Abstract: An information processing apparatus includes information input units, an event detecting unit, and an information-integration processing unit. Observed values including user identification data are obtained based on image and sound information from the information input units such as a camera and a microphone. Target data set with plural user confidence factors is updated and user identification is then performed. The user identification information in the observed values is used for updating the simultaneous occurrence probability of candidate data by which targets are corresponded with respective users. The updated value of such probability is used for calculating the user confidence factors corresponding to the targets.

Abstract: There is provided a temperature responsive polymer compound which comprises a repeating unit represented by the following general formula (I): —R1-Hmb-R2—??(I) where, Hmb represents a valic acid residue represented by the following formula (II); R1 represents an amino acid, a polypeptide, or a hydroxy acid being linked by ester bond; R2 represents an amino acid or a polypeptide being linked by amide bond or a hydroxy acid being linked by ester bond: and wherein said polymer compound has 18 or more of amino acids residues and hydroxy acid residues in total.

Abstract: Disclosed is a medical liquid meter (10) for use with a medical liquid feeding device (30) including an expandable container (31), an inlet port (32) for supplying a medical liquid into the expandable container (31) therethrough, and a feed duct (33) for feeding to a patient the medical liquid discharged from one end of the expandable container (31). The medical liquid meter (10) comprises a weight-measuring mechanism (1). The weight of the medical liquid feeding device (30) is measured using the weight-measuring mechanism (1) so as to quantify a remaining amount of the medical liquid stored in the expandable container (31).

Abstract: A ceramic body, a ceramic catalyst body, a ceramic catalyst body and related manufacturing methods are disclosed wherein a cordierite porous base material has a surface, formed with acicular particles made of a component different from that of cordierite porous base material, which has an increased specific surface area with high resistance to a sintering effect. The ceramic body is manufactured by preparing a slurry containing an acicular particle source material, preparing a porous base material, applying the slurry onto a surface of the porous base material and firing the porous base material, whose surface is coated with the slurry, to cause acicular particles to develop on the surface of the porous base material. A part of or a whole of surfaces of the acicular particles is coated with a constituent element different from that of the acicular particles.

Abstract: An optical signal division transmission system in which an input optical signal is divided into N parts (termed as “N-part optical signals”) and transmitted at a transmission rate of 1/N, wherein an additional optical wave path is provided separately from an optical wave paths for transmitting said N-part optical signals, and even if a malfunction occurs in any one of said optical wave paths for transmitting said N-part optical signals, transmission of said N-part optical signals is continued, using said additional optical wave path.

Abstract: An object is to provide a medical liquid infusion apparatus suitable for a portable use and capable of suppressing an abrupt change in flow rate even when the environmental temperature rises. A medical liquid infusion apparatus 1 is provided with a driving portion 2 and configured to infuse a medical liquid inside a medical liquid container 3 to a patient by applying a pressure to the medical liquid container 3 using a driving force of the driving portion. The driving portion 2 includes a compressed gas cylinder 4 filled with a compressed gas, and it is configured in such a manner that the driving force is generated by the pressure inside the compressed gas cylinder 4.

Abstract: The present invention is intended to provide a text-to-speech synthesis apparatus, including a storage for storing phoneme data of a plurality of speakers; a selector for selecting one of the plurality of speakers in accordance with an operation performed by a user; a searcher for searching the storage for phoneme data of the speaker selected by the selector; a text-to-speech synthesis processor for linking the phoneme data of the speaker retrieved by the searcher to convert input data into a synthetic speech; and a fee-charge controller for controlling a fee-charge operation for the user in accordance with the phoneme data selected by the selector. Consequently, the user can perform text-to-speech synthesis on the desired input data such as drama data by use of the obtained phoneme data.

Abstract: Disclosed is a wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) optical transmission system including: an optical transmitter for transmitting, to an optical fiber transmission path, a WDM signal obtained by multiplexing a plurality of optical signals on the optical fiber transmission path in terms of wavelength, the plurality of optical signals respectively having negative chirps; an optical receiver for receiving the WDM signal from the optical fiber transmission path; and at least one relay node which is provided between the optical transmitter and the optical receiver. Each of the relay node and the optical receiver includes a dispersion compensator for compensating a chromatic dispersion suffered in the optical fiber in the immediately preceding transmission span. Moreover, a dispersion adder for beforehand adding a predetermined positive dispersion amount to the WDM signal before transmission is included in the optical transmitter or at least one relay node.

Abstract: A sentence generating method and apparatus for generating a joke sentence set having a dual meaning. A predetermined word in a selected first idiom is stored in a W list. A word of analogous sound having the pronunciation same as or analogous with the word in the W list and also being of the same word class as the word in the W list is stored in a RW list. It is then checked whether or not the subject word stored in the P list has a semantic relationship with the word of the analogous sound in the RW list. If the result of check is affirmative, a first joke sentence having the subject word in the P list and composed of the subject word of the P list and the first idiom is generated. A second idiom, corresponding to the first idiom, in which the word in the W list is replaced by the word of the analogous sound in the RW list, is generated, and a second joke sentence composed of the subject word of the P list and the second idiom is generated.

