Abstract: An information processing apparatus (10) includes a time and space information acquisition unit (110) that acquires high-risk time and space information indicating a spatial region with an increased possibility of an accident occurring or of a crime being committed and a corresponding time slot, a possible surveillance target acquisition unit (120) that identifies a video to be analyzed from among a plurality of videos generated by capturing an image of each of a plurality of places, on the basis of the high-risk time and space information, and analyzes the identified video to acquire information of a possible surveillance target, and a target time and space identification unit (130) that identifies at least one of a spatial region where surveillance is to be conducted which is at least a portion of the spatial region or a time slot when surveillance is to be conducted, from among the spatial region and the time slot indicated by the high-risk time and space information, on the basis of the information of the

Abstract: Provided is a fuel-reforming catalyst that has excellent reforming activity and durability against deterioration factors such as catalyst poisoning and minimizes the amount of rhodium used. A fuel-reforming catalyst for reforming exhaust gas and a fuel containing a hydrocarbon into a syngas containing hydrogen, including a catalyst component and a carrier supporting the catalyst component, in which the catalyst component includes nickel, and the carrier contains a metal oxide including zirconium or cerium is provided.

Abstract: An information processing apparatus (10) includes a time and space information acquisition unit (110) that acquires high-risk time and space information indicating a spatial region with an increased possibility of an accident occurring or of a crime being committed and a corresponding time slot, a possible surveillance target acquisition unit (120) that identifies a video to be analyzed from among a plurality of videos generated by capturing an image of each of a plurality of places, on the basis of the high-risk time and space information, and analyzes the identified video to acquire information of a possible surveillance target, and a target time and space identification unit (130) that identifies at least one of a spatial region where surveillance is to be conducted which is at least a portion of the spatial region or a time slot when surveillance is to be conducted, from among the spatial region and the time slot indicated by the high-risk time and space information, on the basis of the information of the

Abstract: A stopper for continuous casting that is intended to prevent adhesion of inclusions to the vicinity of a fitting part of a stopper, and to prevent a nose region of the stopper from cracking or peeling off due to insufficient strength. The stopper for continuous casting includes a gas flow cavity in a vertically-extending central part thereof. In at least part of a vertical section of a nose periphery region of the stopper, a porous refractory material having a gas permeability is arranged on the side of an outer peripheral surface of the nose periphery region. A refractory material having higher strength than that of the porous refractory material is arranged on the side of an inner peripheral surface of the nose periphery region.

Abstract: The precision of grasping or controlling backpressure around a gas discharge portion in a stopper for continuous casting can be improved with a stopper for continuous casting which includes a cavity for conveying gas in a vertical direction center of the stopper, one or a plurality of gas discharge holes passing through from the cavity to the outside in a distal center or a side surface of a reduced-diameter region including a fitted portion to a lower nozzle, and a pressure control component in a part of an area above the gas discharge hole within the cavity.

Abstract: A howling suppressing device includes: an adaptive filter that estimates an acoustic feedback characteristic representing a characteristic of an acoustic feedback sound reaching a microphone from a speaker by defining an output signal to the speaker as a reference signal, and eliminates the acoustic feedback sound from an input signal obtained via the microphone by using the estimated acoustic feedback characteristic; an estimator that estimates, on the basis of the acoustic feedback characteristic, an acoustic feedback amplitude frequency characteristic in a frequency domain; a suppression gain calculator that calculates, from the acoustic feedback amplitude frequency characteristic, a suppression gain in the frequency domain for smoothing a frequency peak of the acoustic feedback amplitude frequency characteristic; and a suppressor that suppresses an output signal from the adaptive filter in the frequency domain by using the suppression gain.

