Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: Um {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: I always find that in our house the remote control always goes missing. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: It's always, where is the remote control? User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. Industrial Designer: So maybe if you could have some kind of tracking {vocalsound} device for the remote control or some signal that you could find out where it was. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I dunno, some kind of alarm. You can press a button on your wall, {gap} signal, Project Manager: Yeah. It's a great idea. It's a great idea. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer:'cause it always gets lost. User Interface: Do yous not find that, um, {vocalsound} like, there's a lot of, um, buttons on your remote control, and you don't know what half of them do. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that you don't use half of them. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: Yeah, I don't know what they do. {vocalsound} Marketing: Mm-hmm. There's some remote controls where there's kind of a hidden panel, so all those buttons that you don't really use unless you're programming or something. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that's, that's {disfmarker} Marketing: That's useful. Industrial Designer: Yeah, it is. Yeah. Marketing: So you just have like the number buttons, power button, T_V_ video button. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Alright. Anything about, um, the look of the, uh, remote control that you might have ideas about. Maybe it could be, instead of like a standard rectangular shape, it could be, um, something more interesting like {disfmarker} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Any ideas will do that you have at this point. Industrial Designer: Mm. Marketing: Could be shaped like a conch, Project Manager: {vocalsound} Can hold it. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A novelty. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: you know. Be like a shell-shaped remote. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Are we going into kind of novelty factors here. Like, I've seen phones like a {disfmarker} Project Manager: Well if it's a trendy original, um, aspect we're going for. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: I mean, you're the designers, you c, you can um decide what kind of, um, direction you wanna go in, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Mm-hmm. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: but at this point in the, in the first meeting it can be any ideas that we just throw out there. Industrial Designer: Yeah. I suppose, if we're he heading to have it, like make a huge profit out of this, it needs to be quite a universally accepted thing. Like, a novelty thing might only sell a few things rather than, like, a general kind of more acceptable {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: But we don't wanna go towards boring,'cause that wouldn't sell either. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: So, hmm. Project Manager: And the key issue here is, is being trendy and original. Um, that does not necessarily mean it needs to be outrageous. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah. Project Manager: Right. Okay we have five minutes left. So, just to cover {disfmarker} We have one more thing. Um, like you can go over your ideas, of course, in your own personal times. Um, our next meeting will be in half an hour. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: So you have half an hour to, uh, think about what you want to present. Or not present but bring to the meeting. Um, I_D_, whatever that stands for. Industrial Designer: Industrial Designer. Marketing: Interface? Project Manager: Industrial Designer. Industrial Designer: That's me. {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh, industrial. Project Manager: I have to remember these things. Um. You'll be beginning your, your working design. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um, U_I_D_ the technical functions design will, will be worked on the next thirty minutes. Um, {vocalsound} maybe how this can be achieved, and, um, we need the user requirements from the manag Marketing Expert. Marketing: Marketing Expert. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Um, you will get specific instructions, um, of what to do in the next half an hour. And I'll see you in half an hour, okay? Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager:'Kay. Industrial Designer: Thank you. User Interface: {gap}

Marketing drew a butterfly because she had seen one the day before, which she considered as the symbol of spring arriving. It was the prettiest butterfly she had ever seen out in the wild, and this was quite unusual where they lived. Mistaking it as a dead leaf at first, she saw the butterfly land next to her, showing as colourful and exotica body as that of a peacock. Marketing appreciated her encounter with the butterfly very much.

