Abstract: A logarithmic frequency spectrum within a predetermined time range is calculated from a speech signal. The logarithmic frequency spectrum has a frequency element at equal intervals along a logarithmic frequency axis. A logarithmic frequency spectrogram is calculated by connecting a plurality of logarithmic frequency spectrums. A value of the frequency element along a straight line on the logarithmic frequency spectrogram is voted onto a Hough plane. The Hough plane has a voted value in correspondence with a gradient of the straight line. The voted value above a threshold and the gradient corresponding to the voted value are extracted from the Hough plane. A fundamental frequency change is calculated using the voted value and the gradient extracted.

Abstract: A feature extraction apparatus includes a spectrum calculating unit that calculates, based on an input speech signal, a frequency spectrum having frequency components obtained at regular intervals on a logarithmic frequency scale for each of frames that are defined by regular time intervals, and thereby generates a time series of the frequency spectrum; a cross-correlation coefficients calculating unit that calculates, for each target frame of the frames, a cross-correlation coefficients between frequency spectra calculated for two different frames that are in vicinity of the target frame and a predetermined frame width apart from each other; and a shift amount predicting unit that predicts a shift amount of the frequency spectra on the logarithmic frequency scale with respect to the predetermined frame width by use of the cross-correlation coefficients.

Abstract: There is provided a cleansing composition which has creamy foaming and excellent cleansing power, provides no stretched feeling of skin after rinsing and a refreshed feeling of skin, is excellent in storage stability and exhibits no reduction in physical properties, formation of precipitates and yellowing during a long-term storage period by combining N-acyl-aspartic acid or a salt thereof and N-acyl-diaspartic acid or a salt thereof, which have the same molecular structure of the N-acyl group, with a higher fatty acid or a salt thereof which has the same alkyl group as that of the above described N-acyl residue.