Abstract: A sound pickup device includes a plurality of microphone elements, a sensitivity correcting unit that corrects a difference in sensitivity among the microphone elements by multiplying an output signal of each of the microphone elements by a gain. The sound pickup device also includes a target sound detecting unit that detects a voice of a speaker as a target sound, a sensitivity correction control unit that controls the gain based on a result of detecting the target sound, and a directivity synthesizing unit that picks up the target sound in a boosted manner using the output signals from the microphone elements of which difference in sensitivity is corrected. The sensitivity correction control unit updates the gain based on the output signals from the microphone elements if the voice of the speaker is detected and does not update the gain if the voice of the speaker is not detected.

Abstract: A speech translation device, for conversation between a first speaker making an utterance in a first language and a second speaker making an utterance in a second language different from the first language, includes: a speech detector that detects, from sounds that are input, a speech segment in which the first speaker or the second speaker made an utterance; a display that, after speech recognition is performed on the utterance, displays a translation result obtained by translating the utterance from the first language to the second language or from the second language to the first language; and an utterance instructor that outputs, in the second language via the display, a message prompting the second speaker to make an utterance after a first speaker's utterance or outputs, in the first language via the display, a message prompting the first speaker to make an utterance after a second speaker's utterance.

Abstract: A tundish upper nozzle structure and a continuous casting method make it possible to cause inclusions to float within a tundish. A flange-shaped member having an outside dimension greater than that of an upper end of a tundish upper nozzle is provided along a part or the entirety of the circumference of the upper end of the tundish upper nozzle, and one or more gas discharge holes are provided in one or more of the following surfaces: a lower surface, an outer peripheral surface and a top surface of the flange-shaped member, and a region of an outer peripheral surface of the tundish upper nozzle below the flange-shaped member. A length in the tundish upper nozzle structure is adjusted to cause almost all gas to float upwardly, or to adjust the flow rate of gas flowing downwardly toward the inner bore of the tundish upper nozzle, and the flow rate of gas floating upwardly.

Abstract: It is intended to provide a flat immersion nozzle capable of stabilizing a molten steel discharge flow to stabilize an in-mold bath surface, i.e., reduce the fluctuation of the in-mold bath surface. Provided is an immersion nozzle having a flat portion whose inner bore has a thickness and a width greater than the thickness, wherein two lateral protrusions each protruding in a thickness direction are provided on each of opposed walls of the flat portion extending in a width direction. The lateral protrusions are arranged at axial symmetrical positions with respect to a longitudinal central axis of the width-directionally extending walls, in pairs, such that each of them extends obliquely downwardly in the width direction, wherein two pairs of the lateral protrusions are arranged, respectively, on the opposed width-directionally extending walls, in opposed relation.

Abstract: A speech recognition device includes: an obtaining unit which obtains a speech uttered in a conversation between a first speaker and a second speaker; a storage which stores the speech obtained; an input unit which receives operation input; an utterance start detector which, when the input unit receives the operation input, detects a start position of the speech; and a speaker identification unit which identifies a speaker of the speech as the first speaker who has performed the operation input or the second speaker who has not performed the operation input, based on (i) first timing at which the input unit has received the operation input and (ii) second timing indicating the detected start position of the speech. The first and second timing are set for each speech of the first and second speakers. A speech recognizer performs speech recognition on the speech whose speaker has been identified.

Abstract: A speech input method that includes: detecting whether a user's face is in proximity to a speech input device including at least one microphone; and performing correction processing on an audio signal obtained through sound collection by the at least one microphone when it is detected that the user's face is in proximity to the speech input device.

Abstract: The precision of grasping or controlling backpressure around a gas discharge portion in a stopper for continuous casting can be improved with a stopper for continuous casting which includes a cavity for conveying gas in a vertical direction center of the stopper, one or a plurality of gas discharge holes passing through from the cavity to the outside in a distal center or a side surface of a reduced-diameter region including a fitted portion to a lower nozzle, and a pressure control component in a part of an area above the gas discharge hole within the cavity.

