Paralinguistics in speech and language—State-of-the-art and the challenge

Paralinguistic analysis is increasingly turning into a mainstream topic in speech and language processing. This article aims to provide a broad overview of the constantly growing field by defining the field, introducing typical applications, presenting exemplary resources, and sharing a unified view of the chain of processing. It then presents the first broader Paralinguistic Challenge organised at INTERSPEECH 2010 by the authors including a historical overview of the Challenge tasks of recognising age, gender, and affect, a summary of methods used by the participants, and their results. In addition, we present the new benchmark obtained by fusion of participants’ predictions and conclude by discussing ten recent and emerging trends in the analysis of paralinguistics in speech and language.     

Influence of initiator on the curing of unsaturated polyester resin at 100 °C

Sheet molding compound (SMC) parts are fiber‐reinforced unsaturated polyester (UP) composites molded at 140–170 °C under a pressure of 60–100 bar. For economic and ecological reasons, the aim of this research project is to develop new SMC formulations to modify the molding conditions. For this, SMC formulations were modified and optimized to decrease the molding temperature to 100 °C. The strategy was to change the catalytic system (peroxides) in order to obtain highly reactive formulations at 100 °C. First, the temperatures of initiation of the reaction were determined by rheological and DSC measurements for each peroxide. Second, the UP resin crosslinking kinetics were measured for the various peroxides during an isothermal curing at 100 °C. The results obtained with the three experimental methods are compared and discussed. Finally, the laboratory analyses were validated by SMC molding trials. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry     

Being bored? Recognising natural interest by extensive audiovisual integration for real-life application

Automatic detection of the level of human interest is of high relevance for many technical applications, such as automatic customer care or tutoring systems. However, the recognition of spontaneous interest in natural conversations independently of the subject remains a challenge. Identification of human affective states relying on single modalities only is often impossible, even for humans, since different modalities contain partially disjunctive cues. Multimodal approaches to human affect recognition generally are shown to boost recognition performance, yet are evaluated in restrictive laboratory settings only. Herein we introduce a fully automatic processing combination of Active–Appearance–Model-based facial expression, vision-based eye-activity estimation, acoustic features, linguistic analysis, non-linguistic vocalisations, and temporal context information in an early feature fusion process. We provide detailed subject-independent results for classification and regression of the Level of Interest using Support-Vector Machines on an audiovisual interest corpus (AVIC) consisting of spontaneous, conversational speech demonstrating “theoretical” effectiveness of the approach. Further, to evaluate the approach with regards to real-life usability a user-study is conducted for proof of “practical” effectiveness.     

VHCF properties of nitrided 18Ni maraging steel thin sheets with different Co and Ti content

High cycle fatigue (HCF) and very high cycle fatigue (VHCF) properties of two 18Ni maraging steels with different cobalt and titanium content and similar static strength are investigated. Ultrasonic fatigue tests are performed with thin sheets with nitrided surfaces at load ratio R = 0.1. The specimens are mounted on a carrier and are forced to joint vibrations at approximately 20 kHz. The increase of Co content and the elimination of Ti improved the HCF and VHCF strength of 18Ni maraging steel. TiN inclusions if Ti is present and Al₂O₃ inclusions in the Ti free material with sizes (area_INC)^1/2 smaller than 10 µm were preferential crack initiation locations. Considering inclusions as initial cracks, the minimum stress intensity range for VHCF failure is 1.2 MPam^1/2 for TiN inclusions and 1.8 MPam^1/2 for Al₂O₃ inclusions. Data scatter may be slightly reduced if lifetimes are presented versus stress amplitudes multiplied by (area_INC)^1/12 rather than in an S–N diagram.     

A differential medium for the enumeration of the spoilage yeast Zygosaccharomyces bailii in wine

A collection of yeasts, isolated mostly from spoiled wines, was used in order to develop a differential medium for Zygosaccharomyces bailii. The 118 selected strains of 21 species differed in their origin and resistance to preservatives and belonged to the genera Pichia, Torulaspora, Dekkera, Debaryomyces, Saccharomycodes, Issatchenkia, Kluyveromyces, Kloeckera, Lodderomyces, Schizosaccharomyces, Rhodotorula, Saccharomyces, and Zygosaccharomyces. The design of the culture medium was based on the different ability of the various yeast species to grow in a mineral medium with glucose and formic acid (mixed-substrate medium) as the only carbon and energy sources and supplemented with an acid-base indicator. By manipulating the concentration of the acid and the sugar it was possible to select conditions where only Z. bailii strains gave rise to alkalinization, associated with a color change of the medium (positive response). The final composition of the mixed medium was adjusted as a compromise between the percentage of recovery and selectivity for Z. bailii. This was accomplished by the use of pure or mixed cultures of the yeast strains and applying the membrane filtration methodology. The microbiological analysis of two samples of contaminated Vinho Verde showed that the new medium can be considered as a differential medium to distinguish Z. bailii from other contaminating yeasts, having potential application in the microbiological control of wines and probably other beverages and foods.     

The growth of low dislocation density Sr1−x,Bax Nb2O6 crystals

The dislocation structures of both pure and Nd doped strontium barium niobate crystals, grown by the Czochralski method, were studied using an etch pit technique. It was determined that dislocations in the boule were being propagated from the seed and were confined to the center of the crystal. Typical dislocation density was 5x10⁴ cm⁻². Through the careful control of growth parameters and use of seed material cut from the dislocation free outer portion of a crystal, it was possible to grow crystals with very low dislocation densities, 1x10² cm⁻², and on occasion dislocation free crystals.     

Malignancies of the ear

Cancer of the ear is an uncommon occurrence and rarely diagnosed early it its development. Routine biopsy of all granulomatous and neoplastic diseases of the ear is essential to early diagnosis. Polytomography is an aid in documenting the extent of the disease in bone. The surgical anatomy of the region of the ear imposes special disadvantages upon any type of surgical technique employed and supervoltage irradiation given. Temporal bone resection and its modifications, combined with irradiation, enhance the cure rate in the advanced cases and add significantly to the local control of this disease. A review of 273 cases is presented.