Data processing: speech signal processing, linguistics, language translation, and audio compression/decompression inventions 08/06

20060195312 - Integer programming decoder for machine translation: A machine translation (MT) decoder may transform a translation problem into an integer programming problem, such as a Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP). The decoder may invoke an integer program (IP) solver to solve the integer programming problem and output a likely decoding based on the solution....

20060195313 - Method and system for selecting and conjugating a verb: A verb conjugating system allows a user to input a form of a verb and display the verb forms. The verb conjugating system allows the user to input the infinitive form or non-infinitive forms of a verb. When a user inputs a non-infinitive form of a verb, the verb conjugating...

20060195314 - Optimized fidelity and reduced signaling in multi-channel audio encoding: The invention provides an efficient technique for encoding a multi-channel audio signal. The invention relies on the principle of encoding (S1) a signal representation of one or more of the multiple channels in a first encoding process, and encoding another signal representation of one or more channels in a second,...

20060195315 - Sound synthesis processing system: To provide a pitch waveform signal division device and the like for making it possible to compress a data capacity of data representing a sound efficiently. A computer C1 arranges time lengths of sections for a unit pitch of sound data, which the computer C1 compresses, to be identical to...

20060195316 - Voice detecting apparatus, automatic image pickup apparatus, and voice detecting method: A voice detecting apparatus includes a first determining unit to determine that human voice has been input if a signal component having a harmonic structure is detected from an input voice signal; a second determining unit to determine that human voice has been input if a frequency center-of-gravity of the...

20060195317 - Method and apparatus for recognizing speech in a noisy environment: An apparatus and a concomitant method for recognizing speech in a noisy environment are provided. The present method includes applying a first interpolation weight to a clean speech model to produce a weighted clean speech model, applying a second interpolation weight to a noise model to produce a weighted noise...

20060195319 - Method for converting phonemes to written text and corresponding computer system and computer program: Method for converting phonemes to written text and corresponding computer system and computer program. In languages having a low correspondence between sounds and letters, converting phonemes to letters is complex. The continual addition of neologisms, with an adapted pronunciation but with an original spelling makes the conversion even harder. The...

20060195318 - System for correction of speech recognition results with confidence level indication: A correction device (12) for correcting text passages in a recognized text information (RTI) which recognized text information (RTI) is recognized by a speech recognition device from a speech information and which is therefore associated to the speech information comprises a reception unit for receiving the speech information and the...

20060195320 - Conversational user interface: A conversational user interface (CUI) is implemented in a computer by mimicking the organization and retrieval of linguistic memories of human conversation. To mimic the organization of linguistic memories in a human brain, the artificial memories are stored as sequences of patterns, are stored in invariant form, are organized hierarchically,...

20060195321 - Natural language system and method based on unisolated performance metric: A natural language business system and method is developed to understand the underlying meaning of a person's speech, such as during a transaction with the business system. The system includes a speech recognition engine, and action classification engine, and a control module. The control module causes the system to execute...

20060195322 - System and method for detecting and storing important information: Provided is an improved method for recording audio notes for easier later retrieval. The system monitors audio input and recommends recording of an extended audio segment based on detection of audio triggers. If the user accepts the recommendation, the use is provided with the opportunity to record a segment name....

20060195323 - Distributed speech recognition system: This invention relates to a distributed speech recognition system. The inventive system consists of: at least one user terminal comprising means for obtaining an audio signal to be recognized, parameter calculation means and control means which are used to select a signal to be transmitted; and a server comprising means...

20060195324 - Voice input interface: A voice input system comprising a stationary central unit (1) and a mobile voice interface (2) which is carried around by the user, e.g. in his clothing, is described. The voice interface (2) is used to acoustically record spoken commands which are transmitted to the central unit (1) over a...

20060190240 - Method and system for locating language expressions using context information: Disclosed is corpus-retrieval language education system having a question/answer function. The system includes an information provider unit for dividing dialogue data and sentence data into text data, audio data and video data, storing each divided data as corpus data in a language data storing section, extracting language data corresponding to...

