Abstract: Disclosed is a speech translating system for translating speech from a first language to a language selected from a set of second languages. The system includes an input unit, a processor, and an output unit. The input unit is capable of receiving the speech in the first language. The processor is operatively coupled to the input unit and is capable of converting the speech in the first language to the speech in the selected language. The output unit is operatively coupled to the processor. The output unit is capable of outputting the speech in the selected language.

Abstract: In a noise suppression apparatus for suppressing noise contained in a speech signal, the speech signal is converted to a first vector of spectral speech components and a second vector of spectral speech components identical to the first vector. A vector of noise suppression coefficients is determined based on the first vector spectral speech components. A vector of estimated noise components is determined based on the first vector spectral speech components, and a speech section correction factor and a nonspeech section correction factor are calculated from the estimated noise components and the first-vector spectral speech components to produce a combined correction factor. The noise suppression coefficients are weighted by the combined correction factor to produce a vector of post-suppression coefficients. The second vector spectral speech components are weighted by the post-suppression coefficients to produce a vector of enhanced speech components.

Abstract: A system of communicating over cellular telephones using symbols in place of language parts. The symbols are downloaded as part of the lookup table. A user can enter a message in text, and that message is converted into the symbols. The symbols can then be sent to a different interactive device, which can read those symbols, and convert them into text in a different language. The user sees the symbols and begins to learn meanings of the symbols. In addition, the symbols are language independent.

Abstract: A method is provided for presenting a written work. A character identity is recognized within a written work. Presentation information for the written work, such as a graphical scheme or an electronic voice, is determined based on the character identity. The presentation information is provided to a user computing device. The user computing device renders the written work or a portion thereof using the presentation information.

Abstract: The present invention is directed, in one embodiment, to an system that lexically analyzes a behavior-descriptive input stream to provide a tokenized equivalent, syntactically parses the tokenized equivalent to provide a parser output, semantically analyzes the parser output to provide an indication of at least one of a behavior and type of behavior described by the input stream, and, based on the indication, selects an appropriate response.

Abstract: A tool, method, and system for use in the development of sentence-based test items are disclosed. The tool may include a user interface that may include a database selection field, a sentence pattern entry field, an option pane, and an output pane. The tool may search a database for one or more sentences and may generate one or more responses to the one or more sentences. The one or more sentences and one or more responses may be used to produce the sentence-based test items. The tool may allow test items to be developed more quickly and easily than manual test item authoring. Accordingly, test item development costs may be lowered and test security may be enhanced.

Abstract: A method for providing effective communication in a network, including obtaining from an editor data in a first language, accepting from the editor at least one allowable language other than the first language, receiving a request from a reader to access the data in a second language, if the second language is the at least one allowable language, rendering a version of the data in the second language to the reader, and if the second language is not the at least one allowable language, providing the data to the reader in the first language.

Abstract: A service is configured to analyze multimedia communications to determine a likelihood that the communication is unsolicited. For example, the service may inspect e-mail messages, instant messaging messages, facsimile transmissions, voice communications, and video telephony, and analyze these forms of communication to determine whether an intended communication is unsolicited. In connection with voice and video telephony, a voice sample may be obtained from the caller and voice recognition may be performed on the sample to determine an identity of the person or the identity of the voice. The voice sample may also be used to determine the type of voice—i.e. if the voice is live, machine generated, or prerecorded. Where the call is a video telephony call, image recognition may be used to inspect an image of the person. The information obtained from voice recognition, voice type recognition, and image recognition may be used to detect whether the messages if from a known source of unsolicited communications.

Abstract: A string matching method and system for searching for a representative string for a plurality of strings which are written in different languages and/or in different ways but share the substantially same meaning, and a computer-readable recording medium storing a computer program for executing the string matching method are provided.

Abstract: The invention relates to a method and an apparatus of requesting a service from a communications network. In the method the following steps are to performed: generating an objective statement in a user equipment; communicating the objective statement from the user equipment to a mediator unit; comparing the objective statement to a list of objective statements in the mediator unit; establishing the service based at least partly on the comparison; and providing the service to the user of the user equipment.

Abstract: A text-dependent speaker verification technique that uses a generic speaker-independent speech recognizer for robust speaker verification, and uses the acoustical model of a speaker-independent speech recognizer as a background model. Instead of using a likelihood ratio test (LRT) at the utterance level (e.g., the sentence level), which is typical of most speaker verification systems, the present text-dependent speaker verification technique uses weighted sum of likelihood ratios at the sub-unit level (word, tri-phone, or phone) as well as at the utterance level.

Abstract: A speech-duration detector includes a starting-end detecting unit that detects a starting end of a first duration where the characteristic exceeds a threshold value as a starting end of a speech-duration, when the first duration continues for a first time length; a trailing-end-candidate detecting unit that detects a starting end of a second duration where the characteristic is lower than the threshold value as a candidate point for a trailing end of speech, when the second duration continues for a second time length; and a trailing-end-candidate determining unit that determines the candidate point as a trailing end of the speech-duration, when the second duration where the characteristic exceeds the threshold value does not continue for the first time length while a third time length elapses from measurement at the candidate point.