tr-sq-697

tr-sq-697_0

Summarize the team's brainstorming process for raising initial thoughts. Project Manager: Alright, that did nothing. Okay. Welcome to the meeting everyone. Just gonna attempt to make this into a slide show. Sorry guys. Marketing: You may have to do the function F_ eight thing. Project Manager: I did. Twice. Marketing: Oh, okay. {vocalsound} Project Manager: This'll just take a moment. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay okay {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Or it won't. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay we'll have to deal with it like this then. Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Alright. Um. This is the first meeting uh for developing our, our new product. {gap} I'm Heather, I'm your Project Manager. Industrial Designer: Hello. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. So um. So that was the opening. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: The first thing we'll do is get acquainted with one another. If everyone could go around and explain their role and um, and their name. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay. My name's Poppy. I'm the Industrial Designer for this project. Um, I'm going to be responsible for the functional design phase. Also the conceptual design and the detailed design for the final product. Project Manager: Nice to meet you Poppy. Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} My name's Tara and I'm the User Interface Designer. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: I will also be responsible for the functional design phase, the conceptual design phase and the detailed design phase of the user interface design. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Alright. Marketing: Hi, I'm Genevieve. I'm the Marketing Expert. I'm an expert at marketing. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: Um, I'll be telling you guys about the user requirement specifications for our new product. Um, I'll be doing some trend-watching in the conceptual design, and product evaluation for the design phase. Project Manager: Alright I'm Heather and I've I said I'm your Project Manager, um Well you can pretty much read what it is that I'm doing. But um um {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. And uh tool training is one thing that we're going to be doing today, um um as well as planning the project, how we're going to, uh, create this product, and, um, discuss, um, our aims and objects of this, Which brings us to our next subject, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: is, um, um, Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: as a team we're going to be designing and creating a new kind of remote control. Um, we want this to be a marketable product that can be trendy, um, a completely new style, so that, um, can really appeal to a, to a generation that doesn't want a simple plain kind of, uh, channel-changer. And, um, it needs to be user-friendly for, um, maybe, for an example, for people that, um, can't see the numbers as well, or, um, perhaps an ergonomic design. Industrial Designer: Okay. So this is a television remote control? Project Manager: Yes, it's a television remote control. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Right. I believe I should be taking minutes on this right now. So, alright. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Um, yeah. Um, the way that we're going to go about this is, um, we'll have a time where we can, um come up with new ideas alone, and, and work on the project and then, um, after we've brainstormed and, and thought about, we can come together in a meeting and, and discuss what, what um, what kind of functional design we want to use. Same with conceptual design and detailed design. So, um, making sure that it, it's usable, that as a, um {disfmarker} and that it's, it's feasible to create, and uh, to come up with a concept of it want, what we want it to look like. Um, tool training. Is, is everyone, um {disfmarker} {gap} Okay. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Got those notes. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Great. Great. Marketing: Thank you. Project Manager: Um One thing that, uh, we're going to do is become more acquainted with the, the tools that we have access to for our project. Um, one of them is our whiteboard. And, um, as a sort of team-building moment, um, I, I'd like us to, um, try out the whiteboard by expressing our favourite animal and the charac characteristics of that animal. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Um, why that, why that should be your favourite animal. So, um, I, I'm assuming that we should do that now. Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager:'Kay. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} With our microphones still attached to our bodies. Okay. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: Gosh. {vocalsound} Project Manager:'Kay, what's my favourite animal? Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Do come up. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Oh, User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {gap} to go first. {vocalsound} Oh, Project Manager: This is a team-building time Industrial Designer: are we all doing it individually? User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: where, um, {vocalsound}, Industrial Designer: Okay, let's stand up and support you {vocalsound} Project Manager: okay cool, um {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: My favourite animal, which changes all the time, okay, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: right now it is an elk. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay. User Interface: An elk? Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: alright, so {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} A vicious {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Project Manager: And it goes like {disfmarker} Yeah it's got like big antlers, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: yeah. Looks kinda like, like it has holly growing out of its head. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Do you have elk where you come from? Project Manager: Yes. Industrial Designer: You do. Project Manager: Yeah Marketing: We have moose too. {vocalsound} Project Manager: we have moose and we have deer. Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Do you have {disfmarker} User Interface: We have sheep. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap}'Kay, um. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sheep. Yeah, Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: cows. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: That's a great elk. Marketing: Uh-oh, we have a good artist. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} User Interface: That is really good. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thanks. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} User Interface: I'm quite {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Project Manager: This is my {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh, very shapely. Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: Brilliant. Project Manager: That's a sketching of my my elk, and it, it is my favourite animal right now,'cause it is a large beautiful majestic creature, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: that um, that um {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: In a way it looks kind of awkward, because it's on spindly legs and it uh {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: But it can really overcome harsh terrain, and although it's gorgeous it's also very dangerous, because it has um strong antlers, and uh it can really combat its enemies, even like it it's a it's an herbivore but, uh, it can really defend itself. Industrial Designer: Mm. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Very nice. Okay. Project Manager: Right. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Right, I'm gonna take minutes while, um, you guys express your favourite animals. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay, I'll go next. I am a big animal lover. like all sorts of animals, but for the moment I'm gonna draw a cat, in memory of my poor cat that died recently. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh. Project Manager: Oh. Industrial Designer: It's gonna be a bit of a strange drawing, but never mind. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Not as artistic as Heather's drawing. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Bit more cartoon style. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: But I like cats because they're so independent, and they always seem to be doing what they want to be doing. Um, but that doesn't mean they're completely not sociable,'cause they enjoy interacting with humans as well, and they seem to enjoy the good things like sunshine and, um, running around outside as well as being inside, and enjoying their food, and generally just, they just seemed so cool and {vocalsound} they just know what they're doing. User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Uh I reckon they're sort of, they got it sorted. They know what they want. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Basically, that's why I like cats. {vocalsound} User Interface: Very good. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Great. Industrial Designer: {gap} I'll rub that out. There you go. {vocalsound} User Interface: Okay. I think my favourite animal would be a dog, but I'm not really sure {vocalsound} how to draw one. Industrial Designer: Ooh. User Interface: I, I've never drawn a dog, I don't think. I'm tempted to draw a snail'cause I draw them sometimes {vocalsound} and they're really easy to draw. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: Um, Project Manager: I forget her name. User Interface: right it's gonna be a really funny dog,'cause I'm not sure how to draw a dog. Marketing: Tara Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: or Tara. Industrial Designer: Well there are loads of different types of dogs, so I'm sure it'll represent one kind of dog. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a cartoon dog I think. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: A s I don't ev Oh, oh well. {vocalsound} It's a scary cartoon dog. That {disfmarker} This, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: that does not look like a dog. Project Manager: {vocalsound} It looks kinda like a person. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We can pretend. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm sorry. Marketing: {vocalsound} That's Pinocchio. User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} How do you draw a dog? I suppose it has a lon Oh my god. Right. Yous know what it's supposed to be. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a dog. {vocalsound}. Um, I like dogs because, um, they're so good to humans, like they can be trained to be police dogs and seeing-eye dogs, and they're just such friendly animals. And, like they're more of a companion than cats. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that's true. User Interface: {vocalsound} I've nothing against cats. Cats don't really like me, so I can't like them. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} But they're just so friendly and warm and nice animals, Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} that don't look like that. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Alrighty. I feel like a robot. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay. Um, well I guess I had the most time to think about it. I'm going to draw a butterfly, because I saw a butterfly yesterday, that seemed to be like the symbol of Spring arriving. And it was actually the prettiest butterfly I've ever seen out in the wild, and I though that was pretty cool in Scotland. It was like, well it was a little pointier than that. At first I thought it was a dead leaf. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: And then it landed on the wall next to me. But this part was all brown and then it has these big blue dots like this. And then it kinda {disfmarker} there was a green, I think it was a green ring, and there was like red going out like this. Project Manager: It's kinda like a peacock. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah, it kinda was actually,'cause it was {disfmarker} This part of the body was really dull, and then it was the most colourful exotic butterfly ever, and I'm like, wow this is the middle of Scotland in like March. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: So I thought that was pretty cool. And it landed by a wall and let me look at it for about two minutes. I wish I'd had my camera. So that's gonna be my favourite animal because after all the snow it seemed to say that like Spring is finally here. Yeah. Industrial Designer: Very nice. {vocalsound} Marketing: There you go. Project Manager: Great. Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh, what do we {disfmarker} Oh. Project Manager: Do you hear the eraser buzzing while you do that? Marketing: Yes I do. {vocalsound} {gap} Project Manager: Yea {vocalsound} Right. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: So, now that we know how to use the whiteboard, Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: um, the next, um, thing we need to address is our financial department, to meet our our budget, um {disfmarker} or not meet our budget but more, um, like what kind of, uh, selling range we'll be looking at, um, wanna make this um {gap} selling price of twenty five Euros. And so we have to, um, come up with a way to, to create a, a uh remote control, where um we can {disfmarker} like the price to create it will be significantly less. Um, we'd like to, um to, uh, make fifty million Euro. I'm assuming that's what the M_ means. Um, and make it for an international market. Um, one thing we'd have to think about internationally is in the design of, um, like different kinds of, uh, V_C_R_s. Things like that, depending on which country you are. Another thing for the design team to think about. Um, we want it to cost, uh, absolute maximum of twelve Euro and fifty cents. Marketing: Okay, so we'll have a hundred percent profit then? Twelve fifty. Project Manager: I'm bad at math. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager:'Kay. {vocalsound} Um, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: so now that, um, that is underway, um Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: it is discussion time. So this is time for us to bring our initial ideas, any um suggestions that you may have so far, a um your personal experiences with remote controls, and um, um, areas you see that, uh, could be improved in your experience with them. Does anyone have any initial thoughts? Marketing: I find that in the dark it's often hard to know what button you're pushing. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. So what's something we could, uh, do to remedy that? Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {gap} Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: Um {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: I always find that in our house the remote control always goes missing. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: It's always, where is the remote control? User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. Industrial Designer: So maybe if you could have some kind of tracking {vocalsound} device for the remote control or some signal that you could find out where it was. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I dunno, some kind of alarm. You can press a button on your wall, {gap} signal, Project Manager: Yeah. It's a great idea. It's a great idea. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer:'cause it always gets lost. User Interface: Do yous not find that, um, {vocalsound} like, there's a lot of, um, buttons on your remote control, and you don't know what half of them do. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that you don't use half of them. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: Yeah, I don't know what they do. {vocalsound} Marketing: Mm-hmm. There's some remote controls where there's kind of a hidden panel, so all those buttons that you don't really use unless you're programming or something. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that's, that's {disfmarker} Marketing: That's useful. Industrial Designer: Yeah, it is. Yeah. Marketing: So you just have like the number buttons, power button, T_V_ video button. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Alright. Anything about, um, the look of the, uh, remote control that you might have ideas about. Maybe it could be, instead of like a standard rectangular shape, it could be, um, something more interesting like {disfmarker} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Any ideas will do that you have at this point. Industrial Designer: Mm. Marketing: Could be shaped like a conch, Project Manager: {vocalsound} Can hold it. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A novelty. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: you know. Be like a shell-shaped remote. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Are we going into kind of novelty factors here. Like, I've seen phones like a {disfmarker} Project Manager: Well if it's a trendy original, um, aspect we're going for. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: I mean, you're the designers, you c, you can um decide what kind of, um, direction you wanna go in, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Mm-hmm. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: but at this point in the, in the first meeting it can be any ideas that we just throw out there. Industrial Designer: Yeah. I suppose, if we're he heading to have it, like make a huge profit out of this, it needs to be quite a universally accepted thing. Like, a novelty thing might only sell a few things rather than, like, a general kind of more acceptable {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: But we don't wanna go towards boring,'cause that wouldn't sell either. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: So, hmm. Project Manager: And the key issue here is, is being trendy and original. Um, that does not necessarily mean it needs to be outrageous. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah. Project Manager: Right. Okay we have five minutes left. So, just to cover {disfmarker} We have one more thing. Um, like you can go over your ideas, of course, in your own personal times. Um, our next meeting will be in half an hour. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: So you have half an hour to, uh, think about what you want to present. Or not present but bring to the meeting. Um, I_D_, whatever that stands for. Industrial Designer: Industrial Designer. Marketing: Interface? Project Manager: Industrial Designer. Industrial Designer: That's me. {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh, industrial. Project Manager: I have to remember these things. Um. You'll be beginning your, your working design. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um, U_I_D_ the technical functions design will, will be worked on the next thirty minutes. Um, {vocalsound} maybe how this can be achieved, and, um, we need the user requirements from the manag Marketing Expert. Marketing: Marketing Expert. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Um, you will get specific instructions, um, of what to do in the next half an hour. And I'll see you in half an hour, okay? Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager:'Kay. Industrial Designer: Thank you. User Interface: {gap}