20060190241 - Apparatus and methods for aligning words in bilingual sentences: Methods are disclosed for performing proper word alignment that satisfy constraints of coverage and transitive closure. Initially, a translation matrix which defines word association measures between source and target words of a corpus of bilingual translations of source and target sentences is computed. Subsequently, in a first method, the association...

20060190242 - Method and system for automated item development for language learners: A method of developing a translation exercise is disclosed. A grammatical structure may be received. Each of one or more text segments in a first language may be translated into a corresponding text segment in a second language. Each text segment in the first language may include one or more...

20060190243 - Method and apparatus for data management: A data access system decouples the data processing from the data storage to provide improved accessibility, integrity, scalability and other features. The system comprises: database units arranged in virtual partitions each independently accessible, a plurality of data processing units, and a switching network for switching the data processing units between...

20060190244 - System and method for text analysis: A method and system for generating a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) from an initial multi-chain, subject to a constraint. The initial multi-chain is expressed as a string serving as a current input string to which the constraint is subsequently applied. A provided string P expresses the constraint. P is applied...

20060190245 - System for generating a wideband signal from a received narrowband signal: A system for use in providing a wideband signal from a received narrowband signal is set forth. The system comprises an extracted narrowband feature vector that corresponds to at least one characteristic of the narrowband signal. A narrowband codebook having one or more narrowband codebook index vectors is also employed,...

20060190246 - Transcoding method for switching between selectable mode voice encoder and an enhanced variable rate codec: An apparatus comprising an encoder circuit and a transcoder circuit. The encoder circuit may be configured to generate a bitstream comprising a series of packets in response to a speech input signal. The transcoder circuit may be configured to generate an intermediate bitstream in response to the bitstream. The transcoder...

20060190247 - Near-transparent or transparent multi-channel encoder/decoder scheme: A multi-channel encoder/decoder scheme additionally preferably generates a waveform-type residual signal. This residual signal is transmitted together with one or more multi-channel parameters to a decoder. In contrast to a purely parametric multi-channel decoder, the enhanced decoder generates a multi-channel output signal having an improved output quality because of the...

20060190248 - System and method for generating an identification signal for electronic devices: A system and method for creating a ring tone for an electronic device takes as input a phrase sung in a human voice and transforms it into a control signal controlling, for example, a ringer on a cellular telephone. Time-varying features of the input signal are analyzed to segment the...

20060190249 - Method for comparing a transcribed text file with a previously created file: A method to creating a final text from an audio file comprising (a) transcribing the audio file into a transcribed text file using a speech recognition software; (b) loading a first widow with the transcribed text file; (c) loading a second window with a previously created text file; (d) comparing...

20060190250 - Systems and methods for automated audio transcription, translation, and transfer: The present invention relates to systems and methods for audio processing. For example, the present invention provides systems and methods for receiving live speech, converting the speech to text, and transferring the text to a user. As desired, the speech or text can be translated into one or more different...

20060190251 - Memory usage in a multiprocessor system: A multiprocessor system for receiving and processing data packets includes a host processor, at least one client processor, and a memory accessible to the at least one client processor. The host processor is programmable to analyze a received data packet, and based thereon to obtain information on at least one...

20060190252 - System for predicting speech recognition accuracy and development for a dialog system: A system for developing dialog systems estimates the speech recognition accuracy achievable when using a dialog system, and the number of example input phrases required to achieve a desired speech recognition accuracy. The maximum achievable speech recognition accuracy is also predicted. The development system thereby allows a developer of a...

20060190254 - System for generating a wideband signal from a narrowband signal using transmitted speaker-dependent data: An electronic communication system is set forth that includes the transmission of a narrowband speech signal corresponding to a narrowband version of speech utterances of a speaker as well as the transmission of speaker-dependent data. The speaker-dependent data may be used to correlate narrowband versions of the speech utterances of...

20060190253 - Unsupervised and active learning in automatic speech recognition for call classification: Utterance data that includes at least a small amount of manually transcribed data is provided. Automatic speech recognition is performed on ones of the utterance data not having a corresponding manual transcription to produce automatically transcribed utterances. A model is trained using all of the manually transcribed data and the...