Abstract: A speech analysis apparatus analyzing prosodic characteristics of speech information and outputting a prosodic discrimination result includes an input unit inputting speech information, an acoustic analysis unit calculating relative pitch variation and a discrimination unit performing speech discrimination processing, in which the acoustic analysis unit calculates a current template relative pitch difference, determining whether a difference absolute value between the current template relative pitch difference and a previous template relative pitch difference is equal to or less than a predetermined threshold or not, when the value is not less than the threshold, calculating an adjacent relative pitch difference, and when the adjacent relative pitch difference is equal to or less than a previously set margin value, executing correction processing of adding or subtracting an octave of the current template relative pitch difference to calculate the relative pitch variation by applying the relative pitch differe

Abstract: At the transmit end of an optical transmission link, a main signal and a control signal are multiplexed into an optical multiplex signal and forwarded to the link. The frequency of the control signal is much lower than the frequency of the main signal so that the control signal is not affected by the wavelength dispersion effect of the transmission link. A the receive end of the link, the optical multiplex signal is demultiplexed, recovering the main signal and the control signal. An amount of compensation necessary to compensate for the wavelength dispersion of the recovered main signal is detected and used in combination with the dispersion-free control signal to compensate for the wavelength dispersion of the optical main signal. The main signal and the control signal may either be frequency division multiplexed or wavelength division multiplexed into the optical multiplex signal.

Abstract: A chord estimation apparatus includes: frequency-component extraction means for extracting a frequency component from an input music signal; scale-component information generation means for mapping the frequency component extracted by the frequency-component extraction means onto each tone and generating scale-component information including each tone and loudness thereof; folding means for folding the scale-component information generated by the scale-component information generation means for each two octaves to generate scale-component information including 24 tones; and chord estimation means for inputting the scale-component information including 24 tones into a Bayesian network in order to estimate a chord.

Abstract: Disclosed herein is a voice processing apparatus for recognizing an input voice on the basis of a prosody characteristic of said voice, said voice processing apparatus including: voice acquisition means for acquiring said input voice; acoustic analysis means for finding a relative pitch change on the basis of a frequency-direction difference between a first frequency characteristic seen at each frame time of said input voice acquired by said voice acquisition means and a second frequency characteristic determined in advance; and prosody recognition means for carrying out a prosody recognition process on the basis of said relative pitch change found by said acoustic analysis means in order to produce a result of said prosody recognition process.

Abstract: Various sensors detect conditions outside a robot and an operation applied to the robot, and output the results of detection to a robot-motion-system control section. The robot-motion-system control section determines a behavior state according to a behavior model. A robot-thinking-system control section determines an emotion state according to an emotion model. A speech-synthesizing-control-information selection section determines a field on a speech-synthesizing-control-information table according to the behavior state and the emotion state. A language processing section analyzes in grammar a text for speech synthesizing sent from the robot-thinking-system control section, converts a predetermined portion according to a speech-synthesizing control information, and outputs to a rule-based speech synthesizing section. The rule-based speech synthesizing section synthesizes a speech signal corresponding to the text for speech synthesizing.

Abstract: A communication apparatus includes a storage unit, a receiving unit and a searching unit, all acting on speaker voice data. A communication system includes an accumulating unit, a requesting unit, a transmitting unit and a receiving unit, all acting on synthetic speech data.

Abstract: A multiplex transmission apparatus for multiplexing and transmitting a synchronous signal synchronized with a clock signal and an asynchronous signal asynchronized with a clock signal, the apparatus includes a clock extracting unit that extracts a first clock from the synchronous signal, and a multiplexing unit that multiplexes the synchronous signal and the asynchronous signal into a multiplexed signal to be transmitted in accordance with the first clock.

Abstract: Disclosed herein is an information processing apparatus configured to generate metadata corresponding to content including, a data output, a data input section, a control section, an interaction execution section, an interaction metadata generation section, and a content control section.

Abstract: A chord estimation apparatus includes: frequency-component extraction means for extracting a frequency component from an input music signal; scale-component information generation means for mapping the frequency component extracted by the frequency-component extraction means onto each tone and generating scale-component information including each tone and loudness thereof; folding means for folding the scale-component information generated by the scale-component information generation means for each two octaves to generate scale-component information including 24 tones; and chord estimation means for inputting the scale-component information including 24 tones into a Bayesian network in order to estimate a chord.

Abstract: A prosody identifying apparatus for identifying input speech on the basis of prosodic features of the input speech is provided. The prosody identifying apparatus includes a sound analyzing section for acquiring an amount of change in movement of a feature distribution obtained from an autocorrelation matrix of the frequency characteristic of the input speech and an identifying section for recognizing the input speech on the basis of an output of the sound analyzing section.

Abstract: F The peptide production method of the present invention produces a peptide (SEQ ID NO: 1) of a protein from Plasmodium falciparum, which is effective as a malaria vaccine. The method produces the peptide of SEQ ID NO: 1 by linking the fragments (i) through (v) shown below: (v) Asn-Asn-Asp-Xaa; (SEQ ID NO: 2) (iv) Asp-Phe-Lys-Thr-Pro; (SEQ ID NO: 3) (iii) Asn-Lys-Thr-Tyr-Asp-Leu; (SEQ ID NO: 4) (ii) Phe-Tyr-Asn-Ser-Glu; (SEQ ID NO: 5) and (i) Xaa-Ala-Ser-Glu, (SEQ ID NO: 6) where ‘Xaa’ in (i) and (v) represents zero or any arbitrary number of amino acid residues.