一个TTS系统的实现方案

针对TTS技术在一些小型应用上存在着大量占用系统资源,执行速度慢等问题,该文介绍了一个高效而精简的汉语文语转换系统的实现方案。首先介绍了整个系统的设计思想,然后分步介绍了其具体实现。     

基于个性特征的语音合成转换系统设计

文章在分析语音合成、语音转换原理和实现方法的基础上,将这两种技术相结合,设计实现了一种具有更多人类个性特征的语音合成转换系统。完成了基于Microsoft SAPI 5.1的文语转换,设计实现了基于高斯混合模型GMM和残差预测的语音转换系统,并对该系统进行了主客观评价;理论分析和实验结果表明了本文设计系统的有效性。     

Arabic speech synthesis and diacritic recognition

Text-to-speech system (TTS), known also as speech synthesizer, is one of the important technology in the last years due to the expanding field of applications. Several works on speech synthesizer have been made on English and French, whereas many other languages, including Arabic, have been recently taken into consideration. The area of Arabic speech synthesis has not sufficient progress and it is still in its first stage with a low speech quality. In fact, speech synthesis systems face several problems (e.g. speech quality, articulatory effect, etc.). Different methods were proposed to solve these issues, such as the use of large and different unit sizes. This method is mainly implemented with the concatenative approach to improve the speech quality and several works have proved its effectiveness. This paper presents an efficient Arabic TTS system based on statistical parametric approach and non-uniform units speech synthesis. Our system includes a diacritization engine. Modern Arabic text is written without mention the vowels, called also diacritic marks. Unfortunately, these marks are very important to define the right pronunciation of the text which explains the incorporation of the diacritization engine to our system. In this work, we propose a simple approach based on deep neural networks. Deep neural networks are trained to directly predict the diacritic marks and to predict the spectral and prosodic parameters. Furthermore, we propose a new simple stacked neural network approach to improve the accuracy of the acoustic models. Experimental results show that our diacritization system allows the generation of full diacritized text with high precision and our synthesis system produces high-quality speech.     

The impact of information technology on information asymmetry

While much research has been undertaken on the impact and consequences of information systems on direct users of the systems and on their organizations, comparatively little recent work has addressed the impact on users of the information. For instance, accounting is the most widespread quantitative information system in use and one which has been profoundly affected by information technology (IT). Yet, existing studies of the impact of IT on accounting focus only on accountants themselves and internal financial reporting and they ignore external users of accounting information. As a first step toward a broader perspective, this paper empirically examines the effect of IT use on the information asymmetry (IA) between managers and external users by contrasting the role of IT in internal and external reporting. The paper suggests that IA has been aggravated, and IT use has played a role in this exacerbation. The implication is that the effect of IT use in accounting is not confined to accountants and individual organizations but extends to external stakeholders.     

Speech technology and its applications: A technical overview

The first stage of capturing a speech signal is to change it from an acoustic signal into an electrical signal, using microphone and amplifier. This signal must be digitized before the computer can handle it, using sampling techniques.Speech is produced by capturing human speech patterns and analysing them for later reproduction by mechanical means. Text-to-speech synthesis is used in driving voice synthesizers.Speech recognition is based on the matching of frames of speech. Dynamic programming is a significant step forward in speech recognition.An application is currently being developed using speech recognition on a PABX.     

Human error and information systems failure: the case of the London ambulance service computer-aided despatch system project

Human error and systems failure have been two constructs that have become linked in many contexts. In this paper we particularly focus on the issue of failure in relation to that group of software systems known as information systems. We first review the extant theoretical and empirical work on this topic. Then we discuss one particular well-known case — that of the London ambulance service computer-aided despatch system (L ) project — and use it as a particularly cogent example of the features of information systems failure. We maintain that the tendency to analyse information systems failure solely from a technological standpoint is limiting, that the nature of information systems failure is multi-faceted, and hence cannot be adequately understood purely in terms of the immediate problems of systems construction. Our purpose is also to use the generic material on IS failure and the specific details of this particular case study to critique the issues of safety, criticality, human error and risk in relation to systems not currently well considered in relation to these areas.     

