Abstract: A method of, and system for, generating a sentence from a semantic representation maps the semantic representation to an unordered set of syntactic nodes. Simplified generation grammar rules and statistical goodness measure values from a corresponding analysis grammar are then used to create a tree structure to order the syntactic nodes. The sentence is then generated from the tree structure. The generation grammar is a simplified (context free) version of a corresponding full (context sensitive) analysis grammar. In the generation grammar, conditions on each rule are ignored except those directly related to the semantic representation. The statistical goodness measure values, which are calculated through an analysis training phase in which a corpus of example sentences is processed using the full analysis grammar, are used to guide the generation choice to prefer substructures most commonly found in a particular syntactic/semantic context during analysis.

Abstract: A system, method and computer program product are provided for transitioning among states during use of a voice browser. Initially, a script is received at a voice browser from a web server utilizing a network. Next, the script is executed utilizing the voice browser. A plurality of states is then automatically tracked during the execution of the script utilizing the voice browser. Upon receiving a request from a user during the execution of the script to transition to a previous state, the voice browser automatically transitions to the previous state of the script.

Abstract: Within an interactive voice response system, a method of automatically disambiguating results presented to a user can include determining the identity of a user within an interactive voice response session, receiving user inputs specifying selections in an interactive voice response menu hierarchy, and storing historical information specifying the user selections within a profile associated with the identity of the user. For at least one subsequent input from the user, identifying the historical information associated with the identity of the user and using the historical information to reduce a number of possible selections in the interactive voice response menu hierarchy which are presented to the user.

Abstract: A method for equalizing a speech signal generated within a pressurized air delivery system, the method including the steps of: generating an inhalation noise model (1152) based on inhalation noise; receiving an input signal (802) that includes a speech signal; and equalizing the speech signal (1156) based on the noise model.

Abstract: A computer-aided reading system offers assistance to a user who is reading in a non-native language, as the user needs help, without requiring the user to divert attention away from the text. In one implementation, the reading system is implemented as a reading wizard for a browser program. The reading wizard is exposed via a graphical user interface (UI) that allows the user to select a word, phrase, sentence, or other grouping of words in the non-native text. The reading wizard automatically determines whether the selected one word comprises part of a phrase; allows the user to choose whether to view a translation of a single word or a translation of a phrase that includes the single word in response to selection by the user of the single word. The multiple translations are presented in a pop-up window, in the form of a scrollable box and is scrollable, located near the selected text to minimize distraction of the user.

Abstract: A system for automatically generating a dictionary from full text articles extracts <term, definition> pairs from full text articles and stores the <term, definition> pairs as dictionary entries. The system includes a computer readable corpus having a plurality of documents therein. A pattern processing module (120) and a grammar processing module (125) are provided for extracting <term, definition> pairs from the corpus and storing the <term, definition> pairs in a dictionary database (145). A routing processing module selectively routes sentences in the corpus to at least one of the pattern processing module or grammar processing module. In one embodiment, the routing module is incorporated into the pattern processing module which then selectively routes a portion of the sentences to the grammar processing module.

Abstract: A multiple-voice instructing unit (17) instructs pitch deforming ratio and mixing ratio to a multiple-voice synthesis unit (16). The multiple voice synthesis unit (16) generates a standard voice signal by means of waveform superimposition based on voice element data read from a voice element database (15) and prosodic information from a voice element selecting unit (14), expands/contracts the time base of the above standard voice signal based on the prosodic information and instruction information from the multiple-voice instructing unit (17) to change a voice pitch, and mixes the standard voice signal with an expansion/contraction voice signal for outputting via an output terminal (18). Accordingly, a concurrent vocalization by multiple speakers based on the same text can be implemented without the need of time-division, parallel text analyzing and prosody generating and of adding pitch converting as post-processing.

Abstract: The present invention learns phrase translation relationships by receiving a parallel aligned corpus with phrases to be learned identified in a source language. Candidate phrases in a target language are generated and an inside score is calculated based on word association scores for words inside the source language phrase and candidate phrase. An outside score is calculated based on word association scores for words outside the source language phrase and candidate phrase. The inside and outside scores are combined to obtain a joint score.

Abstract: A method (200) and apparatus (100) for segmenting a sequence of audio samples into homogeneous segments (550 and 555) are disclosed. The method (200) forms a sequence of frames (701 to 704) along the sequence of audio samples, and extracts, for each frame, a data feature. The data features form a sequence of data features. Transition points in the sequence of data features are thin detected by applying the Bayesian Information Criterion to the sequence of data features. The transition points define the homogeneous segments (550 and 555). Preferably the data feature is single-dimensional and a leptokurtic distribution is used as an event model in the Bayesian Information Criterion.

Abstract: An acronym expansion system of the present invention receives electronic documents and extracts acronyms and their corresponding expansions. A part-of-speech tagger decomposes text into string tokens or words and tags them with their part-of-speech, while an acronym identifier determines whether a word is a potential acronym based on various conditions. An expansion identifier retrieves lists of words preceding and following a potential acronym to search for the expansion. The resulting word lists are examined sequentially to identify and retrieve an expansion for the potential acronym. An expansion extractor receives the potential acronym and a processed word list to retrieve the expansion of the potential acronym from that list. The extractor may utilize information from prior search iterations, and verifies an extracted expansion against a set of rules to remove spurious expansions.