Marketing first talked about the fact that it was often hard to see the buttons in the dark. Industrial Designer followed by pointing out that remotes tend to go missing a lot, and thus a tracking device would be really helpful. User Interface then proposed that there are too many unnecessary buttons on a current remote, and a hidden panel for less used buttons would be useful. Project Manager further suggested that their remote could be some other shape instead of the standard rectangular, while the team reminded her that their product must be both novel and universally acceptable.

tr-sq-698

tr-sq-698_0

What new functions could their remote have based on the team's brainstorming process? Project Manager: Alright, that did nothing. Okay. Welcome to the meeting everyone. Just gonna attempt to make this into a slide show. Sorry guys. Marketing: You may have to do the function F_ eight thing. Project Manager: I did. Twice. Marketing: Oh, okay. {vocalsound} Project Manager: This'll just take a moment. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay okay {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Or it won't. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay we'll have to deal with it like this then. Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Alright. Um. This is the first meeting uh for developing our, our new product. {gap} I'm Heather, I'm your Project Manager. Industrial Designer: Hello. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. So um. So that was the opening. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: The first thing we'll do is get acquainted with one another. If everyone could go around and explain their role and um, and their name. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay. My name's Poppy. I'm the Industrial Designer for this project. Um, I'm going to be responsible for the functional design phase. Also the conceptual design and the detailed design for the final product. Project Manager: Nice to meet you Poppy. Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} My name's Tara and I'm the User Interface Designer. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: I will also be responsible for the functional design phase, the conceptual design phase and the detailed design phase of the user interface design. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Alright. Marketing: Hi, I'm Genevieve. I'm the Marketing Expert. I'm an expert at marketing. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: Um, I'll be telling you guys about the user requirement specifications for our new product. Um, I'll be doing some trend-watching in the conceptual design, and product evaluation for the design phase. Project Manager: Alright I'm Heather and I've I said I'm your Project Manager, um Well you can pretty much read what it is that I'm doing. But um um {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. And uh tool training is one thing that we're going to be doing today, um um as well as planning the project, how we're going to, uh, create this product, and, um, discuss, um, our aims and objects of this, Which brings us to our next subject, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: is, um, um, Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: as a team we're going to be designing and creating a new kind of remote control. Um, we want this to be a marketable product that can be trendy, um, a completely new style, so that, um, can really appeal to a, to a generation that doesn't want a simple plain kind of, uh, channel-changer. And, um, it needs to be user-friendly for, um, maybe, for an example, for people that, um, can't see the numbers as well, or, um, perhaps an ergonomic design. Industrial Designer: Okay. So this is a television remote control? Project Manager: Yes, it's a television remote control. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Right. I believe I should be taking minutes on this right now. So, alright. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Um, yeah. Um, the way that we're going to go about this is, um, we'll have a time where we can, um come up with new ideas alone, and, and work on the project and then, um, after we've brainstormed and, and thought about, we can come together in a meeting and, and discuss what, what um, what kind of functional design we want to use. Same with conceptual design and detailed design. So, um, making sure that it, it's usable, that as a, um {disfmarker} and that it's, it's feasible to create, and uh, to come up with a concept of it want, what we want it to look like. Um, tool training. Is, is everyone, um {disfmarker} {gap} Okay. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Got those notes. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Great. Great. Marketing: Thank you. Project Manager: Um One thing that, uh, we're going to do is become more acquainted with the, the tools that we have access to for our project. Um, one of them is our whiteboard. And, um, as a sort of team-building moment, um, I, I'd like us to, um, try out the whiteboard by expressing our favourite animal and the charac characteristics of that animal. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Um, why that, why that should be your favourite animal. So, um, I, I'm assuming that we should do that now. Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager:'Kay. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} With our microphones still attached to our bodies. Okay. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: Gosh. {vocalsound} Project Manager:'Kay, what's my favourite animal? Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Do come up. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Oh, User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {gap} to go first. {vocalsound} Oh, Project Manager: This is a team-building time Industrial Designer: are we all doing it individually? User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: where, um, {vocalsound}, Industrial Designer: Okay, let's stand up and support you {vocalsound} Project Manager: okay cool, um {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: My favourite animal, which changes all the time, okay, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: right now it is an elk. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay. User Interface: An elk? Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: alright, so {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} A vicious {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Project Manager: And it goes like {disfmarker} Yeah it's got like big antlers, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: yeah. Looks kinda like, like it has holly growing out of its head. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Do you have elk where you come from? Project Manager: Yes. Industrial Designer: You do. Project Manager: Yeah Marketing: We have moose too. {vocalsound} Project Manager: we have moose and we have deer. Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Do you have {disfmarker} User Interface: We have sheep. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap}'Kay, um. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sheep. Yeah, Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: cows. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: That's a great elk. Marketing: Uh-oh, we have a good artist. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} User Interface: That is really good. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thanks. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} User Interface: I'm quite {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Project Manager: This is my {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh, very shapely. Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: Brilliant. Project Manager: That's a sketching of my my elk, and it, it is my favourite animal right now,'cause it is a large beautiful majestic creature, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: that um, that um {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: In a way it looks kind of awkward, because it's on spindly legs and it uh {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: But it can really overcome harsh terrain, and although it's gorgeous it's also very dangerous, because it has um strong antlers, and uh it can really combat its enemies, even like it it's a it's an herbivore but, uh, it can really defend itself. Industrial Designer: Mm. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Very nice. Okay. Project Manager: Right. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Right, I'm gonna take minutes while, um, you guys express your favourite animals. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay, I'll go next. I am a big animal lover. like all sorts of animals, but for the moment I'm gonna draw a cat, in memory of my poor cat that died recently. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh. Project Manager: Oh. Industrial Designer: It's gonna be a bit of a strange drawing, but never mind. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Not as artistic as Heather's drawing. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Bit more cartoon style. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: But I like cats because they're so independent, and they always seem to be doing what they want to be doing. Um, but that doesn't mean they're completely not sociable,'cause they enjoy interacting with humans as well, and they seem to enjoy the good things like sunshine and, um, running around outside as well as being inside, and enjoying their food, and generally just, they just seemed so cool and {vocalsound} they just know what they're doing. User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Uh I reckon they're sort of, they got it sorted. They know what they want. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Basically, that's why I like cats. {vocalsound} User Interface: Very good. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Great. Industrial Designer: {gap} I'll rub that out. There you go. {vocalsound} User Interface: Okay. I think my favourite animal would be a dog, but I'm not really sure {vocalsound} how to draw one. Industrial Designer: Ooh. User Interface: I, I've never drawn a dog, I don't think. I'm tempted to draw a snail'cause I draw them sometimes {vocalsound} and they're really easy to draw. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: Um, Project Manager: I forget her name. User Interface: right it's gonna be a really funny dog,'cause I'm not sure how to draw a dog. Marketing: Tara Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: or Tara. Industrial Designer: Well there are loads of different types of dogs, so I'm sure it'll represent one kind of dog. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a cartoon dog I think. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: A s I don't ev Oh, oh well. {vocalsound} It's a scary cartoon dog. That {disfmarker} This, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: that does not look like a dog. Project Manager: {vocalsound} It looks kinda like a person. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We can pretend. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm sorry. Marketing: {vocalsound} That's Pinocchio. User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} How do you draw a dog? I suppose it has a lon Oh my god. Right. Yous know what it's supposed to be. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a dog. {vocalsound}. Um, I like dogs because, um, they're so good to humans, like they can be trained to be police dogs and seeing-eye dogs, and they're just such friendly animals. And, like they're more of a companion than cats. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that's true. User Interface: {vocalsound} I've nothing against cats. Cats don't really like me, so I can't like them. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} But they're just so friendly and warm and nice animals, Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} that don't look like that. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Alrighty. I feel like a robot. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay. Um, well I guess I had the most time to think about it. I'm going to draw a butterfly, because I saw a butterfly yesterday, that seemed to be like the symbol of Spring arriving. And it was actually the prettiest butterfly I've ever seen out in the wild, and I though that was pretty cool in Scotland. It was like, well it was a little pointier than that. At first I thought it was a dead leaf. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: And then it landed on the wall next to me. But this part was all brown and then it has these big blue dots like this. And then it kinda {disfmarker} there was a green, I think it was a green ring, and there was like red going out like this. Project Manager: It's kinda like a peacock. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah, it kinda was actually,'cause it was {disfmarker} This part of the body was really dull, and then it was the most colourful exotic butterfly ever, and I'm like, wow this is the middle of Scotland in like March. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: So I thought that was pretty cool. And it landed by a wall and let me look at it for about two minutes. I wish I'd had my camera. So that's gonna be my favourite animal because after all the snow it seemed to say that like Spring is finally here. Yeah. Industrial Designer: Very nice. {vocalsound} Marketing: There you go. Project Manager: Great. Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh, what do we {disfmarker} Oh. Project Manager: Do you hear the eraser buzzing while you do that? Marketing: Yes I do. {vocalsound} {gap} Project Manager: Yea {vocalsound} Right. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: So, now that we know how to use the whiteboard, Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: um, the next, um, thing we need to address is our financial department, to meet our our budget, um {disfmarker} or not meet our budget but more, um, like what kind of, uh, selling range we'll be looking at, um, wanna make this um {gap} selling price of twenty five Euros. And so we have to, um, come up with a way to, to create a, a uh remote control, where um we can {disfmarker} like the price to create it will be significantly less. Um, we'd like to, um to, uh, make fifty million Euro. I'm assuming that's what the M_ means. Um, and make it for an international market. Um, one thing we'd have to think about internationally is in the design of, um, like different kinds of, uh, V_C_R_s. Things like that, depending on which country you are. Another thing for the design team to think about. Um, we want it to cost, uh, absolute maximum of twelve Euro and fifty cents. Marketing: Okay, so we'll have a hundred percent profit then? Twelve fifty. Project Manager: I'm bad at math. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager:'Kay. {vocalsound} Um, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: so now that, um, that is underway, um Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: it is discussion time. So this is time for us to bring our initial ideas, any um suggestions that you may have so far, a um your personal experiences with remote controls, and um, um, areas you see that, uh, could be improved in your experience with them. Does anyone have any initial thoughts? Marketing: I find that in the dark it's often hard to know what button you're pushing. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. So what's something we could, uh, do to remedy that? Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {gap} Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: Um {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: I always find that in our house the remote control always goes missing. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: It's always, where is the remote control? User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. Industrial Designer: So maybe if you could have some kind of tracking {vocalsound} device for the remote control or some signal that you could find out where it was. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I dunno, some kind of alarm. You can press a button on your wall, {gap} signal, Project Manager: Yeah. It's a great idea. It's a great idea. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer:'cause it always gets lost. User Interface: Do yous not find that, um, {vocalsound} like, there's a lot of, um, buttons on your remote control, and you don't know what half of them do. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that you don't use half of them. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: Yeah, I don't know what they do. {vocalsound} Marketing: Mm-hmm. There's some remote controls where there's kind of a hidden panel, so all those buttons that you don't really use unless you're programming or something. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that's, that's {disfmarker} Marketing: That's useful. Industrial Designer: Yeah, it is. Yeah. Marketing: So you just have like the number buttons, power button, T_V_ video button. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Alright. Anything about, um, the look of the, uh, remote control that you might have ideas about. Maybe it could be, instead of like a standard rectangular shape, it could be, um, something more interesting like {disfmarker} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Any ideas will do that you have at this point. Industrial Designer: Mm. Marketing: Could be shaped like a conch, Project Manager: {vocalsound} Can hold it. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A novelty. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: you know. Be like a shell-shaped remote. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Are we going into kind of novelty factors here. Like, I've seen phones like a {disfmarker} Project Manager: Well if it's a trendy original, um, aspect we're going for. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: I mean, you're the designers, you c, you can um decide what kind of, um, direction you wanna go in, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Mm-hmm. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: but at this point in the, in the first meeting it can be any ideas that we just throw out there. Industrial Designer: Yeah. I suppose, if we're he heading to have it, like make a huge profit out of this, it needs to be quite a universally accepted thing. Like, a novelty thing might only sell a few things rather than, like, a general kind of more acceptable {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: But we don't wanna go towards boring,'cause that wouldn't sell either. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: So, hmm. Project Manager: And the key issue here is, is being trendy and original. Um, that does not necessarily mean it needs to be outrageous. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah. Project Manager: Right. Okay we have five minutes left. So, just to cover {disfmarker} We have one more thing. Um, like you can go over your ideas, of course, in your own personal times. Um, our next meeting will be in half an hour. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: So you have half an hour to, uh, think about what you want to present. Or not present but bring to the meeting. Um, I_D_, whatever that stands for. Industrial Designer: Industrial Designer. Marketing: Interface? Project Manager: Industrial Designer. Industrial Designer: That's me. {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh, industrial. Project Manager: I have to remember these things. Um. You'll be beginning your, your working design. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um, U_I_D_ the technical functions design will, will be worked on the next thirty minutes. Um, {vocalsound} maybe how this can be achieved, and, um, we need the user requirements from the manag Marketing Expert. Marketing: Marketing Expert. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Um, you will get specific instructions, um, of what to do in the next half an hour. And I'll see you in half an hour, okay? Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager:'Kay. Industrial Designer: Thank you. User Interface: {gap}