Interpreting stale load information

In this paper, we examine the problem of balancing load in a large-scale distributed system when information about server loads may be stale. It is well-known that sending each request to the machine with the apparent lowest load can behave badly in such systems, yet this technique is common in practice. Other systems use round-robin or random selection algorithms that entirely ignore load information or that only use a small subset of the load information. Rather than risk extremely bad performance on one hand or ignore the chance to use load information to improve performance on the other, we develop strategies that interpret load information based on its age. Through simulation, we examine several simple algorithms that use such load interpretation strategies under a range of workloads. Our experiments suggest that by properly interpreting load information, systems can: 1) match the performance of the most aggressive algorithms when load information is fresh relative to the job arrival rate, 2) outperform the best of the other algorithms we examine by as much as 60 percent when information is moderately old, 3) significantly outperform random load distribution when information is older still, and 4) avoid pathological behavior even when information is extremely old.     

Expert systems: A survey of their use in UK business

A number of surveys have been carried out in the past ten years on the use of expert systems in business. This paper compares previous survey findings with a new one undertaken in the Spring of 1994; it finds significant differences in the level of use of expert systems. One thousand companies across the UK were surveyed regarding their use of information systems in general and expert systems in particular, and the results are discussed in this paper. A response rate of 22.5% showed that 50 out of 214 organisations, use expert systems for a variety of applications, ranging from strategic to operational. The analysis identifies users of expert systems by organisation size and industry sector. It also highlights their reasons for use. The paper concludes by identifying the perceived business benefits and the relative costs involved with the purchase or development of an expert system, as identified by the organisations.     

大型信息系统的数据组织

本文根据信息系统对数据的要求，探讨了将数据仓库技术应用于大型信息系统数据组织的一条可行途径，并以“玉烟系统”为例说明了“玉烟系统”中数据仓库的建立，数据转换的方法及提供的应用接口。     

Stages of knowledge management technology in the value shop: the case of police investigation performance

Abstract: This paper is concerned with relationships between the use of information technology at different stages of the knowledge management technology stage model and the performance of police investigation units. The model consists of four stages: officer-to-technology systems, officer-to-officer systems, officer-to-information systems, and officer-to-application systems. The model was applied for information technology business value research, which examines the organizational performance impacts of information technology. In this paper we applied the value configuration of the value shop to describe and measure organizational performance. Based on an empirical study of Norwegian police investigation units, this research found that officer-to-technology systems and officer-to-information systems are the most important systems to improve police investigations in the value shop.     

Putting the ‘theory’ back into grounded theory: guidelines for grounded theory studies in information systems

Over the past decade, there has been increasing interest in the use of grounded theory in information systems research. Grounded theory is a qualitative research method that seeks to develop theory that is grounded in data systematically gathered and analysed. The purpose of this paper is to suggest guidelines for grounded theory studies in information systems. Our guidelines are based on a framework for theorizing in grounded theory studies that focuses on conceptualization and theory scope. Our hope is that the guidelines will help to raise the quality and aspirations of grounded theory studies in information systems.     

GeoMergeP: Geographic Information Integration through Enriched Ontology Matching

The combination of the use of advanced Information and Communication Technology, especially the Internet, to enable new ways of working, with the enhanced provision of information and interactive services accessible over different channels, is the foundation of a new family of information systems. Particularly, this information explosion on the Web, which threatens our ability to manage information, has affected the geographic information systems. Interoperability is a key word here, since it means, an increasing level of cooperation between information sources on national, regional and local levels; and requires new methods to develop interoperable geographic systems. In this paper, an ontology-driven system (GeoMergeP) is described for the semantic integration of geographic information sources. Particularly, we focus on how ontology matching can be enriched through the use of standards for implementing a semi-automatic matching approach. Then, the requirements and steps of the system are illustrated on the ISPRA (Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research) case study. Our preliminary results show that ontology matching can be improved; helping interoperating systems increase reliability of exchanged and shared information.     

An instrument for measuring effectiveness of information systems

The purpose of this study was to apply four methodologies to help understand and measure current information systems—information flows, user needs, utility of information, and user satisfaction. This paper reports on the application for these methodologies. The objective is to recommend an easy-to-use instrument for improving the effectiveness of information systems.It was concluded that methodologies, alone and in combination, are useful for improving information systems alone and in combination. With one exception, the methodologies are easy to learn to use and easy to apply.     