20060190255 - Speech recognition method: A speech recognition apparatus is configured to correct an output recognition result in continuous speech recognition using a physical button (key) to specify the position of a correct portion or an incorrect portion, so that the recognition result can be corrected with simple operation, for visually-impaired users, users who cannot...

20060190256 - Method and apparatus utilizing voice input to resolve ambiguous manually entered text input: From a text entry tool, a digital data processing device receives inherently ambiguous user input. Independent of any other user input, the device interprets the received user input against a vocabulary to yield candidates such as words (of which the user input forms the entire word or part such as...

20060190257 - Apparatus and methods for vocal tract analysis of speech signals: The present invention provides for speech processing apparatus arranged for the input or output of a speech data signal and including a function generating means arranged for producing a representation of a vocal-tract potential function representative of a speech source and as an example, a speaker identification process can comprise...

20060190258 - N-best list rescoring in speech recognition: A method of speech recognition processing is described based on an N-best list of recognition hypotheses corresponding to a spoken input. Each hypothesis on the N-best list is rescored based on its rank in the rescored N-best list. The rescoring may be based on a Statistical Language Model (SLM) or...

20060190259 - Method and apparatus for recognizing speech by measuring confidence levels of respective frames: Disclosed herein is a method and apparatus to recognize speech by measuring the confidence levels of respective frames. The method includes the operations of obtaining frequency features of a received speech signal for the respective frames having a predetermined length, calculating a keyword model-based likelihood and a filler model-based likelihood...

20060190260 - Selecting an order of elements for a speech synthesis: In a method for selecting an order of elements which are to be subject to a speech synthesis, a voice input including at least two elements is received, wherein the at least two elements have an arbitrary order. Thereupon, a search is caused in a database for an entry which...

20060190261 - Method and device of speech recognition and language-understanding analyis and nature-language dialogue system using the same: A method of speech recognition and language-understanding analysis is provided. According to a segmental word-concept-tag compound N-gram model, an input speech is divided into a plurality of segmental phrases. Each segmental phrase is attached a tag to indicate whether said segmental phrase is a meaningful segmental phrase or a meaningless...

20060190263 - Audio signal de-identification: Techniques are disclosed for automatically de-identifying spoken audio signals. In particular, techniques are disclosed for automatically removing personally identifying information from spoken audio signals and replacing such information with non-personally identifying information. De-identification of a spoken audio signal may be performed by automatically generating a report based on the spoken...

20060190262 - Voice recognition system and method for tactical response: A system and method for an officer in the field to safely, efficiently, and quickly run license plate numbers and collect license plate numbers is provided. A central precinct server maintains a database of license plate numbers, including plate numbers associated with specific instances and plate numbers of interest (e.g.,...

20060190265 - Robust voice browser system and voice activated device controller: The present invention relates to a system for acquiring information from sources on a network, such as the Internet. A voice browsing system maintains a database containing a list of information sources, such as web sites, connected to a network. Each of the information sources is assigned a rank number...

20060190264 - Verifying a user using speaker verification and a multimodal web-based interface: A method of verifying a user identity using a Web-based multimodal interface can include sending, to a remote computing device, a multimodal markup language document that, when rendered by the remote computing device, queries a user for a user identifier and causes audio of the user's voice to be sent...

20060190266 - Home information appliance system: When a home electric appliance detects and identifies an article to be handled by the home electric appliance, the home electric appliance executes handling of the article in conformity with a control program corresponding to the specified article. When the control program corresponding to the specified article is not present,...

20060190268 - Distributed language processing system and method of outputting intermediary signal thereof: A unified speech input dialogue interface, and a distributed multiple application-dependent language processing unit system with the unified speech recognition function and the unified dialogue interface are provided. The system not only provides a convenient user's environment, but also enhances the whole performance of speech recognition. The distributed multiple application-dependent...

20060190270 - Menu-driven voice control of characters in a game environment: In a gaming system, a user controls actions of characters in the game environment using speech commands. In a learning mode, available speech commands are displayed in a command menu on a display device. In a non-learning mode, the available speech commands are not displayed. A speaker-independent context-sensitive speech recognition...

20060190269 - Open architecture for a voice user interface: A system and method for processing voice requests from a user for accessing information on a computerized network and delivering information from a script server and an audio server in the network in audio format. A voice user interface subsystem includes: a dialog engine that is operable to interpret requests...