Abstract: A speech translation device includes: a beamformer which forms, from a speech signal obtained by a microphone array, a first beam and a second beam having different directions; a direction designator which designates one of the first beam and the second beam according to a user operation; a signal-to-noise (SN) ratio calculator which calculates an SN ratio using the designated beam as a signal component in the SN ratio, and the other beam not designated as a noise component; a display determiner which determines whether recognition of the designated beam is difficult, using the calculated SN ratio, and determines a speaking instruction for overcoming difficulty of the recognition when determining that the recognition is difficult; and a display which displays the speaking instruction determined by the display determiner in a display area.

Abstract: A speech translation apparatus includes: an estimator which estimates a sound source direction, based on an acoustic signal obtained by a microphone array unit; a controller which identifies that an utterer is a user or a conversation partner, based on the sound source direction estimated after the start of translation is instructed by a button, using a positional relationship indicated by a layout information item stored in storage and selected in advance, and determines a translation direction indicating input and output languages in and into which content of the acoustic signal is recognized and translated, respectively; and a translator which obtains, according to the translation direction, original text indicating the content in the input language and translated text indicating the content in the output language. The controller displays the original and translated texts on first and second display areas corresponding to the positions of the user and conversation partner, respectively.

Abstract: A sound pickup device incudes a plurality of microphone elements, a sensitivity correcting unit that corrects a difference in sensitivity among the microphone elements by multiplying an output signal of each of the microphone elements by a gain, a target sound detecting unit that detects a voice of a speaker as a target sound, a sensitivity correction control unit that controls the gain based on a result of detecting the target sound, and a directivity synthesizing unit that picks up the target sound in a boosted manner using the output signals from the microphone elements of which difference in sensitivity is corrected, the target sound coming along a predetermined direction. The sensitivity correction control unit updates the gain based on the output signals from the microphone elements if the voice of the speaker is detected and does not update the gain if the voice of the speaker is not detected.

Abstract: A flat immersion nozzle stabilizes the discharging flow of molten steel thereby stabilizing the molten steel surface in a mold, namely, decreasing the fluctuation thereof. In the immersion nozzle having a flat shape in which a width Wn of an inner hole is greater than a thickness Tn of the inner hole, a central protrusion portion (1) is disposed in a center section of a wall surface in a width direction of a flat section. Wp/Wn, a ratio of a length Wp of the central protrusion portion in the width direction to Wn, is 0.2 or more and 0.7 or less. The central protrusion portion (1) is disposed symmetrically as a pair; and a total length Tp in the thickness direction of the pair of the central protrusion portions is 0.15 or more and 0.75 or less of Tn.

Abstract: A speech translation device, for conversation between a first speaker making an utterance in a first language and a second speaker making an utterance in a second language different from the first language, includes: a speech detector that detects, from sounds that are input, a speech segment in which the first speaker or the second speaker made an utterance; a display that, after speech recognition is performed on the utterance, displays a translation result obtained by translating the utterance from the first language to the second language or from the second language to the first language; and an utterance instructor that outputs, in the second language via the display, a message prompting the second speaker to make an utterance after a first speaker's utterance or outputs, in the first language via the display, a message prompting the first speaker to make an utterance after a second speaker's utterance.

Abstract: A speech input method that includes: detecting whether a user's face is in proximity to a speech input device including at least one microphone; and performing correction processing on an audio signal obtained through sound collection by the at least one microphone when it is detected that the user's face is in proximity to the speech input device.

Abstract: A speech recognition device includes: an obtaining unit which obtains a speech uttered in a conversation between a first speaker and a second speaker; a storage which stores the speech obtained; an input unit which receives operation input; an utterance start detector which, when the input unit receives the operation input, detects a start position of the speech; and a speaker identification unit which identifies a speaker of the speech as the first speaker who has performed the operation input or the second speaker who has not performed the operation input, based on (i) first timing at which the input unit has received the operation input and (ii) second timing indicating the detected start position of the speech. The first and second timing are set for each speech of the first and second speakers. A speech recognizer performs speech recognition on the speech whose speaker has been identified.