Intelligent support for systems development: The notion and the issues

Enterprise modelling and information systems modelling have traditionally utilized techniques developed in the earlier disciplines of systems analysis and operational analysis. However, these tools have proved insufficient even for information systems modelling and their inadequacies make them less than ideal for enterprise modelling. Furthermore, it has proved difficult to integrate the techniques into a uniform framework representation. Extensive research since the early 1980s has produced support tools for information systems engineering in the academic sector which have generally failed to reach widespread commercial use. Commercially developed integrated support systems aimed at enterprise modelling and information system modelling use traditional techniques, with a lack of formalism. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a technique which overcomes the major inadequacies and which provides an integrating framework to represent both the information and the processing, at enterprise and systems modelling levels of abstraction. The technique is based on the use of a transition network, but extended to represent enterprise and system models in a meaningful way. The use of an intelligent repository, with associated processing of the formally defined requirements, specification and design statements, is novel, and provides the additional support to make the technique amenable to handling the design process from informal to formal specification. The use of a graphical user interface, linked directly to the deductive system and repository, ensures intuitive ease of use.     

Assessing information quality of e-learning systems: a web mining approach

E-learning systems provide a promising solution as an information exchanging channel. Improved technologies could mean faster and easier access to information but do not necessarily ensure the quality of this information; for this reason it is essential to develop valid and reliable methods of quality measurement and carry out careful information quality evaluations. This paper proposes an assessment model for information quality in e-learning systems based on the quality framework we proposed previously: the proposed framework consists of 14 quality dimensions grouped in three quality factors: intrinsic, contextual representation and accessibility. We use the relative importance as a parameter in a linear equation for the measurement scheme. Formerly, we implemented a goal-question-metrics approach to develop a set of quality metrics for the identified quality attributes within the proposed framework. In this paper, the proposed metrics were computed to produce a numerical rating indicating the overall information quality published in a particular e-learning system. The data collection and evaluation processes were automated using a web data extraction technique and results on a case study are discussed. This assessment model could be useful to e-learning systems designers, providers and users as it provides a comprehensive indication of the quality of information in such systems.     

基于XML建设行业信息交换平台的设计与实现

阐述一种建设行业信息交换平台的设计与实现,该平台在制订统一的行业信息交换规范的基础上,采用XML技术及IBM的消息中间件产品Webspere MQ来传送和接收信息,实现了各个单位不同的主机、操作系统、数据库、业务系统之间的数据交换及共享。     

Interoperability in information systems

Abstract. Two operationally autonomous information systems intemperate it system can make use of information contained in the other, or if they exchange transactions. A widely held assumption in this field is that the development interoperability among information systems should preserve the design autumn of the individual information systems in a strong sense. This paper demonstrate that preservation of strong design autonomy is not always possible owing to necessity to resolve semantic hereogeneity among the systems. This neces violation of autonomy calls into question the utility of research on general a tectures and the possibility of general solutions. We suggest some theme certain special cases where we believe feasible and useful computer scie research can be done in this area, and also suggest some implications for standard models of architectures for federated databases.     

Reading the organization: metaphors and information management

Abstract. The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of selected metaphors as a way of reading organizations, and to relate this to elements of the practice of information management A brief outline of the philosophical basis of the metaphorical approach is given. This is followed by a detailed discussion of the metaphors of organizations as cultures and political systems. These metaphors are then related to a specific issue in information management, namely the development and implementation of information systems strategy. Finally, some conclusions are drawn on the value of a metaphorical approach for information management.     

Interpretive case studies in IS research: nature and method

There has been an increase in recent years in the number of in-depth case studies which focus on human actions and interpretations surrounding the development and use of computer-based information systems (IS). This paper addresses philosophical and theoretical issues concerning the nature of such interpretive case studies, and methodological issues on the conduct and reporting of this type of research. The paper aims to provide a useful reference point for researchers who wish to work in the interpretive tradition, and more generally to encourage careful work on the conceptualisation and execution of case studies in the information systems field.