20060190267 - Voice activated clock: A voice activated clock has a body, a clock projector for displaying time, and an electronic operating circuit that includes a clock circuit for performing various clock functions including operating the projector to display time. The operating circuit further includes a voice input circuit for inputting a voice command issued...

20060184351 - Linguistically intelligent text compression: A text processor processes text in a message. The text processor generates a plurality of compressed forms of components of the message. The processor performs a linguistic analysis on the body of text to obtain a linguistic output indicative of linguistic components of the body of text. The processor then...

20060184352 - Enhanced chinese character/pin yin/english translator: A method for the rapid, dynamic conversion of Pin Yin words is disclosed. The present invention comprises a web-based computer program. The user identifies an input which may be a hybrid or unaccented Pin Yin word. The character is translated dynamically into an accented Pin Yin word, a Simplified Chinese...

20060184353 - Ranking parser for a natural language processing system: A natural language parse ranker of a natural language processing (NLP) system employs a goodness function to rank the possible grammatically valid parses of an utterance. The goodness function generates a statistical goodness measure (SGM) for each valid parse The parse ranker orders the parses based upon their SGM values....

20060184354 - Creating a language model for a language processing system: A method for creating a language model from a task-independent corpus is provided. In one embodiment, a task dependent unified language model is created. The unified language model includes a plurality of context-free grammars having non-terminals and a hybrid N-gram model having at least some of the same non-terminals embedded...

20060184355 - Behavioural translator for an object: A behavioural translator arranged for use by a behavioural controller of a virtual object, the translator arranged to map information representing behaviour conforming to a first demographic group to behaviour conforming to a second demographic group. The behavioural translator comprises means to receive input; means to process said input to...

20060184356 - Multiple language support system and method for application: A multiple language support system and method. The multiple language system includes a multiple language support system for an application, the system includes a resource data generation unit to generate resource data for the language of the application, a resource data processing unit to extract resource data from the generated...

20060184357 - Efficient language identification: A system and methods of language identification of natural language text are presented. The system includes stored expected character counts and variances for a list of characters found in a natural language. Expected character counts and variances are stored for multiple languages to be considered during language identification. At run-time,...

20060184358 - Distortion-based method and apparatus for buffer control in a communication system: Methods and apparatus are disclosed for controlling a buffer in a communication system, such as a digital audio broadcasting (DAB) communication system. A more consistent perceptual quality over time provides for a more pleasing auditory experience to a listener. The disclosed bit allocation process determines, for each frame, a distortion...

20060184359 - Method and system for low bit rate voice encoding and decoding applicable for any reduced bandwith rquirements including wireless: An implementation of the present invention comprises a voice encoder and decoder method and system that uses voice excitation, eliminating the voice/unvoiced pitch tracking, and the first formant up to 2400 Hertz, does not use pulse code modulation encoding, but uses the zero crossings only of the first formant, dividing...

20060184360 - Adaptive multi-pass speech recognition system: Method and apparatus for multi-pass speech recognition. An input device receives spoken input. A processor performs a first pass speech recognition technique on the spoken input and forms first pass results. The first pass results include a number of alternative speech expressions, each having an assigned score related to the...

20060184361 - Method and apparatus for reducing an interference noise signal fraction in a microphone signal: The invention discloses a method of reducing an interference noise signal fraction in a microphone signal, which method is based on estimating the interference noise signal fraction from a virtually pure interference noise signal and does not require any additional microphones. It is an essential feature of the method according...

20060184363 - Noise suppression: Noise suppression (speech enhancement) by spectral amplitude filtering using a gain determined with a quantized estimated signal-to-noise ratio plus, optionally, prior frame suppression. The relation between signal-to-noise ratio and filter gain derives from a codebook mapping with a training set constructed from clean speech and noise conditions....

20060184362 - Speech analyzing system with adaptive noise codebook: Presented herein are systems and methods for generating an adaptive noise codebook for use with electronic speech systems. The noise codebook includes a plurality of entries which may be updated based on environmental noise sounds. The speech system includes a speech codebook and the adaptive noise codebook. The system identifies...