Abstract: Computer comparison of one or more dictionary entries with a sound record of a human utterance to determine whether and where each dictionary entry is contained within the sound record. The record is segmented, and for each vocalized segment a spectrogram is obtained, and for other segments symbolic and numeric data are obtained. The spectrogram of a vocalized segment is then processed using a method selected from a group consisting of a triple time transform, a triple frequency transform, a linear-piecewise-linear transform, and combinations thereof, to decrease noise and to eliminate variations in pronunciation. Each entry in the dictionary is then compared with every sequence of segments of substantially the same length in the sound record. The comparison takes into account the formant profiles within each vocalized segment and symbolic and numeric data for other segments are obtained in the record and in the dictionary entries.

Abstract: A computer-aided reading system offers assistance to a user who is reading in a non-native language, as the user needs help, without requiring the user to divert attention away from the text. In one implementation, the reading system is implemented as a reading wizard for a browser program. The reading wizard is exposed via a graphical user interface (UI) that allows the user to select a word, phrase, sentence, or other grouping of words in the non-native text. The reading wizard automatically determines whether the selected one word comprises part of a phrase; presents one or more translations of at least the selected word in a native language or, if the selected word comprises part of a phrase, presents at least one translation of the phrase in a native language. The multiple translations are presented in a pop-up window, in the form of a scrollable box and is scrollable, located near the selected text to minimize distraction of the user.

Abstract: A computer-aided reading system offers assistance to a user who is reading in a non-native language, as the user needs help, without requiring the user to divert attention away from the text. In one implementation, the reading system is implemented as a reading wizard for a browser program. The reading wizard is exposed via a graphical user interface (UI) that allows the user to select a word, phrase, sentence, or other grouping of words in the non-native text, and view multiple translations of the selected text in the user's own native language. The multiple translations are presented in a pop-up window, in the form of a scrollable box and is scrollable, located near the selected text to minimize distraction.

Abstract: A voice control method that allows vocal characteristics of a character to diversely be set in a computer game where characters are capable of voice output is provided. The voice control method comprises, converting a voice that is externally input or provided in advance, based upon attribute information on the character; and an output step for outputting the converted voice as voice of the character. According to this method, the voice produced by a character that appears in a computer game can be set in accordance with the character's characteristics and various voices for each character set by each player can be created.

Abstract: A process for generating with unification based grammars such as Lexical Functional Grammars which uses construction and analysis of generation guides to determine internal facts and eliminate incomplete edges prior to constructing a generation chart. The generation guide can then be used in the construction of the generation chart to efficiently generate with unification-based grammars such as Lexical Functional Grammars. The generation guide is an instance of a grammar that has been specialized to the input and only contains those parts of the grammar that are relevant to the input. When the generation guide is analyzed to determine internal facts a smaller generation chart is produced.

Abstract: A system for transmitting audio signals over a telecommunications link generates the signals as two or more alternative feeds, for example at different data rates. The two feeds are encoded using coding methods having a frame structure with different frame lengths. To facilitate switching between the two, the input signal is notionally divided into temporal portions and each is coded by taking it, plus enough of the next (or preceding) portion to make up a whole number of frames, and encoding it, whereby the encoded portions overlap—at least for one of the feeds. The overlap is lost upon decoding by discarding duplicate material.

Abstract: Speech recognition models are dynamically re-configurable based on user information, application information, background information such as background noise and transducer information such as transducer response characteristics to provide users with alternate input modes to keyboard text entry. Word recognition lattices are generated for each data field of an application and dynamically concatenated into a single word recognition lattice. A language model is applied to the concatenated word recognition lattice to determine the relationships between the word recognition lattices and repeated until the generated word recognition lattices are acceptable or differ from a predetermined value only by a threshold amount. These techniques of dynamic re-configurable speech recognition provide for deployment of speech recognition on small devices such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants as well environments such as office, home or vehicle while maintaining the accuracy of the speech recognition.

Abstract: In a Noise Feedback Coding (NFC) system operable in a ZERO-STATE condition and a ZERO-INPUT condition, the NFC system including at least one filter having a filter memory, a method of updating the filter memory. The method comprises: (a) producing a ZERO-STATE contribution to the filter memory when the NFC system is in the ZERO-STATE condition; (b) producing a ZERO-INPUT contribution to the filter memory when the NFC system is in the ZERO-INPUT condition; and (c) updating the filter memory as a function of both the ZERO-STATE contribution and the ZERO-INPUT contribution.

Abstract: A prosody generation apparatus capable of suppressing distortion that occurs when generating prosodic patterns and therefore generating a natural prosody is provided. A prosody changing point extraction unit in this apparatus extracts a prosody changing point located at the beginning and the ending of a sentence, the beginning and the ending of a breath group, an accent position and the like. A selection rule and a transformation rule of a prosodic pattern including the prosody changing point is generated by means of a statistical or learning technique and the thus generate rules are stored in a representative prosodic pattern selection rule table and a transformation rule table beforehand. A pattern selection unit selects a representative prosodic pattern from the representative prosodic pattern selection rule table according to the selection rule.

Abstract: A voice-enabled help desk service is disclosed. The service comprises an automatic speech recognition module for recognizing speech from a user, a spoken language understanding module for understanding the output from the automatic speech recognition module, a dialog management module for generating a response to speech from the user, a natural voices text-to-speech synthesis module for synthesizing speech to generate the response to the user, and a frequently asked questions module. The frequently asked questions module handles frequently asked questions from the user by changing voices and providing predetermined prompts to answer the frequently asked question.