Abstract: A method of producing at least one possible sequence of vocal tract resonance (VTR) for a fixed sequence of phonetic units, and producing the acoustic observation probability by integrating over such distributions is provided. The method includes identifying a sequence of target distributions for a VTR sequence corresponding to a phone sequence with a given segmentation. The sequence of target distributions is applied to a finite impulse response filter to produce distributions for possible VTR trajectories. Then these distributions are applied to a linearized nonlinear function to produce the acoustic observation probability for the given sequence of phonetic units. This acoustic observation probability is used for phonetic recognition.

Abstract: A method of identifying a sequence of formant trajectory values is provided in which a sequence of target values are identified for a formant as step functions. The target values and the duration for each segment target for the formant are applied to a finite impulse response filter to form a sequence of formant trajectory values. The parameters of this filter, as well as the duration of the targets for each phone, can be modified to produce many kinds of target undershooting effects in a contextually assimilated manner. The procedure for producing the formant trajectory values does not require any acoustic data from speech.

Abstract: A door latch system for an automotive vehicle uses a push-pull cable linked to a lock cylinder and to a latch to move the latch assembly into the locked position while simultaneously blocking the latch's lock/unlock lever from moving into the unlocked position.

Abstract: In an automatic speech recognition system, a feature extractor extracts features from a speech signal, and speech is recognized by the automatic speech recognition system based on the extracted features. Noise reduction as part of the feature extractor is provided by feature enhancement in which feature-domain noise reduction in the form of Mel-frequency cepstra is provided based on the minimum means square error criterion. Specifically, the devised method takes into account the random phase between the clean speech and the mixing noise. The feature-domain noise reduction is performed in a dimension-wise fashion to the individual dimensions of the feature vectors input to the automatic speech recognition system, in order to perform environment-robust speech recognition.

Abstract: Provided are an organic semiconductor compound using thiazole, and an organic thin film transistor having an organic semiconductor layer formed of the organic semiconductor compound using thiazole. The novel organic semiconductor compound including thiazole has liquid crystallinity and excellent thermal stability, and thus is provided to form an organic semiconductor layer in the organic thin film transistor. To this end, a silicon oxide layer is formed on a silicon substrate, and an organic semiconductor layer including thiazole is formed on the silicon oxide layer. In addition, source and drain electrodes are formed on both edge portions of the organic semiconductor layer. The organic thin film transistor using the organic semiconductor layer has an improved on/off ratio and excellent thermal stability. Also, a solution process can be applied in its manufacture.

Abstract: A method of forming an active layer of an organic solar cell using spray coating is provided. The method includes dissolving at least one material in a solvent to form a solution, preparing a coating material by diluting the solution, and spraying the coating material on a subject for spray coating. The spray coating does not need a vacuum chuck, and thus can be applied to a large-sized substrate, and a roll-to-roll method.

Abstract: A method of compensating for additive and convolutive distortions applied to a signal indicative of an utterance is discussed. The method includes receiving a signal and initializing noise mean and channel mean vectors. Gaussian dependent matrix and Hidden Markov Model (HMM) parameters are calculated or updated to account for additive noise from the noise mean vector or convolutive distortion from the channel mean vector. The HMM parameters are adapted by decoding the utterance using the previously calculated HMM parameters and adjusting the Gaussian dependent matrix and the HMM parameters based upon data received during the decoding. The adapted HMM parameters are applied to decode the input utterance and provide a transcription of the utterance.

Abstract: Provided is a method of manufacturing a nitride-based semiconductor light-emitting device having an improved structure in which optical extraction efficiency is improved. The method of manufacturing a nitride-based semiconductor light-emitting device including an n-doped semiconductor layer, an active layer, a p-doped semiconductor layer, an n-electrode and a p-electrode includes: forming an azobenzene-functionalized polymer film on a base layer by selecting one layer from the group consisting of the n-doped semiconductor layer, the p-doped semiconductor layer, the n-electrode and the p-electrode as the base layer; forming surface relief gratings of a micro-pattern caused by a photophysical mass transport property of azobenzene-functionalized polymer by irradiating interference laser beams onto the azobenzene-functionalized polymer film; forming a photonic crystal layer using a metal oxide on a recessed gap of the azobenzene-functionalized polymer film, and removing the azobenzene-functionalized polymer film.

Abstract: The invention provides the use of immune regulatory oligonucleotides (IRO) as antagonist of TLRs in the prevention and treatment of a disease caused by a pathogen, for example, a DNA or RNA virus.