20060184364 - System of influencing health-care utilizations: A system for influencing health-care utilizations by patients and physicians comprises a plurality of templates of first digital text data on health and health-care related information on and relating to patients and health-care related information relating to physicians. The digital audio data comprising health and health-care related information on and...

20060184365 - Word-specific acoustic models in a speech recognition system: An acoustic model includes word-specific models, that are specific to candidate words. The candidate words would otherwise be mapped to a series of general phones. A sub-series of the general phones representing the candidate word is modeled by a new phone and the new phone is dedicated to the candidate...

20060184366 - Speech processing method and apparatus and program therefor: A scheme to judge emphasized speech portions, wherein the judgment is executed by a statistical processing in terms of a set of speech parameters including a fundamental frequency, power and a temporal variation of a dynamic measure and/or their derivatives. The emphasized speech portions are used for clues to summarize...

20060184367 - Best method of computerized transcriptions: A method of labeling individual digital data with individual physicians' medical or surgical specialties and of corresponding words in digital text data to words in corresponding digital voice data wherein digital text data are generated by computer-automated conversions of digital voice data into digital text data and of corresponding words...

20060184368 - Fidelity of physicians' thoughts to digital data conversions: A system of administering words, terms and phrases for optimizing the fidelity and accuracy of health and health-care information on patients generated by physicians in the process of transferring the information from physicians' minds to digital voice data to first digital text data derived from the conversions of corresponding digital...

20060184370 - Spoken dialogue interface apparatus and method: The spoken dialogue interface apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a speech recognition module for recognizing a human's speech from a sound signal; a user intention interpretation module for extracting a sentence from the recognized speech and interpreting a user's intention based on the sentence; a...

20060184369 - Voice activated instruction manual: A system is provided that allows a user to select digitized audio instructions from a computer via a wireless headset. The user activates the computer to deliver each instruction of a series of instructions on an as needed basis by delivering audio commands via the headset to the computer. Electrical...

20060173671 - Localizing tool for client software: A localizing tool which converts the language of a first document data file which stores character information of character strings to be displayed in an original language in a printer driver to another language comprises an information storage section, a printer driver storing section which stores the printer driver in...

20060173674 - Language model sharing: The sharing of language models is disclosed. In one embodiment, a language model service is provided that is shareable among handlers for input devices. The service includes a pre-processing mode of operation, and a correction mode of operation. In the former mode, the language model service is designed to receive...

20060173672 - Processing health care transactions using a semantic network: The disclosed technology can execute a sequence of transactions to process a request associated with a health care company and/or other entities interacting in a health care industry. Execution of at least some of the transaction sequence can result in the formation of an instance of a semantic network that...

20060173673 - Speech recognition method and apparatus using lexicon group tree: A method and an apparatus for selecting a vocabulary closest to an input speech from among lexicons stored in memory, wherein a centroid lexicon representing lexicons belonging to a predetermined lexicon group is generated. Two lexicons, having a longest distance therebetween in the lexicon group, are selected using the centroid...

20060173675 - Switching between coding schemes: Methods and units are shown for supporting a switching from a first coding scheme to a Modified Discrete Cosine Transform (MDCT) based coding scheme calculating a forward or inverse MDCT with a window (h(n)) of a first type for a respective coding frame, which satisfies constraints of perfect reconstruction. To...

20060173676 - Voice synthesizer of multi sounds: In a voice synthesizer, an envelope acquisition portion obtains a spectral envelope of a reference frequency spectrum of a given voice. A spectrum acquisition portion obtains a collective frequency spectrum of a plurality of voices which are generated in parallel to one another. An envelope adjustment portion adjusts a spectral...

20060173677 - Audio encoding device, audio decoding device, audio encoding method, and audio decoding method: Base layer coding section 101 encodes an input signal to obtain base layer coded information. Base layer decoding section 102 decodes the base layer coded information to obtain a base layer decoded signal and long term prediction information (pitch lag). Adding section 103 inverts the polarity of the base layer...