One function could be to let the buttons be distinguishable even in the dark, so that one could use the remote whether there was light or not. Another function could be to track the remote when it goes lost, probably realized through some kind of alarm on the remote and a button installed somewhere else. One last proposed function was to design a hidden panel for the remote, containing all the less used buttons so that they wouldn't take up too much space on the main panel and confuse the user.

tr-sq-699

tr-sq-699_0

When brainstorming, what was the team's opinion on giving the remote a novel shape? Project Manager: Alright, that did nothing. Okay. Welcome to the meeting everyone. Just gonna attempt to make this into a slide show. Sorry guys. Marketing: You may have to do the function F_ eight thing. Project Manager: I did. Twice. Marketing: Oh, okay. {vocalsound} Project Manager: This'll just take a moment. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay okay {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Or it won't. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay we'll have to deal with it like this then. Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Alright. Um. This is the first meeting uh for developing our, our new product. {gap} I'm Heather, I'm your Project Manager. Industrial Designer: Hello. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. So um. So that was the opening. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: The first thing we'll do is get acquainted with one another. If everyone could go around and explain their role and um, and their name. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay. My name's Poppy. I'm the Industrial Designer for this project. Um, I'm going to be responsible for the functional design phase. Also the conceptual design and the detailed design for the final product. Project Manager: Nice to meet you Poppy. Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} My name's Tara and I'm the User Interface Designer. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: I will also be responsible for the functional design phase, the conceptual design phase and the detailed design phase of the user interface design. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Alright. Marketing: Hi, I'm Genevieve. I'm the Marketing Expert. I'm an expert at marketing. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: Um, I'll be telling you guys about the user requirement specifications for our new product. Um, I'll be doing some trend-watching in the conceptual design, and product evaluation for the design phase. Project Manager: Alright I'm Heather and I've I said I'm your Project Manager, um Well you can pretty much read what it is that I'm doing. But um um {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. And uh tool training is one thing that we're going to be doing today, um um as well as planning the project, how we're going to, uh, create this product, and, um, discuss, um, our aims and objects of this, Which brings us to our next subject, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: is, um, um, Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: as a team we're going to be designing and creating a new kind of remote control. Um, we want this to be a marketable product that can be trendy, um, a completely new style, so that, um, can really appeal to a, to a generation that doesn't want a simple plain kind of, uh, channel-changer. And, um, it needs to be user-friendly for, um, maybe, for an example, for people that, um, can't see the numbers as well, or, um, perhaps an ergonomic design. Industrial Designer: Okay. So this is a television remote control? Project Manager: Yes, it's a television remote control. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Right. I believe I should be taking minutes on this right now. So, alright. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Um, yeah. Um, the way that we're going to go about this is, um, we'll have a time where we can, um come up with new ideas alone, and, and work on the project and then, um, after we've brainstormed and, and thought about, we can come together in a meeting and, and discuss what, what um, what kind of functional design we want to use. Same with conceptual design and detailed design. So, um, making sure that it, it's usable, that as a, um {disfmarker} and that it's, it's feasible to create, and uh, to come up with a concept of it want, what we want it to look like. Um, tool training. Is, is everyone, um {disfmarker} {gap} Okay. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Got those notes. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Great. Great. Marketing: Thank you. Project Manager: Um One thing that, uh, we're going to do is become more acquainted with the, the tools that we have access to for our project. Um, one of them is our whiteboard. And, um, as a sort of team-building moment, um, I, I'd like us to, um, try out the whiteboard by expressing our favourite animal and the charac characteristics of that animal. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Um, why that, why that should be your favourite animal. So, um, I, I'm assuming that we should do that now. Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager:'Kay. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} With our microphones still attached to our bodies. Okay. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: Gosh. {vocalsound} Project Manager:'Kay, what's my favourite animal? Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Do come up. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Oh, User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {gap} to go first. {vocalsound} Oh, Project Manager: This is a team-building time Industrial Designer: are we all doing it individually? User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: where, um, {vocalsound}, Industrial Designer: Okay, let's stand up and support you {vocalsound} Project Manager: okay cool, um {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: My favourite animal, which changes all the time, okay, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: right now it is an elk. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay. User Interface: An elk? Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: alright, so {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} A vicious {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Project Manager: And it goes like {disfmarker} Yeah it's got like big antlers, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: yeah. Looks kinda like, like it has holly growing out of its head. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Do you have elk where you come from? Project Manager: Yes. Industrial Designer: You do. Project Manager: Yeah Marketing: We have moose too. {vocalsound} Project Manager: we have moose and we have deer. Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Do you have {disfmarker} User Interface: We have sheep. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap}'Kay, um. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sheep. Yeah, Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: cows. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: That's a great elk. Marketing: Uh-oh, we have a good artist. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} User Interface: That is really good. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thanks. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} User Interface: I'm quite {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Project Manager: This is my {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh, very shapely. Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: Brilliant. Project Manager: That's a sketching of my my elk, and it, it is my favourite animal right now,'cause it is a large beautiful majestic creature, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: that um, that um {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: In a way it looks kind of awkward, because it's on spindly legs and it uh {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: But it can really overcome harsh terrain, and although it's gorgeous it's also very dangerous, because it has um strong antlers, and uh it can really combat its enemies, even like it it's a it's an herbivore but, uh, it can really defend itself. Industrial Designer: Mm. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Very nice. Okay. Project Manager: Right. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Right, I'm gonna take minutes while, um, you guys express your favourite animals. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay, I'll go next. I am a big animal lover. like all sorts of animals, but for the moment I'm gonna draw a cat, in memory of my poor cat that died recently. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh. Project Manager: Oh. Industrial Designer: It's gonna be a bit of a strange drawing, but never mind. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Not as artistic as Heather's drawing. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Bit more cartoon style. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: But I like cats because they're so independent, and they always seem to be doing what they want to be doing. Um, but that doesn't mean they're completely not sociable,'cause they enjoy interacting with humans as well, and they seem to enjoy the good things like sunshine and, um, running around outside as well as being inside, and enjoying their food, and generally just, they just seemed so cool and {vocalsound} they just know what they're doing. User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Uh I reckon they're sort of, they got it sorted. They know what they want. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Basically, that's why I like cats. {vocalsound} User Interface: Very good. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Great. Industrial Designer: {gap} I'll rub that out. There you go. {vocalsound} User Interface: Okay. I think my favourite animal would be a dog, but I'm not really sure {vocalsound} how to draw one. Industrial Designer: Ooh. User Interface: I, I've never drawn a dog, I don't think. I'm tempted to draw a snail'cause I draw them sometimes {vocalsound} and they're really easy to draw. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: Um, Project Manager: I forget her name. User Interface: right it's gonna be a really funny dog,'cause I'm not sure how to draw a dog. Marketing: Tara Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: or Tara. Industrial Designer: Well there are loads of different types of dogs, so I'm sure it'll represent one kind of dog. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a cartoon dog I think. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: A s I don't ev Oh, oh well. {vocalsound} It's a scary cartoon dog. That {disfmarker} This, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: that does not look like a dog. Project Manager: {vocalsound} It looks kinda like a person. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We can pretend. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm sorry. Marketing: {vocalsound} That's Pinocchio. User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} How do you draw a dog? I suppose it has a lon Oh my god. Right. Yous know what it's supposed to be. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a dog. {vocalsound}. Um, I like dogs because, um, they're so good to humans, like they can be trained to be police dogs and seeing-eye dogs, and they're just such friendly animals. And, like they're more of a companion than cats. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that's true. User Interface: {vocalsound} I've nothing against cats. Cats don't really like me, so I can't like them. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} But they're just so friendly and warm and nice animals, Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} that don't look like that. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Alrighty. I feel like a robot. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay. Um, well I guess I had the most time to think about it. I'm going to draw a butterfly, because I saw a butterfly yesterday, that seemed to be like the symbol of Spring arriving. And it was actually the prettiest butterfly I've ever seen out in the wild, and I though that was pretty cool in Scotland. It was like, well it was a little pointier than that. At first I thought it was a dead leaf. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: And then it landed on the wall next to me. But this part was all brown and then it has these big blue dots like this. And then it kinda {disfmarker} there was a green, I think it was a green ring, and there was like red going out like this. Project Manager: It's kinda like a peacock. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah, it kinda was actually,'cause it was {disfmarker} This part of the body was really dull, and then it was the most colourful exotic butterfly ever, and I'm like, wow this is the middle of Scotland in like March. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: So I thought that was pretty cool. And it landed by a wall and let me look at it for about two minutes. I wish I'd had my camera. So that's gonna be my favourite animal because after all the snow it seemed to say that like Spring is finally here. Yeah. Industrial Designer: Very nice. {vocalsound} Marketing: There you go. Project Manager: Great. Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh, what do we {disfmarker} Oh. Project Manager: Do you hear the eraser buzzing while you do that? Marketing: Yes I do. {vocalsound} {gap} Project Manager: Yea {vocalsound} Right. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: So, now that we know how to use the whiteboard, Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: um, the next, um, thing we need to address is our financial department, to meet our our budget, um {disfmarker} or not meet our budget but more, um, like what kind of, uh, selling range we'll be looking at, um, wanna make this um {gap} selling price of twenty five Euros. And so we have to, um, come up with a way to, to create a, a uh remote control, where um we can {disfmarker} like the price to create it will be significantly less. Um, we'd like to, um to, uh, make fifty million Euro. I'm assuming that's what the M_ means. Um, and make it for an international market. Um, one thing we'd have to think about internationally is in the design of, um, like different kinds of, uh, V_C_R_s. Things like that, depending on which country you are. Another thing for the design team to think about. Um, we want it to cost, uh, absolute maximum of twelve Euro and fifty cents. Marketing: Okay, so we'll have a hundred percent profit then? Twelve fifty. Project Manager: I'm bad at math. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager:'Kay. {vocalsound} Um, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: so now that, um, that is underway, um Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: it is discussion time. So this is time for us to bring our initial ideas, any um suggestions that you may have so far, a um your personal experiences with remote controls, and um, um, areas you see that, uh, could be improved in your experience with them. Does anyone have any initial thoughts? Marketing: I find that in the dark it's often hard to know what button you're pushing. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. So what's something we could, uh, do to remedy that? Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {gap} Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: Um {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: I always find that in our house the remote control always goes missing. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: It's always, where is the remote control? User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. Industrial Designer: So maybe if you could have some kind of tracking {vocalsound} device for the remote control or some signal that you could find out where it was. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I dunno, some kind of alarm. You can press a button on your wall, {gap} signal, Project Manager: Yeah. It's a great idea. It's a great idea. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer:'cause it always gets lost. User Interface: Do yous not find that, um, {vocalsound} like, there's a lot of, um, buttons on your remote control, and you don't know what half of them do. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that you don't use half of them. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: Yeah, I don't know what they do. {vocalsound} Marketing: Mm-hmm. There's some remote controls where there's kind of a hidden panel, so all those buttons that you don't really use unless you're programming or something. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that's, that's {disfmarker} Marketing: That's useful. Industrial Designer: Yeah, it is. Yeah. Marketing: So you just have like the number buttons, power button, T_V_ video button. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Alright. Anything about, um, the look of the, uh, remote control that you might have ideas about. Maybe it could be, instead of like a standard rectangular shape, it could be, um, something more interesting like {disfmarker} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Any ideas will do that you have at this point. Industrial Designer: Mm. Marketing: Could be shaped like a conch, Project Manager: {vocalsound} Can hold it. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A novelty. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: you know. Be like a shell-shaped remote. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Are we going into kind of novelty factors here. Like, I've seen phones like a {disfmarker} Project Manager: Well if it's a trendy original, um, aspect we're going for. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: I mean, you're the designers, you c, you can um decide what kind of, um, direction you wanna go in, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Mm-hmm. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: but at this point in the, in the first meeting it can be any ideas that we just throw out there. Industrial Designer: Yeah. I suppose, if we're he heading to have it, like make a huge profit out of this, it needs to be quite a universally accepted thing. Like, a novelty thing might only sell a few things rather than, like, a general kind of more acceptable {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: But we don't wanna go towards boring,'cause that wouldn't sell either. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: So, hmm. Project Manager: And the key issue here is, is being trendy and original. Um, that does not necessarily mean it needs to be outrageous. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah. Project Manager: Right. Okay we have five minutes left. So, just to cover {disfmarker} We have one more thing. Um, like you can go over your ideas, of course, in your own personal times. Um, our next meeting will be in half an hour. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: So you have half an hour to, uh, think about what you want to present. Or not present but bring to the meeting. Um, I_D_, whatever that stands for. Industrial Designer: Industrial Designer. Marketing: Interface? Project Manager: Industrial Designer. Industrial Designer: That's me. {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh, industrial. Project Manager: I have to remember these things. Um. You'll be beginning your, your working design. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um, U_I_D_ the technical functions design will, will be worked on the next thirty minutes. Um, {vocalsound} maybe how this can be achieved, and, um, we need the user requirements from the manag Marketing Expert. Marketing: Marketing Expert. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Um, you will get specific instructions, um, of what to do in the next half an hour. And I'll see you in half an hour, okay? Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager:'Kay. Industrial Designer: Thank you. User Interface: {gap}

The idea of giving the remote a novel shape instead of the standard rectangular was first raised by Project Manager. Marketing proposed a possible shell shape for the remote. Industrial checked whether they were going into novelty factors because the remote still had to be universally acceptable if they wanted it to sell. Yet it couldn't be too boring, so it would be key for the team to figure out a way for the remote to be trendy and original, but at the same time not too outrageous.