Abstract: The invention relates to the therapeutic use of oligonucleotides as immunostimulatory agents in immunotherapy applications. More particularly, the invention provides immunomers for use in methods for generating an immune response or for treating a patient in need of immunostimulation. The immunomers of the invention comprise at least two oligonucleotides linked at their 3? ends, internucleoside linkages or functionalized nucleobase or sugar to a non-nucleotidic linker, at least one of the oligonucleotides being an immunostimulatory oligonucleotide and having an accessible 5? end.

Abstract: A computer-implemented method is provided for training a hidden trajectory model, of a speech recognition system, which generates Vocal Tract Resonance (VTR) targets. The method includes obtaining generic VTR target parameters corresponding to a generic speaker used by a target selector to generate VTR target sequences. The generic VTR target parameters are scaled for a particular speaker using a speaker-dependent scaling factor for the particular speaker to generate speaker-adaptive VTR target parameters. This scaling is performed for both the training data and the test data, and for the training data, the scaling is performed iteratively with the process of obtaining the generic targets. The computation of the scaling factor makes use of the results of a VTR tracker. The speaker-adaptive VTR target parameters for the particular speaker are then stored in order to configure the hidden trajectory model to perform speech recognition for the particular speaker using the speaker-adaptive VTR target parameters.

Abstract: A method of fabricating one-dimensional metallic nanostructure is provided. First, a mixing layer including a first oxide and a second oxide is provided. The first oxide is a metallic oxide, and the first oxide and the second oxide are immiscible. Next, a reducing gas is introduced and a thermal process is performed on the mixing layer so as to reduce the metal of the first oxide to form one-dimensional metallic nanostructure.

Abstract: The invention provides novel immune regulatory oligonucleotides (IRO) as antagonist of TLRs and methods of use thereof. These IROs have unique sequences that inhibit or suppress TLR-mediated signaling in response to a TLR ligand or TLR agonist. The methods may have use in the prevention and treatment of cancer, an autoimmune disorder, airway inflammation, inflammatory disorders, infectious disease, skin disorders, allergy, asthma or a disease caused by a pathogen.

Abstract: The invention provides novel immune regulatory oligonucleotides (IRO) as antagonist of TLRs and methods of use thereof. These IROs have unique sequences that inhibit or suppress TLR-mediated signaling in response to a TLR ligand or TLR agonist. The methods may have use in the prevention and treatment of cancer, an autoimmune disorder, airway inflammation, inflammatory disorders, infectious disease, skin disorders, allergy, asthma or a disease caused by a pathogen.

Abstract: The invention provides novel immune regulatory oligonucleotides (IRO) as antagonist of TLRs and methods of use thereof. These IROs have unique sequences that inhibit or suppress TLR-mediated signaling in response to a TLR ligand or TLR agonist. The methods may have use in the prevention and treatment of cancer, an autoimmune disorder, airway inflammation, inflammatory disorders, infectious disease, skin disorders, allergy, asthma or a disease caused by a pathogen.

Abstract: The invention provides an immunostimulatory nucleic acid. In certain embodiments according to this aspect of the invention, the sequence of the immunostimulatory oligonucleotide and/or immunomer is at least partially self-complementary.

Abstract: The invention provides an immunostimulatory nucleic acid. In certain embodiments according to this aspect of the invention, the sequence of the immunostimulatory oligonucleotide and/or immunomer is at least partially self-complementary.

Abstract: The invention relates to synthetic chemical compositions that are useful for modulation of Toll-Like Receptor (TLR)-mediated immune responses. In particular, the invention relates to agonists of Toll-Like Receptor 9 (TLR9) that generate unique cytokine and chemokine profiles.

Abstract: A voice search system has a speech recognizer, a search component, and a dialog manager. A confidence measure generator receives speech recognition features from the speech recognizer, search features from the search component, and dialog features from the dialog manager, and calculates an overall confidence measure for voice search results based upon the features received. The invention can be extended to include the generation of additional features, based on those received from the individual components of the voice search system.

Abstract: The invention relates to modulation of the immune system. More particularly, the invention relates to modulating the immune system through the use of oligonucleotide-derived compounds. The invention provides immunostimulatory agents that are less expensive to make than existing immunostimulatory oligonucleotides. The immunostimulatory agents according to the invention can, in preferred embodiments, cause immune stimulation across species lines.