Abstract: An audio encoder and decoder use architectures and techniques that improve the efficiency of multi-channel audio coding and decoding. The described strategies include various techniques and tools, which can be used in combination or independently. For example, an audio encoder performs a pre-processing multi-channel transform on multi-channel audio data, varying the transform so as to control quality. The encoder groups multiple windows from different channels into one or more tiles and outputs tile configuration information, which allows the encoder to isolate transients that appear in a particular channel with small windows, but use large windows in other channels. Using a variety of techniques, the encoder performs flexible multi-channel transforms that effectively take advantage of inter-channel correlation. An audio decoder performs corresponding processing and decoding. In addition, the decoder performs a post-processing multi-channel transform for any of multiple different purposes.

Abstract: A method for alleviating ambiguity issues of new user defined speech commands. An original command for a user-defined speech command can be received. It can then be determined if the original command is likely to be confused with a set of existing speech commands. When confusion is unlikely, the original command can be automatically stored. When confusion is likely, a substitute command that is unlikely to be confused with existing commands can be automatically determined. The substitute can be presented as an alternative to the original command and can be selectively stored as the user-defined speech command.

Abstract: The present invention provides a robot apparatus with a vocal interactive function. The robot apparatus receives a vocal input, and recognizes the vocal input. The robot apparatus stores a plurality of output data, a last output time of each of the output data, and a weighted value of each of the output data. The robot apparatus outputs output data according to the weighted values of all the output data corresponding to the vocal input, and updates the last output time of the output data. The robot apparatus calculates the weighted values of all the output data corresponding to the vocal input according to the last output time. Consequently, the robot apparatus may output different and variable output data when receiving the same vocal input. The present invention also provides a vocal interactive method adapted for the robot apparatus.

Abstract: A method for building and contracting a linguistic dictionary, the linguistic dictionary comprising a list of surface forms and a list of normalized forms, each normalized form being associated with a surface form, the method comprising the steps of: comparing each character of a surface form with each character of the surface form's normalized form; in response to the comparing step, determining an edit operation for each character compared; and generating a transform code from the set of the edit operations in order to transform the surface form to its normalized form.

Abstract: A method for sequence tagging medical patient records includes providing a labeled corpus of sentences taken from a set of medical records, initializing generative parameters ? and discriminative parameters {tilde over (?)}, providing a functional LL?C×Penalty, where LL is a log-likelihood function LL = log ? ? p ? ( ? , ? ~ ) + ? l = 1 M ? ? [ log ? ? p ? ( X l , Y l | ? ~ ) - log ? ? p ? ( X l | ? ~ ) ] + ? l = 1 M ? ? log ? ? p ? ( X l | ? ) , ? Penalty = ? y ? V Y ? ( em y 2 + tr y 2 + e ? ? m ~ y 2 + t ? ? r ~ y 2 ) , where emy=1???xi?VXp(xi|y), e{tilde over (m)}y=1???xi?VX{tilde over (p)}(xi|y) are emission probability constraints, try=1???yi?VYp(yi|y), t{tilde over (r)}y=1???yi?VY{tilde over (p)}(yi|y) are transition probability constraints, and extracting gradients of LL?C×Penalty with respect to the transition and emission probabilities and solving ?k*,{tilde o

Abstract: A message transmission system accepts a telephone call from a user who wishes to send an e-mail message, send an SMS message, perform an Internet query or retrieve his or her electronic mail. The voice call is transcribed and the message is sent, or the question in the voice call is transcribed and answered by an agent. Any number of agents connect to a central site over an Internet connection and transcribe messages or answer queries in an assembly line like fashion. In addition, a Web query delivery system accepts a query or statement from a user; the query is transcribed, classified, and then broadcast over any medium to any number of experts or web sites that desire to answer the particular type of query received. The entire query is delivered to an expert or web site who provides a full answer to the user.

Abstract: In a noise suppression apparatus for suppressing noise contained in a speech signal, the speech signal is converted to a first vector of spectral speech components and a second vector of spectral speech components identical to the first vector. A vector of noise suppression coefficients is determined based on the first vector spectral speech components. A vector of estimated noise components is determined based on the first vector spectral speech components, and a speech section correction factor and a nonspeech section correction factor are calculated from the estimated noise components and the first-vector spectral speech components to produce a combined correction factor. The noise suppression coefficients are weighted by the combined correction factor to produce a vector of post-suppression coefficients. The second vector spectral speech components are weighted by the post-suppression coefficients to produce a vector of enhanced speech components.

Abstract: A method and device for updating statuses of synthesis filters are provided. The method includes: exciting a synthesis filter corresponding to a first encoding rate by using an excitation signal of the first encoding rate, outputting reconstructed signal information, and updating status information of the synthesis filter and a synthesis filter corresponding to a second encoding rate. In the present disclosure, the status of the synthesis filter corresponding to the current rate and the statuses of the synthesis filters at other rates are updated. Thus, synchronization between the statuses of the synthesis filters corresponding to different rates at the encoding terminal may be realized, thereby facilitating the consistency of the reconstructed signals of the encoding and decoding terminals when the encoding rate is switched, and improving the quality of the reconstructed signal of the decoding terminal.