20060173678 - Method and apparatus for predicting word accuracy in automatic speech recognition systems: The invention comprises a method and apparatus for predicting word accuracy. Specifically, the method comprises obtaining an utterance in speech data where the utterance comprises an actual word string, processing the utterance for generating an interpretation of the actual word string, processing the utterance to identify at least one utterance...

20060173679 - Healthcare examination reporting system and method: A system and method for managing recorded audio information concerning a patient's medical condition including receiving a signal comprising dictated information; processing the signal by parsing data representing the dictated information in the signal and identifying key words in the dictated information and providing data representing a text translation of...

20060173680 - Partial spelling in speech recognition: A method of speech recognition processing is described based on spelling out the initial characters of a word or a sequence of words. Characters representative of an initial portion of an intended user input are collected from a user. In response to a first user action, (e.g., a short pause)...

20060173682 - Information retrieval system, method, and program: An information retrieval system, includes speech recognition means for making speech recognition for a spoken question to generate first text information, generation means for modifying the first text information to generate second text information as a interrogative to make a search for an answer to the question, and search means...

20060173681 - Semi-covert emergency transmitter: A semi-covert emergency transmission device and methodology for soldiers and other such personnel requiring pick-up or rescue is disclosed. The device has a flashlight mode and a transmit mode. In flashlight mode, an LED is turned on to provide an illumination source that can be used in numerous applications. In...

20060173683 - Methods and apparatus for automatically extending the voice vocabulary of mobile communications devices: A method of improving the performance of a speech recognizer, the method involving: providing a lexicon for the speech recognizer; monitoring a user's interaction with a network; accessing a plurality of words associated with the monitored interaction; and including the plurality of words in the lexicon....

20060173685 - Method and apparatus for constructing new chinese words by voice input: A method and apparatus for constructing new Chinese words by voice input is disclosed. The invention provides a method of adding new words to a speech recognition system, for example, a speaker-independent Chinese speech recognition system, for updating its vocabulary database. In the invention, voice signals indicating a description of...

20060173684 - Sensor based speech recognizer selection, adaptation and combination: A method and respective system for operating a speech recognition system, in which a plurality of recognizer programs are accessible to be activated for speech recognition, and are combined on a per need basis in order to efficiently improve the results of speech recognition done by a single recognizer. In...

20060173686 - Apparatus, method, and medium for generating grammar network for use in speech recognition and dialogue speech recognition: A method, apparatus, and medium for generating a grammar network for speech recognition and a dialogue speech recognition are provided. A method, apparatus, and medium for employing the same are provided. The apparatus for generating a grammar network for speech recognition includes: a dialogue history storage unit storing a dialogue...

20060173687 - Frame erasure concealment in voice communications: A voice decoder configured to receive a sequence of frames, each of the frames having voice parameters. The voice decoder includes a speech generator that generates speech from the voice parameters. A frame erasure concealment module is configured to reconstruct the voice parameters for a frame erasure in the sequence...

20060173688 - Interactive multimedia book: An interactive multimedia book provides hands-on multimedia instructiion to the user in response to voiced commands. The book is implemented on a computer system and includes both text and audio/video clips. The interactive multimedia book is accessed by voiced commands and natural language queries as the primary user input. The...

20060173689 - Speech information service system and terminal: An object of the present invention is to provide a user interface method and a device capable of arbitrarily and efficiently performing the dialog through the speech input in an in-vehicle information service system, and a system configuration which can cope with network connection loss with a center is also...

20060173690 - Method and system for reducing power consumption of a sound processor: The present invention provides a method and system for reducing power consumption of a sound processor. Aspects of the invention include providing a sound processor access to at least one register having a plurality of bits corresponding to sound operations capable of being performed by the sound processor; and allowing...

20060173691 - Audio mixing processing apparatus and audio mixing processing method: An audio mixing processing apparatus includes input units configured to receive a plurality of audio data, a mixing unit configured to mix the plurality of inputted audio data based on predetermined mixing factors, respectively, an encoding unit configured to encode the mixed audio data, and an output unit configured to...

20060173692 - Audio compression using repetitive structures: A system, apparatus and method for compressing audio by detecting and processing repetitive structures in the audio. In this regard, a system has a repetition detector that is configured to detect repetitive structures in input audio signals or files, and then generates repetition data related to the input audio, which...