Unsupervised speaker adaptation for telephone call transcription

The use of the PC and Internet for placing telephone calls will present new opportunities to capture vast amounts of un-transcribed speech for a particular speaker. This paper investigates how to best exploit this data for speaker-dependent speech recognition. Supervised and unsupervised experiments in acoustic model and language model adaptation are presented. Using one hour of automatically transcribed speech per speaker with a word error rate of 36.0%, unsupervised adaptation resulted in an absolute gain of 6.3%, equivalent to 70% of the gain from the supervised case, with additional adaptation data likely to yield further improvements. LM adaptation experiments suggested that although there seems to be a small degree of speaker idiolect, adaptation to the speaker alone, without considering the topic of the conversation, is in itself unlikely to improve transcription accuracy.

Treadmill adaptation and verification of self-selected walking speed : a protocol for children

The term self-selected (i.e., individual or comfortable walking pace or speed) is commonly used in the literature (Frost, Dowling, Bar-Or, & Dyson, 1997; Jeng, Liao, Lai, & Hou, 1997; Wergel-Kolmert & Wohlfart, 1999; Maltais, Bar-Or, Pienynowski, & Galea, 2003; Browning & Kram, 2005; Browning, Baker, Herron, & Kram, 2006; Hills, Byrne, Wearing, & Armstrong, 2006) and is identified as the most efficient walking speed, with increased efficiency defined by lower oxygen uptake (VO^sub 2^) per unit mechanical work (Hoyt & Taylor, 1981; Taylor, Heglund, & Maloiy, 1982; Hreljac, 1993). [...] assessing individual and group differences in metabolic energy expenditure using oxygen uptake requires individuals to be comfortable with, and able to accommodate to, the equipment.

Adaptation to global warming by changing internal loads of buildings

Global warming can have a significant impact on the building thermal environment and energy performance. Because greenhouse gas concentrations are still continuing to increase, this warming process will continue and may accelerate. Adaptation to global warming is therefore emerging as one of the key requirements for buildings. This requires all the existing and new buildings not only to perform and operate satisfactorily in the new environment but also to satisfy the environmental performance criteria of sustainability. Through a parametric study using the building simulation technique, this paper investigates the adaptation potential of changing the building internal load densities to the future global warming. Case studies for office buildings in major Australian capital cities are presented. Based on the results of parametric study, possible adaptation strategies are also proposed and evaluated.

Adaptation of Sudanese refugees in an Australian context : investigating helps and hindrances

The present study investigates the experiences of Sudanese refugees by exploring the themes that characterise participants’ experiences in Sudan, en route, and at their Australian destination. In particular, the research identifies several factors that may be seen as ‘helps’ or ‘hindrances’ to Sudanese refugees’ adaptation. Participants were 12 Sudanese refugees aged between 19 and 40 years who had been residing in Australia for five years or less. A qualitative phenomenological approach to data collection and analysis was employed. Examination of the interview transcripts revealed that all participants identified both ‘hindrances’ and ‘helps’ toward adaptation and indicated that positive adaptation is not only possible, but probable for Sudanese refugees in spite of their past experiences of trauma and present resettlement difficulties. Several practical implications were elicited from the research including a need for programs that actively promote refugees’ adaptation by encouraging the broadening of social networks.

Bacterial proteases from the intracellular vacuole niche ; protease conservation and adaptation for pathogenic advantage

Proteases with important roles for bacterial pathogens which specifically reside within intracellular vacuoles are frequently homologous to those which have important virulence functions for other bacteria. Research has identified that some of these conserved proteases have evolved specialised functions for intracellular vacuole residing bacteria. Unique proteases with pathogenic functions have also been described from Chlamydia, Mycobacteria, and Legionella. These findings suggest that there are further novel functions for proteases from these bacteria which remain to be described. This review summarises recent findings of novel protease functions from the intracellular human pathogenic bacteria which reside exclusively in vacuoles.

Reading the play : adaptation by prediction of agent motion

An adaptive agent improves its performance by learning from experience. This paper describes an approach to adaptation based on modelling dynamic elements of the environment in order to make predictions of likely future state. This approach is akin to an elite sports player being able to “read the play”, allowing for decisions to be made based on predictions of likely future outcomes. Modelling of the agent‟s likely future state is performed using Markov Chains and a technique called “Motion and Occupancy Grids”. The experiments in this paper compare the performance of the planning system with and without the use of this predictive model. The results of the study demonstrate a surprising decrease in performance when using the predictions of agent occupancy. The results are derived from statistical analysis of the agent‟s performance in a high fidelity simulation of a world leading real robot soccer team.

RAP-A Indigenous supplement : guidelines for the adaptation and implementation of the RAP Program for indigenous adolescents

The RAP-A Indigenous supplement has been designed to provide guidelines for the Adaptation and implementation of the RAP Program for indigenous adolescents. It describes a variety of adaptations that have been made to RAP-A to make it more suitable for indigenous teenagers.