Automatic Understanding of ATC Speech: Study of Prospectives and Field Experiments for Several Controller Positions

Although there has been a lot of interest in recognizing and understanding air traffic control (ATC) speech, none of the published works have obtained detailed field data results. We have developed a system able to identify the language spoken and recognize and understand sentences in both Spanish and English. We also present field results for several in-tower controller positions. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that field ATC speech (not simulated) is captured, processed, and analyzed. The use of stochastic grammars allows variations in the standard phraseology that appear in field data. The robust understanding algorithm developed has 95% concept accuracy from ATC text input. It also allows changes in the presentation order of the concepts and the correction of errors created by the speech recognition engine improving it by 17% and 25%, respectively, absolute in the percentage of fully correctly understood sentences for English and Spanish in relation to the percentages of fully correctly recognized sentences. The analysis of errors due to the spontaneity of the speech and its comparison to read speech is also carried out. A 96% word accuracy for read speech is reduced to 86% word accuracy for field ATC data for Spanish for the "clearances" task confirming that field data is needed to estimate the performance of a system. A literature review and a critical discussion on the possibilities of speech recognition and understanding technology applied to ATC speech are also given.

An Interleaved EPE-Immune PA-DPL Structure for Resisting Concentrated EM Side Channel Attacks on FPGA Implementation

Early propagation effect (EPE) is a critical problem in conventional dual-rail logic implementations against Side Channel Attacks (SCAs). Among previous EPE-resistant architectures, PA-DPL logic offers EPE-free capability at relatively low cost. However, its separate dual core structure is a weakness when facing concentrated EM attacks where a tiny EM probe can be precisely positioned closer to one of the two cores. In this paper, we present an PA-DPL dual-core interleaved structure to strengthen resistance against sophisticated EM attacks on Xilinx FPGA implementations. The main merit of the proposed structure is that every two routing in each signal pair are kept identical even the dual cores are interleaved together. By minimizing the distance between the complementary routings and instances of both cores, even the concentrated EM measurement cannot easily distinguish the minor EM field unbalance. In PA- DPL, EPE is avoided by compressing the evaluation phase to a small portion of the clock period, therefore, the speed is inevitably limited. Regarding this, we made an improvement to extend the duty cycle of evaluation phase to more than 40 percent, yielding a larger maximum working frequency. The detailed design flow is also presented. We validate the security improvement against EM attack by implementing a simplified AES co-processor in Virtex-5 FPGA.

Mozarabic Chant anechoic recordings for auralization purposes

The Hispanic Rite is the liturgy celebrated by Christians of the Iberian Peninsula before the imposition of the Roman Rite in the mid-eleventh century. As in other early Christian liturgies, music was the core of the Hispanic Rite. This music, known as Mozarabic Chant is one of the richest musical repertoires of the Middle Ages. Currently, a research project is underway involving the restoration of the Hispanic Rite sound, using techniques of acoustic virtual reality. The project aims to perform the auralization of the sound of Mozarabic Chant in his primitive environment, that is, taking into account the acoustic characteristics of the pre-Romanesque churches in their original state. For this purpose, anechoic recordings were made for a number of musical pieces representative of the Mozarabic Chant repertoire. In total eight (8) musical pieces have been recorded and interpreted, each of one, by six (6) different singers. The recordings were made using a spherical array composed by 32 microphones. This paper describes the more relevant aspects related to the recorded musical material, the technical specifications and installation details of the recording equipment, the data processing, and a summary of the results.

Análisis de música grabada : baladas y scherzos de Chopin

Análisis de múltiples grabaciones de las cuatro baladas y los cuatro scherzos de Chopin realizadas por diversos intérpretes. El objetivo del proyecto será determinar las diferencias objetivas existentes entre las diferentes ejecuciones y respecto a una partitura de referencia. OBJETIVOS: Analizar las grabaciones realizadas de obras de Chopin atendiendo a criterios objetivos como el tempo y la dinámica. MÉTODO Y FASES DEL TRABAJO: Se realizará un estudio diferencial para determinar las variaciones de parámetros objetivos existentes en las diferentes grabaciones respecto a una, que será tomada como referencia, mediante herramientas informáticas. MEDIOS: Se utilizarán versiones digitalizadas de las grabaciones y la edición crítica de Jan Ekier (National Edition) de las partituras. Para la realización del análisis se recurrirá al software SonicVisualiser desarrollado por el Centre for Digital Music (Queen Mary, University of London) en conjunto con los plugins destinados al análisis temporal y espectral disponibles. Así mismo, serán utilizadas otras herramientas desarrolladas durante el Mazurka's Project realizado por el Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music para facilitar la visualización de datos en el presente documento. OBJETIVE: To analyze several records from Chopin’s repertoire, according to objective criteria like tempi and dynamics evolution. METHODOLOGY: A differential analysis is going to be made to determine how this criterion differs from every digitalized record to another one stabilized in advance as model. In order to do so, we’ll use software tools as well as auditions to get the best detail. MEDIA: Digital editions of the recordings and the critical edition by Prof. Jan Ekier music scores have been used. We’ve chosen the software tool SonicVisualiser developed by Centre for Digital Music (Queen Mary, University of London) in conjunction with some of the temporal and spectral plugins available for this platform as our main analysis tool. We’ve also used some other tools developed by the Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music to appropriately display some important information in the present document.