Recently, there have been many modern speech technologies, including those of speech synthesis and recognition, developed
to help people with disabilities. While most of such technologies have successfully been applied to process speech of normal
speakers, they may not be effective for speakers with speech disorder, depending on their severity. This paper proposes an
automated method to preliminarily assess the ability of a speaker in pronouncing a word. Based on signal features, an indicator
called pronouncibility index (Π) is introduced to express speech quality with two complementary measures, called distance-based and confusion-based factors.
In the distance-based factor, the 1-norm, 2-norm and 3-norm distance are investigated while boundary-based and Gaussian-based
approaches are introduced for confusion-based factors. The Π is used to estimate performance of speech recognition when it
is applied to recognize speech of a dysarthric speaker. Three measures are applied to evaluate the effectiveness of Π, rank-order inconsistency, correlation coefficient, and root-mean-square of difference. The evaluations had been done by comparing its predicted recognition rates with ones predicted by the standard methods called
the articulatory and intelligibility tests based on the two recognition systems (HMM and ANN). For the phoneme-test set (the training set), Π outperforms the articulatory
and intelligibility tests in all three evaluations. The performance of Π decreases for the device-control set (the test set),
and the intelligibility test becomes the best method followed by Π and the articulatory test. In general, Π is a promising
indicator for predicting recognition rate with comparison to the standard assessments. 相似文献
Hot embossing, a polymer molding process conceived by Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, is one of the established replication processes for microstructures The process is especially well suited for manufacturing small and medium series of microcomponents (SPIE Conference 1997; Polymer News 25:224–229, 2000; J Micromech Microeng 14:R1–14, 2004; Sensors Actuators 3:130–135, 2000). However, a wider application of the process currently is seriously hampered by the lack of adequate simulation tools for process optimization and part design. This situation is becoming more critical, as the dimension of the microstructures shrink from micron and submicron levels to the nanoscale and as productivity requirements dictate the enlargement of formats to process larger numbers of devices in parallel. Based on the current scientific work (Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, FZKA-Bericht 7058 2003; DTIP Conference Montreux 2004; Microsystem Tech 10:432–437 2004), a German–Canadian cooperation has been started. The objective of this cooperation is to fill the gap mentioned above by developing reliable computer models and simulation tools for the hot embossing process and to incorporate these models in a user-friendly computer code. The present paper will give an overview of the activities in the project. The activities related to material characterization, especially the development of a viscoelastic material model, the characterization of friction between polymer and mold during demolding, the development of an 8-in. microstructured mold, and the fabrication of nanostructured molds will be discussed.
Protection of Metals and Physical Chemistry of Surfaces - Chromium oxide thin films were grown on Al2O3 substrates by ablating a pure Cr2O3 target using a KrF excimer laser. The energy density on... 相似文献