tr-gq-700

tr-gq-700_0

Summarize the whole meeting. Project Manager: Alright, that did nothing. Okay. Welcome to the meeting everyone. Just gonna attempt to make this into a slide show. Sorry guys. Marketing: You may have to do the function F_ eight thing. Project Manager: I did. Twice. Marketing: Oh, okay. {vocalsound} Project Manager: This'll just take a moment. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay okay {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Or it won't. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay we'll have to deal with it like this then. Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Alright. Um. This is the first meeting uh for developing our, our new product. {gap} I'm Heather, I'm your Project Manager. Industrial Designer: Hello. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Okay. So um. So that was the opening. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: The first thing we'll do is get acquainted with one another. If everyone could go around and explain their role and um, and their name. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay. My name's Poppy. I'm the Industrial Designer for this project. Um, I'm going to be responsible for the functional design phase. Also the conceptual design and the detailed design for the final product. Project Manager: Nice to meet you Poppy. Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} My name's Tara and I'm the User Interface Designer. Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: I will also be responsible for the functional design phase, the conceptual design phase and the detailed design phase of the user interface design. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Alright. Marketing: Hi, I'm Genevieve. I'm the Marketing Expert. I'm an expert at marketing. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: Um, I'll be telling you guys about the user requirement specifications for our new product. Um, I'll be doing some trend-watching in the conceptual design, and product evaluation for the design phase. Project Manager: Alright I'm Heather and I've I said I'm your Project Manager, um Well you can pretty much read what it is that I'm doing. But um um {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. And uh tool training is one thing that we're going to be doing today, um um as well as planning the project, how we're going to, uh, create this product, and, um, discuss, um, our aims and objects of this, Which brings us to our next subject, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: is, um, um, Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: as a team we're going to be designing and creating a new kind of remote control. Um, we want this to be a marketable product that can be trendy, um, a completely new style, so that, um, can really appeal to a, to a generation that doesn't want a simple plain kind of, uh, channel-changer. And, um, it needs to be user-friendly for, um, maybe, for an example, for people that, um, can't see the numbers as well, or, um, perhaps an ergonomic design. Industrial Designer: Okay. So this is a television remote control? Project Manager: Yes, it's a television remote control. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Right. I believe I should be taking minutes on this right now. So, alright. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: Um, yeah. Um, the way that we're going to go about this is, um, we'll have a time where we can, um come up with new ideas alone, and, and work on the project and then, um, after we've brainstormed and, and thought about, we can come together in a meeting and, and discuss what, what um, what kind of functional design we want to use. Same with conceptual design and detailed design. So, um, making sure that it, it's usable, that as a, um {disfmarker} and that it's, it's feasible to create, and uh, to come up with a concept of it want, what we want it to look like. Um, tool training. Is, is everyone, um {disfmarker} {gap} Okay. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Got those notes. Marketing: Yeah. Project Manager: Great. Great. Marketing: Thank you. Project Manager: Um One thing that, uh, we're going to do is become more acquainted with the, the tools that we have access to for our project. Um, one of them is our whiteboard. And, um, as a sort of team-building moment, um, I, I'd like us to, um, try out the whiteboard by expressing our favourite animal and the charac characteristics of that animal. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Um, why that, why that should be your favourite animal. So, um, I, I'm assuming that we should do that now. Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager:'Kay. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} With our microphones still attached to our bodies. Okay. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: Gosh. {vocalsound} Project Manager:'Kay, what's my favourite animal? Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Do come up. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Oh, User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {gap} to go first. {vocalsound} Oh, Project Manager: This is a team-building time Industrial Designer: are we all doing it individually? User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} Project Manager: where, um, {vocalsound}, Industrial Designer: Okay, let's stand up and support you {vocalsound} Project Manager: okay cool, um {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: My favourite animal, which changes all the time, okay, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: right now it is an elk. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay. User Interface: An elk? Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: alright, so {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} A vicious {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Project Manager: And it goes like {disfmarker} Yeah it's got like big antlers, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: yeah. Looks kinda like, like it has holly growing out of its head. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Do you have elk where you come from? Project Manager: Yes. Industrial Designer: You do. Project Manager: Yeah Marketing: We have moose too. {vocalsound} Project Manager: we have moose and we have deer. Industrial Designer: Okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Do you have {disfmarker} User Interface: We have sheep. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap}'Kay, um. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sheep. Yeah, Marketing: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: cows. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: That's a great elk. Marketing: Uh-oh, we have a good artist. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} User Interface: That is really good. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thanks. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} User Interface: I'm quite {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Project Manager: This is my {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh, very shapely. Project Manager: Okay. Industrial Designer: Brilliant. Project Manager: That's a sketching of my my elk, and it, it is my favourite animal right now,'cause it is a large beautiful majestic creature, User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: that um, that um {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: In a way it looks kind of awkward, because it's on spindly legs and it uh {disfmarker} User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: But it can really overcome harsh terrain, and although it's gorgeous it's also very dangerous, because it has um strong antlers, and uh it can really combat its enemies, even like it it's a it's an herbivore but, uh, it can really defend itself. Industrial Designer: Mm. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Very nice. Okay. Project Manager: Right. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Right, I'm gonna take minutes while, um, you guys express your favourite animals. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Okay, I'll go next. I am a big animal lover. like all sorts of animals, but for the moment I'm gonna draw a cat, in memory of my poor cat that died recently. {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh. Project Manager: Oh. Industrial Designer: It's gonna be a bit of a strange drawing, but never mind. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Not as artistic as Heather's drawing. Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Bit more cartoon style. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: But I like cats because they're so independent, and they always seem to be doing what they want to be doing. Um, but that doesn't mean they're completely not sociable,'cause they enjoy interacting with humans as well, and they seem to enjoy the good things like sunshine and, um, running around outside as well as being inside, and enjoying their food, and generally just, they just seemed so cool and {vocalsound} they just know what they're doing. User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: Uh I reckon they're sort of, they got it sorted. They know what they want. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Basically, that's why I like cats. {vocalsound} User Interface: Very good. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Great. Industrial Designer: {gap} I'll rub that out. There you go. {vocalsound} User Interface: Okay. I think my favourite animal would be a dog, but I'm not really sure {vocalsound} how to draw one. Industrial Designer: Ooh. User Interface: I, I've never drawn a dog, I don't think. I'm tempted to draw a snail'cause I draw them sometimes {vocalsound} and they're really easy to draw. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: Um, Project Manager: I forget her name. User Interface: right it's gonna be a really funny dog,'cause I'm not sure how to draw a dog. Marketing: Tara Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: or Tara. Industrial Designer: Well there are loads of different types of dogs, so I'm sure it'll represent one kind of dog. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a cartoon dog I think. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: A s I don't ev Oh, oh well. {vocalsound} It's a scary cartoon dog. That {disfmarker} This, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} User Interface: that does not look like a dog. Project Manager: {vocalsound} It looks kinda like a person. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We can pretend. {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm sorry. Marketing: {vocalsound} That's Pinocchio. User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} How do you draw a dog? I suppose it has a lon Oh my god. Right. Yous know what it's supposed to be. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay. User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a dog. {vocalsound}. Um, I like dogs because, um, they're so good to humans, like they can be trained to be police dogs and seeing-eye dogs, and they're just such friendly animals. And, like they're more of a companion than cats. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that's true. User Interface: {vocalsound} I've nothing against cats. Cats don't really like me, so I can't like them. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} But they're just so friendly and warm and nice animals, Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: {vocalsound} that don't look like that. {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Alrighty. I feel like a robot. User Interface: {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay. Um, well I guess I had the most time to think about it. I'm going to draw a butterfly, because I saw a butterfly yesterday, that seemed to be like the symbol of Spring arriving. And it was actually the prettiest butterfly I've ever seen out in the wild, and I though that was pretty cool in Scotland. It was like, well it was a little pointier than that. At first I thought it was a dead leaf. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: And then it landed on the wall next to me. But this part was all brown and then it has these big blue dots like this. And then it kinda {disfmarker} there was a green, I think it was a green ring, and there was like red going out like this. Project Manager: It's kinda like a peacock. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: Yeah, it kinda was actually,'cause it was {disfmarker} This part of the body was really dull, and then it was the most colourful exotic butterfly ever, and I'm like, wow this is the middle of Scotland in like March. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: So I thought that was pretty cool. And it landed by a wall and let me look at it for about two minutes. I wish I'd had my camera. So that's gonna be my favourite animal because after all the snow it seemed to say that like Spring is finally here. Yeah. Industrial Designer: Very nice. {vocalsound} Marketing: There you go. Project Manager: Great. Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh, what do we {disfmarker} Oh. Project Manager: Do you hear the eraser buzzing while you do that? Marketing: Yes I do. {vocalsound} {gap} Project Manager: Yea {vocalsound} Right. Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: So, now that we know how to use the whiteboard, Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: um, the next, um, thing we need to address is our financial department, to meet our our budget, um {disfmarker} or not meet our budget but more, um, like what kind of, uh, selling range we'll be looking at, um, wanna make this um {gap} selling price of twenty five Euros. And so we have to, um, come up with a way to, to create a, a uh remote control, where um we can {disfmarker} like the price to create it will be significantly less. Um, we'd like to, um to, uh, make fifty million Euro. I'm assuming that's what the M_ means. Um, and make it for an international market. Um, one thing we'd have to think about internationally is in the design of, um, like different kinds of, uh, V_C_R_s. Things like that, depending on which country you are. Another thing for the design team to think about. Um, we want it to cost, uh, absolute maximum of twelve Euro and fifty cents. Marketing: Okay, so we'll have a hundred percent profit then? Twelve fifty. Project Manager: I'm bad at math. Marketing: Okay. Project Manager:'Kay. {vocalsound} Um, Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: so now that, um, that is underway, um Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Project Manager: it is discussion time. So this is time for us to bring our initial ideas, any um suggestions that you may have so far, a um your personal experiences with remote controls, and um, um, areas you see that, uh, could be improved in your experience with them. Does anyone have any initial thoughts? Marketing: I find that in the dark it's often hard to know what button you're pushing. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. So what's something we could, uh, do to remedy that? Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Marketing: {gap} Industrial Designer: Okay. Marketing: Um {disfmarker} Industrial Designer: I always find that in our house the remote control always goes missing. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: It's always, where is the remote control? User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. Industrial Designer: So maybe if you could have some kind of tracking {vocalsound} device for the remote control or some signal that you could find out where it was. Project Manager: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer: I dunno, some kind of alarm. You can press a button on your wall, {gap} signal, Project Manager: Yeah. It's a great idea. It's a great idea. User Interface: {vocalsound} Industrial Designer:'cause it always gets lost. User Interface: Do yous not find that, um, {vocalsound} like, there's a lot of, um, buttons on your remote control, and you don't know what half of them do. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Marketing: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that you don't use half of them. {vocalsound} Project Manager: {vocalsound} User Interface: Yeah, I don't know what they do. {vocalsound} Marketing: Mm-hmm. There's some remote controls where there's kind of a hidden panel, so all those buttons that you don't really use unless you're programming or something. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah, that's, that's {disfmarker} Marketing: That's useful. Industrial Designer: Yeah, it is. Yeah. Marketing: So you just have like the number buttons, power button, T_V_ video button. User Interface: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: Alright. Anything about, um, the look of the, uh, remote control that you might have ideas about. Maybe it could be, instead of like a standard rectangular shape, it could be, um, something more interesting like {disfmarker} Marketing: {vocalsound} Project Manager: Any ideas will do that you have at this point. Industrial Designer: Mm. Marketing: Could be shaped like a conch, Project Manager: {vocalsound} Can hold it. Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A novelty. User Interface: {vocalsound} Marketing: you know. Be like a shell-shaped remote. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: Are we going into kind of novelty factors here. Like, I've seen phones like a {disfmarker} Project Manager: Well if it's a trendy original, um, aspect we're going for. Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager: I mean, you're the designers, you c, you can um decide what kind of, um, direction you wanna go in, Industrial Designer: Yeah. Mm-hmm. User Interface: Yeah. Project Manager: but at this point in the, in the first meeting it can be any ideas that we just throw out there. Industrial Designer: Yeah. I suppose, if we're he heading to have it, like make a huge profit out of this, it needs to be quite a universally accepted thing. Like, a novelty thing might only sell a few things rather than, like, a general kind of more acceptable {disfmarker} User Interface: Yeah. Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}. Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Industrial Designer: But we don't wanna go towards boring,'cause that wouldn't sell either. Project Manager: Yeah. Industrial Designer: So, hmm. Project Manager: And the key issue here is, is being trendy and original. Um, that does not necessarily mean it needs to be outrageous. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah. Project Manager: Right. Okay we have five minutes left. So, just to cover {disfmarker} We have one more thing. Um, like you can go over your ideas, of course, in your own personal times. Um, our next meeting will be in half an hour. Industrial Designer: Yeah. Project Manager: So you have half an hour to, uh, think about what you want to present. Or not present but bring to the meeting. Um, I_D_, whatever that stands for. Industrial Designer: Industrial Designer. Marketing: Interface? Project Manager: Industrial Designer. Industrial Designer: That's me. {vocalsound} Marketing: Oh, industrial. Project Manager: I have to remember these things. Um. You'll be beginning your, your working design. Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Project Manager: Um, U_I_D_ the technical functions design will, will be worked on the next thirty minutes. Um, {vocalsound} maybe how this can be achieved, and, um, we need the user requirements from the manag Marketing Expert. Marketing: Marketing Expert. {vocalsound} Project Manager: Um, you will get specific instructions, um, of what to do in the next half an hour. And I'll see you in half an hour, okay? Industrial Designer: Okay. Project Manager:'Kay. Industrial Designer: Thank you. User Interface: {gap}

This was the first meeting on the team's project. It started with every member introducing themselves, getting to know each other's names as well as their individual roles in the project. Project Manager then revealed the overall plan for their project, announcing that they were going to design a new television remote that would be both trendy and user-friendly. After that, each person drew their favourite animals on the whiteboard and shared their reasons for the choice, with Project Manager choosing an elk, Industrial Designer a cat, User Interface a dog, and Marketing a butterfly. Project Manager then added some financial details to their plan, setting their selling price and cost. In the following brainstorming time, they raised ideas on night-time operation, a tracking device, and the design for buttons and shape. Finally, Project Manager arranged tasks for each team member to take on until their next meeting.